Mediterranean Palace Thessaloniki

... Byzantine museum to visit, and an archeological museum to gander. My favorite site was the White Tower. It’s a big cylinder-shaped tower made out of stone that used to be the end tower where the sea met the city walls. The White Tower used to be called the Bloody Tower because it held prisoners once upon a time and many were executed there. It is white-colored nowadays because a prisoner white-washed it in exchange for his freedom ...

Hallo zusammen<br><br>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!<br><br>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 ...

... is the prime exemplar of Turkish hospitality. And it is genuinely heart-felt. But to my value set (a rather reserved one) his generosity verges on the pathological. It is too much for me, and after so much I begin to feel very uncomfortable about it, even aggravated. In the least instance, wherever we would go on public transportation he would insist (kindly) that I sit. I didn't want to sit. First, it's too hot to sit. Second, there is nothing left between my pelvic bone and the ...

... of the intelligence spectrum, decided to ask a few useless questions. "You are English?" "Yes" (no, I'm actually Latvian, I just have a British passport for ***** and giggles..) "You have a bag with you?" "Yes" (the rather small bag I'm currently using as a foot rest right in front of you) "Where you go?" "Thessaloniki" (because that's where this particular train is going- I don't really have much of a choice). Throughout this the man had stayed ...

... there. Haha! He is loving his Greek class and thankfully is able to teach me the basics since my class completely by-passed all that. He also has everyone here thinking he is the next Iron Chef with all of the meals he creates from virtually nothing. Allie and I are definitely enjoying having him around at dinner time. The other day he created a dish that he likes to call "Galapagos Tortoise takes an Asian Vacation." Don't ask me where he came up with the name, but at ...

... The woman literally could not make a point if she tried! And she has her Doctorate in English... She was a pretty wild professor, but at least the class didn't seem that hard. Of course Jared and I will do our best in all of the classes, but it would be nice if the work was easy so we could spend more time traveling than doing homework. My second class of the day was Greek 201, which I had breaded all day. Between every class I had I spent all day trying ...

... of the year and walking up and down the ruins was quite tiring.<br><br><br>Back to the car for some A/C! We headed towards Sparti, not far down the road from Mistras. Not much in Sparti, other than to say you were there. Straight through on towards Tripoli. We were starving so we stopped off in the middle of nowhere (a cute restaurant in the mountains) for a bite to eat. The food was great and the staff was super friendly. After our meal, I took the wheel so Curtis could get a view ...

... plenty of food, but I've always been one of those people who feels better with a couple dollars in his pocket. I began to search for an exchange office in earnest (this is when I learned that Greek banks don't take Turkish lira. "Only the Bank of Greece takes Turkish lira," every bank teller explained to me, although no one, in three hours of searching, could tell me exactly where the Bank of Greece was located, although everyone was positive that it was ...