popi the tour guide.

friday was our day for walking - no wait, every day we've spent walking tons - it was our day for exploring thessaloniki from popi's point of view. as dinner the previous night showed, we trusted her opinion and even though she asked what we minded doing and reminded us to tell her if we weren't happy, we were completely in her hands. and more than happy. we walked along the water and visited a ton of different churches throughout the city - each one large or small, old or modern, on top of a hill or in the middle of the city - was packed with easter services and rituals - my favorite to watch was the women crawling in around and under the float in the sign of the cross and my favorite to do was to light a candle to stick in the sand and pray for my family and obie. woof. i was so impressed with popi and the knowledge she had about each of the churches, the greek traditions and history, religious beliefs and art facts i had forgotten from art history classes. sorry bucknell. i dont know if i could say the same if they came to visit me. there's absolutely nothing culturally important in darien. the country clubs? post corner pizza? portsmouth is beautiful and fun but i dont know anything about it. maybe i'd surprise myself if i had the chance. an introduction to jimmy juices perhaps. 

with a greek easter ahead of us, we decided to have indian food for lunch - down this shadey alley way was the most unassuming spot with spicy goodness that we just stuffed ourselves with. i think i could do my internship in india...we saw a photography exhibition in an old port warehouse. 

we went to an outdoor market where i could have and would have taken food pictures of everything. 

  

we had the most heavenly melt-in-your-mouth dessert -  ekmek katahfi me kahmaki - a spongey syrupy cake topped with buffalo milk butter. mmmm. i don't usually like butter. but this was just....divine.

later in the night the streets were packed with people holding candles to watch the easter procession - each church had their own "float" or epitafios. we met up with a younger cousin of popi's to watch it - again, his english was great but he was embarrassed about it. and then we went to drink raki. plural.