Well Thessaloniki was fun. I met up with my mate, met his family and reconnected which makes the trip worth it alone. It was touch and go for a bit as someone at his work tested positive for this virus but he was tested that same day I arrived and came back negative. It still seems bizarre to not be able to see people without worrying about this illness. We can add that to the long list of things Covid has affected. As well as that, as yesterdays post made clear, I went partying on Saturday night with two people from the hostel.
It was a small party at the top of a hill somewhere outside of Thessaloniki. We were so high that we could see the clouds below us in the morning. We got there in a taxi by following a guy we met in a bar. These types of parties are notoriously difficult to find and I felt a little sorry for the driver as he wasn’t expecting a trip on dirt roads up a mountain. He was also not keen on leaving us randomly in the middle of nowhere up there at two o’clock at night. We danced and had fun, and everything that is involved in such events. In the morning as the sun rose I saw the scene around me and the most remarkable set of people. It was like everyone who couldn’t normally be free had turned up and danced away in the dark. There was no one set type of person and probably about two hundred people so it was small. I’ve avoided too much detail but I spent as much time fascinatingly people watching once the sky was lit up as I did dancing and running around. These were not your average colourful trance festival people but it seemed more like the hardcore inner circle.
As the light came, the water ran out. With our dry mouths we attempted to get down the mountain before it got too hot. One of my new friends needed considerable convincing we were real but eventually we persuaded her to come with us and down the mountain. If we had waited much longer and without any liquid in that heat we would have missed all the potential lifts down and suffered under the Greek sun. Genuinely it felt quite serious at one point but we found someone who got us back. An accident on the small roads back made us follow a farmer over the most random series of dirt track back roads but eventually we reached Thessaloniki and our beds. It was intense and utterly memorable. I had fancied a party like that for a while especially after such a long time in lockdown and any real excitement. If you’re going to do it then do it properly it would seem.
Observations and Misunderstandings 