Week One - Are we there yet? (9/2/2009)

Between having a journal requirement for Northeastern, everyone's urge to know the details of the trip, and Sarah's suggestion to start a blog, I decided to do just that.

If you've been waiting on the edge of your seat to wondrous details of strange lands far away, I'm sorry to disappoint. There's not much to tell at this point. Mostly just waiting...

Waiting on and for planes (9 hour layover in Frankfurt has been the worst of this trip so far)...

Waiting for information overload at orientation to be done so that I could go back to sleep (jet lag. JET LAG.)

Waiting to break away from this group of 80+ Americans so that we'll blend in some more...

Waiting for classes to start so that we'll make some friends who know the area better. Waiting for classes to start so that I know what to expect....

Waiting for it to hit me that I'm in Greece. In Greece for four months. I still haven't absorbed this.

Best photos from week one:
The view from Thessaloniki's old castle walls. The "castle" was originally built as a sort of military post for the protection of the city. Now it's a beautiful spot to sit and take in the city. Because the castle is hundreds of years old, the walls show the wear of the years.
















This is the "White Tower" - creative, right? Apparently this was used as a site for capitol punishment when Thessaloniki (and the rest of Greece) was part of the Ottoman Empire. I guess the tower was so stained with blood they decided to paint it white to cover that up. Gives you a nice warm, fuzzy feeling, right?



A sunset view of the "beach" road. This road lines the waters of the Thermaic Gulf, which is technically the body of water the city touches. The Gulf leads out to the Aegean, and then that to the Mediterranean. A common place to meet and spend some leisure time - you can see why.







This is in the town of Vergina. We took a 1/2 day trip to this small, quaint village because it just so happens to be the place where Alexander the Great's father and son are buried. Lots of really cool artifacts and ruins - all in an underground museum in a random hill in the middle of the town. Apparently the hill was originally created to cover the tombs, and they wanted to leave the ruins underground when they made it into a public museum.