Loose the Hounds!

Well I have arrived. I apologise to those of you who were expecting me to post faster or have given up all hope on this site; things have been. . . well, let's leave it as hectic.

I am behind in my posts and despite only being gone for five days I have all kind of stories, but I only have an hour at this computer and it has no place to load any pictures. I will give you an overview of all the happenings and try to relay all of the excitement to you. I will set this up in sections so that it is as chronological and comprehensive as I can make it.

Cracked window, unbalanced airbus, no movie, and a beautiful Russian:
a.k.a The Plane Ride:
This is basically the plane ride here, leaving Cleveland I was and hour delayed b/c of weather, luckily everything else was fine and I had plenty of time in Phili so no worries. The flight to Frankfurt on the other hand. . . oh my.

So first, we board the plane on time and everything looks fantastic, I had five seats to myself. However shortly after boarding I was asked to move to the back of the airplane (an airbus mind you) and find a seat for take off. When I asked why, I was told that the plane was not balanced correctly and to take off the weight needed to be shifted to the back. Excuse Me?! I'm sorry, but an airbus is a massive plane, should it not be balanced all the time? Whatever, I move. . . for the sake of the other people all 175 lbs. of me.

Being the suave de-boner young gentleman that I am I took a seat next to a young woman and that I of course, you guessed it, is where I would stay for the rest of the flight. She turned out to be from Russia, living in the U.S., planning to move to Germany with, of course, her husband. Our window turned out to be cracked and the movies did not work for about half of the flight. Anna, zee future German, turned out to be great company and, while two hours late leaving the tarmac (due to malfunctioning backup breaks) things went well. Getting into Thessaloniki was casual and Soula met me no problem.

Thessaloniki: The arts of the big city and how I fail over and over and over while
still managing to come out on top:

I am sure that I will have many stories to tell about Thessaloniki but here I will tell three.

The ATM: When I arrived I had no Euro on me, I had decided to get all of my Euro from the atm and thought that the need to have some was unimportant. However, up until now, just about an hour and a half ago, I had yet to access my account. The Euro is about 1.70x the dollar right now, the dollar is getting slaughtered. I was hoping to only go to the atm a few times, removeing 600e at a time (about 1000 dollars). My limit through hunington you might ask? 400 dollars at a time. 600e is impossible, but I tried; again and again and again. I have learned my lesson. Fortunatly I have found that I can make 50 euro go a long way.

The Night Out: On the second day I decided to Take a walk down to The Center (downtown). I felt kind of like G'ma Harrington, I walked for 4 hrs. Exciting huh? I got super lost, saw all kinds of ruins, and eventualy made my way home, all by myself (sorry mom). I will post pictures of the city when I post about the city.

The Day with Roxanne: Today, January 18th, I spent my entire time with Roxanne. She is the Shanno Federinko of Thessaloniki; for those of you who know Shannon you will understand. She does everything teaching related and she does it well. I am teaching in her class, or will be. It was a fantastic day and I feel almost at home now that we have gone out. Things are going to be awsome.

So, I know it is vague and it probably doesn't answer a lot of questions, but its a start. I am now running out of time and need to get this posted.

Ian, you might say, is awful at blogging. You would be correct, but this is the reading assignment that is required whether you like it or not. I will get to more details and yes some pictures soon. The problem is that currently my computer is broken. Yes, broken. I am currently shaking it and cursing at it to make it work, soon it will, I think I'm getting through to it.

thank you for your patience. Here's what you have to look forward to in future posts:

• More about Thessaloniki
• Soula and Roxanne
• My plans
• Greek language
• Greek Culture
• And yes pictures!

Peace, love, and happiness,

• Ian