Here's a picture from last night's premiere of Frost/Nixon. The ambassador sat up above in a reserved balcony. We were actually only a few feet away from him as he and his family came in, and watched from up close as they posed in front of the movie poster for pictures, but we never got the chance to meet him. Maybe next time.

People who know me know I'm not a big fan of going to the movies, but this was different. It was almost a documentary rather than a film. It was also an opportunity to see a Greek theatre. Very nice. The "concession stand" was a room to the side of the lobby.

Today we had to take two documents to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get the officially translated (9.5 Euros each). We had to bring a notaried copy of our marriage certificate and a notarized copy of a letter from BSU explaining my medical insurance. Each of those I had to have an Apostille affixed to in the US. Because that's done by Secretaries of State, I had to do the insurance letter through Indianapolis and the marriage certificate in Missouri (states can only provide apostilles for documents by their respective notaries).

Once we found the Ministry office the procedure

was pretty painless. We had free time before my 2 p.m. appointment so we wandered around, including through this central market. I don't know whether you can fathom the size from these pictures. The first photo is ONE of the meat aisles (there were several) and the second was seafood. Pretty amazing.

At 2 I met Professor Sorogas and he, the dept. chair and I chatted a little while about responsibilities. Prof. S had suggested I compile a list of courses where I felt competent to guest lecture. He provided that list to the chair. The chair's suggestion was that instead of me being a vagabond, going from class to class, that he and I could team teach his comparative media systems class, where we could cover the various topics (media law, news reporting, etc.).

Prof. Sorogas and I were joined by Dr. Karatza and headed to lunch (yes - lunch at about 2:30-3 p.m.). She's Greek but spent her early years in Australia and schooled in the Netherlands. She suggested that I might collaborate with some of her Dutch colleagues in Greece. I said I thought it was funny to go to Greece to collaborate with Dutch, but she rightly pointed out they're all Europeans.

Prof. S walked us past the main university building but it was locked. He explained it might have closed at 2 p.m but it may have been due to the loudspeakers and group forming in front of the building. He said the space in front of the main university building was similar to the spot in front of the White House as a place for protesters to gather as a free speech zone.

Prof. S invited Kim and me to a concert this evening at the Hellenic American Union. He's president of the alumni association there: 800 Greeks who have degrees from US universities. Wow - social events two nights in a row. I sure don't do this in the US ;)

Here's a short video of a children's choir we saw performing Sunday in Syntagma Square.