Snuggled up with Nymph of the Thermaic Gulf

'Nymph of the Thermaic Gulf' doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but that's Thessaloniki's adorable nickname. We've been here a few days now and we certainly still adore this place. We took the last direct ferry of the season to Thessaloniki from the island. On the ferry ride, we saw a lovely sunset over the mountains, including Mount Olympus, and other than having to watch some (COVID) rule-flouting, heavy drinking German families, it was a pleasant ride. Our pals, Haris and Gianni, were sweet enough to pick us up at the ferry port at 10pm (that's still before dinnertime, Greek style!) and drive us to our month-long rental apartment. We managed to cram our bags into their little car and we're now sleeping in the town we intend to live in for a year. It's surreal and exciting to say that.

We're renting an apartment in an area called Analipsi for a month so we can search for a longer-term apartment. When browsing for rentals, it's often the case that pictures exaggerate the size of things like balconies. But in this case, it's the opposite. We could practically host a tennis tournament on our balcony (pics below). The apartment has what we have coined 'yia-yia chic.' Yia-yia is the greek word for grandmother. Often the apartments in Greece are: 1) places where the yia-yia lived for decades and now the (surviving) family is renting it out; 2) a sterile, white/gray hastily renovated, Ikea-furnished hotel-style apartment; or 3) frumpy student housing. Unlike younger generations, we're more put off by newly slapped up gray paint than by vintage brown furniture, so it's yia-yia chic for us!

Over the past few months, we have been checking out online listings for Thessaloniki apartments to get an idea of what's available and it's mostly category #3. We were repeatedly drawn to one place that looked great a few weeks ago but it seems to be rented, which is a bummer. Yesterday we went to see the only other place we thought seemed promising based on the online photos. And with that visit, we've reached another level of education about how business is done in Greece. We arrived at the apartment and the owner made us tea (and believe it or not, she offered us maple syrup(!) to sweeten it) and we sat on the balcony with her for an unhurried chat about life. Honestly, Greeks are some of the hardest working people we know (despite their reputation), but somehow there's always time for a two hour coffee break. It's a paradox of this country...or is it?! The apartment is nice and we need to decide whether to go forward with it or not, as well as how much haggling to do. Decisions...

We swung by Haris and Gianni's fruit and veg shop and it was cool to see some drawings I've done of them hanging in their shop. I've now had my art exhibited internationally 😊! I had done a silly portrait of them holding gargantuan vegetables and another of their shop. Both works are enlarged and now have pride of place in their shop.

In the late afternoon yesterday we met one of Sam's online Greek language tutors (thanks to Tina for telling us about an online tutoring resource!) for a coffee and we had a fun chat with him. And, in classic Greek fashion, we chatted for nearly 3 hours and he had to sort of rush at the end to finish his frappe. Meanwhile, we finished (decaf) coffees in a slow (for us) speed of maybe 45 minutes? We're getting better at drinking coffee at snail speed, as Greeks do, but we still have much to learn.