Greece

I found out the most exciting news ever today! The final year project that originally inspired this blog (as a form of procrastination) is venturing out into the big wide world. Last year, I submitted my paper to the International Society of Music Education (ISME) for consideration, and now they've asked me to present it at their conference in Thessaloniki. I'm so excited that I have butterflies, but in a good way, and I keep randomly bursting into the happy dance (which involves much waving of fists and squeaking). So come July, I'm going to catch a plane from a southern hemisphere winter to a Greek summer! Since I'm in a bit of a list-ie mood (lists help calm me down), here's a list of things I want to do in Greece:

1) I want to spend time lying on the beach. I know I live by the sea, and lying on the beach is something I can do all the time anyway, but this will be a Greek beach. I won't spend too long doing that, because I'm not flying halfway across the world to sleep, and I'll get badly sunburnt, but a few hours one morning/afternoon would be amazing! Plus, I'll be away for the whole school holidays, so I'll need a little bit of down time before I start teaching again.

2) I want to go to an Island for a night or two. Again, I'm going to be spending most of my time in Thessaloniki, but you can't go to Greece and not set foot on an Island.

3) I want to try all the different foods. My sweet tooth is looking forward to baklava and ghalacto booreeko. . And my brother enjoys cooking Greek dishes, so I'd like to see how his moussaka and Greek salad compare to the real thing. And the same for takeaway dishes like kebabs (soovlakee). Even though I'm a cereal junkie at breakfast time, I'm going to try living without it for the two weeks I'm there and having the local fare of bread (psomee), yoghurt (to yaoortee) and coffee (kafe).

4) Even though I don't go to clubs or bars that much, I really want to spend an evening at an oozeree and try  ouzo and chat to the locals in my extremely broken Greek.

5) The nerd in me wants to go to the Areopagus, and recite Paul's "Men of Athens" speech.

6) I want to see the view from the Acropolis, even though it will be swarming with tourists.

7) If possible, I want to find some people that still do folk dancing, and wouldn't mind a random tourist with two left feet joining.

Basically, expect photos in a few months time :)