I don’t need to tell you how warm it is, I hear you’ve been having a very real and very humid heatwave back in the UK. You’re not making it up, even 25 degrees at home feels unbearable whereas 34 degrees here feels pretty wonderful. I’m convinced walking along the waterfront on a daily basis has increased my life expectancy by at least ten years.
I’m surprised by how instantly at home I’ve felt, I’ve only been here a week but everything feels so familiar and comfortable. Greece reminds me a lot of Jordan, in aesthetic and in feel, so maybe I’ve just found the way I should live; bathed in sunlight and surrounded by falafel. I’m also similarly surprised by how happy I was spending so much time on my own, especially because working from home at home drives me to the brink pretty much daily. Here though, the first few days before I met anyone, it was just me and the seafront and the one coffee chain I found that stocks soy milk. You could speculate that the only words I’ve learnt to say in Greek are ‘soy milk’, I could not possibly confirm.
I’ve already met so many great people, been made to feel so welcome, and had the opportunity to do things I never thought I would do in such a short space of time. I’m happy, and excited and actually kinda proud - because I’ve worked hard, volunteering and language learning, for the past few years, and it really feels like I can see it in action. That’s all I’m going to say about that for now, because one week in who knows what the next month is going to bring, but I don’t think I’ll ever regret taking this decision.
If you were wondering then yes, everything is very much in Greek, and no, I do not understand any of it. I don’t anticipate learning to read anything in the next four weeks, because adding another alphabet into my arsenal just isn’t on the agenda right now. I want to have basic polite phrases down but I’m also relying on my favourite combination of lots of smiling, and some pointing.
Thessaloniki is truly beautiful, I’m not here because it’s beautiful, but what a wonderful coincidence. It satisfies the need I was starting to feel to get out and explore somewhere new, because so much of what is here doesn’t take any hunting out. Everywhere I turn there seems to be another church or Roman ruin to discover. It’s already taken years to build the city metro because they keep finding a new layer of some civilisation or other which used to live here.
The plan for the next month is more Greek food, more sun, and hopefully finding time to get to a beach.
Did I mention I love the sea?
*****
I’m on Twitter - @clairegillesp - where I can’t really use the new layout properly so I keep going to my DMs instead of my profile. It is less going down in the DMs than it is I am trapped in the DMs.
I’m on Instagram - clairegillesp - what can I say, it’s still all about Greece with a bit of self-promo thrown in.
There is a Facebook page - Mots de Claire - for this blog now! So if you do not follow me on Twitter (even if you do) but still wish to be updated on the goings-on over here then please ‘like’ it and I swear these will be more regular now because it will be horribly obvious if they’re not.
This week I’m listening to Stormzy and nothing else (like every other week) - Cigarettes & Cush, Blinded By Your Grace Pt. 2, Velet/Jenny Francis - and the rest of the album.
xx
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