I'll begin with a couple of pictures from Saturday's open house at our apartment.

Vincent Giordano is a Fulbrighter who here doing a project on the Jews of Ioannina. I've mentioned him before. He was a guest speaker in my documentary class. He took photos of each guest individually out on the balcony. He uses FILM. He must be good!


The second photo is Stelios and his wife Katiya.
As I have mentioned many times, Stelios is the department head, and he and I have been collaborating on several research projects. We had a wonderful time with them last weekend as we spent the afternoon around Marathon and Rafina. Look at the earlier blog entry if you didn't see the pictures.

The remainder of today's pictures all come from the ferry boat ride to Paros. The trip was fantastic, of course, but it was also novel. This was the first time we took a boat ride on our own. It wasn't so terribly complicated, but I'm a little

nervous the first time I do anything on my own. We caught a tram, transferred to the Metro, arrived at the port, bought our tickets and got on board in just under an hour. We timed it perfectly. Good thing, too, because if we missed the boat it would've been a long time to the next one.


My breakfast on the boat. A koulouri and an iced espresso. Greeks drink a lot of iced coffee, but they often have instant (Nescafe) shaken into a frothy frappe. I've tried lots of things here including lamb innards, but I will not do instant
coffee. I have to draw the line somewhere.

This ferry boat was set up differently from the previous one. Instead of bench seats on the back of the ship they had tables and chairs. The trick is to claim a spot that gets fresh air but isn't too windy. It's trickier than it sounds, as the boat and wind both change directions. We ended up with a table in the middle. I was disappointed at first that we weren't closer to the rail so we could look out easier but later realized we had gotten the best possible spot. People who had grabbed the
"prime real estate" at the railing were forced to

move because of the wind and spray.

I contented myself by just going over to the rail every so often to have a look. I'm not the type to sit still for a 4 hour boat ride anyway, so I had the opportunity (Kim might say "excuse") to get up every so often. We alternated activity. Part of the trip we played cards. We had books to read. We got up to look and take pictures. We struck up a conversation with the German man seated nearby.


After one of my trips to the side to look out, I saw Kim engaged in this activity. It's hard not to nap when you're on a boat that long. This is one of several decks accessible to passengers. There are also seats inside but I can't imagine wanting to sit there unless the weather was really nasty. There was a bar/cafe counter in our area, but inside they had a branch of the Greek fast food chain Goody's, as well as a duty free shop (we didn't visit either one).

Paros is part of the Cyclades, a chain of islands in a circle (hence the name) in the Aegean Sea. That

means we passed a lot of other islands of various sizes and shapes as we cruised. Paros is known by a lot of Greeks as one of the jewels of the Cyclades, although Americans are much more likely to end up on the much more famous (and tourist-oriented) Mykonos. One of the websites I read cited Lonely Planet's claim that it's a "poor man's Mykonos."


We had originally thought we'd be going to Paros on one of the fast boats but reconsidered. We were going to meet Matta in Paros, and she

would be working in the shop until 1 p.m.
Arriving on the fast boat at 10 versus the slow boat at 11:30 really didn't make much sense to us given the increased cost and our preference for being out on the deck (not possible on the fast boats, as I've said before). About 10:15 Matta called to see how we were doing. In case you don't remember, Matta is the Greek Ball State graduate who found our apartment for us. At the end of April she left Athens too live on Paros for May, helping out a friend on the island who has a shop selling locally-produced items. The friend's mother normally cares for the shop but she's currently caring for the friend's grandmother, so Matta stepped up. That's the kind of person she

is. She's also an artist who makes original jewelry and her work is for sale online so if you're looking for an original one-of-a-kind piece, check out her stuff. I encourage you to buy - she's saving up for a three-week trip to Africa :)

I'll continue with the news of the Paros trip in tomorrow's blog entry, but just a quick note about today. I conducted a short workshop (a couple of house) on blogging at the Fulbright office today. The director has seen my blog and really liked it. She thought it might be a useful tool for her office as well as some of the many
cultural organizations with which she works. So today I had nine women learning how to blog: four from the Museum of Cycladic Art, four from the Acropolis education department and one from the Fulbright office. Like teaching any skill there were some who took to it rather quickly and others who took a little longer. The fact that I have been blogging for a few years definitely does not make me an expert, as was evidenced today when I was asked a couple of questions that I couldn't answer. Still, we were able to get them started on blogging and I fully expect it to become part of the online communication tools for each of the groups.