Travel ?

So I did some fun stuff over the weekend. Went to the "Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum" on Saturday with the Field Trip club. It was interesting to see lots of stuff from history that I've been learning about in my ancient Greek History class. I'm glad I took that class! I've never been a huge history buff or all that into ancient history for that matter, but it is pretty sweet to run into thousand year old ruins on my walk downtown!

After that, my friends and I went to the train ticket office to buy some train tickets for Athens for our 3-day weekend this weekend (Monday is "Shrove Monday" an official Greek holiday). They were COMPLETELY sold out of all train tickets to Athens for that weekend!!!! We knew it was a popular travel time, but I guess I didn't realize how popular. So now we're trying to come up with a simpler plan that doesn't involve much travel. We'll see how that goes.

I also went to a hookah bar for the very first time. It was fun and different. We had a cappuccino flavored one and then an orange flavored one. I liked the orange one a little better... it tasted like orange tic tacs!! It was a little annoying however because the whole time they were playing VERY LOUD "clubbing" music. It was louder than anything I could have imagined. It wasn't bad, but for the chill-out atmosphere and relaxing ambience I was expecting some more suitable music. (For anyone who knows about this little joke... they definitely played BOOTS WITH THE FEEEER THA HOL CLUB WAS LOOKIN AT HUUUUUUUURR... lol)

I actually am getting homework now which is nice and bad at the same time. Nice, because I have something to help fill my 5.5 hour breaks. Bad, because none of my professors really tell you what to do for these assignments. For example, I am about to go present in my global marketing class. He didn't really say what to do, so I'm going to talk about Starbucks being kicked out of the Forbidden City in China. It kind of has to do with what we're talking about. I don't really know. We'll see in about an hour from now if I make a complete ass of myself.

My last exciting piece of news is this: I'm going to Berlin for a weekend in March! I bought my plane ticket and everything! I'm going from March 7-10 with 3 other people. There was some talk about it and I pricked up my ears and told them to keep me in the loop because I might go. I still can't believe that I bought my ticket... I don't usually do spur of the moment large expense buys! But I figured that I am here to travel and if there is a group of people already going, why not join them? And this way, I can cross Germany off of my list and I won't have to try and squeeze it into spring break plans. Speaking of which, my spring break plans aren't solid but I'm probably going to be going to Spain, France, England, Ireland, Scotland with another girl. We're going to work it all out this weekend. I'm relying on visiting Anne in Rome to get Italy off my list... (I'm flippin' serious about this, if you're reading this Anne!)

That's all the more excitement for now. I've still got 45 minutes until my last class... So I'll probably be facebook stalking most of you (hey, I have to keep up on what's going on in the Midwest without me). Don't act like you're surprised.

Κολλέγιο Ανατολίας (Anatolia College)

Hello all! I hope everybody's weekend was as fabulous as mine :)

My roommate and I wanted to go out on Friday night but we were not sure where to go yet (the city can be pretty overwhelming-it's very large and everything is in Greek so it's hard to know whats what sometimes). We decided to go around the apartment building and ask other study abroad students what they were up to for the evening. We ran into one girl that I knew from Eau Claire and she said a group of girls were planning on going to a taverna downtown about quarter to ten so we should meet up with them. That sounded good to us and since we're on the first floor right by the staircase, I figured it would be pretty easy to catch them on their way out. Well, they definitely left without us so that was fun. We decided to try and go to a taverna anyways just the two of us.

We got there and it was the same one most of the SA students were hanging out at so we saw lots of people we knew. There is a little area of tavernas - basically they are outside restaurants that are under these big plastic-like tents that are heated. Live music-traditional Greek songs-good food, good people, and lots of good wine.

It was a lot of fun to watch the front door man. At the particular taverna we were at, they had a little gang of people that would try to get passersby to enter their restaurant. They were chasing people down and hassling them. It was pretty funny to watch. But we learned by watching how to get away from them if we are trying to walk by and we don't want to go in. You pretty much have to ignore them completely, keep talking to only your friends, and walk fast and straight ahead. You might get chased down, but you can fight it. By the way, the main guy was wearing GOLD tennis shoes. It was awesome.

At the restaurant, there was a group of Greek guys that sat down at the table next to me and Ali. One spoke English pretty well and was trying to ask me questions about what is what like in America, if it was hard to find jobs, Greek words that I could say, etc. They were super friendly and not creepy at all. They were not hitting on us or trying to take us home or anything like that, they just wanted to chat a little bit. It was very nice.

The food was really good too! I had stuffed eggplant, grilled feta, and HUGE shrimp in a tomato sauce. I'm also enjoying Greek wine quite a bit. I'm not much of a wine drinker, but the wine here tends to be a little bit sweeter which I really like.

We stayed at the taverna until 2 a.m. which is very common here.

The next night (Valentine's Day) I went to a little restaurant around the corner from my apartment with a handful of SA girls. They had fantastic bread at that place. You always get bread at restaurants here and this place also had oil to dip it in. Super yummy. Afterward, we went a few shops down and got some gelato.

On Sunday everything is closed! So I sat in my room all day and caught up on my TV and played games on my computer. Exciting, I know. I still don't really have any homework. I can't believe I actually WANT homework. It's pretty boring. Like right now, I still have another 2 hours and 45 minutes until my next class. I'm partially through my 5.5 hour break. Woot.

So here's some photos of my school that I took today. Don't like the sunshine fool you, it's actually kind of cold out. No snow, but the high today was 40 plus it's windy by the sea so with windchill it was probably closer to 30-35.

The last photo is from the top of our little bridge over to upper campus. The American College of Thessaloniki (ACT) is the name of my campus which is only 2 buildings and approximately 400 students. The upper campus is the high school and middle school and some sports facilities. The whole area is called Anatolia College. It's very beautiful. There are mountains all around, and from the top you can even see the sea (Aegen sea, we're actually on "Thermaikos Bay").

The middle photo is of the library and the FIRST photo is of "The New Building". Apparently, there was no need for them to name the building other than the new building. Three of my classes are in that building, I think there are less than 10 classrooms in there. My last class is in the basement of the library, and there are probably less than 5 classrooms down there. It's really weird to go to such a small college. I thought Eau Claire was small!! The entire campus has less students than my graduating class in high school.

So there you have it. Now I'm going to go search the internet for places in Greece to take a long weekend to. My roommate's birthday is the first weekend in March and there is some holiday here that we get school off on Monday. So long weekend on an island, perhaps? I hope so. We'll see what happens/if I have enough money!!

PS: I'm not taking the Greek language course here so I'm not 100% certain that my title translation is correct :)

Back to school

I've gone to all 4 of my classes as of yesterday. I am very excited for the classes here not only because they will most likely be way less challenging than my studies at Eau Claire but because they should be fairly interesting. I'm taking History of Ancient Greece, Global Marketing, Operations Management, and International Economics. So far it seems that my econ class will be my favorite (big surprise there... I'm a total nerd). The professor is really awesome. He is very animated and funny so I should at the very least, stay awake during his class.

I did have to buy books today. And let me tell you, what an awful experience. I'm pretty sure I could have bought a months worth of food for that chunk of change (193 Euro = 250 Dollars) so that SUCKED ASS. I guess I'm pretty spoiled with my book rental at UWEC (which I am WELL aware of). I did get back $100 from taxes already, so we'll just say that my books were on Uncle Sam this time around.

The weather has apparently been much nicer than normal thus far. Usually in the 50's and fairly sunny. Yesterday was BEAUTIFUL out, but I spent most of my time on the city bus to school, then in class, then the city bus back home. I guess that the next few days its supposed to get much colder and maybe even SNOW. I'm interested to see what snow is like here because according to most of my econ class, the Greeks will absolutely freak out when it snows. They figure that it only snows 1-3 times a year, why should they bother getting ready for it? School may also close down, depending on the amount we get. This is all rather hilarious to me, as I remember going to school in 3 feet of snow with -20 in windchill temperatures (because it really should be -40 to be considered "cold").

I'm still trying to adjust to the whole "lack of things to do". On Mondays and Wednesdays I have a 5.5 hour break between classes. It's rather pointless to try and get all the way back to my apartment and then back to class because I feel that this is a waste of a good 0.50 bus ticket. I've just started this super long break and am currently sitting on the top floor of the library, clacking loudly on my keyboard to type this blog :) Maybe I will get some homework soon and will be able to get much studying done during these breaks. I'm not used to all this free time!

I got my I.D. card today. It's kinda funny, actually. It's just a white card with a red strip on the top with "ACT" in the corner, my horrible photo (which they took with a digital camera), and three lines of words. "Demalignon Lucy, ACT student, 20080269" That's it. Very plain and simple. Don't even know why I need this other than checking out books at the library.

I don't have any more news really. All is well in Thessaloniki! I shall post again the next time I feel like it :)

Photos from Thessaloniki

Photobucket Album

I'm OK!

Sorry to all for not posting! I have not had internet! I got into Thessaloniki on Monday afternoon :) So far everything has been awesome. I absolutely love it here. I love the town, the people, the food, the language, everything!!!

My roommate is awesome. She goes to Northeastern University in Boston (she's not from Boston so no crazy funny accent). We are very similar. So much so that it's actually starting to scare me a little bit. Our apartment is small but not cramped. We went to IKEA a few days ago to buy a few pots and pans. And we are both cheap skates so it worked out great! Bare minimum for us :)

School starts Monday so I haven't been to classes yet. However, I've been on the campus for orientation and it is very nice. It is only 2 buildings and one of them is the library. There are only 400 students in the entire school (a little less than my graduating class at North) so this should be very interesting.

The town is awesome! It is very much a LATE LATE LATE night party town. People don't even go out until 11 or midnight and they stay out until 4 a.m. or later. I went out for the first time two nights ago with a huge group of study abroad students (all the Americans, there's about 90 of us mostly from Eau Claire, Boston, Tampa FL, and some school in Iowa). We went to a really cool bar "Taverna" with live music. The band played all blues and classic rock so it was nice. It was fun for me because in the States I'm not yet allowed to go out late or even drink. I laughed at me and Allison (my roommate) because we drank Guiness and Whiskey at the Greek bar! LOL. It's nice here though because you don't drink to get drunk rather to relax and have a good time. Allison and I split some Greek wine our first night and it was amazing. I highly enjoyed it. We were also served wine with lunch at school.

We just got back from hanging out by the sea and drinking "Frappe" with Baileys in it. Whipped coffee :) Very tasty, and very common around here to have frappe. The buses are easy to use and very frequent even late into the night. But it is also OK to walk lots of places here, the town is rather safe and friendly (obviously I'm still careful so don't worry about me too much).

This is starting to get pretty long but I'll have photos up as soon as I can. But I figure I'll be here for four months so I will have more than enough photos to share.

I miss you all but I am having a great time so I'm not too sad yet! Love to all!