Electra Palace Hotel Thessaloniki

Hallo zusammen

und viele Gruesse aus Thessaloniki in Griechenland. Billigflieger fliegen selten in die ehemaligen Ostblockstaaten, daher sind meine zwei Fluege hier nach Thessaloniki in Griechenland und zurueck von Dubrovnik in Kroatien (an der Adriakueste, die sieht recht viele ...

We got back to Thessaloniki and we were going to have to spend the day there as the train out to Istanbul did not leave until the evening. Our expectations for the day were low based on our previous experience but we actually ended up having quite a good day!

We walked along the water front and saw a massive blue jelly fish which was quite exciting before heading to a pier that contained a few interesting museums and ...

... we were allowed on trains or not. We asked if we needed to make a booking at the station and they told us no but we then got thrown off the train in some backwater town because we didn't have reservations. A helpful Greek guy had come to translate between the conductor and ourselves and when we asked him why the conductor wanted us to get off he just shrugged and said "because he is an *******". We asked the woman in this station if we needxed reservations and she said we ...

... to be extremely disgusting. And it was. I drank it the traditional way, which is with water and ice, but it did not help at all (my friends later told me that it is better when mixed with Sprite). I will never think of black licorice the same again.

After I was finished, I kept strolling around until I found some post cards, then headed back to my room. By this point I was so ready to be in Germany I could hardly stand it. I love traveling, but I just waned to be ...

... on the third morning, maybe even early afternoon, I took a bus to Bursa.

It is in Bursa that I had lived the previous summer for three or four or five months. I can't even remember without checking my calendar. But I'm pretty sure that I felt less humidity this summer than last. Perhaps it was my imagination, but it just seemed better. Still quite warm to hot, but not so suffocating.

I had one purpose for being in Bursa. While living there I had purchased an ...

... and I'd almost finished it already. A bottle of coca cola is the ultimate companion on any train journey- whether it's Oslo to Bergen, Zagreb to Sarajevo or just plain old Stoke to Birmingham. Eventually some Macedonian soldiers told some Swiss backpackers, who then told passed it on to me, that the train would be arriving in five minutes. Ten minutes later I boarded the little train, trying hard to resist the urge to finish my coke before we ...

... reef, and a trip to Oia to see the infamous sunset. Finding a hotel shouldn't be too hard either. We've been told that hotel owners stand at the port and try to convince everyone to stay at their hotel and you can bargain with them to get a great price. All the more reason to get away from Thessaloniki is the fact that I won't have to worry about my Greek class while on vacation. Today I had my first quiz on all of the present and past tense articles, conjugations, verb ...

Classes Day two! After yesterday we were wondering how bad it could get? That was a bad question to ask. Megan didn't exactly have the greatest day and since I thought I had my schedule finalized I thought I would for sure I'd be in the clear. So, I went to my first two classes, Sociology and "Reading and Writing in the Disciplines", and although Megan was in that last class I could barely stay awake for all the teacher's crazy tangents and scatter-brain ...

... of the day. Just waiting on some fresh clothes and might head down to the city for dinner tonight. Last night here in Olympia and then we're off down the coast towards our next destination; Kalamata. 

 

Day 11 - July 8th - Onwards toward Kalamata, stopping in Methoni


Headed out early on our way to our next hotel further down the coast. Drove through a beautiful little coast town called Pilos (place to buy a property if you wanted to live in Greece). Stopped by the ...

... going to be. Since I was having a small scale meltdown at the fact that he was not only wavering on the plan we put in place, but also because he had no better plan in mind! Responding poorly to my response (communication breakdown?), Chad threw up his hands, and without a map or guidebook at my disposal, decided I was now in charge of the travel plans. I will fast forward past the bickering part and just say that in the end, we stuck to the plan and bought our tickets ...