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January 16th, 2010
08:24 am - Well that was comforting
I was talking with a relative yesterday who's been a life-long atheist. His wife died recently after a long, painful fight with cancer, and he faces his own mortality every day, plugged into an oxygen generator. He has fits of uncontrollable crying as he thinks about the nearly 50 beautiful years he had with his wife and how empty he feels now without her. He's holding a memorial service for her this summer in their home town, and I told him that I'd be going, but ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) annesblog wouldn't because she already knows she has a thing she cannot miss on the day of the event. He said that he has no illusions that his wife will be watching from the afterlife, but that he appreciates very much both my going to the event and the reason why annesblog can't.
I've long had the fear that faced with my own end or the tragic painful death of a loved one, that I would abruptly find solace in a god. To see a fellow atheist facing it without doing that made me feel very happy, while simultaneously sad for him, deeply, deeply sad for him and his loss.
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January 1st, 2010
12:03 pm - The obligatory soul searching
So it's New Year's morning, and my last day in Athens. Heady, heady stuff.
A look at what I'll miss of Greece: The islands - those I've been to and loved, such as Milos, Paros, Delos & Hydra. Those I've not been to and so must return to Greece, such as Xios, Lesvos, Rhodes & Limnos (yes, you have a favorite that is unlisted here...write your own list, there are dozens of islands to choose from).( You know me, this wanders on and on. Read it if you dare. )
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December 19th, 2009
07:17 am - Hooray for pack out!
Oh yes! That glorious day is upon us! The movers are coming! The movers are coming! The good news is that we've done this enough times that we're getting pretty refined in our processes, and we have a sense for what we absolutely have to have to survive 6 weeks with just luggage and 6 months to as much as a year with our air freight.
I decided to experiment a bit with finally trying to live up to that section of my moral code which states that we need less stuff than we have (the Reduce part of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). As a result, all of the clothing I'm packing for 6 weeks almost fits in one suitcase, and with my tripod, that suitcase squeaks in under the airline's weight limit. ( In which I go on and on and on and drift through a few subjects )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) calm
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December 7th, 2009
11:44 am - Why Creation Myths Are Dangerous
Let me start this by saying it is not meant as an attack on religion just for the sake of attacking people. I seriously want people to think about what I'm saying. This is not a well-researched, peer-reviewed scientific treatise. It's a generalized opinion based on a little logic and some light research to get a few figures.
Most of the myths we have concerning the creation of Earth and the life on it tend to place that creation after the discovery of writing (around 10,000 years ago) and before the codification of those myths (around 5000 years ago). ( Read more... )
Current Mood: determined
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December 5th, 2009
03:44 pm - reflections with a month to go
So I started thinking about what I've done and what I haven't done in Greece. I'll start with the short list.
I didn't climb Mt. Olympus. I wanted to, but not badly enough to make it happen. There was one good opportunity to do so with a large group, but it coincided with the big OSCE meeting in Corfu, where I chased the Dep. Secretary around for 2 days taking pictures with prime ministers, foreign ministers and secretaries general.
I also didn't drive to Troy. I think it was a trip I would have enjoyed, but annesblog wouldn't have...lots and lots and lots of driving for the sole purpose of visiting a barely-developed archaeological site in Turkey.
That pretty much covers that which I would have liked to have done but didn't.
I ran my first marathon, at the age of 43. It was the original marathon, from Marathon to Athens. The first 10 miles were fun (despite the continuous downpour), and the last 6 miles weren't bad (in the bright, warm sun), but the 10 miles between were a motherfucker (up a serious hill). I discovered what I'm made of, exactly how far I can bend, and just how hard I'm willing to work when I really want to finish something. And I couldn't be prouder. My time was 5:41. Hell yeah.
I visited Ancient Olympia twice. It is my favorite archaeological site. It fell out of disuse after the Christian emperor Theodosius outlawed the religious festivals in 394 CE, after 1170 years of continuous use. Amazingly, nearly all the original blocks are still there, and they are massive. Another cool thing is that the blocks are limestone from the bottom of an ancient sea. You can see the shells and fossils of mollusks throughout the stone.
Despite many misgivings, I went to Meteora. Before coming to Greece, I had heard that Meteora was the one place you *have* to go because of all the monasteries on top of impossible cliffs. I don't care. If people want to go be monks, leave them the hell alone. There are religious buildings I like - Notre Dame, Hagia Sofia - but most are either irrelevant to me or offend me deeply - St. Peter's in the Vatican offends me. So why would I go see a bunch of monasteries? When we went, was I in for a surprise. The cliffs are amazing...they were formed from a lake- or seabed that drained 60 million years ago. When you see how high and eroded these cliffs are, you can't help but wonder how long the sea was there before it drained. Once I saw the cliffs, I embarked on a project to show the cliffs for themselves rather than as homes for the monasteries.
I got to shoot a wedding on Santorini.
We did a 10 cruise-by-ferry of the Cyclades.
I worked as the Embassy's official photographer.
I greatly refined my vision as an art photographer (blog.bpsphoto.com or www.facebook.com/bhneely. I've started to focus on geological subjects, to show the awe-inspiring age of Earth and the forces that have acted on it over the eons. I've begun shooting more still lifes, particularly flowers. It's been a great journey of discovery.
I learned to cook rabbit. I ate goat, octopus, fry, smelt, anchovies & sardines (I didn't used to eat fish at all).
My photography business turned a (very, very, very) modest profit.
I bought nearly all my vegetables at street markets (today I bought some lemons in the grocery store, and it was the first time I'd bought produce inside a building in 6 months or more). I learned why people like tomatoes. I learned to cook with quince, to make sour cherry juice, fig jam and how to cure olives. I made friends with a lettuce dealer who listens to Motorhead and Biohazard and a butcher who listens to AC/DC.
I learned to enjoy long days on the beach. Long days that drifted into long weekends. Very long, peaceful, quiet days of swimming, looking at barely clad (or unclad) Greeks, Germans, Brits, French, Russians & who knows who else, reading, drinking iced coffee, eating lightly fried anchovies at a beach taverna before returning to the sun bed (always in the shade, because my Irish skin bursts into flame when confronted with direct sunlight). And evenings of taking a nap from 4-7 pm, drinking iced coffee, wandering through town, having pizza or lightly fried smelt with retsina and finishing with a glass of ouzo or tsipouro (a Greek version of grappa, or home-distilled booze made from grape skins and other odd bits). Damn I'm going to miss those weekends.
I took tours of the Acropolis and Ancient Agora. I wandered the Acropolis and Ancient Agora. I stood where Socrates stood when he was indicted for "corrupting the youth" and "worshiping false gods." I've seen the Acropolis empty of people, full of people, in the rain, in the restrained sun of January and the mind-numbing sun of August. I got to photograph a US Marine's re-enlistment ceremony in front of the Parthenon. I've stood where Paul addressed the Athenians and told them the religion they'd followed since the dawn of civilization, a few thousand years before, wasn't good enough.
I have complained about a summer so wet that it rained one day each in July & August. Seriously, how could we survive such a deluge? Little did I realize that the rain wouldn't stop until I had sacrificed my body and spirit on Nov. 8 by running 26.2 miles, 10 of it in a downpour.
I have come to love a place as deeply as I love western Washington. I did not think such a thing could happen, but there you have it. I will probably cry when I get on the plane in 4 weeks, even though I'm excited about the next stage of the adventure, in Vladivostok.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/thinking.gif) nostalgic
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08:18 am - wow...21 weeks
I've been channeling all my bloggy energy into facebook for...looks like half a year or so. I promise to start writing more here. I'm working on a long bit about our time in Greece, and another one on petroleum usage from an atheist perspective. I promise not to be intentionally offensive to those who don't share my world view in that one. My goal with it is to give people something to think about regarding the way in which religious beliefs might affect the ways in which one perceives natural resources.
But first, a weekend of parties...we're hosting a sloppy joes night, going to a party and prepping for annesblog's name day party on Wednesday.
Current Mood: calm
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July 11th, 2009
07:29 am - Disgusted with customer services
I'm going to use this forum to vent a little. Lately, I've had terrible luck getting customer service.
I've discovered that I need help with marketing. It wasn't a ground-shaking discovery, but discovery leads to action (and there's been none on the marketing front). Recognizing this, I thought it would be a good idea to research and possibly hire a marketing company to push me along.
First I contacted Photo Publicist (www.photopublicist.com) using their online contact form. I got the we're-so-excited-to-hear-from-you email, assuring me that my request was important and that a real human would contact me soon. June 1st that was. By my math, 6 weeks isn't soon.
So then I tried Swagger, whom I now can't find. Their online form didn't work, so I sent them an email. No response at all. It has been 6 weeks since that one.
Then I bought a camera...my D200 has a bad sensor, and it costs about $50 more for a refurbished and warranteed by Nikon D200 than it does for a sensor replacement, so buying a camera made more sense than shipping mine off for repair. So I went to my favorite used camera dealer, Keh.com, and placed my order. Their policy is that if they don't have the item you ordered in stock, they place a pending charge on your card. They did that, and after two weeks, I sent them an email saying that they really ought to ship my camera. I got no reply to that, so after checking that the order was still pending (and the money still unavailable to me) I sent them an unfriendly email saying that they should ship a better camera than I ordered, since obviously they don't have what I want in stock, or return my money, so that I could take it elsewhere. No reply to that. The camera came that day (10 days ago now). So I sent them a friendly email, apologizing for the strong language, telling them that they ought to update the status. No reply to that, either. The sale is still listed as pending on their site, but the transaction has gone from pending to completed.
This kind of crap pisses me off. If you're an art marketing agency, at least have the decency to send a note saying, "Hey, yeah, we appreciate your interest in giving us money to help you become well-known and paid for your work, but first you have to be well-known and paid for your work for us to represent you." If a pissed off customer sends you an email (or three) telling you how pissed off they are because you won't ship their product, reply. Tell them you're sorry, you'll get right on that. If you have an order status function on your customer account page, update it. Once in a while. Is a transaction really pending if the customer has your product in hand and has used it (with great satisfaction I might add)? Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll send me yet another camera!
On the flip side, I've been very happy with Imagekind.com's responsive to problems. They're fast and informative. Just wish someone would buy from one of my galleries at bhneely.imagekind.com. Really, you can buy great photos and cards there.
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June 20th, 2009
09:01 am - Can you take one more?
So I went to my 8pm physical therapy appointment. Anne had to take the car out of town, so I took a cab to get there. Good thing, too, as I was given incorrect info about where the place was. Athens is made up of 19 ... boroughs (for lack of a more accurate word) ... and you have to know which one you're going to, or the Pevkon St. that you're looking for will be the wrong Pevkon. My taxi driver was one of the smart ones who actually knows the city and was able to find the right Pevkon pretty easily. I was even early for the appointment.
The therapy involved massage, electro-stimulation, ice massage and some stretching exercises. The massage was pretty awesome. It was a lot more focused than other massages I've had. There's a muscle that runs directly under the tibia, and mine are as tight as steel rods. They're supposed to be loose and supple. So we worked on that a lot. In the process, I learned that pathological doesn't just apply to mental states. If you allow your muscles to become too tight, the clear tissue between them, which is connective tissue, like the silvery bits you cut away when cubing beef, can become diseased, or pathological. It becomes permanently hardened, which can lead to muscle tears. Luckily, the clear tissue in my calves isn't pathological yet, just well on its way.
The electro-stimulation was very cool. They put four conductors on either side of my leg and cranked it up until the bottom of my foot tingled. The purpose of this was to counteract the spasming caused by very tight muscles (are you catching the theme here?), and it felt very, very odd. The muscles were firing as with restless leg syndrome, except that my foot wasn't twitching all over the place. It felt a lot like I imagine magic coursing through the body of a wizard would feel (at least that's how it would be if I wrote fantasy).
The best part was the ice massage, oh yeah. You really ought to experience such a thing. The pain, especially over the area of my shin that's splinted, was shockingly intense. Oh it hurt. A lot. Every stroke of the ice cube over the area felt like a hammer blow. Then, it got even better, an ice wrap for 10 minutes. That allowed the pain to seep into my whole leg. Even more exciting is that I get to do this to myself, every time I stretch or exercise. Oh yeah. I get to go to physical therapy a few times a week until the leg gets better.
Rather than calling a cab (and spending another 13 euros) to get home, I decided to walk to the bus. It was further than I thought it would be, but it was a nice 10-minute walk. I ended up getting home at 10:30.
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June 19th, 2009
11:23 pm - You know you're gay, right?
Nikos, the lettuce dealer I like to go to at the street market (by the way, you should go to my new markets portfolio), is a good-looking, muscular guy. He has a blond Elvis mop of hair, square jaw and biceps like my thighs. Today, I'm across from his stand, buying some vegetables and he walks over to talk with the proprietor, a gruff, more traditionally manly Greek dude (he's fat and unkempt). As soon as Nikos walks up the guy says, "You're a sexy man. A very sexy man."
Nikos gave him a quizzical look.
"You are. But you know you're gay, right?"
Nikos' cigarette fell out of his mouth, he was laughing so hard, "What?"
"It's true, it's true. Only gays work so hard to look good." By the way, it's 1 pm, Nikos has been at his lettuce stand since 6:30, he's covered in dirt and bits of lettuce, rocket, spearmint, green onion, and half dozen herbs, bleary-eyed, ready for 3 pm so he can break down and go home.
"What?"
"Really. Real men look like me, they don't go to the gym and stuff like you."
It was funny, but I didn't stick around to hear the rest of the conversation.
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08:42 am - at night?
Went to the doctor to have a look at my shin splints. Still hurts. Not that I'm helping it by walking around Knossos or the Acropolis or climbing on 6th C. BCE gravestones at Kerameikos or any of that other crap. So the doctor wants me to go to physical therapy. He said the ultrasound and heat treatments and such should help me heal up, so that I can at least train on an elliptical or a treadmill, if not a track somewhere.
Go to schedule the PT appointment and it's at 8. PM. On a Friday. You think you're used to things like that, but you find you aren't. Last week I called the pet store to schedule a delivery of food. Called at 2:30 pm. No answer. 3:30 pm. No answer. 5 pm. No answer. Went in the next morning, 'cause I happened to be in the neighborhood. Lunch is from 2-5:30. Silly me.
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June 15th, 2009
06:36 pm - so that's why it evolved that way...
Last night, we're sitting there, watching The Good German (good movie, by the way...people in unusual roles), when we hear Mali make the strangest sound. She meows like she's in pain, but it's similar to the sound she makes when she has a toy in her mouth and wants us to play fetch (a cat that plays fetch...). She comes running in from the kitchen, looking around wildly. The apartment's dark, because we like it that way when a movie's on, so all I can see is some sort of white shadow flitting across the floor.
Mali chases it to the bookcase and corners it. "What do you have there? A moth?"
"Meeeerrrrroooooowwwwww."
It moves across the floor a little, in a very un-moth-like manner. We turn on a table lamp to see if we should worry, and the white shadow flits across the floor some more. I don't think it's a moth anymore, but I can't see it well enough in the dim lamp light. I turn on the overhead light, and holy crap! Mali has a lizard. A little, whitish-yellow thing about the length of my thumb. It's tailless.
With all the commotion of turning on the lights and us getting excited over a lizard, it makes a break for the whatever-you-call-the-cupboard-where-we-have-extra-dishes-and-napkins in the dining room, and dives under it. The poor thing doesn't know that Mali crawls around under bureaus and cabinets for fun. She looks at the tiny crack it ran through and whines for a second, pawing at the crack, before remembering that the front of the thing has a 2-inch cutout that she can easily crawl under.
While she's working on that, I'm looking for a piece of paper or something to scoop the poor thing up and take it outside to "safety." By the time I get back with paper, Mali's crawling out from under the cabinet, looking bewildered and distinctly unsatisfied with the game. We look around for a while, but the lizard is gone, and Mali has clearly not eaten it. Who knows, it might still be in our apartment.
A little while later, when were closing up the doors and windows for the night, I saw the lizard's tail on our kitchen balcony. Apparently Mali had been able to catch it at least once.
What I found most curious, though, was my own reaction. When Mali goes after flies and moths, I encourage her. Kill the vermin. But a lizard, I don't know, I felt a connection to the thing and wanted to save its life. She can still take out the rug-eating moths, though.
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June 11th, 2009
06:32 pm - who, me?
Without my even trying, I was made Featured Artist at http://www.imagekind.com. Check it out!
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June 10th, 2009
08:17 am - ruminations on satisfaction
annesblog and I were having an incredible dinner at Tamam in Chania, Crete the other evening, and it led to a conversation about how incredibly lucky we are (and how aware of that we are).
I'm still amazed, and will probably continue to be, that a slacker like myself can a) marry a phenomenal woman like annesblog despite my best efforts to screw it up, and b) live such a great life as a result. Seriously, when I was a homeless 19-year-old, getting off drugs and utterly incapable of holding a job or stringing together a sentence of more than one word that didn't have the f-word in it (and even then, most of the one-word sentences were guttural, frustrated bellows of that most useful of words), I couldn't conceive of the twists and turns life would take. Or, frankly, that I'd make it to 20. And now, I live in Greece. Yesterday, I shot pictures of our ambassador meeting the new Greek ambassador to Washington...and there were only 4 of us in the room.
I can still barely hold onto a job, but I'm making progress toward doing well enough with photography that I may not have to. I still swear too much (as has recently become a point of discussion in the family). But somehow, I manage to make annesblog happy enough that she keeps me around. Good thing I love to cook.
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June 5th, 2009
09:20 am - the best thing about being an artist is the look of confusion
I don't think my ideas are that weird...after all, they're MY ideas...but I always seem to spread confusion in my wake.
Today, for example:
(and this is all in Greek, so my interlocutor should have understood)
Veg Vendor: "What are you taking pictures of?"
Me: "The market. I'm working on an exhibit about street markets." (note: exhibit & report are the same word in Greek)
VV: "A report? For whom?"
Me: "Actually, it's an art exhibit, pictures for galleries."
VV: ?????????
Me: "I'm an art photographer, and street markets make a good subject."
VV: ???????
Other Veg Vendor: "He's a photographer, doing an exhibit about street markets."
VV: "But why? What for? He's just taking pictures of the market?"
Me: "Yeah. I like the fruits and the vegetables...showing how people live in other places."
VV: ?????????
OVV: "He likes the fruits and vegetables, and to show how we live here."
VV: "How we live here? What does that mean?"
Me: "Is my accent really that bad?"
OVV: "No. He just doesn't understand."
Me: ???????????
VV: "What I don't understand is why you would do this? What is it? You're taking pictures of fruits and vegetables and the market. Why? For what?
Me: "We don't really have markets like this in America, so I want to show my countrymen what life is like in other places."
VV: "So you're taking pictures to show people what a market looks like? Why?"
Mind you, this was one of the best bits of Greek speaking I've done. My tongue was loose and relaxed, so the words came out clearly, and mostly in the right cases and declensions and so on. My expressions fit the Greek way of thought. I was so proud of me. And this guy just wasn't getting it.
The good part, though, is that everyone at the first 5 stands heard the conversation and the Legend of the American Photographer Who Came to Markopoulo to Shoot the Market spread quickly, opening my road through the rest of the market. They let me get right up in their fruit & vegetables, fish and pots & pans. Some posed, some stood. They joked with me - one fish vendor, as I was shooting the fish said, "Fish, fish, fish" in heavily accented English. When I replied, "Ψαριά, ψαριά, ψαριά" he and his buddies slapped their knees and each others' shoulders and said, "He knows Greek! He knows Greek!"
It was a good morning, I have some great material to work with and my exhibit should be a nice one. I have photos from here, from Istanbul and from Kashgar, China, where Marco Polo traveled. The exhibition will be called, "Markets: Marco Polo to Markopoulo."
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May 27th, 2009
08:49 am - Santorini (or, sunburn, twisted ankle and allergic reaction)
We had a mostly great time on Santorini. We went there with our friends sallysimpleton and tibadoh, who were fun to travel with.
I got a sunburn the first morning there. While reading. On our veranda. Before setting out to do anything. It was just on my legs, and it wasn't bad, but it meant that the two days we spent sitting on the beach for 6 hours and the afternoon we climbed the mountain to Ancient Thira I had to be pretty careful.
I twisted my ankle when I ran 10 miles a few weeks ago. Didn't realize how bad I twisted it until several runs later, when I could barely go 1.5 miles and had to limp that distance home. That made all the walking we did a bit challenging. Like climbing the mountain to Ancient Thira or walking down the 589 steps from the town of Fira to the port to go to the volcano.
I had an allergic reaction yesterday as we were relaxing before our flight. The gelato place took care with their product to avoid cross-contamination, and even rinsed the scoop between servings, but they didn't have running water to rinse it, so there was nut juice all over it when he scooped out my coffee-flavored gelato. That provided some excitement to finish things out.
No other people and no donkeys were harmed in our enjoyment of the island.
Now that I have the complaining out of the way - we had a great time. We got a lot of good relaxing in and saw some amazing rocks. Santorini is an active volcano. It's been asleep since its last eruption in 1950, and hasn't had an earthquake since 1956, but it spews a lot. When you look at a map, keep in mind that the island in the center of caldera didn't exist until 500 years ago and is made up of several different layers and parts of eruptive material. There are sandstone cliffs studded with huge igneous rocks. There are beaches made up entirely of igneous rock. There are cracks that run top-to-bottom all along the cliff face looking toward the caldera. And the Minoan civilization was destroyed 3700 years ago by the volcano.
We saw 5 amazing sunsets, ate a lot of great food, and I shot more than 750 pictures. Go to blog.bpsphoto.com to see some of them (the sunset our first night is up as I write this).
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May 14th, 2009
09:42 am - finally, nice weather
Winter stretched deep into spring in Athens. Average daily highs in April are supposed to be 68. I don't think we had a day that warm until the 1st of May. We're supposed to get just over an inch of rain for the month, we got more than that during each of two storms, not to mention several drizzly days that weren't much in themselves, but probably contributed another couple of inches.
The upside to all of this is that Greece is greener than many Greeks have ever seen it. Fruit this summer should be explosively juicy. The first round of strawberries were some of the best I've ever had. You can almost forget there were devastating wildfires two years ago that destroyed huge swaths of forest and olive groves, because the grasses and wild flowers are beautiful. The poppies are so darkly red they look like velvet.
But we're in Greece. It's a semi-arid climate, like eastern Washington & Oregon, like Utah, like southern Idaho.
So when the sun came out last weekend, and it became so warm that a long-sleeved shirt was uncomfortable, that was good. And today, finally, I can wear shorts & a short-sleeved shirt in the morning and have the doors open all day. It's supposed to hit 81 today, which is right about where the temperature should be. Just in time for our impending trip to Santorini with sallysimpleton and her husband whose name I can't spell (why do the French need so many extra letters?).
In other news, the running is going quite well. I ran 10 miles on Sunday. Ended up with bruised soles on both feet, but they've recovered fairly quickly. It was hard, but I did it in 1:35, which is pretty incredible, because in November I ran 6 miles in 1:17. I now regularly run 7 miles on Sundays, and will soon be increasing that to a regular run of 10. I've begun to actually enjoy running. I look forward to getting out and stretching my legs, to seeing what I can do each run that I couldn't do a week before. My massage therapist said that my calves appear to have come to an understanding and are no longer as tight as a drum skin. And thanks to the 10-miler, I can now seriously conceive of running and finishing the marathon...and if I can maintain the pace, I might be able to do it in 4:30 or less. But my goal will be simply to finish it.
In other other news, I've come to the realization that I need to hire a marketing consultant to tell me what I need to do to give myself a chance at success. If it works, the debt I incur doing that will be paid for by the photography itself. How's that for a crazy notion. So if you've read this far and have a recommendation for a marketing firm, pass that along.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/energetic.gif) energetic
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April 22nd, 2009
06:10 pm - I like really, really old stuff
Mom and I went to the National Archaeological Museum today, and I fell in love. I've discovered that yeah, the Classical Period stuff (around the time of Plato and Aristotle or so) is neat, but what I really like is the old stuff - Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, 6800-3300 BCE. Yeah, almost 10,000 years ago. What I found truly amazing in the Prehistoric wing of the museum were pots with decorations that Greeks still used into the 1st millennium BCE. It's beautiful stuff. I could go on and on and on and on about it. I'm sad that I waited more than a year to go to the museum. Now I need to go as often as I can to see everything...especially since my diplomatic status gives me free entry.
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April 18th, 2009
07:36 pm - Ancient Olympia
We're at one of the coolest archaeological sites yet - Ancient Olympia. It was a long damn drive to get here, but we saw some gorgeous country across the southern Peloponnese along the way. The village of modern Olympia is kept alive by the gazillions of tourists that come here every year, and it shows. Lots of overpriced souvenir shops and tavernas, though not significantly pricier than in the Plaka or Monastiraki areas.
The Ancient Olympia site itself has a museum that contains objects dating back to the end of the Neolithic Era, a little over 6000 years ago. The area has been continuously inhabited since then. There were mugs and cups and such from the Neolithic, the by-now very familiar plates and bowls and jugs from the Mycenaean period (3000+ years ago) and on to the Roman period 1400-2000 years ago. There were great explanations of the Olympian site, the games which started in the 11th C BCE, but weren't formalized until 776 BCE and ran until outlawed as a pagan festival in the late 4th C CE.
I'm on limited time due to the expense of our hotel's internet, but I'll write more later.
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April 9th, 2009
09:14 am - well that was fun
Y'know how taking your car to the dealer for service is always a little weird? You never feel you're in the right line, you're not sure about what you're asking for, you don't know if you need your differential fluid flushed or your flux capacitor is shot, and they don't really know what you need either, even if all you're doing is coming in for the 50,000 mile check.
Now, do that in another language, in which you can talk about the plight of the Gypsies or Noam Chomsky's theories about anarchy fairly easily, but you can't get vacuum cleaner bags because you don't remember the word for bag. But instead of that, you have a warning light on your car that they've never heard of (you have a RAV-4, possibly the most common SUV on the planet, and you're at a Toyota dealer). Turns out the warning light only exists on American models, because the rest of the world looks at their tires to determine whether they're flat. And their services go in 15,000 kilometer segments, so you have 75,000 or 90,000 to choose between, and you're at 50,000 miles (times 1.6 or so, which comes out to about 80,000 km), but they don't have an 80,000 km service. Oh, and you can't find the letter from the MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not Masters of Fine Arts) that says you don't need a registration, because you haven't paid taxes, because you aren't actually importing your car, because you're a diplomat.
After 45 minutes, you agree that they'll do the 75,000 km service, and that they'll see if their computer knows how to turn off the flat-tire light. And now, it's 8 am, so you head to the coffee shop on the corner for a cappuccino and cream pastry to recover from the experience.
Yeah, that's a fun way to start the day.
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April 7th, 2009
04:00 pm - results from the Ymittos run
Remember that 10K I did a couple weeks ago that turned into a 12K? Well I wasn't dead last as I had initially thought. There were two DNF's. ;-} My official time was 1:34:56, fully 10 minutes after second to last.
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