Thessalonians

I arrived in Thessaloniki yesterday after a beautiful train ride through the Greek countryside. The train skirted the Olympus Mountains (which I might come back to on my way home in May). It is gorgeous country...seems like the train basically followed fertile valleys the whole way, often with snow capped mountains out one window and fields stretching out to the sea on the other.

Yesterday was also Independence Day so traffic was light leaving Athens and many stores were closed here in Thessaloniki when I arrived. I didn't have any problem finding a reasonably priced hotel not far from the train station. I walked fairly late into the night last night with no problems.

One of the features of Thessaloniki is the waterfront with a busy harbor on one end and a landmark Ottoman Empire tower on the other end. It got really cold and windy just as the sun was setting so I have some fabulous pictures.














I stumbled upon a chocolate/cake shop last night that had some world-class creations in the window. They let me take some pictures (note the 1 foot tall chocolate egg...yes, everything is chocoloate). I went back there today and spent an unholy amount of money buying cinammon chocolates and pepper chocolates and some sort of fudge with every nut known to man in it! Wish I could ship it home; guess I'll just have to eat it myself.

















I had a Gyro today that had mustard and ketchup on it. Strange.

I met two "exotic dancers" last night. Sofia from Jamaica and Victoria from Dominican Republic. You tell me...how do they end up on Thessaloniki of all places? One of them said she was a student here. Yeah.

I walked miles and miles today. There are dozens if not hundreds of Byzantine era churches here. Like the ones in Athens, they are mostly monuments. There are some large Greek Orthodox churches but I haven't seen any sign of Protestant activity.

I read 1st and 2nd Thessalonians yesterday on the train. I was struck by how much Paul loved these people and how loving and active they were. It makes me want to shout to the people here today to wake up and remember where they came from.

Tomorrow I want to visit at least 4 museums. One of them is a War Museum...Nazi's destroyed almost the entire Jewish population here during WWII. There are supposedly less than 1000 Jews here today in a city of 1 million people. Like Athens, I suspect there are people from all over here. I met a man from Bulgaria today. There's also a Museum of Byzantine Culture that is supposed to have more early Christian Art than anywhere other than the Vatican.

I'm taking the train tomorrow evening to Skopje, Macedonia. Pray for me as I'll arrive at midnight. Train stations at midnight can be a little unnerving. I'll probably stay a couple nights there before finding a bus to Pristina in Kosovo where I have a ministry contact waiting for me. A day or so later I'll figure out how to get to Kiev, Ukraine (probably a LONG, LONG train ride!)