What I Expected To Miss, But Don't

There are some things I knew I was going to miss when I came to Greece, like the subway. There are also things that I didn't realize I was going to miss, like coffee to go. There are also things that I didn't expect to miss and don't miss at all, like the Bush administration. And finally, here are the things that I thought I would miss, but don't, as it turns out.

1) English as the Dominant Language
I was hanging out with some American students one night in December, and one of them mentioned that she wanted to share a cab home with me, because she found it difficult to deal with non-English speaking cabdrivers. "Funny," I thought, "I wonder why I don't really have a problem with cabdrivers that don't speak English?" Then I realized that I grew up in a place where the cabdrivers don't speak English...and neither do a significant portion of the inhabitants. Actually, between all the Greek English speakers and my bits and pieces of Greek, maybe I'm more likely to have common vocabulary with the people I meet here than I do back home in New York. I'm hardly fluent, but I'm functioning well enough to communicate in Greek when I need to...and the Greeks generally can communicate in English whether they need to or not.

2) American Movies
Although I would like some more afternoon showtimes, I have to applaud the Greeks for consistently using subtitles instead of dubbing. I suppose I could have gotten through King Kong in Greek; after all, most of the action involved giant creatures attacking one another in various combinations, and it's always useful to learn phrases like "Help, Help, a giant monkey!" in as many languages as possible. But Pride and Prejudice in Greek, well, that would be a wrench. Plus, subtitles actually do help me learn.

3) Casual Clothes
I expected Greek women to be all glamorous, fashionable and intimidating, and I expected to look like a total slob next to them. Well, they are, and I do, but I find that I really don't care much. They look better on the outside, but I don't smoke or wear heels, so I will definitely outrun everyone when the aforesaid giant monkey attacks us. Plus, I think it's too late for me to develop a reputation for style; not only would the kids be surprised, but I can picture everyone I know back home looking at me curiously as if to say "haven't you outgrown dress-up games by now?"

4) Being In School
I am, of course, still in school, as a both as a teacher type-person and a student-type person. However, I really thought I was going to miss being a full-time undergrad, with classes and papers to write and credits to accumulate. However, I must say, it's nice to have a breather. Especially since I can use my free time to do all the pleasure reading that I like, and I'm never up until 3am finishing assignments.

What I Miss

Though Greece is consistently excellent, there are some things that I've been missing lately. Here they are, in no particular order. (Note: As this is intended to be a commentary on Greek vs. American/New York culture and lifestyles, all family, friends, pets, acquaintances, significant others, etc, are disqualified from inclusion herein.)

1) Non-Greek Food
Greece has a 98% Greek population. Thus, not only is the predominant culture Greek, but the less-than predominant culture is also mostly Greek, and there are not a huge selection of ethnic restaurants. I'd jump in the filthy Thermaic gulf for some pad thai or something. It doesn't even have to be something exotic; I ate a veggie burger with salsa the other day and it tasted better than ambrosia from Olympus.

2) Used Bookstores
Used bookstores are my favorite kind of store, hands down. Unfortunately, they are few and far between in Thessaloniki (at least, they are if you're looking for books in English).

3) Real Cold and Snow and Stuff
The Greeks are all wearing their down jackets and mittens and scarves, but it still feels like October to me.

4) Afternoon Movies
I saw the 6pm showing of Pride and Prejudice the other day, and it was definitely the early bird screening, with an audience that consisted of about fifty women over the age of fifty. I just don't understand it; why don't Greeks go to the movies before the night-time? I know things happen later around here, but surely some people still occasionally feel like watching a film sometime before dark? (Especially people that spend their evenings working with teenagers but still want to see the new Woody Allen film, dammit.)

5) Live Theatre
Of course they have live theatre in Greece. It's just, well, in Greek. So I haven't seen too much of it.

6) The New York Subway
It smells, it's crowded, gross, and costs two whole dollars, butit's fast, runs 24/7, doesn't get stuck in traffic and I love it dearly.

7) The Non-Smoking Section
In order to get my residence permit, I had to get a chest x-ray. As I handed my pictures over to the doctor at the public hospital, I couldn't help but think "Those have got to be cleaner than about ninety-nine percent of the lungs this guy sees on a daily basis." I really want to keep them that way, but I'm struggling. To be sure, there is, ocassionally, a place for non-smokers to sit...and it's often about two feet away from the smoking section.

8) Coffee To Go
I have a travel mug here, which I frequently carry with me as I'm on duty in the dorms. I was surprised to discover that this is an object of fascination to the kids; I've had about thirty separate students look at my mug with fascination and ask "what is that?" In Greece, see, there is no such thing as coffee on the run. Coffee time in Greece is when you sit down and relax, not when you caffeinate yourself into a frenzy. In theory, I like this, but in reality, I sometimes just want to take my coffee with me.

9) The Sunday New York Times
I really enjoy buying this on Saturday night and then devoting large portions of time to it the next day. I usually discard anything that involves cars, business, technology, read anything of interest in the magazine, News, City, Metro, Arts and Style sections, and devote the rest of the week to the crossword puzzle, which I will invariably have to abandon when I can't figure out the eight letter word for nocturnal Indonesian amphibian.

10) Weird People
Yeah, Greeks have their quirks. But I miss just plain weird people, the kind that roam the streets of Manhattan in their sock feet proclaiming that they are the Messiah, or the guy in Times Square who wears nothing but a cowboy hat and little white underpants with the words "Naked Cowboy" emblazoned across his butt. I miss the people in medieval costume fighting with foam rubber swords on the Grinnell Campus, and the weird guy down the hall who named himself after a tree. Maybe I ought to set an example, and do something outlandish. Ideas would be welcome.

And with that...it's started to snow. Wow. Maybe some Olympian god is granting all of my wishes. I'm going to stay right here and wait. Maybe there will be chicken korma for lunch...

Emily's Vacation, Episode III: Zeus, Isis, and the Beautiful Land of the Beans

It seems that we made it to Turkey just in time. Yesterday's ekathimerini (the source of all Greek news in English) reports that Greeks have been advised not to travel to Turkey because of bird flu. I'm glad we made it before all of that happened, because Turkey was totally worth it.
However, the two days after Turkey were also quite memorable, so I'll relate all of that as well before I return to my usual life of posting about adolescents and cats.
After our return from Turkey, we spent an afternoon day relaxing, seeing the old town in Thessaloniki, and figuring out how to rent a car. The next morning, we headed off to Mount Olympus, and Dion. Dion is the ancient site of several shrines to various gods and goddesses. Actually, there used to be a whole city at Dion. Nowadays there is a museum there (which we did not spend much time in, as it was nearing closing time when we arrived) as well as the ruins.
I thought Dion as quite impressive. It reminded me of Pella to some degree, though I think I prefer Dion. Pella, the ancient center of Macedonia, is a nice site, but it is right off the highway, which makes it less stimulating for the imgination, in my opinion. Dion is a bit more atmospheric, in part because it is right below Mount Olympus. (see the picture above). My favorite part was the shrine to Isis, which I somehow failed to take any pictures of. It's half-sunk into a sort of pond, so you walk across a little bridge over the water through the ruins and look down, where you can see remains of the shrine just below the surface.
After Dion, we started driving up Mount Olympus, but we didn't make it very far, because the roads were all icy, as you can see from the following photo:

We did stop for some hot chocolate at the Stavros Refuge, which I assume operates as a sort of hostel place during climbing season, but was mostly a restaurant/cafe in the winter.
The next day was a slightly longer trip, up to the Prespa Lakes. The Prespas are rather secluded, and right up by the Albanian border. We set off rather late, at about 10am, and made our way through Giannitsa, where we stopped to pee, Pella, Edessa and Florina, which is a town to the north that the Rough Guide highly recommends and Lonely Planet is rather disparaging of. Personally, I really enjoy reading multiple guidebooks and often finding completely different perspectives on similar things. However, we didn't stay in Florina long enough for me to develop any lasting opinions of it.
We arrived at the Prespas in the early afternoon, and they were spectacular. I love snow, and I had been missing it dearly, so this was perfect. Take a look at this picture, and you'll understand why my sister proclaimed it to look "like Narnia!" At least, like Narnia if it had highways.
We drove through a very nice little town, the name of which I do not remember, although it seemed to have a lot of massive trucks passing through, and not a lot of space on the road for them to pass on. That was a little nervewracking. However, here's a picture of the place. I think it's quite a pretty one.

Finally reached the lakes themselves. They were simply gorgeous, tucked away between the snow-covered mountains. I can't believe I don't have pictures of the lakes themselves.
We stopped at a taverna in a town called Psaredes, right on the lake shore, where we drank tea and ate some very good fasolada, or bean soup. Fasolada is the specialty of the area, and every taverna seemed to have a big signout front advertising their soup. This was unusual, because for the most part, the Greeks don't seem to be big bean eaters. The dorm kids usually turn their nose up at fasolada when it is served in the dining hall, and one student in a class I subbed advised me to "go to taverna, but don't ever, ever try fasolada. Never!" I don't know what beans did to inspire so much distaste. I practically lived off of several varieties of bean soup last year when I was cooking for myself.
We left the Prespas before dark, so as to avoid those mountain roads at night, though we did swing past the Albanian border and briefly contemplate leaving the country for dinner. We eventually took a route back to Thessaloniki that went right through Kastoria, a lake front town that is named after the beavers that used to live there. Unfortunately, the beavers got turned into fur coats, and now Kastoria is the fur center of Greece. Every other shop seems to be selling fur coats. Since I need a fur coat even less than I need a Turkish carpet, I didn't do any shopping. Apparently the Russian Mafia shop there, though, and indeed, many fur stores advertise in Russian.
(Actually, I already have a fur coat. Well, it's something fur-like, anyway, and it was purchased on Halloween 2002 for only twelve dollars from the Rags to Riches consignment shop in Grinnell, IA. I really like it. My mom does not. She is probably going to go find it and throw it away as soon as this reminds her that it is sitting in my closet at home. The Russian mafia would probably not find it very impressive, but in its defense, I don't think any small animals died for it, unless there are synthetic mink running around somewhere.)
Unfortunately, once we got into Kastoria, we could not get out. We drove around for a good hour, looking for the exit ramp to the highway. We saw multiple fur shops in the process, as well as several streets over and over and over again. Finally, we somehow managed to get ourselves back on the highway and back to Thessaloniki, where I proceeded to get us completely lost once again, this time in pursuit of a taverna that I swear has moved at some point in the past few months.
And that concludes the chronicles of my vacation. Back to life...

My Vacation, Episode II: The Revenge of the Carpet Dealers

Joe's departure was immediately followed by the arrival of my parents and sister a few hours later. After two days exploring Thessaloniki, we boarded the sleeper train to Istanbul, which was due to leave at 8pm and arrive the next morning at 8am. Here is a picture of my sister on the train. I am on the top bunk, as you can probably tell from the sight of my shoe dangling in her face. Hayley is knitting with some yarn purchased at the Thessaloniki market, and she calls this pose "the granny shot."
Although the beds provided were quite comfortable, the word "sleeper" did turn out to be something of a misnomer for several reasons. First, going to Turkey requires a lot of business at the border. At one point, at approximately 3am, my father was woken by some official of one nation or the other, and instructed to follow. He did so, in his socks, and ended up having to walk across the train tracks to a train station that he described as "probably the same station where they filmed that scene in Fiddler on The Roof where the daughter leaves for Siberia." There he purchased our tourist visas, from a man he described as "the guy in charge of filling the entire room with cigarette smoke."
Second, there was a prostitute in a nearby room, and she was making a lot of noise. I only heard a few brief interludes of noise, but my parents had the misfortune of being right next to her. Apparently, prostitution is legal in Turkey, although I don't think she waited until we had crossed the border to start business. So alright, I guess the word "sleeper" could accurately describe my train experience, but my parents were not so lucky.
We arrived in Istanbul the next morning at about 10am. The conductor said we were late because there was "a lot of traffic." I don't know why traffic would prevent a train from being on time, but I guess it doesn't really matter all that much.
We walked from the train station to our hotel in Sultanahmet, a very pretty old neighborhood which is packed with hotels of all sorts, from youth hostels to the Four Seasons. Actually, as it turns out, the Four Seasons Istanbul happens to inhabit the former prison building where the movie Midnight Express took place. I haven't seen the film, but for the rest of the trip, my mind conjured up images from The Shawhank Redemption every time I passed the place.
It was a nice walk, right past the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Unfortunately, we also passed about two hundred and ninety five carpet dealers, who saw us walking along with a suitcase in tow and immediately began their sales pitches. "You are from America?" they asked us. "Welcome to Paradise. You look so Turkish! Your daughter, she has a Turkish face! You need carpet? Come to my shop!" One man actually followed us for several blocks, offering to take us to his shop and to act as our tour guide. This deluge of salesmen was pretty much a constant presence for the next few days. They assaulted us in front of the Hagia Sophia, called to us from restaurants, begging us to come in, followed us to the Blue Mosque and waited for us as we exited, and tried to sell us postcards, hats, ceramics, meals, hotel rooms, and, of course, carpets. Every other person on the street was hawking carpets. I'm surprised the streets aren't carpeted in Istanbul.
Somehow we managed to push through the crowd of carpet salesmen to make our way to the Hagia Sophia, which is quite spectacularly beautiful. There was some reconstruction work going on inside, but it was still pretty stunning. The Hagia Sophia is a church now, although it was used as a mosque for a period of some time. It does however, inexplicably have giant decorative Arabic writing adorning the walls, and supposedly proclaiming the greatness of Allah, so it's not your typical church. I'm not exactly sure why this is the case (and even Lonely Planet didn't really clear it up for me). I would like to think that this was done in the spirit of inter-religious communication, tolerance, and general peace, love and happiness. Maybe that's the case. However, I'm also cynical enough to have my doubts about that hypothesis. Here's some pictures:




After the Hagia Sophia, we got accosted by a few more salesmen, ate lunch, got followed by a man who suggested that we come to his shop "because, you know, just by chance we might end up doing business!" and finally made our way into the Blue Mosque, which was also quite spectacular, though in a completely different way that Hagia Sophia. In fact, in some ways I think I found it even more impressive, probably in part because I haven't been in very many mosques before. Churches, I am familiar with; I've traveled a fair amount in Europe, and European travel almost always seems to involve at least several days of Going Inside Churches. Between my several months studying abroad in London, my family trip to Italy several years ago and my first four months in Greece, I have probably been inside more churches than all twelve apostles put together. I'm not complaining, mind you; in fact, I make a point of going inside Greek churches whenever possible, because I think they are generally quite beautiful. However, churches are not exactly new territory for me.

However, going inside a mosque was something new. None of the decorations show people or animals, because that is considered idolatry in Islam, so the entire inside of the huge dome was filled with beautiful elaborate abstract designs. The floor was carpeted, for prayer I assume (or maybe just because one of the carpet salesmen made a really good sales pitch to one Imam or another). I should have taken pictures, but I guess I was caught up in looking, so I didn't get around to it until that evening, when I took an exterior shot:


Those towers surrounding the dome are called minarets. The call to prayer comes five times daily, from various minarets of mosques around the city. The person who does the call to prayer is called a muezzin. I know all this because I took Major Western Religions at Grinnell, and I am sharing it with you just prove that sometimes a liberal arts education does come in handy. (It also proved very useful when I needed a name for my cat.)

As we left the Blue Mosque, we were met by the man who had suggested that we do business with him. That's right; he actually waited for us at the exit, and became slightly peevish when we refused to follow him to his carpet shop. However, no sooner had we left him behind than a new bunch of salesmen popped up. I discovered that a popular line is "Oh, you look so Turkish!" or "Hello, Turkish girl, come inside my shop!" Now, obviously these men did not really think we were Turkish, or they wouldn't have been speaking English. So I'm still wondering: would they have remarked on our uniquely "Turkish" appearance if we were blonde, blue-eyed Scandinavians?
After resting for a while at our hotel, we ventured out for dinner at 7:30 or so. This would be a laughably early mealtime in Greece, but Turks seem to eat earlier than Greeks. (Note: The Greeks eat late, and for the most part I have begun to do likewise. This was an easier adjustment for me than my move to college in Iowa, where they eat incredibly early. In fact, I suspect that Iowans and Greeks often eat dinner simultaneously, despite being eight time zones apart.) We went to a delicious restaurant called Hamdi, that has apparently been around for a long long time. It was quite good. Despite my usual avoidance of red meat, I even tried the meatballs and kebabs, which were delicious. Turkish food has some similarities to Greek food, but there are some marked differences as well: bread is big, puffy, and pita-like; pork is, of course, much less common; yogurt is less creamy and plainer, more like Indian raita than tzatziki; chick peas and hummus are far more common.
In fact, this would probably be a good time for me to comment on the many differences between Turkish and Greek restaurants. In Greece, even the simplest tavernas tend to b charming and atmospheric, with tablecloths and seats outside under tents or awnings. The kitchen is rarely visible to the customer, and the waiters are often relaxing and chatting over coffee and cigarettes, sometimes even when you wish they would come and take your order. You can walk into a Greek taverna and spend a number of minutes waiting for someone to come serve you. In Turkey on the other hand, you practically have to beat the waiters off with kebab sticks as you walk down the street, because they will persistently try to convince you to come into their restaurants. Once inside, (and you do usually sit inside, not outside like the Greeks) restaurants are often a bit more casual than tavernas, or at least a bit less old-fashioned in atmosphere. You can usually go up and look at the food before you order, which is nice. All in all, it was a welcome respite from Greek food, which I have been eating almost exclusively for the past four months.
Turkish and Greek coffee and desserts, it is worth noting, are almost completely the same. See my previous post for some details on that phenomenon. Basically, the Turks say the Greeks stole their stuff, and the Greeks say the Turks stole their stuff, and I really couldn't care less, as I come from a country where everyone steals everyone else's food all the time and what does it matter as long as it tastes good?
Day Two in Istanbul started a bit late, but we did make it to the Grand Bazaar by about noon. When I initially heard about the Grand Bazaar, I figured I might spend a few hours there, pick up a few souvenirs, and move on to other things. I like shopping, but I am not the sort of person who generally dedicates huge portions of time to buying things.
However, shopping in Istanbul is completely unlike any other shopping experience I have ever had. First of all, the Grand Bazaar is huge. It's this vast labyrinth of shops, bigger than some towns I've been in. They sell everything from jewelry and clothing to ceramics, spices, and chess sets. However, you can't just decide to buy something at the Grand Bazaar and hand over the money; you have to go through a whole complex process.


First of all, there are approximately several thousand shop owners crammed into one small area, and many of them are selling similar goods, so it's necessary to shop around in order to figure out who has the best prices. However, as far as I can tell, anyone who actually pays the price quoted to them by the shopkeeper is utterly naiive. They expect you to haggle with them. They even seem to want you to haggle with them. In some cases, they will haggle with you over prices whether you want them to or not.
For example, I wanted a Turkish tea cup or two. Turkish tea cups are these little glass cups with saucers and spoons that every other person on the street seems to be drinking from at any given time. They're rather distinctive looking and quite pretty, and you can buy whole sets of them in a variety of colors. I didn't want a whole set, though. I just wanted one. Or maybe two. I even found a merchant who was willing to sell them to me individually, but he wanted me to buy a whole set.
"I can't buy a whole set," I explained. "How will I ever take it home?"
"Look!" he said. "Two cups will cost ten lira. One set will only cost you thirty five lira. It is a much better deal."
"I know," I explained. I was completely in earnest. "But it's too big. I don't have room, I just want one or two cups..."
"Thirty!" he offered.
"I can't bring that whole box back to New York!" I exclaimed.
"Twenty-five!" he offered.
This went on and on until, big surprise, I ended up with an entire set of Turkish tea cups, spoons and saucers for what did seem to be a very good price, although there's really no way to be sure. If I put it in my suitcase the airline will probably charge me several hundred Euro for extra baggage. But the haggling was fun, anyway. Especially since Turkish shopkeepers tend to be very entertaining; I guess being personable is part of the job description. They call out to you every time you walk past their stall or stop even momentarily to glance at their goods; "Come inside!" they call, "How can I help you spend your money? Have a look at my garbage; it's cheaper than K-mart!" If you direct your attention to any specific object, they will immediately start extolling its virtues and explaining that they can give you "good price, very good price, just for you." When my father explained for approximately the two hundredth and seventieth time that he did not need a carpet, the salesman answered "Of course! Nobody need carpet!", but of course explained why he should buy one anyway.




By the way, one Turkish lira is equal to approximately seventy five American cents, or sixty-some Euro cents. One Turkish lira used to be equal to approximately one-millionth of an American cent, but I guess they got sick of all of those zeroes and decided to change things.

By the end of the day at the Grand Bazaar, I had a new pashmina, a new dress, some shoes, tea, and some Turkish teacups, but thankfully no carpets. My entire family trudged back to our hotel to rest, and several hours later trudged out again for dinner at a restaurant known for its excellent Imam Bayaldi (that's eggplant stuffed with other vegetables).

Now, here's a question; what happens if you're a guy who's not really into monogamy, and you'd prefer to have a large number of women at your disposal rather than stick with just one? Well, if you go to Grinnell College, you get your name scrawled in ballpoint pen under the "List of Sketchy Guys" in the basement bathroom of the library. But if you are a member of the Turkish Sultan several centuries back, you get a really gorgeous house, a large number of wives and concubines that your mother looks after, and a bunch of Eunuch servants to boot.

This is Topkapi Palace, or more specifically, the Harem of Topkapi Palace. It costs extra to go inside, you have to take a guided tour, and it's not exactly a monument to progressive thinking in regards to gender. However, it is quite spectacular. I'd say that I want to move right in, but that makes my inner feminist cringe and squirm and yell things. So I'm not moving in. But I took a hell of a lot of pictures.


Above is an entry hall and a courtyard where the concubines were presented to the sultan. Below, there's me next to a big fireplace, and some beautiful tiles from some region of Turkey known for its tiles. It might be called Iznik. But I'm not sure.


After the Palace we decided that we were sick of Europe, so we went to Asia for lunch. No kidding. You can do that in Istanbul. All you have to do is get on the ferry, which costs a mere one lira, and within fifteen minutes, you are in Asia. We went to a region known as Uskudar, which is not frequently visited by tourists. It's rather traditional, with a fairly large portion of women wearing headscarves. It was quite a nice change from the tourist-filled streets of Sultanahmet. I was amused by the large number of schoolkids hanging around gossiping over what looked like new report cards. I also spent some time drooling over the delicious fruits and vegetables at the market, and the pistachios. I don't know what's up with those Turkish pistachios, but they are way better than American pistachios ever dreamed of being.
Here is a picture of our Asian lunch. Well, at least, these were the offerings available to us. We did not actually eat all of things in this picture, though we may have been able to if we had really put our minds to it.

After lunch and some wandering through Uskudar, we headed back to Europe, took a brief detour through the spice market...


...and purchased some Turkish Delight from the store that supposedly invented the stuff. I know that I have been somewhat ambivalent about Turkish Delight in the past, but I am keeping an open mind and perhaps I will be delighted after all when I actually get around to opening my box of assorted delights. The pistachio samples they had were really quite excellent, I must say.
And then, sadly, we left Istanbul on the 8pm train. The evening trip was actually quite peaceful this time; there did not appear to be any illicit activity taking place in close proximity to us, and the Greek government let me back in the country without any hassling, which was very nice of them. Well, they did come inside our room and look around, supposedly for customs purposes, but it did not take very long. It was rather brief, actually; I probably could have had several pounds of illegal substances stashed in various corners of the room, and I doubt that anyone would have noticed. However, I didn't, so all is well, although it did take us longer to get back to Thessaloniki than it took my parents to get there from New York. Maybe there was traffic. I really don't know.
And thus I conclude my Turkish Adventure. Perhaps soon I will update again with Vacation Episode III: Olympus, Dion, and the Prespa Lakes.

The Past Two Weeks...

...have been filled with adventure, romance, wonder, celebrations, scandal, cross-c0ntinental travel and more food than I thought it was possible to consume in a month, let alone a few weeks.

I'll start at the beginning, which was approximately December 24th, when Joe, my boyfriend, arrived in Thessaloniki. In fact, here's a picture of the two of us on the waterfront. I actually asked a complete stranger to take our picture, and she did so without running off with my camera, a fact for which I am very grateful. (Perhaps it's because I am from New York, but I am very neurotic about that sort of thing.)
We spent most of the next few days hanging around, wandering through downtown, and sitting in tavernas where I ordered different kinds of Greek food and made Joe try them. As a matter of fact, I would estimate that 85% of December 26th was spent in various restaurants, from the creperie where we had breakfast, the souvlaki place where we sat for two hours at lunchtime, to the waterfront cafe where we had afternoon tea and hot chocolate, and the taverna where we had dinner with some fellow Grinnellians. It wasn't our intention to spend the entire day in restaurants, it just sort of happened, mostly because we discovered that all of the non-culinary establishments were still closed for the holiday and it was a bit rainy. Actually, I think that spending multiple hours lingering over food and hot drinks is a very authentically Greek way to spend a day.
Joe eventually tried pretty much everything I suggested, including retsina, tzatziki, ktipiti (cheese salad), shrimp saganaki (even though the shrimp still had their heads on), domlmadakia (stuffed grape leaves), and a whole bunch of other things. He did not, however, try octopus. I wanted to order it for him, but I managed to come down with some sort of awful fever on the day that I had planned a trip to the seafood taverna, and so we ate noodle soup instead. I did however, show him the octopus for sale at the fish market, which is rather an interesting sight if you've never seen fresh octopus for sale before.
Unfortunately, I could not get him to eat the octopus by washing it down with his favorite alcoholic beverage, as Scruffy American and Enorkos suggested, because Joe doesn't particularly like any alcohol. He just doesn't like the taste. I tried to explain this concept to one of my Greek friends, and he was rather stunned. "You mean, he just drinks wine sometimes?" he asked. "No, I explained. "He really just doesn't drink." My friend looked at me as though I had said "He doesn't like to breathe." I was trying quite hard to hold back my laughter. Alcohol is much more a part of everyday life here.
I was also going to plan a trip to Pelion for us- Pelion is a peninsula in Central Greece which is, I hear, quite lovely this time of year. However, we were slowed down a bit by my fever, as well as the fact that most of Thessaloniki was closed for much of Joe's first few days here. This might be a good time for me to comment on the fact that I never know when the hell things in Greece are going to be open. I'm finally used to the fact that things close for a long afternoon break between 2ish and 5ish. I don't necessarily love that system, since afternoons are, more often than not, the times I have free. I have adjusted, though, and I no longer try to go shopping at 4pm. However, I did not realize that everything would be closed on the day after Christmas, nor did I realize that the buses would run on Christmas but not on New Year's Eve. Oh well. We did make it all around Thessaloniki eventually, including several walks up to the old town, trips to several museums, several trips to my favorite taverna in Athonos Plaza, a walk up to a nearby suburb on a hill, which had some lovely views (unfortunately my camera stopped working that day) and one rather sickly trip to the local masoutis (Greek grocery chain) to buy a thermometer and soup ingredients.
We did take a brief trip to Edessa, which turned out to be quite a lot of fun. Edessa is a town about an hour and a half away from Thessaloniki, and they have very nice waterfalls, and quite a pretty old town. They also have some massive dogs that will follow you around until you manage to convince them that you don't have food. That is quite common in Greece, actually; this whole country seems to be filled with stray dogs, who are almost always massive, docile, friendly, and will follow you wherever you go unless you manage to lose them or pawn them off on someone else. Brad and I were once followed by two big dogs who actually waited outside for several hours while we were at our friend Will's place.


Anyway, here are some pictures from Edessa. It's up on a sort of plateau, so the view is quite nice, especially at sunset. We found a tiny little church from the 14th century there, and a little tiny cave behind the waterfall. We also found the train station, but that was mostly because I got lost on our way to the waterfalls.

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You is Week Two: Emily and her family in Istanbul

Where Am I? Turkey

Churches have been replaced by mosques and Greek letters have been replaced with Turkish and Arabic writing. Charmingly insistent men keep following us around and trying to sell us carpets. Across the Bosphorus is Asia. Cats wander through the streets and nap in the Hagia Sophia under stained glass shadows. Tourists wander in socks across the elaborate carpets of the Blue Mosque, marveling at the breathtaking dome while carrying their shoes in plastic bags.
Plastic forms in store windows wear skimpy sequined belly dancing outfits, but women are wearing head scarves. There are still more men trying to sell us those damn carpets, calling out as we pass "Hey, where are you from? You look Turkish! Welcome to Paradise! Come to my store, best prices, very good prices!"
The sleeper train was kind of like the Hogwarts Express except for the prostitute two doors down who was noisy but still better than dementors. You can hear the call to prayer resounding over the city every few hours, a fact which I find thrilling, despite my father's reminders that a similar thing can be heard in parts of Queens. Overall, I am enjoying myself immensely, and I will post a more thorough update once I have explored this place more fully.

Oh, and the reasons I have been absent from blogger include the holidays, visits from my boyfriend, my parents and my sister, and the fact that I have been out and about, seeing Greece and now Turkey, wandering through Thessaloniki, and being thoroughly unsuccessful in getting Joe to eat octopus (though he did try everything else, including the retsina, which made him cough and exclaim, quite appropriately 'It tastes like a tree!")