well, i had a three day weekend last weekend (here i can propose the adoption of an international three day weekend with a four day work week. obviously i am not the first to think of this, but i might be its biggest proponent) and while it was not as productive as i would have liked, it was wonderful to be able to relax for at least one day of the weekend. So, for a brief overview, i went out with IT-dimitri on friday night for a couple of drinks with him and his girlfriend and then he and i continued on to a great little place hidden away in some back alleys to talk shop, drink good wine, and the such. on saturday i went with a few of my climbing friends to a place about 40 minutes west of thessaloniki called veria (nothing like adam’s experience except that it was limestone). there are only a few places to climb on rope near thessaloniki and this is the best one so far. that being said there are only about 15 routes, the bolting is atrocious and the tallest routs are only about 20 meters tall. it is nice though, there is a large variety and a small tufa section so i can't complain. i climbed pretty poorly; i have not been on a rope in nearly four months and i was with people who i had never climbed with before, both of which make for a scary experience. I did manage to haul myself up a 6c, the moves felt easy but my endurance is a bit lacking to say the least.
it always interests me when unfortunate events lead to fortunate outcomes. the car that we drove down in broke-down; more broke-down than any car i have seen in a long time. fortunately the cliff sits right on the road and the road empties right into a monastery parking-lot. so we shifted the car into neutral and rolled it down into the parking lot. We were promptly joined by two monks from the monastery. the conversation that ensued eventually led to the five of us climbers having lunch with a couple of super old monks; so amazing. Turns out the monastery dates back to the 9th century c.e. 4 times older than my country and then remember that Thessaloniki was colonized another 1500 years before that; crazy.
sunday and monday were not as exciting. i went on a couple of really good bike rides and slept and did some school work, so there you go all caught up. here are some of pics from the weekend.
