Photo Friday: The Old and the New in Thessaloniki, Greece

In Thessaloniki, the old and the new collide. One moment you're looking at lined pavements and 80's buildings, and the next there's a giant archway from goodness knows when BC in the middle of nowhere.

Like it's such an everyday thing - ancient civilisation meets 21st century.

One of the big highlights of Thessaloniki is its White Tower, named because it was once whitewashed by a prison inmate and the name has stuck ever since (even though all the white is gone by now).



I'm a pretty petite girl, so it was pretty surprising to me that there were doorways in this building that I actually had to bend down for.



Although to be honest I didn't care all that much for the museum that now occupies the space, the view from the top of the tower is nothing short of stunning.

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Views from above in Thessaloniki, Greece

Thessaloniki was Greece's old capital, and although even today it's not the most touristy of cities I liked that it was that way. Friendly people, great sights, lots of sun - everything Greece should be and more.

I loved that there were so many references to old Greek philosophers all throughout Thessaloniki. Aristotle Square, places named after Socrates and Plato. First, though - the challenge of deciphering Greek letters and learning how to read Greek! (I'm proud to say that I think I've become pretty decent at pronouncing Greek letters by now.)



With Phyllis and Steven, we got lost walking around the streets of Thessaloniki and checking out cool street art and beautiful graffiti.



There was a lot of street food too - including delicious cobs of grilled corn for lunch.



To watch the sunset, we climbed up Thessaloniki's main hill to the city walls.

It was an extremely tiring two-hour climb in the hot Thessaloniki weather (although we could have taken a bus, and goodness knows how many number 23s we saw while walking up that hill) but at least we got to stop for nice views in between.



The old Thessaloniki city walls looked strangely out-of-place, ruins of fortresses next to newly built residential apartments. It's unusual to see history and modern life so close next to each other, but I guess that's just the way Thessaloniki is.





Right at the top of the city walls, we came to a tower that looked out and across the city, and watched the sunset from there.













Although we were icky and sweaty by the end of our climb, it was great that we got there just in time to see the sunset - and having worked hard for that view made everything about fifty times more gorgeous.



Watching the sun set over the old Grecian capital, bathing the world in swathes of gold.

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Photo Friday: Going to school in Thessaloniki, Greece

In Thessaloniki, I Couchsurfed with an amazing girl named Giota who was great at showing me around the city. There's a little community venture that aims to promote education held in a block of ex-Sunday School classrooms, providing fun, free classes in a fun environment for its students - people can just sign up for classes and not pay a dime.

The community is called Σχολείο, or School.

Giota showed me a room where her Japanese language class had painted One Piece manga characters on the wall.





Because everything about this community venture is voluntary, the only source of income for the entire project is its bar - where I had my first Greek coffee, which I really liked.



Everything is painted in bright, fun colours.



Although it was such a simple thing, it made me think about the cost and principle of education. People may be able to afford going to school, or they may not - but it's great that no matter what, School makes sure that there's always a place for everyone to learn something.

Somehow it reminded me of the wisdom of Greek philosophers in times long ago.

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Listen to Tuesday: Sigur Rós

Although they're one of the best things ever to happen to humanity, it still surprises me that there are people who haven't heard of this fantastic Icelandic post-rock band.

I adore Sigur Rós. So much so that when I was in Iceland in March, I made a special trip out to Mossfellsbær where Sigur Ros's studio is.





[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700"] Touching the handle which Jónsi must have touched.[/caption]



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700"] Listening to Sigur Ros outside their recording studio.[/caption]





Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust is the 2005 album by Sigur Rós, and easily the most accessible. It's a brilliant album, with some amazing songs - and in my opinion one of the best albums ever to have been produced.

Ara batúr is probably one of my favourite songs ever to have been written - there's something magical about it, when the piano comes in softly in the second half of the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VvB_UmmIzk

Listen on Last.fm, purchase on iTunes or Amazon.

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Travel towels

A great many of us often have trouble packing. There's no shame in liking our creature comforts - we like having absolutely everything on us, all our body lotions and shampoos, and a whole host of gadgetry.

Goodness knows, I'm guilting of taking all the tech I own with me when I travel - my MacBook Air, iPad, iPhone, Canon 550D, and Kindle. (In my defence, I need to blog - so tech is non-negotiable.)

Because I often fly with budget airlines, I don't check in anything - which means that everything I take with me needs to fit in my RyanAir-sized carry-on bag. As of right now, I have been travelling for nearly a month with just my carry-on! I try to save on space in my bag wherever possible, and here is my secret to saving a lot of it: travel towels.

Travel towels are very different from your normal fluffy big towels. They're made of a super-absorbent microfibre material, which means they work just like your regular towels but take up a sixth of the space.



Although you won't get the huge fluffiness of usual towels, travel towels are absolutely perfect - they fold up so small that they barely take up any space at all, and they have the same absorbance capacity as usual towels, so it isn't difficult to use them at all!

Of course, not to forget this most important of quotes about towels:

“A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”

So that's my travel secret for keeping my bag packed light. What's yours?

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Photo Friday: Keeping time in Greenwich, London, England

Greenwich in London is best known for being home to the Prime Meridian, or the absolute centre of time. Well, when I mean time, I really mean that if you've ever heard of Greenwich Meridian Time or GMT, this is where GMT +/- 0 is.

Greenwich is also home to some really nice grassy places that make for awesome picnics in bright, sunny weather.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600"] Loving these hair chains for summer![/caption]



Before getting to the Meridian proper, there's a museum on the history of clocks and timekeeping.



Also some pretty nice views over Greenwich and London.



Did you know that the phrase "on the ball" comes from this time ball?

The time ball on Greenwich could be seen from the river Thames, and would be raised to halfway up at five minutes to the hour and all the way up at two minutes to the hour - and back in the day, this is how ships got accurate time! The earliest pendulum swing clocks didn't work out at sea due to the rocking motion of the boats.





After walking through the whole museum we found the Meridian Line, which is built into the floor and shows the longitude of various countries around the world!





[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700"] I found Singapore![/caption]



There's also a functional dolphin-tail sundial that tells you the time by the shadow that's cast.

(I checked the time on the sundial against that on my phone. It was impressively accurate.)





I went to the Royal Observatory and planetarium.





Here is a fragment of the Gibeon meteorite which is probably the oldest thing on this planet - it's a crazy 4.5 billion years old!



Inside the planetarium, while waiting for the show to start we saw some pretty lights dance around the rim. It reminded me a little of the aurora.

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