Those of you not particularly fond of seagulls ought to just avoid today's post. This is a continuation of yesterday's post, and 70 percent of today's pictures are seagull pix. I probably should have just deleted them but I was so excited when I took them, I couldn't just dump them.

My next post will be Monday evening. Tomorrow morning Kim and I have to catch a 7:30 a.m. ferry to the island of Paros. Very confusing because the pictures I'm providing here today are from our trip to Poros. You have to be sure you get the vowel right or you end up on the wrong island. Paros is further away from Athens. We'll spend a night there. Matta, the Greek Ball State alumna who found our apartment for us, has been on Paros this month helping out a friend by running a shop there. Since we leave in 16 days, the only way we were going to get to see her again before we leave is to go visit her. Kim and I definitely want to go see her. I don;t know what we would have done or where we would have ended up without her help.

I should include today's news. In case you missed it, Greece has prevented Google from taking any more Street View pictures until the government sorts out the privacy issues involved. It's been a controversy in a lot of European countries. Privacy is taken more seriously here. There was a major battle before the 2004 Olympics about the heightened security. A lot of cameras were added, which people considered to be a privacy violation. After the Olympics the cameras haven't been used for security. There was an incident a couple of months ago with some vandalism in a posh Athens neighborhood where the vandals
ran through the streets wearing hoodies and

smashing windows. Evidently they caught a few of the people on tape. Now the question arises whether they can use that as evidence because of the rights of privacy. Doesn't seem a question to me given that the acts took place in public, but there's a major difference between my upbringing and a country that was under a dictatorship in the very recent past.

In fact the vestiges of dictatorship, or the reaction to it, can be seen as the reason for a number of things here. I've mentioned the asylum law before. Back in December when there
were riots, one of the reasons they were difficult to control was because the rioters would cause trouble in the streets then take refuge in university buildings. The law prohibits law enforcement from entering university property. You and I might think that's ridiculous, but it stems from a time when the dictatorship would prevent dissent by rounding up dissenters on the pretense that they were out to overthrow the government. They would even go so far as to arrest professors who made statements they didn't like. Just like we in the US have tried to protect free expression in the university by providing tenure to professors, Greece tried to

protect against the extremism of the dictatorship by keeping armed forces out of the university. It made perfect sense in the '70s in another context. Now? It's easy to say it doesn't make sense, but if you lived through the dictatorship it might. I am resolute to not be judgmental.


With only a short time remaining here, Kim and I wanted to host an open house to thank all the people who have been so kind to us during our visit. We've invited people over for this evening. Kim's done her usual job of making way too many goodies. The turnout will be small but that's OK. There's never a time that everyone would be able to make it and our potions were limited, so we just decided to go for it. We invited the five people who work in the Fulbright office, four professors at the university with whom I've worked, three other Fulbrighters we've met, and Mark and Martha. Of the 13 invited, only 4 will make it: with spouses we'll have a total of 7 guests. That should make for a nice group. Keep in mind we're in an 850 square foot apartment. Of course our house in Ames wasn't much bigger than that and we had a lot of people for our Christmas open houses.

A Brit might remark "here are two more lovely birds at the back of the ship" but I wouldn't want to offend Kim and Martha by saying that. Lovely they are, but I wouldn't want to call them birds.

Our lovely daughter Nicole is now in Thailand. She's part of a group of students, faculty and community people on a three week trip. They are there to teach English. The deal is that they teach for half of the day and have the rest of the time for sightseeing. She (we) only had to pay airfare - all the other expenses are covered. What a great opportunity. I can't believe how worldly my

daughter is. She flew alone here to Greece back in March. Now she's in Thailand. She gets back to the US the day after we do.

The temperature has started to warm up. We're not getting close to turning on the air conditioning in the apartment (might do it tonight when we have guests). The fact is that even with temps around 80 or slightly above, we've been fine. In Muncie the air would be going and the house closed. Obviously it's not as humid here. Ironically it's the warmest in the apartment before noon because our balcony faces east and
the morning sun heats us up. Just this week we have taken to lowering the fabric awnings in the morning to cut down on the heat, and it helps. I was in Stelios's office earlier this week and it was really hot in there. They don't turn the AC on until next week. The office I use, though, was comfortable. The difference was the afternoon sun beating down on his office. I was reminded of my wonderful office in the new Letterman building and how comfortable I have it.