Yesterday was my 53rd birthday. I got treated pretty royally.

Walking yesterday we came across this street. The top line means street. The bottom line is translation of the Greek (middle like). Pretty darn close, huh?

Usually I go to bed earlier than Kim and get up earlier, but she set her alarm to get up when I did so she could prepare a special breakfast for me. It was great, but she suffered. Not sure if it was sinus trouble (more below), getting too little sleep or what, but she ended up falling back asleep for a couple of hours after breakfast. That gave me time to work a little and run errands.

There was a major police presence downtown yesterday, but we don't know why. Saw a peaceful protest, but nothing troubling. Maybe a dignitary in town or possibly fear of G-20 reaction?

The paper said we'd be experiencing African dust through Wednesday, and that people with breathing difficulties should avoid outdoor time. I know this can be a problem, even further north. We experienced such warnings when we were in Italy.

We had "linner" (lunch/dinner) about 2:30 at this restaurant. I had seen a Vietnamese place but was told it was nothing special. Instead I took a recommendation from Athens Survival Guide. This guy has the best online resource for Athens - I highly recommend it.

Headed downtown and made the biggest purchase since we've been here: we bought our train tickets to Istanbul. Kim has made it clear that is the one major excursion she wants to make on this trip. It's been difficult trying to schedule, though. The dates are a given: the university has an Easter vacation, and that's when we'll go. The problem was how.

The remainder of the pictures today are Kim's. She took a picture of each course as delivered. The young lady at the nearby table just laughed at us.

Rental car companies in Athens will not allow you to drive into Turkey (checked 11 of them online, walked into Hertz). A friend suggested renting a car and driving it to the border, then renting a car from an agency there, where they are set up for such things. Checked flying, but the cost was significantly higher. Instead we're taking a LONG train trip. I'll report on that after we do it.

The lady laughing kindly volunteered to take our picture.

Also made a stop at an English-language bookstore. Had to have a book for my birthday (yes, I'm spoiled).

Kim in Aegina.

We invited Mark and Martha over for dessert. Kim made cheesecake for my birthday, in spite of not having a springform pan or US measuring cups. She knows I like it and it has become a birthday tradition, so she wouldn't let anything get in the way. I told you I was treated royally.

I got birthday calls from my mom and daughter, as well as e-mails from my son, brother, sister-in-law and a number of friends. The tough ones were the birthday greetings on Facebook, since I've given it up for lent. I have e-mail addresses for some of the people, so I could thank them directly, but don't have them all. Oh well.

Grilling octopus in Aegina.

Today's news is not about trivial stuff like politics or the economy. If you know anything about Europe, you know the important news is about soccer. Greece is closing in on qualifying for the 2010 World Cup after a 1-1 tie with Israel.

We didn't do anything worth reporting yesterday. Kim needed a day to recover from our trip on Saturday, so we spent Sunday around the apartment. I'll take the occasion to clear out some photos from the last couple of weeks that I haven't posted.

This naval ship is in the same harbor as the trireme - just down from the yachts.

I took this awful picture from the tram (through the glass, moving) but I wanted to show the Dominos Pizza delivery motor scooters. This is another example of me experiencing differences that are more "big city" experiences than "Greek" experiences. Our pizzas are delivered by car. In Athens, food is delivered by motor scooter with thermal boxes on the back.

This was from our walk through the Glyfada shopping district last week. I had to take a picture of the "Florida Mall." Each of these malls is open-air galleries of shops, but the street has dozens of them. The number of individual shops on this street has to number in the hundreds.

The purpose of this Independence Day (March 25) picture was just to show the extent of the crowds at the parade. I couldn't get an aerial shot so this was my attempt to show people 5 and 6 deep along the parade route. I was really disappointed that the TV networks showed the parade live, but not delayed. I would love to have seen all the stuff I missed. I was reminded of an article I read in grad school about the difference between being at a parade and the mediated reality of watching it on TV.


This is the evzones, the guards in the traditional uniforms, lining up for the parade. Their major task is guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier (changing every hour), but they do other ceremonial events like the parade.

Another picture from our trip to Aegina on Saturday. I liked this because off in the distance you can see one of the many ferries (larger but slower than our hydrofoil).

This beach with the small lighthouse looked very inviting. Of course the air temp was in the 60s, so none of us was jumping in the water.

I took this picture because we don't see a lot of prickly pear trees in Muncie.

Just another island picture.

Antiquities on Aegina. The placard in the foreground is in Greek and German - not English. Mark and Martha said a lot of Germans came to Aegina after WW II. During the war they had occupied the island for a while, but the commandant had a benevolent dictator relationship with the locals.

Did you participate in Earth Hour Saturday at 8:30 p.m.? Kim and I did - no lights on for an hour. The acropolis was dark, but we saw an awful lot of other lights as we went around looking to see if we could detect less light when it hit 8:30.

Friday night, Mark called to ask if Kim and I would like to join him and Martha on a trip to Aegina, the island closest to Athens. Saturday morning we cabbed to the port and got on this hydrofoil at 8:50 a.m. It only takes about 35 minutes on one of these, while conventional ferries take twice as long. The boat holds about 130 passengers. On this day (out of season) there were probably 30 or so.

First stop on the island was to sit for coffee at a cafe right at the harbor. Afterward we took a cab a couple of miles so we could walk back along the coast. How many times do I have to write "pictures don't do it justice." You can barely see the multiple colors in the water - there were more. We all commented on the sky's blue. Mark told us that when they make this trip in the summer and it's hot, they'll just walk until they get too hot and go in the water for a bit, then continue walking.

Yes, the water is very clear. So is the air. Our apartment is not in central Athens, but I could still detect that the air on Aegina was fresher than it is in Paleo Faliro.

The main archaeological site on Aegina is the temple of Aphaea. We took a nasty bus ride up the mountain to get there. It wasn't hairpin turns or anything, but the bus was packed (we stood for the whole 20 minutes) and warm, and the road wasn't wide so whenever we met oncoming traffic we slowed down or someone had to wait.


It's very interesting that the Parthenon, the temple of Poseidon at Sounion south of Athens(haven't been there yet) and the temple of
Aphaea form the "sacred triangle" - supposedly equilateral. How they knew and measured these things in 500 BC I'll never know.


As Martha said, ancient Greeks certainly knew how to pick locations for their temples. This temple sits high above the surrounding countryside. You can see back to Piraeus (Athens) as well as other directions as well.





People interested in archeology also revere this temple because it's one of few 2-story where both are still clearly visible (note the stairs in the background of this picture).

After exploring we called a cab to head to a restaurant at the other end of the island. That may sound like we were being extravagant but remember: the island isn't that large (about 10 miles at the widest point), and with 4 of us, bus fare wasn't that much less.


I found this map online, and it just happens to highlight the three places on the island where we went. We started and ended at Aegina (the name of the island and the town). Took a bus up to the temple (about 20 minutes), took a cab down to Perdika for lunch, then cabbed back to the port.


I commented to Kim that I was glad we had a "Greek island experience" (though not the truly tourist sort of some of the distant islands), the time and money spent in commuting made me wonder. As for the tourist islands, I read a story
that said with the bad economy, a number of
hotels and restaurants that traditionally open for
Easter will wait until June this year, expecting the tourist trade to be down that much. Especially troubling since about 20 percent of the economy is tourism.

I saw this near the port. Why all the pigeons chose this particular red-tiled roof I don't know. Notice that there are none on the sidewalk. Unfortunately the shot's not wide enough for you to notice that there aren't any on nearby roofs, either.

This tiny chapel is actually in the Aegina harbor. It's St. Nicholas - patron saint of sailors. Inside were traditional Orthodox icons, candles and incense. Kim met a group of people from Pennsylvania and struck up a conversation. She's amazing: she's never met a stranger.

Heading back to Athens. Wanted to show the inside of the hydrofoil. Nice big windows. Not luxurious, but certainly comfortable.

Today's news item is from Italy, not Greece. The International Herald Tribune had a story about a town in Italy using "walking buses" for the kids to go to school. No buses, but leaders in yellow vests walking the mile routes to school. It reduces greenhouse gasses, saves money and helps combat childhood obesity. The article mentions Columbia, Missouri as having tried something similar.

Not much to report from Friday. Market in the morning, left at 3 for the university, got back at 9. Stelios and I discussed some article possibilities that we might work on. Here are some other pictures from Wednesday and Thursday.

This art deco building from the early 20th century is scheduled to be torn down because the new (controversial) acropolis museum sits behind it and the view is partially obstructed. According to the poster at the door, when the museum was proposed the building was to be untouched so as not to disrupt the boulevard of buildings. Just another part of the controversy surrounding the museum.

On Thursday Kim and I decided to eat at an Irish Pub. But this was not just any old Irish Pub, this is The James Joyce Irish Pub. For those of you not into Irish literature, he is best known for Ulysses, completed in 1921. We had fish and chips (with smushed peas - how authentic) and of course I had to have a pint. We were served by a French barman who had to speak English and Greek (at least).

These two torsos are of The Odyssey (l) and The Iliad, from around 150 AD. They are part of a long colonnade of statues in the Stoa of Attalos: part of the agora we visited on Wednesday (feel free to refer back to that blog entry to review for the test).

Also located in the agora is this 11th century church. It is quite common to find that when Christians came in, they turned pagan sites into Christian ones. Even the Parthenon had been "repurposed" that way. This church has undergone a number of renovations and restorations, some as recent as just 40 years ago, so it's really a conglomeration of bits and pieces of all eras.

I just liked this capital and at the moment I can't remember why.

This is the inside of the dome of the 11th century church above (I think the church is the Basilica of St. Dionysios, but I'm not positive).

Kim and I saw this bit of graffiti as we walked and just had to take a picture. Graffiti is not a new phenomenon: there are supposed to be names carved at the acropolis from millenia (including Lord Byron's back in the early 19th century).

Part of the TV production crew tearing down after the Independence Day parade on Wednesday.

The main production truck. I think Ball State's is much more impressive.

Today Kim and I spent a couple of hours walking around the Ancient Agora, translated as "market," but really much more. It was the center of commerce but there were temples to the gods, libraries and houses. If you're really into this, the link has a map that you can click to see stuff.

These figures coming out of the rock reminded me of Michelangelo's "prisoners" in Florence, done for the Pope's crypt. These are much bigger but not as masterful.

The "wall" on the left once housed statues representing the 10 tribes of Athens.

Sitting on a hill above the agora is the temple of Hephaistos or Thiseio. It's the best preserved of all the stuff in the agora.

Interestingly you can see the columns are not completely straight. I assume tremors over time have knocked some of the pieces out of alignment. There are also some major "chunks" knocked out. I can't imagine what they did to these things over time.

The columns are really quite impressive, and when you think this work was done about 500 B.C., it really makes you wonder.

This is the view of the agora from the temple. The building off in the distance is the Stoa of Attalos, recreated in 1956 of an actual building that size!

Another view from the temple. The Parthenon is visible at the top of the mountain above.

The marker says "geometric cemetery." Is this where shapes go when they die?

All this antiquity just lying around. A bunch of stuff is just piled up. If it were in a Muncie museum it would be a centerpiece. Here it's just stuff you walk past on the way to other old stuff.

I'll save my other agora pictures for tomorrow.

Today's news story: the plight of immigrants. A story today tells of the hundreds of thousands of Roma (gypsies) living is squalor. People are fleeing lives in Iran, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and other places where the conditions are horrid. Greece is the entry point for Europe.

Today is Independence Day in Greece. We went downtown for the big parade. It was all military - related. There were no scout troops or politicians, just military vehicles and soldiers. There were marching bands - but they were all military. I'll provide pictures with brief explanations.

I wish we had Anthony with us. There were all sorts of military vehicles. Not sure what were tanks and what were something else (like Bradleys). He could have explained them all to us... I think these things are rockets.

We got to the parade staging area before the parade began, so we were actually able to walk right down the street where all the vehicles were lined up.

I don't even know what to write. Did the Greek military buy its tanks from us?

Look carefully. In addition to the two machine-gunners on top, you can see
the driver below.

They made sure the capital looked good for the holiday, as evidenced by these freshly-planted flowers.

There were a wide variety of military uniforms of all sorts. Prior to the parade these guys were just chatting.

Interestingly, I think the immigrants who sell umbrellas or toys or other items on the street were all selling Greek flags today. I wonder about their suppliers. They must be tied into some major source of stuff.

Never buy an umbrella when it's raining, and never buy a flag on Independence Day.

A number of children were dressed up in traditional Greek costume.

The boulevards aren't usually liked with flags but they all were today. There was a flag in our apartment, so we hung it from the balcony today. Our landlords were proud of us.

I'm reluctant to include more pictures because it takes the page so long to load. I'll probably include more tomorrow. I haven't even included any of the flyovers by fighter jets and helicopters (at least 5 different types).