Riots in Greece

I am now home, finally over jet lag, and finally done with the rush of the holidays…so I finally have some time to update you all on the past few weeks! As you already know, after leaving Oxford, I went to stay with my friend Heather in Thessaloniki, Greece. Heather is a friend from Stonehill, she is also an Education major and involved in student government, and we are planning on living together this semester when we are both back on campus.

I really enjoyed being in Greece for a couple days. I got to experience quite a few aspects of Heather’s studying abroad program, and now I have a pretty good understanding of what her experience was like. The one thing that held us back a bit were the riots. The first four of five nights I spent in Thessaloniki we just stayed in at Heather’s apartment building. But during the day there was less rioting going on, and we were able to walk around the city. I captured some posted information about the riots, such as meeting times and locations, as below, and some of the devastation of the riots (burned stores, smashed ATMs, and broken windows). For example, the building in the picture below was a Starbucks.

The first full day I was in Thessaloniki we walked up to the old part of the city to see the old city wall. The old city is up the hill behind the center of the modern city, and we were confident there would be no rioters there. There was a great view of the city and the water from the hill:

Heather and I had dinner at sunset in a taverna.

I had my new favorite food: tszatziki (which I know now how to pronounce but do not know how to spell), which is a yogurt with cucumber, dill, and garlic, and the Greeks eat it with bread. We also got fried cheese (like mozzarella sticks), fried zucchini, and chicken. The last night I spent in Thessaloniki, we also went to a tavern, one of Heather’s favorites, where they have the best chicken. That night was an awesome experience because they had a band playing traditional Greek music, and we were the only tourists among all the Greeks doing what they do for dinner all the time. There was even a ten-year -old boy at the table next to us who started dancing to the music. Then his father and grandfather started watching his feet and clapping along with the beat, the next thing you know all the men in the room are clapping along with the beat as he danced.

The next day school was back in session, and we deemed it safe to walk around the city. We did lots of outdoor sightseeing, such as the White Tower, which is the architectural symbol of the city, and is located along the Aegean Sea, and also lots of ruins. It is really neat how the city is built around all the ruins, and the public can just walk through them. I was glad I got to see how beautiful Greece is, with or without riots.

We stopped for gelato and also euros, which are flat bread sandwiches, stuffed with French fries and pretty much whatever else you want. Heather and I kept it simple with tszatziki sauce, chicken, and French fries. Before I left Greece, I also made sure I had a crepe, from Heather’s favorite down the street from her apartment. Nikos, who owned that restaurant, Heather described to me as the mayor of their neighborhood. He was really friendly, and we had a conversation, even though he doesn’t speech much English, and we don’t speak much Greek!

The next day I spent on the campus of the school that Heather attended while she was abroad because Heather had four final exams to take that day! The school was about a twenty minute ride from her apartment, so they have a bus the runs a couple times a day to take everyone to school and back. It was strange to have to prepare for a full day on campus, we packed a brown bag lunch and everything. I just hung around and watched movies and read, but it was cool to get to experience Heather’s school. Then the final day in Greece we had rain! We decided it was the perfect day to go to two of the most popular museums in Thessaloniki, one on the Byzantine empire, and the other more specifically on architecture. But both covered lots of information on the culture of the area throughout history starting back in Roman times. It was neat to see statues of Greek gods and goddesses and other artifacts. The only strange thing was that I almost got kicked out by a guard for hiccupping too loudly! His stern face speaking Greek to me and pointing to the door sure made me stop hiccupping real fast!

Friday night, my last night in Greece, we didn’t get home to Heather’s apartment until 2 A.M., and then we had to leave by taxi to go to the airport at 4:30 A.M. to fly to Italy! So, we decided to not go to bed. That was the first all nighter I have ever pulled! And let me tell you, somewhere between Athens and Rome, around 9 in the morning, that really caught up with me!