266.April 10

Athens, Greece

I woke early. I was excited, but it took forever to get those putzes going, so I went out looking for breakfast. I found none, but I did hear a Greek orthodox choir doing Sunday morning mass. When we got going, we found and 8-year old boy selling sugar donuts, so we had cappuccino with that at a place I had found earlier. Finally, we walked to the acropolis. I was unhappy that it was less than my imagination, but now I can picture it all better. I didn't even know it was so high. It wasn't as creamy moon white as I had imagined it when I did. It, like all the delicious landscapes and historic sites in Europe, is being restored. I have seen the Elgin marbles in the British Museum, so I know what was in and on the temple, but I can not put them together in my mind as it would have been in third century BC Greece.

Descending to another temple that seemed to be surrounded by a track, I made Lars take a muscle-man shot of me in front of the temple with an acropolis view. We went shopping and wandering, until we reached a park above the Agora. Becca sat there in the sun, while Lars and I went down to the Agora and looked in the museum there. The grounds were beautiful. I must go back there and look around, because the grounds were closing when we had seen so little. We met Becca. On the way back to the hotel, we bought more gyros and Amstel beer to eat on a bench.

At 17:00 we checked out of the hotel, paraded across Athens-town and took the train to Patra. On the train, we talked to a Greek student who was studying medicine in Patra and was eager to talk to us in both English and German. We checked into the same hostel in Patra. That night, we tried to get wine from the same brewery that we had before in Patra, but it was closed. A man at the hostel (who was suspicious of George, but very nice to us) had given us a bottle to fill up. We got some gyros for supper. Then we went to bed.

1994

I lead an acting class this morning, starting at 09:00, and ending at 12:30. It is available because of a grant from the SELCO, Southeastern Library's Cooperative. I had 4 people in my class today, but will add another 4 next week. We worked on interpreting scenes from a bunch of plays that I chose to highlight certain aspects of script analysis. Everyone seemed to have a great time, and I got some good comments out of it. After that, I had lunch with Rachel at our house. We went back to the Opera House to set up some microphones for a City Wide Spelling Bee that was to happen that night. We had major problems with the mixer, and called in the help of Rick, the town's audio guru. After setting up an entirely different system, it was completed at 16:00. I completed Rachel's taxes tonight, and we watched an episode of "Mad Men" before bed.

2010