As mentioned in a blog post below by Mark, we are in Thessaloniki during a particularly interesting time. What struck me the most about it, beyond the ridiculous lines at the ATMs that only dispense fifties, (which are perhaps the most inconvenient denomination of currency), was that for all the news stories coming from the rest of Europe, and all the doomsday predictions, Thessaloniki really does not seem to acknowledge that there is a problem. When the banks closed, we expected riots, we expected protests and we expected something to change, but honestly? Almost nothing did.

The one thing that does show a level of consideration to the economic situation are the sales. Every store here is having a sale. Sure, not a single one say it’s a “We’re out of money so prices are reduced” sale, going for the more marketable “summer sale” and “limited time reductions” but we all know what it really is. Primarily I have seen sales on clothes and jewelry. Necessities (ie, when I go to the grocery store because I want a giant 2L bottle of water), have stayed pretty much the same price. But anything that’s not food, which has occasionally increased in price (The place across the street from the hotel where they know my order when I walk in, now charges me 6.20 for my stuffed zucchini rather than 6.00), the price has drastically decreased.

Sales

Sales

SALES

Everything is on sale

This makes for fantastic souvenir shopping. Thessaloniki is not really a tourist city. Though they have plenty of monuments, UNESCO and otherwise, they lack the dime-a-dozen, cheap and plastic tourist oriented shops you see on every street corner of Rome or Paris. You really have to go looking for things to bring home to commemorate your stay, and these sales have led to most of the group going shopping in the past few days.

I discovered the other day while talking to Nikos that Thessaloniki does not have any malls. The culture here is more oriented towards socialization. This lends itself to large markets, covered and otherwise, shops right alongside churches and residential buildings and huge open squares. The main square of the city, Aristotelous, has dozens of shops. But anywhere you walk you will find them along the side of the road. This trend towards greater socialization seems to be common across Greece. Everywhere I have travelled (so far), there has been outdoor markets, shops along the walkways and huge central squares. Even the rest stops for buses along the highway have huge outdoor patios where everyone sits with their coffee before returning to the buses. (Also, the rest stop views are amazing. Every single one has a fantastic view. It’s ridiculous).

What even is this? A rest stop shouldn’t look this awesome.

Food here is a huge reason to socialize. Dinner here takes forever, and we discovered that you can’t get lunch before 1pm because before that it is coffee time.

There are plenty of weird quirks about Thessaloniki; everyone here smokes, there is an anarchist building across the street from the hotel

Not a joke

(also anarchist graffiti everywhere), you rarely see women with both their shoulders and their knees uncovered (it’s one or the other except at the beach ) and people just live their lives around millenia old monuments.

However, for me, the most disconcerting Thessalonian trend is the mannequins.

I have no pictures of scary mannequins because I go out of my way to avoid them. Enjoy this giant lion statue instead.

I don’t know why, but the mannequins here are infinitely more terrifying than the ones back home. (And this is coming from someone who has walked up to a mannequin in the states and asked for directions and then screamed when they weren’t a real person). I’ve seen a mannequin with the head of a much smaller doll. One whose chin is so prominent it looks like one of my more deformed sims. Elongated necks, terrifyingly soulless eyes, ridiculous positions and blizzard expressions all come together, in every single window of every single store along the walk from class to the hotel to create a terrifying subculture on non-human terror. All I have to say is that I’m not one-hundred percent convinced that they aren’t Autons.

Words of advice from Dr. Who

(Press play to experience “knowledge entering life”)

Coffee and Princeton are like East and Pyne. Like orange and black. Like Woodrow and Wilson.

It’s ingrained in our daily routines: one cup before a 9am lecture, an afternoon Witherspoon’s pick me up, a midnight study-inducer, the infamous, “Let’s grab coffee sometime!” I didn’t think I would ever visit a place where coffee was as important as college, but then I came to Greece.

Thessaloniki is a city of cafés. By my count, there are approximately 2.14 coffee shops for every citizen. The coffee culture means cafés are public gathering places for people to discuss the economic crisis, smoke a cigarette, and enjoy a frappé. Cafés line the streets with outdoor seating and awning-covered tables perpetually occupied by teens, pensioners, and families.

Mikel Logo: “Maybe” this is the founder

The most popular café, Thessaloniki’s version of Starbucks, is called Mikel, presumably abbreviating its tagline, “Maybe It’s Knowledge Entering Life.” My classmates and I couldn’t possibly pass up the chance for knowledge to maybe enter our lives, so of course it was one of our first stops when the inevitable caffeine-pains hit. As the saying goes, when in (the) Rome(an Empire)…

And in this part of the ancient Greco-Roman Empire (see, we are learning history here too), the coffee to drink is called a frappé. Not your average Starbucks milkshake, a Greek frappé is a version of iced coffee topped by a dense bitter foam meant to be thinned with water. Delicious, and so different than anything I’ve ever had in the U.S.

The dregs of a Greek frappé coats my appropriately orange cup

Mikel is my favorite study spot and where I feel most like a real Greek, even if I can only drink coffee like one. Like the Greeks discussing the present economy as I study Thessaloniki’s past glory, I reassure myself: Maybe it’s knowledge entering life.