Eye of Naxos

So, we made it on the train and the ferry on time. WE arrived in Naxos at about 1 pm and spent the day around the city of Hora, the only one on the island. The water of the Aegean is indeed a deep teal, and clear as a glass of water. It's a shame, they litter so much. The beaCH SEEMEd to have more sea glass than sand, or naybe the area just has a lot of quartz. We traversed the small city roads up on the hill and looked at the old ruins of the Minoans. We also ate some very good meals including swordfish and octupus. We spent a while at the temple of Apollo skecthing and watching the sun set. We also combed the beach for small shells that are common in the area, but we did not find any. The locals call them, the Eye of Naxos, though I an sure, the would be the Eye of Paros, on Paros. Tomorrow we are going into the hills to see some caverns aND OTher ruins. I aPOLogise for the typing as it is an odd Euro keyboard. We will then take the evening ferry tommorrow back to athens in time for our flight to Rome in order to start class on monday. Things are well. I have more to say, but am paying a little to do this. goodnight its 1030

All Greek dogs are on Vallium

Well, the thing I shall tell every person I meet who wants to visit Greece. Leave only one full day for Athens, and you will get done all the site seeing you have head about all your life.
We started the day off taking the train to the acroplis and bought our passes for only 6 Euro, because of our international student id's. These tickets bought us enrty to 4 other places during the day, so it worked out well. We started the procession up the hill to the top and explored along the way. There are so many pieces of ruins here, that they don't label or even pay attention to so many of them. As we climbed the hill, there were peices of relief that our own feet were crushing below us, as I am sure many feet have crushed through the years. We saw one of the theatres and spent time at the top inspecting the parthenon and erictheon. They're beautiful, just beautiful. We spent three hours on the acropolis climbing and photographing. We even sat down for a while to do some sketches, and had many people looking over our shoulders at our work. The stone that the hill is made out of has been walked on for thousands of years, and consequentially is polished after thousands of years. I would not recommend trying to climb any of the rocks in the rain because of it. Some people managed to fall without the rain's help.When we finished up,we bougbt post cards and wrote them out at lunch. After lunch we went tourist trapping at the shops, then headed to the temple of Zeus. Which I must say, is both saddening and aweing at the same time. If anything the time of water stains and acid rain make the corinthian columns more beautiful and more mysterious. The obvious lack of about 80% of the columns however sets that bygone era at a much greater distance than it should be given our local.
Afterwards we went to both the ancient agora and the roman one. The roman one is very much in ruins, there was very little work done, and was a little disspointing. The ancient agora has been reconstructed to its original size and I want it. Its amazing and made me feel as though i was sitting in a painting. The beams were some sort of dark auburn colored wood and the ceiling was higher than you would ever imagine. We were lucky we were there in the middle of the afternoon to catch the shadows as they passed accross the tiles of the agora. It made for great photographing.
On the other side of the park was the Temple of Haphestos which was in very good condition. Whether because it is smaller and therefore sturdier than the parthenon, or becuase it was not a target of WWII I don't know. At that point my camera battery started dying. I took 175 photos today, I hope that, per day, will be enough Tiin. I got an images od a remaining statue of the Hall of the Titans (gymnasium) this things is huge, and giant. I can[t believe it is less than 1/3 the height of the original entire building. I wish I could see it.
I was amazed at the number of stray dogs that frequent this city. These dogs look like any other american mutt, but they are gorgeous dogs. None of them are mangy, or mean. In fact, everyone we met was very friendly. They were on the acropolis, living under the ruins, living at the park of the temple of Zeus, and on the street. Many, many of them were sleeping in the middle of traffic so that passersby would think they were dead. We just came to th3e comclusion, that all dogs in Athens are on vallium.

It's all Greek to me

Local Time 9:12 p.m.
I am sitting at the 5th floor computer in the Neos Olympos Hotel in Athens, Greece. We got here alright with very few glitches, but I am very tired. Mary and Jackie have been here since 2 this afternoon and were happy to see we got in, albeit late. I slept very little on the planes, while I enjoyed the views of icy Greenland, the Swiss Alps, and the Greek Islands. I can't say I was terribly impressed with the view of Athens from the plane however. There was so much dust in the air, or polution. Either way, it rendered the bluish water of the Aegean to look only like dirty brackish. Tommorrow, Mary, Jackie, Andie and I will go to the Acropolis, it's really the main reason we are here in fact. We will also find out info about the ferry we plan to take to Naxos. So, Im off to bed...hopefully with an energetic and early start tommorrow.

If you can, please email me to my gmail account at llminkk@gmail.com as I find it difficut to check my aol from here. Apparently Europe does not like Americans Online. ;)

The Alpha

It starts today. I am getting ready for the airport, and will be leaving the country at 4 this afternoon. Greece...here we come.

Dead Week

This week has been hectic from beginning to end. After spending all of last weekend trying to get my computer to print my portfolio, I had the job fair on Monday morning. As I was collecting my resume portfolio and other paperwork, Dwyer pushed a visiting alumnus at me. He looked over my work, as I explained the project. While he was looking at my study sketches, he told me, that as an artist, he thought my "hand" was beautiful. I thanked him and then proceded up to the job fair. As i walked around i saw many many firms looking for employees. The stations with older men with crossed arms were the ones I did not stop at. I happening to see a former student of Cal Poly at one of the booths. I joined her and she talked with me about her tiem with Disney's Imagineering, and how she liked her firm, Urban Arena, much better. While I was talking to her, the man I had met in studio came up behnd me and started telling Amber about my drawings. I was given a lot of free stuff and invited to pizza and beer at Woodstocks pizza during which time he wanted to interview with me. I thanked him and went on to other firms, got more free stuff then went back to studio to work on my design project.

I stayed in studio for another 17 hours, minus the 1.5 hours I used for free pizza and the two hour meeting with my debate team. I slept till about 10 on Tuesday and went to my Econ and Speech classes. I finished that day with an all nighter, trying to get my design done, finish a better portfolio and studying for my food and culture class midterm. My design was done by 5 am and I brought Andie home so that we could both shower and change. I came back to study and then fell asleep a little bit on my desk before class. We pinned up at 8 am and my boss from this summer came to critique the work on my request. I had to laugh because he asked me why I didn't do drawings like that for him over the summer. I told him it was because he had me on the computer all summer. After the pin-up I went to take my food and culture midterm, which, today, I can honestly say I do not remember. I know I had problems focusing and that I had to read many questions more than once, but i actually ended up with a B on it. I slept for 16 hours that night.

One thursday I went to my last Econ class, thank goodness. Afterwards, I went to our debate about paying student athletes. We actually won, and I must say that our speakers did a very good job. I think we did well on that one. And today, what I am doing right now is waiting for my quarter review meeting with Dwyer and then I will go to my food professors office hours to look over the midterms in order to study for the final. Afterwards I will be making plans for Spain with Andie.

I leave town in 10 days....

Pig

So yesterday was Julies 22nd birthday. We spent the day in studio wishing her a happy day with sporadic gifts throughout the day, but we never could have planned the suprise she recieved upon coming home. I was in my room with the door shut, and I hear Julie come into the house yelling, "Pig! Ginormous pig!" I come running out of my room and she points out the front door. She was right, there was a pig. It was duotoned black and almost white, standing on the road, up the hill. It probably had to be about 250 lbs, so no one wanted to walk towards it, but regardless, I ended up reporting it to the police that there was a pig lose on our street. They probably thought it was a prank call as they didn't show up, well, atleast in the time we were there until Julie's bday dinner. It ended up a neighbor who was walking by, knew who the pig belonged to, but since the pig was, well, fidgety, didn't want to go talk to the owners. I just hope the pig got home safe and sound. And no, it was not a pot belly pig.
I ordered my $600 eurail pass yesterday, it will cover most of the heavy travelling we will be doing to get places.

Thought of the day.
It is cheaper to fly to England and back out, that to take many direct flights in Europe.

March 5, 2007

Happy Birthday Dad!

Final Leg

So, tommorrow starts week nine of the quarter and I leave SLO in 22 days. I'll be taking the train for Santa Ana and spend the night of the 25th at Andie's house so that we can get seats together on the plane. We bought tickets so that we could leave Greece in time for the first day of class. I'm a little sad that it is not a ferry, but a flight is about 22 hours shorter.
I bought what I hope is my last thing yesterday, a nice longer skirt for european church visits, afterall there is a dress code. I am getting to a point of panic of getting everything done, but I now have roomates for next year Anna, and her friend Susie. I am not sure why I ended up dealing with it, since I am not the lease holder this coming year, but that's a complaint for another day. I have a sublet for the time I am gone and I am trying to get things finished for the end of the quarter. There is much to read, and my final design project is due the wednesday after this one.

But anyway, I think I have the atomizer pretty much figured out. It looks really neat, though the color scheme i chose on my practice on was a little eighties style. Maybe I will only use one color on the background on the real one. I am not worried about my grade in the class as Dwyer likes me, and he knows I try. I got an A on my last speech and I am doing ok in my other classes.

Observation of the weekend. There is not enough space in any living room for Rob Cowell to play Wii tennis.

Sisters, sisters, There were never such devoted sisters.

Isn't it odd that my brother-in-law reads this, while my sister will not?

What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger...but wow does it hurt.

My debate team performed basically how I expected they would today. Not badly, but not as strongly as possible, myself included. But trying to say that banning handheld phones, while allowing handsfree while driving is truly a stupid idea. I mean, yes, something should be done, but we are no safer handsfree. Anyway, as a class, we must have met with the professor's expectations, as we don't have class next tues! That, or he just had something better to do.

I mock packed my bag for Europe the other day, and as of now, everything I plan to bring will fit. The bag doesn't way too much, but if I carry it with me alot...well..weight I will lose, not that that would be a bad thing.

My design for class is going pretty well, I think. The overall design is done and Dwyer is giving us extra time to fully render the project how we would on projects in the past with hours of experimentation. I'm not complaining, not at all. I plan to use what is called an Atomizer to prepare my boards, then we will see what will come of it. Oh, and I might use watercolor crayons too.

Thought for the day- If we have been increasingly finding more oil reserves and now have 1.5 trillion barrels in known supply when in our entire history we've used no more than 800 million, How can we be "running out?"

Using the word "Threads" makes clothing sound more trendy.