Every year in fall I end up in Greece. Maybe because Greece was the second place on my nomad journey and I meet amazing people there. The same this year.
Mid december there was the greek WordCamp. Quite a late fall, but until there is no snow it‘s not winter ;). To support my friends, organizing the event and meet the super friendly greek community again, I travelled to the city of Thessaloniki.
So close to xmas and the related family vacation I just managed to visit for a long weekend. In my mind I was looking forward to a few warm-ish days away from german Advent.
The greek weather gods were not on my side. Cold, rainy and specialy windy conditions received me.
The city
Even as I’m from a colder place the weather wasn’t very inviting to explore a lot. While walking around the busy and noisy center I noticed one thing, a lot of shops are selling nuts and dried fruits everywhere. Same as in Athens there are a lot of small shops (in the city center) in small streets and squares selling all the things you need or don’t need. Buying local is still big here. eCommerce is still a small thing in this country.
Beside the historical places like the White Tower and other ruins you can also meet the future. I spotted electric scooters by Lime on the Aristotelous Square.
Food and drinks
You can’t go to this place with out having great food and drinks with friends.
The first night I went to a typical dinner with my flatmates from the greek community. As I’m used to from the years before the restaurant serves rounds of food to the center of the table until everybody is well-fed. To make sure to get my share I needed to be quick, mainly because of my seatmate ; )
One other day it was time get the signature dish: Greek streetfood – Souvlaki. I picked the best rated place in the city center and ended up in a lovely painted restaurant (see picture). Love it every time.
After dinner it’s time for drinks. To meet up with two bavarian friends we meet at the Beer School. Trying all the different brewery products. As the owner lived and learned to brew beere and germany, japan and more countries the taste differs from the “normal”. I liked the Weizen-Beere a lot.
The WordCamp
The WordPress-Event was split in two days. The first day was the traditional conference day. At the Thessaloniki Concert Hall two tracks where set up to present talks about the open-source Software and topics around it. A few of them have been in english by local and international speaker.
The hallway and Cafe/Restaurant area were used for networking and socializing. It was also the place to get some tasty greek food for lunch. In case of good weather the view over the bay and the mountain chain in the back would be amazing. Sadly the fog didn’t allowed me to take a great photo, so I safe you the hazy view.
The second day it was time to take action. The contributor day was taking place in the CoWorkingSpace of the citys excelerator. As every good contributor day there was pizza and at one point the wifi broke. Making the day to an even more social event, because you need to talk to the person next to you.
See you again
I’m pretty sure that I’m coming back to greece again. Sooner or later …
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