Olympia Hotel Thessaloniki

... br>
PS- I just asked Andre if he wanted to add anything to the blog and he said this exact quote, “Disappointed. No skeleton of Philip, Alexander the Great’s dad. Very sad.” I will translate: we were told the skeleton of Philip (Alexander’s dad) would be at the archaeological museum but it was not. The man working there said it hadn’t been there in 20 years and he didn’t know where it was now.

... br>
Bin um kurz nach 20:00 gelandet, und um 23:50 dann mit dem Nachtzug weiter nach Sofia. 18,50Euro fuer die Strecke, habe aber noch fuer 10 Euro auf den Schlafwagen upgegraded, da der eine Waggon ziemlich voll war (und ich ausserdem doch recht muede war).

Gruss
Ralf

... galleries. Here we went to an art gallery whos exhibits which ranged from several hundred beer cans arranged in a spiral to a musical video about communism. Top fun!

We also went in to a photography gallery and a museum of cinema which was quite cool. A pretty awesome 3D film at the end as well!

This passed most of the time we needed to kill and we filled the rest with wondering the streets looking around.

... t so we got on another train. This time we were told that the train was not going to Athens and then we'd have to get off and get on a different train. >_< Finally we were on the train we needed to be on having again checked if we needed to reserve and the conductor again informed us that we didn't have tickets so would have to get off. He then phoned the station and shouted at somebody in Greek and then everything seemed to be fine. Thus we arrived in Athens...

... in (and to get to air conditioning- haha more about that later). I got back to my room, ate a peanut butter sandwich (oh- and I was ready to eat something other than peanut butter!), wrote in my journal (but I still wasn’t caught up) and finally went to sleep. I knew I was only going to have about 4 hours of sleep because I had to wake up pretty early in the morning to catch a bus to the airport, so I set my alarm, tried to get as packed as I could, and went to sleep.

... baths, the first thing I experienced in Greece was bathing in a 42 degree bath with 10 other naked Greek guys. Thessolaniki was ok, couch surfed with some cool people and met their friends. Walked around a lot, saw some ruins, ate some decent Gyros, not much else to report. Apart from the weather being great, it was -12 when I left Sofia and 10 when arriving in Thessaloniki, so around 20 degrees difference. Great!

... bottle represents a large percentage of the purchase price, it was worth trying (and going back for another)! Despite our illness, we did enjoy Greek cuisine. We had a lovely meal at an outdoor market in Thessaloniki. Candy finally got to try mousakka after weeks of Ray suggesting in Turkey that she wait until Greece to try the dish. We both really enjoyed a local cheese, Mastella, that is grilled over a fire before being put in pita bread ...

... massive crowd below. We split up between a table and couches across from each other and enjoyed the music and interesting lighting effects they had. We didn't stay too long before some of us wanted to leave for the hookah bar, so we split up again and decided to meet up there later. Jared and I didn't want to take a cab, but we weren't sure exactly where the place was and the other girls didn't want to walk in heels, so we hopped in one. It ended up being such a waste ...

... On to the Temple of Apollo and some shopping downtown!


Another wonderful breakfast and we're away. The trip to the Temple of Apollo was yet another windy road. I don't think there is anything but slightly sickening mountain roads anymore. We got to drive through the valley the 2007 fires ran through and see the massive amounts of dead trees. It was quite something to think that all the small farm towns through the valley had to endure these fires as there is really nowhere ...

... that look over look the water. But it's weird because they all have loud thumping club music, but no dancing. It's just really really loud with lots of people sitting and talking....... it's odd. Alex (the kid from Edmonton) and I went to a museum this afternoon. It was a contemporary art museum...... very contemporary......... like I'm really glad it was free because it was a little bizarre for both of us. It was nice though because we were ...