Spring! or the last week and a half of my life

   Last Thursday, I made it back to the blues bar in Thessaloniki. There was some interesting takes on country songs, and Duck Soup was being projected on a wall. After they stopped playing I talked to their lead. He was very nice, plugged his band, and let me play his guitar. For dinner, I had two 80¢ hotdogs! They were disgusting. I convinced one of my friends to get a Guiness instead of the usual Amstel. He was skeptical at first, but very pleased with his new drink. It was a good way to start my long weekend.

   Monday the 25th was independence day. Most kids went home for the long break, so it was very quiet last weekend. I started my weekend by being productive. I swept and mopped my dorm, worked on job applications, and walked with Katie to Cosmos - the largest shopping mall in the Balkans. It took a while to get there because we were almost torn apart by a small bear pretending to be a dog. We had  to backtrack and find a new route. We ended up on a dirt road beside the highway, but we got to the mall intact. The mall is surprisingly big and practically brand new. I  checked out some book and music stores before heading back to campus. I had totally forgotten that on Friday dinner is at 7 and not 8, so we got to dinner an hour late. After being chastised by the lunch lady, we managed to get some food anyways.

   That night I finished my Lincoln bio, and since then I have been on a real reading kick. I tore through Camus' The Stranger and David Rakoff's Fraud in a day. On recommendation, I read Colin Beavan's No Impact Man. Since then I have felt guilty about my contribution to the end of the world. I have been taking shorter showers. Most recently, I read Ayn Rand's Anthem (probably  in an attempt to balance out all the environmentalism). I don't get why any one likes her. The writing is boring, the characters flat, and the story really left something to be desired. The message was being beaten into me on every page. Beavan was more subtle.

   Back in school Tuesday, I realized a couple things. First, my service learning project was not happening. Second, I have almost 10 papers to write in four weeks.

This past week, being assigned so many papers, I started outlining. Luckily, the longest few are only 1500 words… so it really isn't much work. This week also saw my first (and I think only) quiz!! It was not actually graded, and less than half the class showed up for it. It felt good to flex my brain muscle a little bit though

   This past Thursday, I went to a bouzoukia. It is large single room filled with long tables and chairs. There is a small stage crammed with a rebetiko band that plays all night while you dance, drink from bottomless retsina pitchers, and eat the endless stream of food provided - all for 8Eu! I went with the other American interns who had been there before. Besides us, there were a TON of highschool aged kids, and a few older men. There was a disco ball and light show thing happening. There was also a lot of dancing on chairs. It was definitely a unique experience.

   I have spent the rest of my weekend so far listening to new music, writing in my journal, and relaxing as much as possible. I went to the German Store and picked up some salami and cheese for sandwiches. It is a really good change from the cafeteria's fare.

   Last weekend I took a really good walk and saw some new places. I tracked down a lot of really good graffiti and picked the best for konnichiwaface.tumblr.com

   I am hoping that tomorrow or Monday the weather will be nice enough for another long walk. I went the long way yesterday to the Cosmos, but it's less fun in the fog. I wanted to buy sandals, but as soon as I got to the mall I felt super uncomfortable and guilty. Definitely related to No Impact Man. It was also related to the high price of designer sandals, the only thing sold there. I have been wondering if there are any locally-made-not-by-sweat-labor-and-crafted-from-renewable-resources-without-the-use-of-harmful-chemicals sandals in the area. They would probably bust my budget too though.

   The weather here has been almost as confusing as it is in Blacksburg! One day it is 70 and sunny, the next three days if is foggy and raining, and often times it is both in the same day. Today it is pretty foggy, which is why I'm writing this blog. I am trying to go to the city this afternoon to get those postcards I haven't been able to buy, and also to track down a Chinese restaurant that is supposed to be good. After I get some ethnic food in me, goal number two is to lock down plans for Istanbul next weekend. I got a good hostel recommendation and I found the ticket office for the bus line. It looks like I will finally get my trip to Turkey taken care of.

   

After that, I will start planning the Spring Break week before I come home in May. I'm thinking Mykonos, Santorini, Crete and then Athens for a flight home? It is strange to think that I'm more than half done with my semester. In some ways it seems like not enough time, but I definitely miss good ol' Murica.

Back to School

   Coming back to campus Monday night after such a good weekend was a total bummer. I was bored and trapped feeling after less than a day. I definitely bummed it Tuesday. Luckily, yesterday was a really good day. After my regular classes I got the chance to attend a cheese making class for adults. It was definitely the coolest thing I have done on campus and I will be going back every wednesday night for the rest of my time here. It is entirely in Greek, but is not too hard to follow with some help from the other people there. It is a very hands on and practical course. We suited up in plastic and hair nets and got cleaned by something reminiscent of a car wash before going into the Cheese Making Laboratory. I felt like I was in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. From 100Kg of milk, we got maybe 30Kg of cheese. It was a very cool process, and now I have a recipe for feta!

   After cheese making, I went to a BBQ that the school was putting on. Thirteen kids from Iowa State were there. They are doing a project with a major Greek beer producer who is about to launch a line of iced tea. It was cool to get their take on Greece, but they are leaving after only one week in the country.

   It's back to classes as usual today, which is no fun.

Carnival Weekend

   Monday was Clean Monday and the school was closed, so a trip was planned for myself and Katie. The Dean of Study Abroad also came with us. He drove us all in his Prius - one of 6 in the entire country. He is an ex-pat who has lived in Greece for decades, and his translation skills were crucial to the weekend. 

a bus letting you know you've reached the right place

   We went to the village of Goumenissa. It was only two hours away, but it was very different from the school, the city, and the touristy places I have visited. The pace of life was much slower, people were more friendly, and the scenery was more beautiful than in the city.

Pella

   Friday morning we up, stopping on the way to explore the Pella Archaeological Site. This was the birthplace of Alexander the Great and for a time one of ancient Greece's most prosperous cities. We went to their brand new museum and wandered the ruins. It was a unique spot, not because of the size or number of artifacts, but because you can walk right on top of some of the ruins. Usually, the ruins are cordoned off or in some way removed from where you are walking. There was an ongoing excavation of an temple to Aphrodite and we could walk right through it and touch the pottery fragments strewn all over the place.

   Eventually we headed to our hotel. It was very nice and well known by all the people in the small town. The woman running it recently gave birth to a son, and her parents had come up to help out while her Dutch husband visited home. She acted as tour guide, translator, and guide book while we were there. We ate a lot of really good meals because of her recommendations, and she set up tours and events for us to attend that otherwise would have been impossible.

The best damn mustard I've ever tasted

   Saturday morning we visited a local gourmet food producer. It is a small family run business that specializes in traditional production techniques of fruit preserves and what are called "small spoon foods." These are essentially DELICIOUS jarred foods that you take with wine or bread. We got a tour of the facility a run down of the operation and of course lots of samples. We walked away with several jars of food, and I hope their plans to export to the U.S. work out so I can get more soon. I've already devoured the roast eggplant and pepper spread and I'm working on the spicy mustard and the fig preserves that I took home.

   The next stop was an agricultural museum in the nearby town of Europa (claimed by some as the namesake of Europe). It was really a cultural heritage museum and visiting definitely helped us understand the culture of that area of Greece. It is very close to Macedonia and some of the towns are populated with Greek refugees from the population exchange with Turkey in 1923. This definitely colors their traditions, foods, and attitudes. The dissent spoke entirely in Greek, but luckily our hotel manager translated for us the whole time. We met a very interesting French man that day. He is retired and travels the world working for people who give him room and board. He was helping out with our hotel manager's work and got to spend some time touring around with us. 

Saturday Market

   After a very very good lunch, we walked around the town's weekly market. There was a lot of fresh produce and tons of cheap clothing. The town was packed since people come in from neighboring villages to shop. I broke down and bought a huge jar of honey for only 6Eu. It is incredible, but I doubt I will finish it before I leave Greece. Walking back to the hotel we were stopped by an American woman who lives with her fiancee near the village. She, her fiancee, and their friend had us out for drinks that night. It was cool to get the perspective of a young ex-pat still relatively new to the country. Her family was originally from Macedonia, so most of the culture was not foreign. Her friend also had an interesting perspective. He is from Greece, lives in Bulgaria, and considers himself a Macedonian. He is pretty radical and believes ardently in a greater unified Macedonia - something I wouldn't want to espouse around some Greeks. It is a pretty hot button issue, and it was good to see it from another perspective.

   Sunday we started the day with a visit to the nearest monastery. The monks there are part of a sect based around Mt. Athos and influenced strongly by Turkish customs. They were very friendly and charged no entrance fee. They also invited us to sit and have a coffee. I couldn't resist and had my third coffee since I've been here. They offered all the usual monastery fare: wine cheese oil incense and icons. I went ahead and bought a bottle of their wine.

monastery

   The next stop was a winery tour and tasting. We visited the towns namesake winery and walked through their production. Again, we had to have everything translated. There are some unique grape varieties only grown in that region and their signature wines were quite distinct. I picked up another bottle there since I liked it so much. I promise I'm not a wino, it's just a big part of the food culture here.

vineyard and countryside

   Straight from the winery we went on a long walk through the countryside and saw the crystal clear stream that comes down from the mountains. There was a lot of wheat fields, a ton of olive groves, and some other orchards. The scenery was beautiful and I wish we could have done more hiking. But there was a lot to see and only so much time!

countryside scenery

   For lunch we drove out to a taverna on a cliff side with an amazing view and not so amazing food. Then we headed up the mountain side to a highly recommended coffee shop. I got the local tea made from a wild herb. I don't remember what the herb was called, but that's ok since I didn't really like it. The cafe itself was interesting since it was the only log cabin building I've seen in Greece. Lumber is expensive in most of Greece, but especially in that area.

view from restaurant

   Finally I'm getting to the whole point of this trip, which was witnessing small town carnival traditions. We started the evening by stopping in at an Orthodox service. Despite not understanding a word, I still enjoyed it. The church was pretty lavishly adorned and it was good to see the people coming in and out to pray and hear the sermon. It was a ceremony of forgiveness, but in the sense that we should forgive each other. So people at the end apologize and forgive each other for any slights or feuds from the last year. 

   Now that we had gotten our holy on, it was time to get to partying. We popped in to a few different carnival parties before settling in at one held in an old mill used for community activities. There were a lot of colorful costumes and an interesting mix of music. In ten minutes, you could easily hear a traditional balkan style song, a modern dance track, the Macarena, and then some old American disco. Everyone was very welcoming and it was a good time. Afterwards we went to a bar and left pretty early in the morning. Of course we had to stop and get chocolate crepes before heading back to the hotel. When we realized that it was almost dawn, we decided to stop in at the bakery where they were just starting to put out fresh loaves. We picked up a traditional bread eaten during the fast that officially started several hours earlier. The guy working the register had definitely had a good night and gave us not only a discount on our bread, but also threw in two free pastries. After munching down it was just after 7, the sun had come up, I felt like I had become a little more Greek, and it was time for bed.

the rain didn't stop everyone from dancing

   Not very early Monday morning, I got up and ate some traditional fasting foods for breakfast. Fasting didn't seem so bad - we got delicious herbed potato pastries for breakfast. After packing up we went down to the town's main square where the die hard remnants of a brass band and dancers were toughing it out in the pouring rain. The dancers were spinning in the street with umbrellas and everyone was eating honey covered fried dough. They were so good and reminded me of large soft pignolata. I even think I tasted allspice.

frying up some dough

carnival dancers

   

church being restored

We still had one more thing to see before heading back to the school. There is a restoration project on a huge church in the middle of the village. It is funded by a four million euro grant from the EU. Our incredible hotel manager talked the priest in charge of the project into taking us inside. We walked all over the place and he explained in great detail the history of the site, the story behind the project, and the processes behind the restoration. He knew everything about the building, told us everything and more, and let us see everything. We got to climb the scaffolding to see the frescoes being uncovered and preserved. He even took us up to the roof where we walked on the ceiling beams and could stare several stories down to the ground. He was also an avid photographer and took a ton of pictures of us. His camera was a lot nicer than mine and most of the pictures I took didn't come out very well. After a couple hours of standing in the cold we managed to tell him that we had to leave. We grabbed some seafood in a homestyle restaurant and headed back to Thessaloniki.

inside the roof

fresco at the top of the church

Last week was relatively busy!

     

     I finally managed to get a haircut. It was much needed, but I am not sure how ok I am with rocking the "classic dad cut." On the same trip into Thermi, I managed to buy stamps. I'm having a hard time finding postcards that I want to send, but if you are really lucky you might get some snail mail in a few weeks.

     Since I was in the mood to run errands, I walked to a bike shop and bought the cheapest model they had. Katie and I split the cost 50/50 and took turns riding it that day. Unfortunately, someone stole it the next day so there are no pictures. We didn't even get to name her! Just know that she was bright blue and shiny. We shared a wonderful sunny afternoon together. I will always remember the ride from the shop to campus with fondness and thankfulness - I got home without any one driving over top me.

     As if the day my bike got stolen wasn't bad enough, I finally got my dreaded first assignments… I have to type lab reports for some experiments. Like that time we germinated seeds in the 4th gra - I mean last week.

     Things weren't all bad though. I finally got my mail! A wonderful girl sent me some peanut butter and other good stuff. It was much appreciated. I also got letters from my family and some easter candy. It is already long gone.

     I had the chance to integrate into the Greek culture a little bit. One of my professors left class early and handed out instructions for the rest of the period. It didn't take long for everyone to drop their tools and order pizzas. I went with some of them on a beer run to the German Store and then back to the dorm to eat lunch. For dessert, there was a chocolate pizza with banana slices. All of it was much better than whatever they were serving for lunch!

Three weeks into the semester and not too much is happening in the classroom.

The weather is getting nicer and soon I hope to do some field work. The lab is starting to look more like a building - I'm told it is the fastest construction has ever moved here.

the propagation class I'm helping out with

I've come up with a research idea. I want to work with the reclaimed water the school uses for irrigation. The plan is to use it in the greenhouse and look for effects on soil quality and plant growth. I am finalizing a proposal and hopefully I'll get things set up this week. 

I also get to propagate some seeds of my choosing. I'm leaning towards some flowers that could be planted on campus. The dorm gardens are pretty sad.

I was reminded this week that I should be applying for summer jobs. I had completely forgotten to do this last month like I had planned. Of course, the deadlines for the best internships are long past. I spent some time researching different places and looking for applications. I fired off about 10 this week and managed to get two rejection letters within the first 24 hours. It looks like I'll have to do a lot more this week.

I went back to Thermi to get more groceries. I found 48 lenta bread! It's not too bad either. My travelex stopped working, but luckily a credit card and some cash showed up in the mail the other day. So I won't starve and I can travel with the card.

It is carnival season and lots of little kids, and some big kids, don costumes. There was a BBQ at the dorm on thursday. Food, music, and most of the school were all there. Afterwards, I watched a soccer match at a friend's dorm room, ordered food, and eventually ended up going to Thermi for a while. It was an incredibly late night. I got to bed just before 6 a.m. How is it possible that my room mate still got home after me? Maybe by the end of the semester I'll be able to keep pace with everyone else.

boardwalk before it started raining

Yesterday, I went back to the city and walked around for a while. We didn't accomplish anything and then got rained on, but I did take some interesting photos of people in the city. My friend accused me of being more than a little creepy.

some guy

Next weekend I will travel to a small village with the dean of study abroad students and the american girl interning on the farm. I am definitely excited to get off campus for an extended period of time. We will be there for the last few days of carnival so there is sure to be a lot happening. 

Also here's a picture from the ski trip last weekend:

Warhol

This is the Warhol portrait of the college's benefactor - chilling in the front lobby on the backside of a tv

no big deal

3

This past week was really good.

            I have a lot of down time so I spent a couple nights down town. I went with the American farm intern to meet a friend of her friend and his study abroad group for dinner. They are on a classical semester trip and spent a few days in the city. There were 9 of them and it was a really good time. We ate some mezedes and had some wine. There was a lot of good conversation and they were all very friendly.  After dinner, we stopped at a bakery with a baby grand piano. One of the girls on their trip was literally a piano virtuoso; I should have had my camera. We parted ways to try and catch a bus back to campus. It was too late and we took a wrong bus. After a while we got off and found a bar. A couple drinks later we caught a cab back to the school. It was definitely a good night.

            The next night my roommate took me to see a rock band from his hometown playing in the city. It was a neat venue and the band was better than expected. They played covers of several decades’ worth of American rock and pop. There was some Elvis, Blondie, and The Black Keys. We had some good conversations and I learned which bus gets you home late at night.

            Then the following night I went out with a multi cultural group of people: one Greek, a Romanian, and an Albanian. The first stop was a blues bar. We got there late and had a bad spot,  but it was awesome hearing some real blues in another country. The band knew what they were doing and the atmosphere was great. It is definitely my favorite spot down town as of yet. After a while we changed scenery and stopped in another bar. This one had a DJ pumping some euro-trance-dance into our heads. It was kind of empty so after another drink we headed to a club. It was loud, crowded, and smoky - not really my thing, but still a good time. We saw another boy from the school and stayed until something ridiculous like 4am. That is insanely late for me but definitely considered calling it quits early here. One of the boys has an apartment in the city center and was kind enough to let us crash there. He fed us breakfast and we walked around the city the next afternoon. We climbed the White Tower and got gyros. They were the best I have ever had too. I definitely should have had my camera for the White Tower, the view was incredible and the sky was clear for once. I have to remember to take it with me more.

            Saturday I went on a school sponsored ski trip. It was really cool to see some snow and walk around the mountain a little bit. I met some people that I don’t have class with which was nice.

            I have met quite a few of the students by now and it is great to hear why they come here etc. I especially enjoy talking to the other foreign students. I finally met the other American guys interning here. A guy from Romania plays guitar and let me play his for a while. It was really good. He later brought it up to the common room and got me to play for an audience - of course I was fumbling all over the frets and probably looked like a goon.

my favorite everything- you-could-want-in-one-shopping-trip store

            The dorm is finally starting to feel like home. After a few more trips to the Jumbo and one to the Praktiker (Ikea equivalent), I have everything I need plus a few things I don’t. I have a beautiful baby cactus adding a little bit of green to my very grey room. Who paints walls grey?? I also got a candle shaped like a log to offset the odors of dorm life and ice cube trays because I will never stop liking ice in my water. I picked up a chess set... and a coloring book and some play-doh for those times I revert to being a small child.

note the blurry things on my coffee table - cactus and candle

            Finally, I got to the grocery store in the closest town, Thermi. Of course, there is not as much to do there as in the city, but it is only a few minutes bus ride away. There is a large park in the center of the town with a huge abstract sculpture and stadium seating. There are some café-bars and restaurants and a lot of commissioned street art along with odd-looking fountains. Anyway, the point is I have food to eat tonight in addition to the meager ration they give us in a paper bag on Sundays. Tonight is a slice of bologna and cheese on bread, a brownie, and half a small coffee cup of orange juice.

I’m pretty sure that is everything I should be reporting this week.