Amabile in Thessaloniki

Alexandra Aggidis

On March 10th 1990, I was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. I spent the very first few years of my life in Thessaloniki, the city that I will always love and that will always consider to be my home. It was something completely new and special to me, for my two worlds Britain and Greece to come together as one. All my friends in England had heard from me countless stories of Thessaloniki, so I really enjoyed showing them my city.

When it came to the concert night, I could see that all the girls were really excited. Before the concert, when we were all getting changed into our dresses, my best Greek friend Ismini came to see me, along with some other of my very good Greek friends. They said that they had a big surprise for me; I had no idea what they were taking about!!!

Usually I never get nervous before a concert, but as we were up on the stage waiting to perform, I felt terrified! I was looking out onto the huge audience of easily 1000 people, but that wasn't the problem, I knew almost every single one of them. My Yaya (grandmother), my Papous (Grandfather), Aunties, Uncles, Cousins, God Parents, God sisters, family friends, all of my friends anyway…I think it was because I wanted everything to be perfect. At the end of the concert, I thought how silly I was of course everything would go as planned, since we have done it so many times before. The girls were fantastic! The audience were clapping for an encore; they liked the Greek song Psaropoula, which we had sung earlier in the concert so much that Charlotte decided to perform it again. When we had finally finished the song we were just stood there accepting our applause. It was time for that surprise my friends had told me about…I looked out into the audience and saw a huge banner; it is quite funny thinking about it now, as it didn't immediately register with me what the banner said. So I read it, A-L-E-X-A-N-D-R-A, I smiled and looked down, I looked up again and thought, wait a minute, that's my name!!!! I looked at all my friends in the audience who were smiling from ear to ear!! Then my friends Ismini and Kostandinos came up on stage and gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers. That had to be one of the highlights of the trip for me.

When it was time to go back, after the concert all my friends were waiting for me outside, they wanted to take me out for a meal, Charlotte said that, that would be ok. I got the chance then to personally thank them for COMPLETELY EMBARRASSING ME!!( :

During the next few days we went on various trips including guided tours of the city of Thessaloniki, the White Tower, the Archaeological Museum, the City Walls, The old City, the new city, the Port, the statue of Alexander the Great, the Sailing Marinas and the Vafopoulion Cultural Centre of the Mayor of Thessaloniki. We also visited historical ruins, passed close to Mount Olympus visited the city of Veria and the magnificent Vergina museum the capital of King Philip, the Edessa water falls and the Naousaa natural spa, and Pellla and its archaeological museum the capital of Alexander the Great. I have a feeling that one of the girls' highlights of the trip was the meal in a traditional Greek Taverna with live music, on the Saturday night, in the Ladadika area of the Port of Thessaloniki, including some Greek dancing. Everyone really got the hang of it; I was particularly impressed with all the girls, ladies and gentleman including Jean Ewing the chairman of the South Lakes District Council and also Charlotte our Amabile Director.

The Greeks really treated us very well and offered us gifts upon our arrival to the hotel. The visit to the Spa near Naoussa was a magnificent experience.

On our flight back with Olympic Airways we sung inside the plane and one lady enjoyed our singing so much that she wrote a cheque for Amabile.

I am sure that everyone enjoyed our trip to Thessaloniki, I certainly did, and I hope that it won't be too long before we can do it again!