Can't stop thinking about tomorrow!

Selfie, w/Aunt Soula front & center

‎ Happily ensconced now in the throw-back "Tourist Hotel" in Thessaloniki, on Mitropoleos Street just 2 blocks from Plateia Aristotelous. I miss my Aunt Soula, but NOT the Athens humidity.  For dinner, I hobbled over to the Modiano Market area and enjoyed a glass of tsipouro and meze plate for 5 Euros. It's now 4 am and I cannot sleep.

Tomorrow I will visit the American Farm School, where I worked in various capacities for 10 years circa 1968-78. To be honest, I had not really been looking forward to that because the changes, I hear, have been dramatic.  My favorite years had been as an administrator in the Girls School Department, primarily a traditional Homemaking/Handicraft program for teen-aged girls who did not continue on to high school.  During Christmas, Easter, and summer vacations I visited EVERY student's family in their home villages -- and was pretty tight with many of them‎. ‎(I am hoping to visit with as many Girls School graduates as I can track down, but I digress...)

I  got a ride from Athens to Thessaloniki with the daughter of a 1971 Girls School graduate, Eleftheria née Rangoussi '69, now living in Philadelphia. Kathy Varkadou was going to pick up her own daughter, a current AFS high school student -- 45 years since I recruited her mother to come to the School from the town of Giannitsa. It was a timely opportunity to get to know that family better and acclimate myself to the current Greek reality.

Kathy -- a registered nurse with 4 kids, and an impressive woman in her own right -- was born in the US and married in Athens 20 years ago.  She said that her mother describes her experience at the School as the best years of her life. In a few hours, Kathy will show me around the place I left 37 years ago...and where once upon a time I used to give the tours.‎ Mind-boggling!

But I am now actually looking forward to it.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.