The land where Odysseus trod

Another catch-up post!

So to continue where I left off, Grandpa and Grandma and I flew to Athens on Friday. That evening we strolled around, seeing the street markets, the flea markets, and the markets that don't exist anymore (except through the remains of some columns and walls). City walking is one of my favorite activities in Greece, and nighttime strolls practically redeem Athens from it's grimy daytime crush. Another part of the balance for Athens is the food.

Have I extrapolated on gyros yet? Fabulous. Pronounced Yeeros, for all of you wondering, they are hot pitas wrapped around spit-roasted meat, tomatoes, tsaziki sauce, and occasionally french fries. Mmmmm. And, if bought on the street, cost less than 2 Euros. Sitting down at the same restaurant sends the bill up to 7, which may seem strange, but you have to consider the culture. You're really paying for your seat--for the opportunity to sit, linger, and people watch for hours. Cafe sitting is the Number One most popular activity in Argostoli. All the cool people do it. I'm learning, slowly, how to sit and sip one drink over the period of at least an hour. You should try it sometime, it's not easy!

So anyways, Friday we wandered, got gyros, and settled in. Saturday we sailed to Aegina. And when I say sailed, I mean took a ferry. And didn't get off at our destination. What happened was that we didn't realize we had actually docked, and were busy taking pictures, so by the time we headed towards the exit the ferry was already moving again. Ohi! (no!) We were afraid we'd have to go back to Athens, and for a milisecond I considered jumping off and swimming, but the boat was just going to one more island and returning. All was well after all! Once docked we wandered around and got a taste of island life (much better than Athens). I wish G&G could've seen Kefalonia, my home and probably the most beautiful island, but that trip is not so convenient.

Back in Athens the next day we made the climb to the Acropolis. Always awesome :). On the way we stopped at Mars Hill, where Paul preached (Acts 17). It's pretty cool to be there and think about his words and testament of the unknown god.

More exploring, shopping and eating wrapped up our trip, and Monday I had to go back to Kefalonia. 'Twas a sad parting after such a wonderful trip!

At the bus station I happened to run into some fellow classmates, and that made the trip seem much faster than the eight hours it was :).

Home in Argostoli it was business time. The profs piled on projects like none other, and we are still in the midst of wading through them. The coolest project I'm working on is for Planning Studio--a group of three of us are making a documentary about Farsa; its history (fishing village destroyed by the 1953 earthquake), current status (beautiful overgrown rubble), and future possibilities (being rebuilt as a sustainable community with traditional architecture and spirit). Quite a lot of work is going into this, as well as sweat and blood. While filming in the village I stumbled into some thorny bushes and sustained considerable scratching injuries.

But hopefully it will turn out well! We shall see! Also, I'm designing an identity mark for the village! hooray :)! I've been missing projects where I actually know what's going on, and it felt good to get back into Illustrator.

The most complicated project so far has been building a physical model of the site. Who would've thunk figuring out a scale and finding materials would be so difficult? Live and learn. Nikos still wants to use foam core. I shudder in horror. Can you imagine trying to cut the layers of a topo map out of foam core? No, because it should never be done! Unless you have a super, super sharp knife the stuff tears and jags like none other.

In other happenings, last weekend six of us helped out at Cynthia and Nikos's olive orchard. This isn't olive pruning or harvesting season (they harvest in November-January), so we focused on cleaning up an old, stone goatherd's house. The roof fell in years ago, and the tiles were inside. Now that Cynthia and Nikos want to rebuild it as a storage facility, we had to move all of the tiles out, which sounds boring but was actually quite exciting because, get this, there were scorpions living among them! Little scorpions the size of your thumbnail, but scorpions they were, with stinging tails and everything! We squished them as diligently as we could, and although Katie felt bad about killing them, I recognize that the overall scorpion population will not be hurt at all, and it really doesn't matter. Besides, who wouldn't boast of killing a scorpion or two?

Well, I was going to write about our trip to Ithaca, but as Homer says, "There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep."

Good night, all!