Today I felt like I got to begin my "work" as a Fulbrighter. My day of dealing with bureaucracy on Tuesday was work, but it isn't why I came.

This morning Kim and I got our monthly tram passes (each a reasonable 15 Euros, given a single ride costs 1). We headed downtown to Syntagma Square. A correction to my earlier post: I thought Syntagma was "Parliament" given the square's location but it's actually "Constitution Square." We wandered around for awhile before my appointment. We wanted to try some street food. We found vedors with carts selling these all around. There were massive doughnuts, but we opted for the pretzel-looking things on the right. They were covered with sesame seeds and slightly sweet. Other vendors sold chestnuts, sweet corn and other baked goods. There were immigrants selling kids' toys, pirated CDs, knock-off purses, etc. as we'd seen before in Italy.

Kim and I parted company and I went to visit with Professor Sorogas, my contact from the University of Athens. The College of Communication and Media Studies has its offices on the 7th floor of an office building just off Syntagma Square. He showed me around the offices and introduced me to those who were available. Classrooms are in another building a few blocks away. We didn't visit the classroom building. It's still being put back in order after the riots of last month. A lof of vandalism to the building.

It appears I may be doing more teaching than I had realized. Professor Sorogas discussed the possibility of me taking on three different two-credit classes: Mass Media and the Visual Arts; Television and Radio Production, and; Telefilm and Documentary Production. In addition he asked me to go through the course offerings and suggest other classes where I might guest lecture. I met the media law professor and discussed doing a guest appearance in his class. He also suggested I visit the class he teaches in the law school. I was very excited about that. The only setback is I probably need to use PowerPoint so the non-native English speakers can follow. Drat!

Oh, yeah - and the TV Production lab. Professor Sorogas said he has assistants that handle the technical end but we would be involved with students actively producing production. Not sure if it's more like advising a BSU student organization or what. I guess I'll find out.

The actual class schedule has still not been completed - delayed due to the "events" of the past few months. The course offerings are known, just not the dates and times. Just another reminder that not everything can go according to plan, and the best attitude is to be flexible. That's a tough lesson for an OCD/control freak like me, but an important one.

I hate to rub it in to my midwest friends, but the temperature reached 64 here today.