Meteora and Thessaloniki

The morning we left the villa took us to the train station where we caught a four hour train ride through some beautiful craggy mountains and wide plains of crops, finally depositing us in the town of Kalambaka, where we based ourselves to see the monasteries of Meteora. "Meteora" is a Greek word meaning "suspended in the air," fitting as it is the site of picturesque monasteries teetering atop rocky precipices that jut straight up to the sky. We arrived after dark and went straight to our hotel, the Tsikeli Pension, which we were able to bargain down to 40 euros a night. Our room was comfy, clean, and with a small balcony with views to the cliffs. George at the front desk was extremely helpful, if extremely in need of a shower.

We called it an early night and awoke early(ish) to catch the bus up to the monasteries, which runs from the center of Kalambaka at 9am and costs about 2 euros to get all the way up to the Grand Meteoron Monastery, the largest, oldest, and highest up of them all. Despite the offseasonality, the monastery was packed with tour groups in paper skirts (as the dress codes require long pants and skirts for women - as well as no exposed shoulders).

We wandered from room to room, eavesdropping on the tour guides and getting whatever info was offered by the informational (read: evangelical) plaques concerning such disparate topics as being faithful to God and how reason is the enemy of God. Some highlights of the building itself were this creepy old ossuary, a museum with incredible displays of period craftsmanship, the rope they used to haul building materials and food up (rather than climb the stairs every time) and, of course, the stunning views from the top.

But two of these museums - even though they were only 2 euros a pop - were enough for us (we're seriously fatigued on museums at this point). Instead, we felt the best use of our time was to wander the roads past all the monasteries and over the valley. And despite the awesomeness of the buildings, the nature was really what was on show here.
Eventually, our path took us down a shaded trail through the hills and back into town where we dined at the recommended Gardenia restaurant and packed our bags for the morning...

...which was not to go as smooth as silk - nor, indeed, as smooth as some sort of polyester/rayon blend. We checked out over an hour before our train and decided to cab it rather than walk the 20 minutes in the heat so we asked the lady at the front desk to call one for us. She said it would be about 5 or 10 minutes before the taxi arrived. We said no problem and waited on the porch. For 30 minutes. At which point, we asked for her to call again. She did... and, after another 10 minutes, she revealed that she actually never got through to the cab company. We failed to flag down any on the road and, by this point, we'd pretty much missed our train anyway, so we decided to just walk and save the money as the next train wasn't for another 6 hours. We started to leave but the lady told us that she finally got through and the cab would be there in 5 minutes. We told her we no longer needed it, thanks, but that apparently wasn't an acceptable answer. She started yelling at us, saying we couldn't just call a cab and then not take, and also threatened to call the tourist police on us. We just kept walking.

We managed to kill 6 without too much hassle and finally boarded the "direct" train to Thessaloniki. Difficultly, however, seemed to be the theme of the day as we a) kept having to move as we didn't have seat assignments and b) almost missed our transfer since this was supposedly direct!
Then, we had to wait another hour in the cold for the transfer train, which, when it arrived, was packed full so we had to stand, smushed in a corridor next to some men who smelled not unlike hobos dipped in vinegar and smothered with liver and onions. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifBut at least our stomachs were growling when we did finally arrive in Greece's second city.

We met our host, Nasta, beneath the old Roman arch Kamara, waiting with another couchsurfer named Steven. She handed us the keys, gave us directions, and sent on our way as she was spending the night out that evening. We, however, stayed in and got to know Steven who turned out to be a rather eccentric Irish cyclist without a bike. But we slept well and were rested for our self-guided walking tour in the morning that took us past Roman ruins sunk into city squares, waterfront boardwalks, and shady parks. We also noticed that Thessaloniki is an extremely young city with a supposed 100,000+ university students and enough shopping opportunities to keep every single one of them constantly carrying a plastic bag from some designer store.

We kinda laid low for the most part, however. We caught a baptism in the central cathedral... and caught a movie in the shopping mall (Burn After Reading). We also partied with Nasta and another Steven (also couchsurfing) when we headed to reggae night at the university. But basically, we were just killing time before catching the overnight train to Istanbul, which was an event in and of itself. The only option for the train was double rooms, so we got one of those and made it our home for the next 12 hours or so. Really pretty fun, actually, as I've only ever ridden dorm-esque compartments on sleeper trains before. Anyway, despite the ridiculous waits at the border checkpoint (wake us up at 2am to exit Greece customs, back to sleep at 230, wake up at 3 to go through Turkish customs, back to sleep right away, wake up again to go get the Turkish visa, back to sleep, wake up again to have passports returned...) we did manage to arrive relatively well rested...