Me Touching History

 One thing I can say for certain is that when I get back from Greece, I'm going to be tan.  It's sunny and hot.  I chose this time of year to possibly avoid the heat, and if what our Team Leader Christos tells us, I did.  Bookings during the intense summer months were light.  The Acropolis is known for being an archeological site, the Parethenon, and one of the most famous historical sites in the world; it's known for its cooling shade trees.  When I checked the temperature standing on the Acropolis with sweat trickling down my neck it was 90 (F).  For those who don't know, in situations like this my mind goes to one thing:  hydration.  As a result, when we sat down for a light lunch, I guzzled a liter and a half of water record time.

And I know a lot of you are waiting to see this, so here it is.  This is me touching history.

I took a lot of other pictures, and you'll most likely get to see quite a few of them.

You may find this silly, but one of the questions which has bothered me is why the top of the Acropolis is so uneven.  There are rocks, and boulders sticking up from the earth at the rear end of the temple, however there is flat ground in front of the Neptune's Temple.  Our tour guide Melena pointed to rectangular squares cut into the stone and told us there had once been stone slabs leveling out the plateau and that other statues had stood on these stone slabs.  So, if you ever go to the Acropolis in Athens, now you know!

Here are a few other pictures.

And, of course, the debate is coming up.  From what I can tell, Trump is spewing out so much garbage 

hoping some think will stick.  He must be worried shitless.

Arrival in Greece

 So, I'm in Athens.  The temps outside are a balmy 84 (F) and the sun is shining. Tomorrow looks to be about the same.  

The flight over was long.  Nine hours from Philly to Athens.  I had been hoping to get some sleep on the flight but young woman beside me was, as my grandma would say, rutchy.  She just couldn't stay still.  She told me that she taught painting, abstracts, landscapes, portraits, that kind of stuff and that she'd been hired to teach a class on the island of Skyros (?) for the next 2weeks.  I listened to her and the gent in the window seat discussing painting and was not sold that she knew that much about painting.  

The food was... okay.  It was airline food.  There was a full meal and a snacky breakfast of Chobani yogurt and fig cookie.  

We have a meeting scheduled in the lobby at 7, after which I'm going to go up to the lounge on the 7th floor of the hotel and get a bite to eat.  I was up there earlier and took this picture of the Acropolis.

That's the Acropolis in the distance.  It looks far away, but it's really only about 3 miles away.  Athens, itself, is quite large.  There are not a lot of skyscrapers, the tallest buildings being around 7 stories.  Many of the buildings appear to have solar panels on their roofs.  Makes sense, lots of sunshine here.