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 :)
No comments:
Post a Comment