It's Sunday here in Greece. We leave for home tomorrow after 120 days.

These first couple of pictures I took at the farewell dinner. Unfortunately I didn't run around the table to get everyone. We sat at one long table so these people were all across from me.

Like so many other meals we've had here, this one was fantastic and served "family style." As
each new dish arrived it was passed around so everyone could have as much or little as they wanted.

As I reach the end of the time here I get reflective. I enjoyed interacting with the students and faculty but was exceedingly frustrated by the idea that attendance is so abysmal. I am opposed to giving points for attendance in my US classes but I think something needs to happen to get students to attend regularly. One suggestion

might be to make the grade based on more than one exam. If tests were more frequent it might
help. Of course it would mean a lot more grading for the professors so maybe some of them would prefer not to change anything.

This is Michael Meimaris, director of the University Research Institute of Applied Communication. He was the official host of the farewell dinner and his institute sponsored the panel discussion I did. Can you see he's wearing a Harley hat? Professor Sorogas took me out for coffee Friday as another farewell and Michael just happened by. He was flying off to Rhodes for a conference presentation. The professors are very
active. Despite any criticisms about the system here, I won't accuse the people I met of laziness.

I got a pretty bad picture of the open-air theatre. It was dusk: the big white screen kind of washes out the picture but I hope there's enough to get a sense of what it looked like. I took this about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time of the movie. The theatre had more people by the start of the film.

Yesterday (Saturday), Mark and Martha drove
us to Sounion. Kim had been wanting to make the trip for some time but we've never gotten around to it. Sounion is the southernmost point of the Attica mainland and just a little more than an hour's drive. I took this first picture as we stopped along the road, just 10 or 15 minutes away, so Kim could take pictures. Rather than settle for the roadside shots she climbed over the guardrail and walked down a few hundred feet for a better vantage. I will admit that her pictures are far better than mine but of course she has taken thousands (literally). On our excursion to Sounion I took 7 pictures. Kim took 81.

People visiting Sounion are faced with the choice of looking out at the natural beauty surrounding you or looking at the architectural marvel that is the remains of Poseidon's Temple. It was also nice to visit because it completed the equilateral triangle of temples made by the Acropolis, temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina, and Sounion. Most people who visit Sounion do as we did: just set out from Athens and spend an hour or so there. As spectacular as it is, there isn't much
more there. When we arrived the first thing we did was to get a table at the restaurant/coffee shop at the base of the rock and have a drink before going up.

Legend has it that King Aegeus of Athens committed suicide here. His son Theseus sailed to Crete to try to slay the Minotaur. They had arranged that if he was successful he would sail back to Athens with a white sail. He did slay the Minotaur but the crew was too busy celebrating to remember to change the sail. Aegeus was anxiously waiting to see the ship and when it

rounded the cape he thought his son was dead and threw himself from the cliff. The Aegean Sea is named for King Aegeus.


The temple is now roped off so you can't get inside it but in earlier years it was famous as a place for visitors to scrawl their names. Lord Byron, very popular with Greeks, has his name carved in the marble, as does the composer Ravel. You have to have a very good camera to be able to get a picture of it from a distance.


Most shops are closed on Sunday so when we got back to Athens Kim and I needed to grab a quick bite to eat and jump on the tram to head downtown. We came with two checked bags and two carry-ons and we've left some gifts we brought behind, and we won't be bringing back some of the clothes we've brought (having to wear the same thing every few days means it wears out a lot quicker). Nonetheless we would likely be over the weight limit if we tried to stick to two bags, so we decided to play it safe and buy a cheap duffel. We were ranting about airline baggage policy. If one of our bags is just a pound or two overweight, we get charged $70. But, as
we are flying international and don't pay for up to two checked bags per person, we are encouraged to check more bags. Isn't that contrary to what the airlines are trying to do? I think I understand that baggage handlers wouldn't want all bags to weigh 90 pounds, but the end result is that instead of handling two bags now they will handle three.

Last night Mark and Martha took us out for another farewell dinner and once again it was spectacular. I think I've gained wait on this trip.