Short newsflashes

Tear gas
Last week (thursday) we (Mieke, Marielle, Marijn and me) wanted to have dinner at Leski, but when we walked onto Egnatia street, we walked in the middle of a cloud of tear gas!! That was really awful, all tears, and pain in our throat and noses.

Change of room
Last tuesday I heard about the opportunity of changing rooms. There were still 4 rooms empty. So I took my chance and decided that I wanted to have another room. Instead of being in 22 on the ground floor, I am no in room 4 on the second floor. This means that I have to walk 2 extra stairs, but I do not have the noise of the cleaning lady anymore, no noise of people going out and coming in quite late and noisy. I also do not walk into a cloud of smoke of the landlord and the cleaning lady anymore. And my balcony and bed are bigger... ;)

Documentary Festival
Last week (16-25 march) Thessaloniki had its Documentary Festival. Totally enthusiastic we got a book with all movies in it, including their time and place. After spending the whole afternoon reading and discussing, I had made a list of documentaries I wanted to see. Unfortunately, today is the last day and the only documentary I've seen was the one on tuesday, in which I also felt asleep. Too less time, too tired, etc...

Marco
There is more to tell. Last week, Marco (a Dutch guy, who also lived in Matsi) had to go back to Holland. He has chronic hyperventilation and ever since he got here in Greece he didn’t feel well. He spent a lot of time sleeping and being dizzy. So he finally decided to go back to Holland. Because we all felt really sad for him (still do), we bought a big Greek flag and the students that he spent time with, all wrote something on it. The next saturday morning all the Dutch people accompanied him to the airport where we had to say goodbye. Poor guy*

Courses
At the moment I follow all possible courses (which are 7, because for the 8th one, one has to be much more technical than I am). I really don't know which one to drop at the moment, so I will just follow all of them until I'm more sure.
Which means that:

Monday: I don't have school
Tuesday: Interview, Talk and Discussion from 12-3
Wednesday: Globalization and the Arts from 10-12
International Relations of the EU in the 21st Century from 12-2
Media Management from 6-9
Thursday: Interviewing from 9-12
Friday: The Language of Documentary from 6-9

So actually quite a busy schedule, but I don't mind. It's still less than in the Netherlands :)

Independence Day
Today (25th of March) it is Independence Day in Thessaloniki. On this day they celebrate the liberation of Greece from the Turks (some time ago, I don't know the exact story). So we have walked through the city to the seaside, where they had organised a huge parade. It took about 1,5 hours, but as I was a bit late, the only thing I have seen are large groups of boys and girls, all marching. Continuously. I have seen much better parades....
After that we decided to take a trip on a boot, so we could see Thessaloniki from the water. That was a very nice trip, and it included also a drink. And of course it was very good weather for it!

*This text was (again) borrowed from Marielle. Thank you :)