When do they eat??

We have arrived! Day two of exploring Thessaloniki. It’s a really interesting city, at least the area within walking distance of our hotel. It’s a city, with traffic and graffiti and pigeons flying all around, and the you peek down a side-street and it’s a cobbled street with orange trees and old, charming buildings with cute little cafes or tavernas. Or you’ll be walking down the street and see shoe shop, shoe shop, clothing store, old church, pharmacy, clothing store, all sandwiched together. On the map, it looks like where I’ll be living isn’t too far away, so I think it will be more of the same. I like what I’ve seen so far.

We spent today visiting the White Tower, the symbol of Thessaloniki, and walking along the sea wall. It’s chilly, but warm enough to be comfortable walking (unlike home, where you guys were just hit with 16 more inches?!). We’re going to go back out to buy a comforter, towels, dishes etc since most of those stores will be closed tomorrow, and visit more museums and churches this weekend.

As far as speaking Greek goes, walking down the street I can sound out most of the signs but don’t always know what it means. I have trouble reading crazy fonts, it makes it more confusing. I’ve used a little Greek so far, mainly to ask for the check and the location of the bathroom.

It’s obvious we’re in a foreign country, though. Here are some things I’ve noticed already:

• Everybody smokes. Not only does everyone smoke, but they smoke everywhere all the time. In America, you hardly see anyone smoking, and when they do smoke it’s in designated areas, but here there are no “no smoking” signs. We saw one no smoking table in the middle of a restaurant.
• Motorcycles and scooters don’t follow traffic laws. Pretty much when you see one coming, be careful, they weave in and out of traffic, go on the sidewalks, ignore traffic lights.
• The dogs: Just like in Athens, they have an interesting way of dealing with strays in Thessaloniki: instead of shelters/euthanasia, strays are neutered/spayed, given vaccines, and then pretty much released back to the street. Food is left out for them but mellow mutts just roam the streets, take naps on sidewalks, outside of cafes. If they weren’t so dirty I would probably pet them and get some weird disease. And either we are being stalked by one determined dog, or all the strays look really similar.
• When the heck do these Europeans eat?? Last night we went to dinner at 7ish, even though we know that was early, but we were still the only people there when we left at 830. Then today we went to lunch close to 1, and still no dice. Aren’t you Greeks hungry, ever? I can’t wait that long to scarf down all these delicious dishes.
• The only explanation as to why they’re not hungry is that they just continually fill themselves on coffee and biscotti. Around 1230 we walked into what we thought was a restaurant, as it was full of people, but was in fact a café—everyone was just sitting around drinking coffee, and two hours later it was just as packed. Literally every hour of every day, the Greeks are just chilling drinking coffee and chatting with friends. Also, it seems like people prefer to sit side-by-side at a table than across from one another, which makes me uncomfortable as an American.
• Everywhere we’ve been they’ve provided us with some kind of free, delicious dessert afterwards. I’m torn between thinking this is something we should implement back home and thinking that this is how they plan on killing me.
• Starbucks is literally everywhere. The other “American” things we’ve seen have been Ruby Tuesday’s, Pizza Hut, and Applebee's advertising an “All-American Burger”. Yee-haw!

That’s all for now. Is this ridiculously boring? I don’t know how to blog! Mehhh