Saturday, January 09, 2016
Hello!
We did have room service for dinner last night – we both had
bowls of wonderful cauliflower soup, with shrimp and vegetables in it.
It was great, and I was asleep very
early. Then, I woke up this morning with
the definite feeling that I don’t have a cold – I have a sinus infection! And of course, did I pack the
antibiotics? Of course not! (Although I do have my pills for hives “just
in case.”)
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| Room service cauliflower soup over shrimp! |
So, down for breakfast about
7:45 am – and it was great, and then to the desk to inquire about a doctor’s
services. I wanted to just push on and
head east, but R insisted that what I really needed to do was get a
prescription, and the sooner the better.
And of course, he was right. But
… it’s Saturday! Okay. So, the lovely gal at the desk went in search
of a doctor who would make a “house” call.
It took about an hour and a half, but suddenly, I had not one but two
doctors at the door! I think there was a
concern about English and translation, as our Greek is pretty terrible. However, with interesting sign language and
some similar English/Greek words such as “antibiotics” and “headache” and
“sinusitis” we were able (we hope!) to get the point across. So, now with a prescription in hand, we headed
out to get it filled.
The nice gal still
at reception gave us the address of a pharmacy near the train station that is
open on Saturday. Emmy (our GPS) found
us there with no problems, there was space to park, and we were in and out in
minutes! The interesting thing is that
the doctor said I was to take 1 pill every 8 hours for four days, for a total
of 12 pills, and that the prescription would cost 4€. Instead, I have 32 pills and it was all of 8€. So, I don’t know if I just got an extra
week’s worth for no reason, or what, but at least I can say that I’m already
feeling better!
From the pharmacy, our next need was $$, so Emmy guided us
to the National Bank of Greece ATM,
where we were able to get Euros. The
only problem is, unlike our wonderful BNP Paribas in France, which gives you a
variety of denominations, here we got only 50€ notes. I know I shouldn’t complain, but they are not
always that “breakable.” (I would like
to point out that it seems from what we’ve seen so far, that Greece is much
more of a “cash-only” kind of economy than those of France and Italy.) When we tried to pay with credit card
yesterday at lunch, they declined the opportunity, so I’m thinking that we for
sure want to make sure we always have enough cash on hand for expenses.
Then, our final stop was a big Carrefour at the One Salonika
Outlet Mall, just down the street.
The Carrefour was great, and
we were able to get what we needed, plus water and Kleenex for the car. However, as I had taken my first antibiotic without
food, and was beginning to taste it (not a highly recommended sensation), we
decided to go to the top floor food court, where we got our first Greek
McDonald’s. It really did make a
difference to have something in my stomach, even a Big Mac and fries! Then, decided to head back to the hotel so
that I could take a nap. I’m now up, and
it’s almost 3 pm and I’m ready to go back into town again to look around!
As it turns out, I had planned to tour several special spots
out east of Thessaloniki, which we
weren’t able to get to today. However,
on our way back from Olympia at the
end of our trip, I had us making a 2-night stop in Ioaninna. So, thanks to the
wonders of computers, I was able to change that to a one-night stop, and the
extra day, we’re going to spend back here in Thessaloniki at the wonderful Les Lazaristes hotel so that we will
have a day to do Philippi and Amphipolis after all! So!
Now it’s time to wake up Robert and head back downtown to
see the sights!! Lots of love to all!
m
xxx
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| Robert's shrimp and caviar |
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| My scallops with truffles before the soup |
Well, we’re back from downtown. We saw a few things, but truly, about 4 pm on
a Saturday afternoon, we drove for what felt like miles and were NOT able to
find a single parking space! We went
round and round and up and down streets, but nothing. These people are REALLY good at taking up
spaces! Finally, we decided that enough
was enough, and if we really wanted to see more sites in depth, we would drive
back to the hotel, park there, and take a cab into town. The only problem was that by the time we got back,
it was starting to get dark … which does make it tough to see sites. So, looks like we’re in for the night, and
will have dinner downstairs again at their wonderful restaurant! And, as R pointed out he hasn’t taken any
pictures today at all, so we’re going to have to at least include a few shots
of dinner!
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| Soup being added |
Dinner tonight. I
started with scallops in a squash soup with three slices of black
TRUFFLES! It was incredible! Then I had the chicken that R had the other
night. R started out with something that
liked like ceviche shrimp (?) with caviar.
He then had the sea bass, which he said was terrific! So, a few pictures at least!
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| R's sea bass |
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| My chicken on mashed potatoes! |
Tomorrow, we’re off to Veroia and the tomb of Philip of
Macedonia, along with an archeological museum or two. On the road again!
m
xxx
R says that as the blog itself is so sparse today due to inactivity,
that I should share some observations.
So … Robert had always assumed that Italians were the kings of
double/triple parking, but they don’t hold a candle to the Greeks! They have it down to a science!
The Greek wines that we have had so far have been excellent,
and all from the Macedonia region.
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