Welcome to Athens

So the three of us are all sitting around the table this morning, having our coffee, Cheerios, pastries, and doing our email.  I choose to interpret this as cute and cozy, an indication of our family unity and how we have humanized our technology.  (You may have another interpretation, and feel free to develop it fully, on YOUR blog.)  Last night, our second in Athens, we all slept well, and this morning we are ready to face the world.  The most we could manage yesterday was a brief introductory visit to the Athens Centre and a trip to the beach via a long, slow tram ride through Athens and down the coast.  We didn't take the camera to the beach, but here are a couple of shots from the roof of the Centre.  Recognize anything?

The Athens Centre is where I'll be teaching and where we'll all three be taking classes in Greek language and archaeology.  It's a gorgeous facility, the kind of place you want to hang out in, smelling the jasmine and pomegranates, working on your computer in the open courtyard, and talking with students (mine and those from several other programs using the Centre).  This is about six blocks from our apartment, on top of a hill (hence the gorgeous view), and staffed by friendly, helpful people led by Rosemary (behind Alex in the picture).  She helped found this place in the 70's, and it seems to be running like a well-oiled machine, except few machines come complete with bougainvillea and views of the Acropolis.

Time for more pictures, this time of our apartment from outside, with the balcony visible on the second floor (with white table and chairs).  The face-on picture shows some of the less attractive aspects of city life, like open dumpsters and graffiti, while the side view show a more flattering picture including flowering trees on the street and hills in the background.  (I promise that I'll get better with my camera, and the pictures WILL improve.)

The apartment is roomy and stark--we're going to start doing something with the bare walls soon--with a few inevitable quirks that will challenge us to adapt our American ways.  More on the quirks in future posts, as we generate amusing and tragic stories of our life in Athens.  For now, how about another picture, this one of one of our local Plakas, two blocks down the hill in the direction of the Athens Centre?

Like I said, the pictures WILL improve.  Meanwhile try not to get dizzy from the poor depth-of-field as you look at the spot where we ate dinner the first night, a taverna we'll no doubt be back to regularly.

The beach was fabulous, everything we could have imagined in a Mediterranean beach in Athens at six euros each on a weekday.  We were advised to try a private beach, and I'm guessing it was worth the money.  It was pretty empty, the children's water park was running, and I got just a whiff of the Hotel California experience Alex and I had in Ensenada many years ago, when we were almost the only people staying in a huge resort.  But yesterday was, after all, a weekday in September, and perhaps no one in all of Athens was able to appreciate the beauty of a beach outing on that day, in that place, quite as much as three newly arrived Alaskans.