It was off to Greece for the two of us last weekend.  We went on a UN-sponsored bus trip to Thessaloniki, Greece for a two night stay and had a great time in spite of the constant rain.  We left Prishtina Friday afternoon and the trip took nearly 6 hours, including the time for border crossings into Macedonia and Greece.  After finding our hotel we were hungry, but at nearly midnight we were concerned that we might have trouble finding a place to eat.  However, Thessaloniki lived up to it's reputation as one of the world's top party towns and we had no trouble at all finding a good meal.

The next morning we heard marching band music and saw a parade passing by a couple blocks away from our hotel, and it turns out we were there for a very special weekend.  They were celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Ottoman Empire's surrender of Thessaloniki to the Greek Army, which was just one of the more recent historic events in the history of the town.  Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece and was founded in 315 BC and was then the major city in the eastern part of the Roman Empire.  After the fall of the Romans it became the second most important city in the Byzantine Empire, then the Ottomans captured it in 1430.  Needless to say, lots of history and too many interesting sites to see on a weekend trip.  But, we did our best in spite of the fact that some city buses were shut down due to the parades and many historic sites were also closed all weekend.  Our trip back on the UN bus went a little faster since the border crossings went a lot faster and we got back to Prishtina by 7:30 PM.  That would normally be early enough to catch a 4 euro bus back to Prizren, but since Kosovo was still celebrating the Muslim Eid holiday the buses weren't running, so we did a 50 euro taxi ride back home instead. 

We were tired after the trip so this blog posting had to be delayed a bit. Annette's teaching load keeps getting harder as more and more students come to her classes.  She now has over 40 in each class and more seem to come every day even though it is the 5th week of the semester.  We also had a lot of planning and running around to get ready for the Halloween party at the American Corner.  As the resident Americans we were getting the candy and other stuff for the party, so it was a very busy and tiring week.  But, it was fun and the kids seemed to have a lot of fun.  I even enjoyed it, and I don't even like Halloween!  We are off to dinner and a play in a few minutes.  We will post lots of photos of Thessaloniki soon.