Our first day

Breakfast on our first day, we were all up and ready at 8 am, which for us was actually 7 am as there is one hour's time difference here in Thessaloniki. It was also good as we had only gone to bed four hours before, more or less.

Anyway we found the dining room and sat down to coffee and croissants. The first person I saw as I walked in was one of the German students Rico. "Hey Nico, how are you?" I said, " no it's Rico, " he answered. Damn! As we were eating all the other countries slowly started to arrive. The germans, the Polish etc. etc. It was fun to see familiar faces come in through the door.

Eventually the other teachers also arrived and we were able to greet old friends and introduce them all to Jordi.

Soon we were all on the buses again and travelling through the streets of Thessaloniki on a guided tour. We picked up a guide and were told all about the city as we drove around. Soon we headed up towards what we were told is the old part of the city, the part of the city inside the old city walls. Here we stopped and got off the bus to admire the view. Before carrying Jordi down we all decided not to tell any jokes!

The view was spectacular from the point just outside the walls. We could see all across the bay and even to Mount Olympus on the other side, something that you can't often see.







The different groups were still a little wary of each other and were only talking in their own groups. While we were there I started talking to one boy from Cyprus, Marios, and as he said he is a Barça fan I called over Gemma and introduced him to her... because she is a Real Madrid fan. Slowly some of the students started talking to others and when group photos were taken we all got a little mixed up, which was good.










Our tour continued with a visit to the waterfront and the White tower. This, they said, is perhaps the most emblematic of the tourist attractions in the city. It is a tower built during the time of Ottoman rule and was used as a prison and for torturing the local people. They told us the tower was painted white to hide the marks of the blood.











More group photos.



















After the tower we went of to see a church, I can't remember the name at the moment, in the centre of the city. A very spectacular building inside it was really nice to see, and also nice to see inside that the students were already talking between themselves.











































It was beautiful weather and very pleasant down by the sea. The afternoon was reserved for project activities and Nikos had told us that we would have something to eat at his school at about four in the afternoon as the students' parents were bringing in food for everyone. This sounded a little late to most of us so we got the driver to drop us near the hotel and most of us got something to eat from places around there, kebabs were very popular.