After hopping on the only direct train from Kalampaka to Thessaloniki, it took somewhere around three hours to arrive at my destination. Thessaloniki is a northern Greek coastal city, the second largest with nearly 1 million inhabitants, and it lies in the region of Macedonia. It is a pretty big issue here as to who is the real Macedonia, the country or the region. While it may seem like somewhat of a ‘who cares’ issue to us westerners, the people here care big time and hate each other over it. I don’t know when the disagreement/argument began, but identity is an important thing, so I can understand a little bit.

The city here is pretty big and sprawling, but my hotel is somewhat near the waterfront so I was able to walk along the Mediterannean yesterday. Sure, it was the junky part that was filled with garbage, but it was also home a a lot of jellyfish. I was pretty surprised as I was just walking around down there to see the White Tower, which is an old rampart that has been here for nearly 500 or so years. I was also able to check out the fantastic Byzantine History Museum.

On my way back to the hotel, I came across a park that had some older Greek men playing some sort of card game. I must’ve watched for a good half-hour and have no idea what it was. It made absolutely no sense. I snapped a few pictures after hovering around them for a while trying to not make them feel like a tourist attraction. One guy that showed up as I was finishing kept saying ‘Aghia’, which means church, as he was trying to explain that the thing to take pictures of wa not them, but instead the church behind me. I awkwardly put my camera away and left for a gyro place nearby. Mmmm.