Some of said students: very intimidating
Last Friday through Tuesday, I had my first couch surfing experience in Thessaloniki, Greece, and it was great. I stayed with Seamos (far right of above picture) and (yes) slept on his couch. My biggest takeaway from all of it was experiencing a bit of the Greek counterculture, the people so vehement in their protests against the Greek government.
In Greece, medicine is a six-year major, not a separate school that you go to after finishing college, and all of these folks were actually younger than me. They definitely had an energy about them -- two of the four nights when I was there, they met in their unauthorized squat on campus to draft up a document about the state of medical education in Greece. One nice guy noticed that I wasn't exactly following their discussion in Greek, so he handed me some twenty-year-old anarchist punk rock magazines from San Francisco.
We had a good time going out at night. One night, we went to a dubstep concert playing at a squat near the university (they love their squats). Another, to a punk rock show in the engineering building on campus. Allegedly, the police aren't allowed on university campuses, which kind of blew my mind.
Seamos was a great host, making sure I met all his friends and had fun with them. He's a pretty interesting guy, too, friendly, and never afraid to speak his mind. I'll definitely be couchsurfing again.
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