Periptero and Paperbacks

I've spent the past few evenings wandering around aimlessly through downtown, which has been quite enjoyable. Last night I walked through the market area and contemplated buying various random items that I don't need. The highlight of the evening occurred when the owner of a Greek foods store / bakery gave me a free loaf of bread, a free kuluri (sesame covered dough stick thing) and a free spanikopita upon finding out that it's my first time in Greece. People are very friendly here.

Speaking of shopping, I want to respond to Stefanos in Chicago, who responded to an earlier post, saying that ponytail holders might be found in a periptero. (Thanks Stefanos!) For those of you who don't know what a periptero is, it's a sort of newsstand/convenience store/kiosk that can be found on pretty much every street corner and is pretty much always open, even on Sundays and late at night. The periptero sell everything from bus tickets to phone cards to cough drops to ice cream. In fact, almost every periptero has an entire ice cream cooler next to it, and refrigerator full of drinks. Here are some pictures:




The funny thing about the periptero is, although they are approximately every ten feet, I always seem to forget about them when I need something important. (Hence, I didn't think to shop there for ponytail holders) I think this is because I'm not used to having them. However, they're really useful.

I also found a bookstore yesterday. A bookstore with books in English, and some of them cost less than 10 Euro apiece. You can't possibly understand what a miracle this is; English language books are so very expensive here, and the selection usually consists of three different paperback editions of The Da Vinci Code, each costing 14 Euro, and several different editions of Harry Potter, each costing somewhere between 14 and 25 Euro. I cannot imagine that there is a person in Greece that has not yet read everything that Dan Brown and JK Rowling have written. But anyway, this new bookstore had more things. I was extremely exciting. I am going to have to stay away from it, though, or my paycheck will be gone in minutes. Hey, if anyone out there is thinking of sending me a care package, they might want to stick a few paperbacks in there. I'd be happy to send Greek objects in exchange...

Tomorrow at 11 am, I will leave for Mt. Olympus, which I am climbing. Technically, I am one of the chaperones for 75 high school students. I'm quite excited about this, but a little nervous as well, since the information session was entirely in Greek. I was able to pick up bits and pieces ("two shirts" was one phrase I understood, and shoes were discussed quite a bit.) and there was someone who translated most of what was said, but I'm afraid I still missed a few things...

Well, I'll be back Sunday night, so stay tuned for more updates.

Oh, Crap

So, I go to the laundry room today to pick up my clothes from the machine, and discover that a good portion of my white clothes, underwear, t-shirts, etc, are all now an icky grey-ish hue.

This is ironic.

Please, nobody tell the kids.

Well, I'm feeling better; my sore throat is gone and so is the runny nose that I've had for a few days. I've been treating these things with Greek chamomile tea and Greek honey, both of which are quite good. I bought the chamomile from the market downtown; there's a place that always has a massive amount of it, which you can view in the picture above. One Euro bought me about enough chamomile for a small nation, so if you come to visit me, I will gladly make you some chamomile tea. I am also now the proud owner of a tea strainer.
I know, I know, this is not very exciting stuff here, but bear with me, I've been sick, and tea strainers are hard to find in Greece. The Greeks are more into coffee than tea, and it's strong coffee at that. Actually, I'm more into coffee myself, and I already bought a Greek coffee pot thing.
Anyway, I took a very nice walk through the old town today, up to where the orginal city walls still stand. It was a lovely walk, and the streets there are all narrow and cobblestoned; it's like traveling from a modern city to a medieval one in just a few short steps. Well, they are also very steep steps, because the old town is way the hell up at the top of a hill. However, the view is quite spectacular up there - nicer, even, than the view from the White Tower. Look at these!



I am, by the way, planning to take pictures of the school and my apartment soon, so that you can all see where I live. My work here is going well, although I am starting to feel like "Laundry Attendant" might be a good alternate job title for me. Kids are constantly approaching me and requesting help with their laundry, which I am happy to provide, although I don't know what to tell them when they ask questions about whites and colors. I think I actually separated whites from colors maybe once in my entire college career, and I never ended up with pink sheets or underwear. So, I keep telling the kids not to bother separating things, and then they shoot me suspicious looks and ask if I've ever done laundry before. Yes, I tell them, lots of times, and the tiny little yellow trim on your towel is not going to dye everything in the washer yellow - nor is the pink towel going to leave pink spots on your black pants.
Unfortunately, Murphy's Law dictates that someday very soon an angry kid is going t show up at my door with yellow sheets and pink polka dotted pants and I am going to have to deal with it.

Anthropological Squabbling

OK, I've done a little more research on this whole cave thing, and I have determined the following.

Apparently, according to anthropologist Aris Poulianos (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aris_Poulianos) , who we did meet, the skeleton from the cave is an archanthropus, and this proves that humans have european ancestry going way back.

According to my Lonely Planet Guide, My Rough Guide, and various other internet sources, Pouliano's conclusion is "Controversial," and the skeleton appears to be some Neanderthal-type thing (or maybe homo heidelbergensis, whatever that is) that is much more recent.

According to Professor Simpson from the Grinnell English Department, not only did Poulianos stop allowing the skeleton be carbon dated, he (or someone from Petralona) actually snuck into Aristotle University in the middle of the night to get their skull back, because they didn't like hearing that it was a) more recent than the African species and b) actually a woman.

According to Emily Zdyrko, the caves are awesome. This viewpoint has not been disputed thus far.

The Oldest Man in the World

Yesterday I woke up for our planned field trip to the beach, only to find that the sky was cloudy and I had a sore throat. It wasn’t a promising start, and I was sort of hoping that the whole thing would be called off due to bad weather. But when I arrived at the front of the dorm at 10 am to find all the kids packed and ready to go, I figured I ought to join them, because a free trip to the beach doesn’t come along every day.
The beach itself was on Halkidiki, a three-pronged peninsula of beaches that’s only a short drive from Thessaloniki. It looks like a really nice place to go swimming. Since most of the beaches I’ve been to are pretty far North (and here I am specifically thinking of Sand Beach in Maine) I automatically brace myself for pain when I decide to immerse any part of my body in seawater. However, the Aegean is warm! In fact, even in cloudy late September, it’s lovely. I was all ready to jump in; however, I realized that I’d forgotten my bathing suit. In hindsight, I think it’s a really good thing I did forget it; I’ve been coughing and sneezing and drinking tea all day today, so jumping in the ocean yesterday would have been a bad idea. However, there were several kids who were also feeling crummy (ah, the hazards of dorm life) so we all played Frisbee while everyone else swam.
Before we went to the beach we made a stopover at Petralona Caves, where we saw the home of “the oldest man in the world.” Basically, it seems that a Greek anthropologist discovered the skeleton of some prehistoric human-like being that he claims is the “oldest man in the world.” According to a friend of mine, this “man” was sent to Aristotle University for carbon dating twice, and it was twice determined that he’s actually much more recent than some other skeletons from Africa. Upon hearing this, the anthropologist who found him promptly decided that nobody else was allowed to do carbon dating on his find. Actually, we may or may not have met said anthropologist; we definitely met an older man who gave us a lengthy speech on the caves, and instructed Brad to “write home to America and tell them that humans come from here in Greece and not Africa.” Brad then turned to me and remarked that it’s hard enough to convince a lot of Americans that we’re descended from primates in the first place. I guess he has a good point there; although I’m skeptical of the whole “oldest man in the world” thing, they do seem to believe in evolution here.
Anyway, the caves were just spectacular, with stalactites and stalagmites everywhere, ranging from monstrously huge to tiny; in fact, the ceiling of one room was covered in stalactites (or stalagmites, whichever is on the ceiling) so tiny that it looked kind of like the ceiling was growing hair. There were lots of eerie-looking nooks and crannies, winding passageways and gorgeous rock formations. It brought to mind several scenes from the Harry Potter books. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed, although my camera was burning a hole in my pocket. If any of my anthro major/prehistory enthusiast friends are reading this, I apologize for the vagueness of my information here. Unfortunately, the tour was in Greek, and although my Greek is improving, anthropological vocabulary is still not my strong point. (Although did you know that the word ‘anthropology’ comes from the Greek ‘anthropi’, for ‘people’?) I do plan to do some investigating of my own, though, probably in the form of typing “Petralona Caves” into google. I’m still not sure whether the skeleton found was 1 million years old or 500,000, whether he was a Neanderthal or something else, whether he was actually a he and not a she, etc. I’m also not sure if the man we met was the famous anthropologist or just some guy who happens to agree with him. Basically, I don’t know anything except that those caves were pretty fantastic.

Hey everyone! Very soon I am going to post an update about my recent trip to the beach and Petralona Caves. However, I don't have much time now, so I'm just going to go ahead and post some pictures- no, I don't have internet in my apartment yet, but I have figured out how to hook my computer up in the dorm playroom.

Above is one picture of the countryside of Halkidiki, and a picture of a fruit market in downtown Thessaloniki. I think Greece might have the most fantastic fruits and vegetables I have eaten. I am a particularly big fan of the grapes.

Below is one picture of the view from the White Tower (that Tall Thing I was telling you about) and one picture of Alexander of Macedon's palace, at Vergina. More pictures and updates are coming, including pictures of my apartment. However, first I have to fix my apartment so that it doesn't have lots of laundry strewn about, and I have to get the hell out of this playroom; there are about seventy five kids in here, screaming at the TV.

Wow, I'm long overdue for an update, because it's been an eventful few days. On Saturday, Brad and I had a long, somewhat convoluted bus trip to a public beach near Thessaloniki. It was a nice trip, and it involved some very pretty sights, but it also involved a lot of wandering and squinting at bus maps.
(It's funny- Greek people don't read on the bus. In fact, several people have told me that Greeks don't read much, period. I'm a little doubtful about the latter, since there are an awful lot of bookstores around here, but it is true that Greeks don't read on the bus, and I don't know why. )
Anyway, the trip to the beach was followed by a Sunday trip to Vergina, where Phillip of Macedon's tomb still stands, along with several other tombs of unidentified Macedonians. In case you're not familiar with Phillip (When I mentioned the trip to Joe over a distant phone connection he said "Phillip the Mastodon?") he's the father of Alexander the Great. Well, he was the father of Alexander the Great until he was murdered at his daughter's wedding. You can actually see the theatre where the murder happened; there are still two rows of stone seats intact.
Anyway, Phillip was buried with great pomp and circumstance, in a big giant tomb which was inside a tumulus, or a burial mound, that also contained several other tombs. The museum is right inside the tumulus, as a matter of fact, so in order to see all of the elaborate funerary adornments in the museum, you walk on a path straight into the middle of a burial mound.
I didn't actually see Phillip's bones, but I did see the box which held them- it was tiny. Phillip, apparently, was a very small man. The next time someone laughs at my height, I am going to tell them that as a matter of fact, I am taller than Phillip of Macedon.

I had Tuesday morning off this week, and I so I took a long walk through downtown, starting at the White Tower, which is Thessaloniki's Tall Thing With A View. As I've already explained to some of you, I think that pretty much every city has a Tall Thing With A View; in fact, most of them can also be described as Tall Things With Views, High Admission Prices and Long Lines. When I studied abroad in London I did some travelling, and I have a collection of pictures taken from the roofs of these various structures. Of course, the view is never nearly as impressive on film, and so I have a collection of photos of cities that might be London from St. Paul's, or might be Paris from the Eiffel Tower, or might be Edinburgh from Edinburgh Castle, or might be a random shot of Detroit that somehow found itself into the picture collection. However, I did take pictures of Thessaloniki from the top of the White Tower, so as soon as I get internet access in my apartment I'll post some of them.
I also went inside Agia Sophia for the first time yesterday, which is quite a beautiful church, named after the one in Istabul. Orthodox churches look very different than other churches- they are obviously much more eastern-looking and often filled with elaborate icons and carvings. I don't have any pictures of Agia Sophia because I wasn't sure if photography was allowed and I didn't want to seem like an obnoxious tourist. Actually, I'm not sure if I was supposed to be wearing a tank top either; I'm not quite sure how strict the dress code is in Orthodox Churches. Of course, Brad tells me that he saw a man in Agia Sofia wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, which makes me feel a little less guilty.
Inside Agia Sophia I entered a small side room and found myself standing in front of an elaborate gold coffin. I don't know who is buried inside it, though there was a small sign in Greek that I was too lazy to decipher. I'll have to do some research on that.

Nazis and My Hair, Again.

Today Brad and I were invited to lunch with some American study-abroad students going to ACT, which is the college level division of Anatolia, and the place we'll be taking Greek classes. After we ate we all went on a tour of Anatolia's on-campus bomb shelter, a remnant of the days during World War II when the entire campus was occupied by the German army. I guess the Germans were afraid of being bombed out by the Allies, and so they built this shelter, which you access by climbing down about twenty billion itty bitty crumbling steps in the almost pitch dark, while clutching a wobbly rope. It was something of an adventure. Since the bomb shelter itself was never used, it mostly consists of empty space, spiderwebs, and crumbling bricks, but it's pretty crazy to think of spending a night down there; it's an eerie place. It's also strange to think that this very campus was occupied by the Nazis not so very long ago.
In fact, while Brad and I were having dinner with one member of the English department, he told us that his home was the former German Officer's Club. All of this is a very interesting reminder that although Anatolia looks like a pretty, new, modern high school campus, it has a much more exciting history than one would guess.

Meanwhile, on a more mundane note, I need a haircut, or at least a trim, and I don't know what to do. I'll have to find a haircutter that speaks English, because I don't have enough faith in my Greek to instruct someone who is going to determine what I look like for the next few weeks or months. I am not entirely sure how to deal with this, and I'm wondering why my adjustment problems all seem to be hair-related.

I'm allowed in the boy's hall!

Well, I started today by waking up the kids at 7am. That's right- I woke up all 75 of them. Not only that, but this was after working until 11:30 the night before. Luckily, once they went to class, I was free to go back to bed. There are some perks to being out of school.

Of course, I sometimes have to convince people that I am, in fact, out of school. Two days ago, as I was headed through the boys dorm to my apartment, the cleaning woman stopped me, and being speaking insistent Greek with a shocked look on her face. "No," I explained. "I'm allowed in the boys hall. I'm a dorm advisor!" But she just shook her head as though to say "I've heard that one before." Luckily, a coworker caught her attention to ask a question, and I slipped away. I'm glad that I began my job as an authority by disobeying the cleaning lady. Good start.

Well, they're here. The kids are here. All seventy-some odd of them, mostly speaking Greek, but with plenty of English thrown in as well as some Bulgarian, Albanian, Danish and maybe more. There are so many languages going around that I sometimes sort of feel like I could start speaking Latin or Swahili, and nobody would notice the difference. Of course, I don't know any Swahili, and my Latin is so terrible nowadays that I only know enough for crossword puzzles, so that's no good.

It's interesting; people here just seem to assume that I speak Greek. Every time I walk into a shop or get on the bus or walk into a restaurant people will just start chattering away at me. It's a little bit intimidating but also encouraging, because it makes me feel like I don't stand out too much. On previous trips to Europe I've always felt very obviously American, but that's not quite as true this time. Maybe it's because Thessaloniki isn't as much of a tourist destination as Athens or Florence or London. I don't think there are nearly as many Americans around here.
Maybe that explains why that street vendor asked me if I'm Bulgarian...

I also had a funny conversation with a man at a street market today. I was looking around his store and he asked me a question in Greek that I didn't quite catch. "I'm sorry," I told him, in Greek. "I don't understand." (This is an extremely useful phrase; Dhen Catalaveno. Memorize it if you plan to come visit me. ) He nodded. A few moments later, he asked me yet another incomprehensible question. I was confused as hell and really starting to doubt my Greek skills.

Is my accent so awful that Greeks can't understand me? Am I so hopeless that I can't understand a single word of a simple question? I just stood there, probably looking completely wide-eyed and bewildered, until he asked me, in Greek "You are not from Italy?" I shook my head and he started speaking perfect English to me. But man, it's hard enough to keep track of one foreign language that I semi-speak, without having random other languages cropping up as well.

This weekend was nice and relaxing; I had some more great seafood and tried ouzo for the first time. Joe (that's my boyfriend for those of you who don't know him) has commented that my blog seems to be largely about food. I guess that's true, but I challenge any of you to visit Greece and come away not talking about food.

Actually, one of my favorite things to do in foreign countries is shop for groceries; it's a good way to figure out what people like to eat in that particular place, and grocery stores are not generally a place where tourists hang out. When I studied abroad in London, I spent a rather ridiculous amount of time at Sainsbury's, reading labels and saying things like "Look! They have Marmite next to the peanut butter!" and "Ooh, the sign says 'aubergine' instead of 'eggplant!" Here, grocery shopping is both unnecessary (because I can eat in the dining hall) and extra fun, because I often really have very little idea of what it is that I am buying. Will I get the detergent home and discover that it is actually fabric softener? Why does the yogurt have pictures of cows and sheep on it? Is that baking chocolate or eating chocolate? I still don't know. I do know, however, that Hellman's, a brand that I usually asociate with mayonaise, makes tzatziki sauce here. I find that very funny. Also, there's plenty of octopus on the shelf.

I'll stop talking about food now- and start talking about alcohol instead. Retsina is one of the traditional Greek wines, made from pine resin, and it's extremely cheap and pretty good. Apparently real wine snobs look down on it, but I am absolutely not a wine snob, and I've liked it so far. My guidebook goes on about the wonderful tradition of red wine in Greece and all of the health benefits that go along with it, but my guidebook neglects to explain that higher price tags and headaches also come with the health benefits. (I don't know why, but it only takes one glass of red wine with dinner to make me feel positively wretched the next morning.) In any case, retsina is classier than the cheap wine at the supermarket in Grinnell, which came in a variety of colors, including jolly-rancher green- and it costs about the same.

Actually, speaking of shopping, I went on a marathon shopping trip today, in search of ponytail holders. I consider ponytail holders to be a basic need, something that shouldn't be hard to find. After all, every country has people with long hair, right? Surely they occasionally need to tie it back?

Maybe not. I went into several pharmacies and inquired, using broken Greek and lots of crazy gestures involving my hair, (God knows how you say "ponytail holders" in Greek) but everyone shook their heads. I went to several supermarkets and finally, tucked away in the corner of the basement of one store, I turned up some sparkly scrunchies that look like they've been sitting on the shelf since the reign of Agamemnon. There were also some tiny little hair ties with Hello Kitty logos on them, but I've already been mistaken for a high school student enough; I don't think I want to create any more confusion about that. Anyway, the end of the story is, the ancient hair ties (of which there are two) cost three whole Euro. For the past few hours, I have been watching the hair of every Greek woman I encounter, to see how she has tied it back. Surely there must be a good source of hair ties somewhere!

Mushroom Martians and Plumbing

The unreliable nature of my plumbing seems to have been resolved, although I did have a rather amusing incident this morning, halfway through my shower. I had just finished soaping up my hair, and my head was pretty much covered in fluffy white suds- and when I tried to turn on the faucet and rinse them out, the water had disappeared. Of course, I panicked, thinking the water would be gone for hours and I would just have to parade around encased in suds. However, a few moments later the faucets came back to life and I rinsed off- very quickly.

I'm also able to take out books from several libraries on campus, which is a lifesaver, as English language books seem sort of hard to acquire here, and really, really expensive. I did find a bookstore selling English language books for only three Euros, but they all appeared to be at leats several decades old and had titles like The Attack Of The Mushroom Martians and The Erotic Adventures of Chrysanthemum Fitzgerald. It wasn't really what I was looking for.

I don't know how anyone could possibly get by for an entire year without a good source of books. I guess I could try reading in Greek, and it would be incentive for me to learn the language- maybe more incentive than I want. Maybe sometime I'll try checking out a Greek copy of something simple and familiar, like the first Harry Potter book. Or maybe I could try Good Night Moon. Yes, I think that would be more at my level.

Speaking of books, all of the stores here seem to stock large number of Stephen King novels in Greek. Apparently he has a following here, as does the Da Vinci code guy.

I am boring

Well, the Anatolia students still have not arrived, so it is just the dorm advisors and the Pinewood International Students, which is an interesting combination. If you walk through the dorm during the afternoon, you are sure to hear snatches of English, Greek, Bulgarian, and possibly bits of other languages as well. It must be particularly hard for the really young kids, who don't speak much English yet and have never been far from home before. It must be really hard to be away from home at such a young age; several of the younger students have been pretty homesick these past few days.
It's great to hear them pick up words and phrases though. Today, one young Bulgarian girl finished her homework and spent the remainder of the study period complaining "I'm boring, I'm boring." Someone tried to explain to her the difference between bored and boring, but I'm not sure if she got it.
I'm downtown now, in an internet cafe looking out over the ruins of the ancient agora. I just finished eating a chocolate crepe. All in all, life is good- and I have water again!

When people speak Greek around me, (particularly quickly) I generally hear something like:

"blah blah blah I have two blah blah blah I want Blah room blah blah blah hot water blah blah on Friday or Saturday blah blah ten o'clock."

In other words, I don't necessarily grasp the meaning of what they are saying, but I can get a feel for the general topic of conversation. It's hard to follow such fast conversations! But at least my vocab skills are coming back.

Things here are generally good, though sometimes frustrating, since the building that I live in is under construction at the moment, and the construction is in high gear, since school needs to open on Monday! Nobody in my building has internet access, and the hot water has been somewhat unreliable. In fact, yesterday, my water disappeared altogether, so I have not washed my hair in a rather long while. I'm trying to be patient, though, and the good news is that I DO finally have a phone! But if you've been emailing me, keep in mind that I've only been able to check my email once a day on weekdays, usually in the (Greek) morning, which means that if you send me a message from the States, I probably will not answer you until the next day. Well, unless you send me a message in the middle of the night, that is.

Anyway, I had my first shift with the kids yesterday, and it was good. It was also very relaxed, since only about 15% of the kids are here so far. However, it's good practice, I think.

In other news, I just reread Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris, which has turned out to be a good choice of reading material. Not only is David Sedaris Greek, but a large part of his book is about being American and living abroad. (In France, in his case.) It's very funny.

Talking to myself

I've discovered something; my Greek skills are somewhat competant when I am listening to other people have a simple conversation (and I really do mean simple) and they are wonderful when I am sitting alone in my apartment practicing chatting to myself. I mean, I am really eloquent when I am talking to the wall. However, when I am called upon to speak Greek to an actual Greek person, I freeze and forget how to say "Hello." I need to work on that.
That said, I did successfully ask a man in a kiosk for bus tickets the other day. I mean, I didn't just mumble the word for bus tickets, I actually said, in Greek "Do you have bus tickets" ("Ehete isiteria"?) I used a verb and everything!
Other than my nervousness about Greek, things are still going well. Brad and I had delicious fried zucchini in a restuarant the other night. My apartment is huge, just huge, and I need to find some way to fill up the space. Soon I will hang up my Woody Guthrie poster and maybe speak Greek to Woody. Or I could just talk to the kids, who are supposed to start arriving in the dorms this afternoon! Well, ten or eleven of them, anyway. Anatolia does not start classes until the 12th, but Pinewood, the international school, starts tomorrow. Actually, since most of the Pinewood kids are not Greek, maybe I should stick to English with them. Or maybe I should speak Greek, because they won't know if I screw up, right?
I've been downtown several times now, and I like Thessaloniki a lot, although I still have not quite found my way around. Brad and I did some wandering on Saturday before dinner; we were looking for a bookstore, which turned out to be closed, and then waiting for restaurants to be open. People don't eat until about 9 or 10 pm here, though if you walk past the cafes during the early evening you'll see hundreds of people just sitting around and drinking frappes, which are a kind of frothy milky instant coffee drink. Brad read somewhere that people order frappes mostly as an excuse to sit around and chat for a while, and that does seem to be the case.
Anyway, we did see about three weddings taking place; apparently Saturday evening is the time to get married around here. Speaking of marriage, Greece, and food, I know you're all thinking exactly the same thing: "Hey, remember that scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding..." I do, really! In fact, I'm thinking I might keep a tally of the number of times people have mentioned My Big Fat Greek Wedding to me, particularly the "You're vegetarian? That's OK, I'll make lamb," scene.

Greek and Squid

Hello everyone!
Obviously I have not updated for a while, and there are several reasons for that, the first being that I am terribly busy, and the second being that I still don't have internet service in my apartment. (Yes, I have a whole apartment! That's one of those things that I haven't had time to write about until now...)
Anyway, I could start way back with my flight, etc, but instead I'm just going to write about some more recent events and I'll fill you in on other stuff later.
Last night Brad and I (Brad, for those of you who don't know, is the other Grinnell Corps fellow here) went into downtown Thessaloniki for the first time and met Will (former Grinnell Corps member still living in Thessaloniki) and two other Grinnellians, Eileen and Bridget. We saw the beautiful waterfront, had crepes, saw the ruins of the ancient agora, and had a really nice dinner which included squid, octopus, salad, stuffed pepper, eggplant, chicken and more. I've had octopus and calamari a few times before, but I have to say that I did find the squid a little unnerving; it came unsliced, stuffed with cheese, and looking eerily like this exhibit at the Natural History Museum that used to terrify me as a young child. (It's the one of the giant squid attacking the sperm whale, and it's all the way in the corner at the ocean exhibit.) Luckily, once the squid was sliced it started to look a lot less like an ecology lesson and a lot more like dinner, and it was delicious.
This morning I woke up and decided to take a stroll through Pylea, the local village, where I was looking for breakfast. However, I managed, as I usually do in a new place, to get completely and utterly lost. All of a sudden I was just wandering through a bunch of houses, watching cars barrell past me, and making hopeless attempts to retrace my completely chaotic course through town. I spent about forty five sweaty minutes trying to figure out where the hell I was, silently rehearsing my Greek in hopes that I could ask someone "Signomi, Kseres Pu Ine Anatolia College?" (Excuse me, do you know where Anatolia College is?) Luckily, I found my way to a familiar street before I asked anyone, but I was proud of myself for being able to formulate the question in my head anyway.
I had another sucessful conversation in Greek at the Thessaloniki airport the other day; a strange man approached me, spent several minutes talking about what appeared to be a baggage claim issue but might also have been any number of other things, and I finally informed him, in perfect Greek, that I did not understand anything he was saying. He smiled and went in search of someone who actually knew what he was talking about, but I was pretty excited to have communicated something. Maybe I should have followed up "I don't understand" with "I like feta!" or "It is eleven thirty!", as those are other useful phrases that I know. Or perhaps I could have tried the ever-useful phrase George Bush Ine Mimu," meaning "George Buch is a Monkey." Oh well. Next time.

I'm here!

Just a quick post to let you all know that I arrived safely, and everything's great. I'll post more when I've had a chance to settle in, unpack a little, etc.

Love, Emily