Events of the past week...

All of these students are from Eau Claire. There are some that aren't pictured [probably about 5 more] we are big group!

Sorry the posts have gotten a little bit spread out but during the week, with school, nothing really interesting happens! But I have a few things now I can tell you about.

Carnival

Carnival is a celebration [on Thursday] that is part of the Easter tradition. Its like catholics "fat Tuesday". Instead its called Barbecue Thursday and everyone cooks lots and lots of meat to eat it "for the last time". Most people still eat it but its just a tradition. But they celebrate much like Mardi Gras. Everyone dresses up in like Halloween costumes and masks and goes out to eat meat and celebrate. Ioannis, the guy that planned the "Rock" concert, organized for us to go to an area in Thessaloniki and join in the festivities. It was really cool and fun to see. There was entertainment, and just a bunch of people showed up.

Britney and I in our Masks in front of the COOL doorway.

My Cool mask and edited photo :)

MOM I FOUND HIM!!!!! haha I'm just kidding. It just some random guy that jumped in the picture with me.

Museum

My art teacher is head of the field trip club at ACT and today we went to the Archeological Museum and looked at ruins found from in Thessaloniki and the surronding areas. It was so amazing. There were marble statues and the detail is PHENOMINAL!!! u see thes statues in books and pictures but when you are standing face to face with one you can see all of the groves and and details of the face and the clothes. Many of the statues are broken [usually the arms, legs and heads] because they are so old but even those are .... WOW! The museum was set up very cleverly. They were in groups like law, house, burial, religion, the jewelery was all together, and the items found in Thessaloniki were in an area by themselves too. There was actually a lead coffin and a bones of a woman inside. many people probably think its disrespectful but the reason they put it in the museum was because the coffin was so well sealed some of here hair was still on her head and in the casket....it was creepy but really mesmerizing all at the same time. Towards the end there were columns and a door way to a temple. Most of it was reconstucted but it was like real life!

Ancient colums that some parts have been reconstructed to make all the pieces fit. THEY ARE HUGE I probably couldn't fit my arms around them!!!

Entrence to a tomb [you can see how much was reconstructed but they wanted to give the full effect. The circle thing on the ground in front is a base of a column.

A Beautiful arch. The detail was AWESOME! so perfect and symetrical...I couldn't imagine creating something so beautiful.

Mosaic floor. Just to show the detail....there were faces and it honestly looked like a paiting.

This was my favorite mable face because there were holes in his hair [like the curls were three dimentional and you could see through them just like you could if it was real]

These showed some one of the hairsytles women would do. WOW! and of course their amazing work with marble :D

The mosaic floor I was talking about above.... beautiful isn't it?!?!

These are tomb stones... 'fun' fact: the person seated in the pictures are the ones that have died.

Art work on some of their pottery.

Beatuful statue of a woman....JUST LOOK AT THAT DETAIL. I know I keep saying it but when you see it in person you appreciate the lines and the hard work more. Its all carved in Marble...thats like ROCK!!!

They decorated their beds with ivory these are some recovered pieces.

CREEPY I know but.... its kind of amazing if you think about it!

They were a very small people I have found. Short and just skinny...fragile like it seems. Your bones shrink about 20% after a while but the coffin doesn't and it was small!

Gold wreath. All of the gold is so shiny becaue real gold doesn't tarnish [I WANTED IT ;D]

Open Market

Every saturday they have an open air market and Britney and I drug ourselves out of bed today to go. I'm really glad that I went. They had everything [they even had toilet paper :D haha]. They have all of this fabric [like chifon and silk-like material with different colors and styles i want some so my mom can make me some curtains ;) ] and clothes and jewlery, purses, wallets, it was really great! And everything is really cheap...so thats not good:S but i will resist!

Tonight is the last night of the carnival celebration [its supposed to only be thrusday but they drag it out all weekend] so we are probably going to experience some more.

Next weekend we have a long weekend [no class on Monday] so a few of us girls are planning on going to Edessa and going to the hotsprings there. I'll let you know if I go! and Britney and I booked our flight to Rome for spring break. We are going to book the rest of the flights tomorrow.

SPRING BREAK PLANS

Britney and I are going to Rome while Dewey and Annie are in Egypt. We are then meeting up in Barcelona, then off to Paris, then Dublin where I will hopefully get to meet up with a girl I went to School with [all the way from grade school: Tessa Jonson for those of you who know her], then its of to LONDON where I'm meeting up with one of my best friends Ellen [Shes been there since the beging of January], then shes coming back with me to Greece for about a week and then she flies back to the States. So it should be a good time and leave me nice and broke :D but it will be worth it!

BUT Stephanie made me dinner so I'm going to RUN!!!

Love you all

I'll keep u posted [muah]

LOVE,

Sarah

ps thanks for reading!