Thessaloniki

I am sitting at the brother's computer in his flat in Greece. It is lovely and warm.

We have spent the past few days wandering around. We watched a Greek Independence Day Parade (but Thessaloniki didn't become independent that day) which involved lots of people marching: people in traditional costumes, schoolchildren, crossing guards, lifeguards, and soldiers. The Greeks are awfully good marchers.

They are also awfully good at making ruins. In addition the the Roman ruins around the city there seems to be lots of half-constructed building that people forgot about or stopped working on midway through a remodel.

Yesterday, we went to the town of Panorama (that pa-NOR-a-ma, not pan-or-A-ma), famous for its view and triangle-shaped custard-filled desserts, both of which were lovely.

There's a new alphabet to contend with here. It shares some letters with cyrillic, so I like to pretend that I can read things. My knowledge of about half of the alphabet does me no good. Even if I can successfully sound out a word, I still don't know what it means. . .

Sunday papers come with DVDs, CDs, and CD-ROMs here. Yesterday, I bought a paper to get a copy of About a Boy. I now also own an encyclopedia CD-ROM (all in Greek) and a 'best of' collection of a Greek singer from the 60s and 70s whose name I cannot read, and a Sunday paper that I cannot read. There are some photos of movie stars in it, though.

The food is amazing. And I'm a fan of ouzo. And the sun is shining. And the company is great.