Alexandroupolis - Αλεξανδρούπολης
I'm in Greece! So here is how it works, you go to Turkey and they give you a 3 month tourist visa. If you want to stay more than 3 months you need to get out of the country and in again, so I decided to visit Alexandropolis for the weekend.
It's easy to see I'm in a different country. The first thing I noticed is that it's impossible for me to read one single thing, everywhere I just see the symbols I was using in college when studying Math and Physicks! I go like "Ok where is the street gama alfa tau epsylon niu?" Then everything looks more organized and clean, unlike Turkey, there are garbage boxes on the sidewalks. Women wear skirts and not one scarf in sight! People here look dressy, specially on saturday night, unlike Turkey I don't see lower class people, no beggers, garbage searchers, street children... But the biggest difference was presented when I crossed the street, the car stopped and let me pass! This is something that never happens in Turkey, not even on the zebras.
Alexandropolis reminds me a lot Ancona, the Italian city where I studied for 6 months. It's a nice little town by the sea, there are a lot of motor-bikes, a lot of teenagers with Vespas. It's hard to believe that I'm just 50 Km from Turkey because I find so litle in common. I had a talk with a man from Alexandroupolis who told me his father story, in 1920 his father was living in a small city that now belongs to Turkey, he had a good house and properties there, when the turkish troops came he had to run away and he lost all this. His father is now dead and this man is about 60 years old, all his life he never went to Turkey and he has no plans to do it.
When I want to speak with anyone here I go like "Speak english? Français? Italiano? Turkçe?" Usually they speak at least one of these languages :) Many of them seem to understand Turkish and some speak it, but it seems that they don't want to talk it. The greek man next to me on the bus spoke greek, good turkish and basic english, all the time he was trying to speak english even though I could understand him better in turkish.
Ah, and I have to talk about the commerce timetables here, can you believe that the tourism agency is closed from 14:30 to 18:00?! And many other places have the same time table: 9:00-14:30 and 18:00-20:30! 3,5h for lunch, hmm it's not bad!
It's a nice place and everyone is quite friendly, but I feel good about going back to Turkey tomorrow! Don't tell the greeks about this!
It's easy to see I'm in a different country. The first thing I noticed is that it's impossible for me to read one single thing, everywhere I just see the symbols I was using in college when studying Math and Physicks! I go like "Ok where is the street gama alfa tau epsylon niu?" Then everything looks more organized and clean, unlike Turkey, there are garbage boxes on the sidewalks. Women wear skirts and not one scarf in sight! People here look dressy, specially on saturday night, unlike Turkey I don't see lower class people, no beggers, garbage searchers, street children... But the biggest difference was presented when I crossed the street, the car stopped and let me pass! This is something that never happens in Turkey, not even on the zebras.
Alexandropolis reminds me a lot Ancona, the Italian city where I studied for 6 months. It's a nice little town by the sea, there are a lot of motor-bikes, a lot of teenagers with Vespas. It's hard to believe that I'm just 50 Km from Turkey because I find so litle in common. I had a talk with a man from Alexandroupolis who told me his father story, in 1920 his father was living in a small city that now belongs to Turkey, he had a good house and properties there, when the turkish troops came he had to run away and he lost all this. His father is now dead and this man is about 60 years old, all his life he never went to Turkey and he has no plans to do it.
When I want to speak with anyone here I go like "Speak english? Français? Italiano? Turkçe?" Usually they speak at least one of these languages :) Many of them seem to understand Turkish and some speak it, but it seems that they don't want to talk it. The greek man next to me on the bus spoke greek, good turkish and basic english, all the time he was trying to speak english even though I could understand him better in turkish.
Ah, and I have to talk about the commerce timetables here, can you believe that the tourism agency is closed from 14:30 to 18:00?! And many other places have the same time table: 9:00-14:30 and 18:00-20:30! 3,5h for lunch, hmm it's not bad!
It's a nice place and everyone is quite friendly, but I feel good about going back to Turkey tomorrow! Don't tell the greeks about this!
posted by Aziz | 01:26
1 Comments:
Greeks and turks are like irish and brits, finns and swededes, portuguese and spanish ... there is always some past history behind prejudices but common people have no guilt of it, they don't decide the wars, so let's just try to be happy and live in peace, that's what I expect from the EU at least ...Nnn
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