Europe Trip: Day 47, July 6th

Another glorious wake up call complimentary of the Greek government. Trucks, machinery, and maybe even a jackhammer clattered right next to John's window, promising for a fun week or however long it takes to finish their project.

We got out a bit earlier this day, and I was planning on checking out some of the touristy things that I hadn't been able to go into the day before...but reality hit when I found out that it was Monday, and in Europe that means every museum is closed. So I only have photos of the outside of the Rotunda and the White Tower, which makes me feel like all I did was laze about the 3 days in Thessaloniki -- perhaps mostly the truth. Oh well, you can't see everything the first time.

After walking around the city by myself for a while, I called up John and he said he was just about done meeting with this 90 year old man. To give some back story, John is trying to make a website (his personal project) about where he comes from, which is a separate Greek state that lived along the Black Sea. I forget what he name of the country/group was, but they had been forced out by Ataturk in his ethnic purge during the founding of modern day Turkey. This old man actually lived there before that, and was helping John translate a play he had written in the old language.

Anyway, we met up and had a gyros (except his was without meat since he is vegetarian), and then headed back to his place. We played a game of chess, which was quite double edged. I had better development and position, but he had more material and in order to keep my attack going I had to sacrifice even more material, but it paid off with a beautiful Knight checkmate. After that I finished packing up, looked up some information on the places to see in Istanbul, and we were out the door at 6:30pm. I took two buses to reach the train station and got there 30 minutes early, enough to grab a burger at Goody's and pick up a couple bakery goods to keep me going until Istanbul.

Right now I am on the train, I paid 94 euros for the 12 hour trip, but I got my own room/compartment (with a bed). It seems quite nice. John was telling me that there are two different trains, one is Greek and one is Turkish. The Greek one sucks, and the Turkish one is good. Since there is the Turkish symbol (crescent moon and star) on the window and it seems nice, I am guessing this is the Turkish one. I guess I got lucky. It left at 7:40pm and will arrive at around 8am in the morning. I am told that around the border they come and ask for my passport and I have to pay $20 for the visa. My next CS host, Sadi, said he could pick me up at the train station and drop me off at his place. So that should be great!