This is a picture Kim wanted me to take but I didn't have the nerve so I handed her the camera and she took it. This is not the Friday market. This is a corner in our neighborhood near the local grocery store. This guy is selling gardening supplies off the back of his truck. Interesting, huh?


This morning two of the international students and I (the third was sick) finished the coding for a research project Stelios and I are doing comparing TV news in the US and Greece. It's
actually one of four different projects we're collaborating on. He's a very prolific researcher.

Here he is moderating one of the panels at last week's conference.

I know people reading this blog may think I've done nothing but tourism while I've been here but I've been teaching three classes and working on several research projects. I also have several guest lectures coming up in the next few weeks. I was supposed to do the law college lecture tomorrow but there won't be classes because of a general strike. The rest of the university didn't
have classes today because of student elections. I asked my international students to meet because they weren't affected and we had missed before.

This is another presenter at the conference. I include this picture because I think the presenter is a dead ringer for a recent BSU grad who is on her way to Indonesia on Fulbright. Katie - you have a twin who is a professor in Crete.

In fact, rather than a news story, today I'm providing a link to an opinion piece in the paper about the kind of issues facing a young person entering college. It's not a pleasant vision.


This is another demonstration in the center of Athens. This one was conducted by a bunch of farmers from Crete, complaining about the low prices of food. The EU prohibits high tariffs on other EU countries to encourage free trade, but obviously there are certain sectors that are hurt by that.


But as several of my students have pointed out, demonstrations don't have any effect. People complain, they block traffic and things just go on

as usual. No wonder people feel frustrated.


This sculpture is just across the street from the Athens Hilton. It's a Running Man (rather large)made of panes of glass.

I have to admit that I, too, have felt a little frustration from time to time. I am going to be doing the lecture to the law college just 4 days before my departure because two previously-scheduled dates have had to be canceled. It's not a problem of my leaving, but it also precludes me from making any contacts that I might be able to
talk with after the lecture.

Yesterday was my day to be "displaced." I am supposed to have office hours on Tuesdays from 4-6 p.m. When I arrived at the office I'm sharing, one of the professors who uses it was there and asked, "Oh, do you have office hours now?" I guess the sign on the door in a English and Greek wasn't enough. There were several people meeting in the office. I went to Stelios's office and told them to come get me when they finished (I left for class before they came to tell me). Then when I got to class, it seems someone else was using the classroom that I have been using on
Tuesday evenings since February.

Since I mentioned yesterday what a big seller Opel is in Greece, I thought I ought to include at least one picture of one model. Of course like other makes, there are a number of different models. GM makes Opel and it's too bad they don't offer them in the US. Like Mercedes' Smart car and the Ford Fiesta (which weren't available for years in the US), you'd think GM would recognize that maybe some Americans would be interested in fuel-efficient vehicles.


I Looked online for an explanation of this statue but couldn't find one. It is located on a small square behind the Athens Hilton - not far from the Running Man statue above, but on a much quieter street and a lot less likely to be seen. Obviously it involves a man teaching some children but beyond that, I don;t know. I'm sure one of my Greek friends will enlighten me.


The last picture and video relate to the Roman Catholic church where we've been going most often to mass in English. St. Dionysus is the
Catholic cathedral in Athens. They have an
English mass at 7 p.m. (6 during "winter" season). It's located in the center of the city. Unlike Orthodox churches it has statues and the priest is not behind an "iconostasis" - a wall between the celebrant and the congregation. But, a lot of the artwork does resemble the two-dimensional Orthodox iconography rather than the realism of the Renaissance.


I've mentioned before the composition of the congregation. Here you can hear some singing and see a pan of the church. More tomorrow.