.: What’s Bruin :.

I started my new position at S Tech today. I’m working next to Pt. Loma Nazarene University at a Naval Training Group military base. My division has a cool name called “The Center for Information Dominance.” It was kind of difficult to stay awake after lunch; I think I’m suffering from jet lag.

I spent the morning getting acquainted with my current project which involves basic training about radio frequencies for naval recruits. I have my first deadline this Friday, which is to verify and complete all the resources required to build the training content for this first module.

I need to catch up on sleep still!

Later in the day I had my corporate orientation where I signed up for all my employee benefits and stuff like that.

Tags: Career, work

Boring: Flying is boring, especially on these long trans-Atlantic flights, during which I can’t sleep and there is really nothing to do. The only exciting thing that happened was when we were making our final descent into the London Heathrow Airport after almost 4 hours of flying from Athens to London, I was looking out the window and saw lightning strike near the plane. Josephine and I screamed, along with several other people, then she said: “Shit! What was that?”

Afterward, I laughed. That was so funny.

Less than a minute later, I saw another lightning bolt farther away from the plane. Josephine was scared and irritated. I was glad when we finally made it back on the ground.

In the London airport, I got to use the Internet for about 45 minutes.

Next came the long flight to Los Angeles, almost 11 hours… soooooo boring. My butt was sore from all the sitting.

Not much else to report, no pictures today. We finally made it to San Diego airport where Will picked us up. Unpacked a little, took a shower, and sleeping in my own bed by 10:30 PM Pacific Daylight Savings Time. Over 24 hours of traveling, I am glad the flying is over.

I’m exhausted and it’s difficult to sleep.

Tomorrow I start another chapter in my life, a new job with S Tech. I am so tired.

Tags: Greece, Travels

I’ve turned comments back on as I’m headed back to the USA. In London right now checking my email while waiting for my flight to LAX. I’ll be posting stuff about our vacation to Greece and pictures and stuff soon.

Tags: Greece, site_announcements, Travels

Pensive: Today is our last full day in Greece. I’m kind of bummed that we will be heading back home. I really don’t want to leave. Greece is such a beautiful place, excluding the big city of Athens, which I think is 10 times worse than Los Angeles. I’m sad when I think that we will be saying goodbye to Yaya. I don’t know if we will see her again since she is so old. I’m glad Josephine and I did get to see her.

Activities: We traveled about 1.5 hours away from Athens to go to Uncle Ted’s summer lake house in Psiatha. What a nice summer retreat. Uncle Ted and Aunt Angelica have a boating business, a very lucrative business considering that they have four houses in Greece and have not worked in two years. Uncle Ted built this summer beach house and patio by himself. It’s very very very nice. There is custom stone work all around the house, including the driveway, pool, landscaping, and patio. There are even dolphin shapes in the patio.

View of the Lake

Chiseling Stone

Hand-Chiseled Stone Patio

The Patio at Uncle Ted’s Summer House

Main House and Pool

After talking, sitting, and snacking on Greek snacks and fruit, we went down to the lake restaurant and had dinner. I had some of the best guerides (shrimp) I have ever tasted in my life. Yum yum.

Sitting Down for Dinner at the Lake Restaurant

After leaving the lake house, we dropped Yaya off at her apartment. She said to Josephine: “I’m glad you were able to come. You were the only grandchild who had not come to Greece yet. And I’m glad you’re happy. And I hope you and Joe have many years together and grow old together.” As Yaya was getting out of the car, I rushed out to open the trunk so I could get her cane and give it to her. She said in Greek to me: “I hope I see you again.” Then she kissed me on the cheek. I held back tears.

Tomorrow we go home to the United States of America.

Tags: family, Greece, Travels

Reunion: Today was the day that Uncle Chris and Aunt Voula threw a huge party for us. It was very exciting, especially for Josephine as she got to see an aunt and cousins that she had never seen before because these were the relatives who had not lived in the United States before.

My Big Fat Greek Family

Opa!

Aunt Voula decorated the patio. It looked very nice, like a Greek Taverna.

Voula’s Outdoor Taverna

Oreah!

Fatted Lamb: They bought a 12.5 kilo lamb and roasted it outside. Uncle Chris also cooked a huge pork kebab and some Greek sausage. The food was very very good.

Uncle Chris, the Chef

The Yum Yum Kebab

Long Lost Cousins: Pictures of relatives not seen before and some not seen since they were little children.

Vacilli, Andonis, and Leta

Niko, Angelica, and Evanthia

Reunited with Cousins

First time to see Aunt Maria

Josephine’s Family in Greece

Tags: family, Greece, Travels

Kia: In the morning after breakfast we rented a small car for 30€, which is about $40. It’s much easier to drive around the island than in the city of Athens where there are tons of cars and crazy drivers.

The Rental Car

We toured the island for a few hours, looking at a few beaches. The tourists had not woken up yet, so most of the places were deserted. Most of the beaches we saw had these cool-looking umbrellas that looked like mini straw huts.

Cool Umbrellas that Look Like Huts

Hamar: In the course of our exploring the island, we encountered a friendly donkey. We stopped the car next to it to take a picture. It seemed to like the attention.

Bung’s Cousin, A Friendly Hamar

Octopus Abuse: At Elia Beach we saw one of the restaurant workers taking an octopus that was going to be cooked later and smashing it against a rock to tenderize the meat. Josephine took some video footage of it. The guy was comedian, talking to the octopus asking: “Why? Why aren’t you listening to me?”

Just Beat It

Paradise: Our last stop of the day before returning to the port to catch our ferry, was Paradise Beach. We had lunch there at the Tropicana Restaurant. I went swimming as well before the food arrived. The amazing thing was that after I looked closely in the clear tropical blue waters, I could see little fish right there close to the shore. You would never see that in California beaches. The fish were silver with a black-striped tail and some black dots. I wish I had had an underwater camera to take some pictures, but that will have to be for another tropical vacation some other time. Oh yeah, there was a nude section on this beach to the left of the restaurants, but there weren’t very many people on that side. We noticed from the top of the beach that it was just some old naked guy and his fat wife sunbathing, pretty gross.

Swimming in the Mediterranean

Tropical Paradise

Strawberry Dacquiri

After lunch we drove back to the car rental place in Chora. The guy in charge of the shop drove us to the port where we caught our ship back to Piraeus and then Athens where Aunt Voula picked us up from the metro at about 9:15 PM.

Tags: Greece, hamar, Travels

FQ1: Which famous person do you think sold out the most to endorse a product? What’s the product?

Kobe Bryant. He is overrated. I can’t remember the product because he lost some endorsements with the whole rape charges scandal thing.

FQ2: Which famous person do you think has the best celebrity endorsement for a product? What’s the product?

Andy Roddick for Izod clothing. Izod has become relatively a no name in the last 20 years in terms of sporting goods. I predict with Roddick’s popularity that Izod clothing will rise from the ashes to become popular again as it was in the 1980s.

FQ3: Which song do you think has best been used to endorse a product? What’s the product?

Anticipation by Carly Simon for Heinz Ketchup.

FQ SPOKESMAN: Pair a famous person with a product endorsement that you think would be the perfect match!

Arnold Schwarzenneger with 24Fitness.

Meme from FridayQ.

Tags: Participation

Early Bird: We had to get up at around 5:00 AM to have Aunt Voula drive us to the metro station. We were going to take the metro to the port of Piraeus for our ship Blue Star Ithaki leaving at 7:35 AM. Taking the metro was the cheapest and fastest way to get to the port, much faster than going by car with Aunt Voula.

Déjà vu: At our transfer point in Monastiraiki, we ran into the college student from Maine, Sarah, again. She was on her way to Piraeus also to take a ship to Santorini. We invited her to come to our family reunion party on Saturday.

Blue Star: We found our ship very easily. It was the first boat in front of the metro stop in Piraeus. The boat ride was a long and boring 5.5 hours. The funny part about the trip was some guy smoking behind Josephine and exhaling the smoke directly behind her head. So she got a large piece of paper and fanned the smoke back.

The Cruise Ship. Blue Star Ithaki

Throng: There was a large crowd of people waiting as we “disembarked” from the ship. They were holding up signs for hotels and advertising. They kept asking us if we had reservations for a room or if we needed a room, but we already had one. The problem was that we couldn’t find our sign. After five minutes, Josephine saw some guy holding a clip board that had a piece of paper with our name on it.

The Throng

Alkyon: The travel agency’s mini-van took us to our beautiful tropical hotel. The white plaster walls with blue trim reminded me of an old movie about two lovers in Greece called Summer Lovers. Check out the pictures for more views of the hotel and the great view from of the town of Chora from it.

The Alkyon, Our Hotel Villa in Mykonos

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Tags: Greece, Travels

Return of the Tourists: We took the metro back to Monastiraiki to do some more shopping. But since Aunt Voula had to get to work early, we arrived in downtown before any shops were open. The restaurants were preparing their meats for the days’ meals. We saw some fresh chicken, pork, and beef cooking for the souvlakis and gyros.

Raw Beef, Chicken, Pork Slow Cooking in the Morning

So we decided to visit the Theater of Dionyssus, which was at the foothill of the Acropolis (thank God). We had some difficulty trying to find it, but we finally did. When we got there we saw a homeless bum sleeping near the entrance to the theater.

Homeless Bum in Front of the Theater

Later we told Aunt Voula about the bum, but she seemed offended and insisted that it was not a bum, but rather some person sleeping on top of their backpack since many people like to backpack through Europe. Well, I guess each person can believe what they want, but I don’t think backpackers talk to themselves and look weird, nasty, and scummy.

Theater: The theater was somewhat interesting. I always wonder what these ruins must have looked like in their glory days thousands of years ago. One of the marble chairs was sticking out, so I sat on it, knowing that the curator watching us would tell me not to. But it was fun anyways. The most interesting thing we saw in the theater was the ruins of The Chapel for St. Parreskevi, the saint after whom Josephine’s sister Parris is named.

A Stage Statuette at the Theater of Dionyssus

Spontaneous: After looking at the Theater of Dionyssus, we went back into downtown because we wanted to get the metro back to Syntagma so we could see the Byzantine Museum. But it started raining, strange weather for early summer here in Athens. We put our cameras away and waited for the rain to stop while standing next to a travel agency. Last night we had been talking about what to do for Thursday and Friday. I wanted to visit Corinth to see the city where the Apostle Paul spent much time and wrote two of the major letters of the bible. But transportation would be difficult since it’s pretty scary to drive in the big city where the traffic rules are much more lax than in the United States. People drive like maniacs. Aunt Voula had to work and couldn’t take more vacation time so she could not drive us so we were considering a bus tour.

While we were standing next to the travel agency looking at the prices for traveling to other Greek islands, a man befriended us and asked us if we were looking for a travel agency. So he told us about his brother’s travel agency. The man’s name was Christo (surprise, surprise). We ended up booking a 3rd class ticket on a ferry to the island of Mykonos for two days. Mykonos is a very popular island resort. Very cool!

Christo was very friendly. He brought us coffee while we were waiting to be helped in the travel agency and gave me some worry beads, a common toy similar to a squeeze ball that people squeeze to relieve stress in America. The tickets to Mykonos cost 240€ which is a little more than $320. It included a night’s stay and two days on the island in a nice hotel.

The Networking Salesman, Christo

After the travel agency, Christo took us to his cousin’s custom jewelry shop, where we bought our final gift. Then Christo paid for a cab for all of us and took us to the best place in Athens for the Greek dessert, loukoumades, which Josephine had been craving. She hadn ‘t had it in many years since her father and yaya made them by hand.

The Best Loukoumades in Athens

Baby Caterina: We returned earlier today around 3:00 PM so that we could freshen up with a shower before going to visit Cousin Angela, her husband Socrates, and their two-week old baby Caterina. Angela is Aunt Voula’s and Uncle Chris’ daughter. Josephine had not seen Angela since she was six years old living in the United States and now she is a new mommy.

Baby Caterina

Reunited Cousins, Angela and Josephine

Tags: family, Food, Greece, shopping, Travels

Μετρσ: We took the metro for the first time. It is truly an awesome underground public transportation system. Thia Voula dropped us off at the metro station, located at Ethniki Amyna, on her way to work. We didn’t know how to get our tickets at first. I think we walked into a bank first where someone told us we had to go downstairs into the station for the tickets. When we got to the ticket machine, we didn’t know how to use it. We stared at the machine for a couple of minutes trying to read the instructions, which were printed in multiple languages including English. Finally, someone who spoke English helped us figure it out. You had to press how many tickets you wanted first, then deposit the money. Each ticket allowed you to transfer two times within a 1.5 hour ride. So for both of us, the tickets cost 1.40€. We got off at the second to the last station on the Blue Line (#3), which was called Syntagma. Then we changed some money. The banks rip you off because the dollar is weak here in Greece. Then we struggled to find our way to the Acropolis.

Riding On the Metro

Προω Ακροπολη: We walked 12 hours today seeing the Acropolis after finally finding it late in the morning. The weather was extremely hot, about 90° F, but the hot weather only last from about 10:30 AM until 1:30 PM. There is really no way to describe what we saw today. I will let the pictures tell it all.

Temple of Zeus Olympian

Roman Agora

Theater of Herodeds Attalos

Temple of Athena Nike

The Propylaea

The Parthenon

The Porch of the Caryatids

The Erechtheion

The Buele Gate

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Tags: Greece, transportation, Travels

Kimao: I pretty much slept all day, while Josephine went to the grocery store with Uncle Chris. At night we went to Niko’s apartment where he lives with his girlfriend Despina. I slept a little there too while dinner was cooking. He made bar-b-q beef on kebabs and some vegetables and potatoes.

Hamming It Up

Liberal: We were polite listening to Niko rant about George Bush, the war in Iraq, and how horrible capitalism is. But silently we wondered what kind of economy Greece would have without the money spent by American capitalists and tourists.

Artist: Niko likes art. He is an aficionado of technology, uses a Sony Vaio to produce his digital art and movies. I was surprised to learn that the video industry in Greece is dominated by the PC instead of Macs. At the end of the evening we were treated to his latest work, “The Copa Banana,” which was a digital movie about sex with a banana. It used animated bananas and animated bodies of porno stars.

Phantom

Tags: family, Greece, Travels

Early morning:

I did not go out to try to see the Gates of Poseidon. I did not wake up in time, nor did I feel like being out in the brisk morning air wearing shorts on this ship. I ride on the boat was a little rougher than last time, so I took some Dramamine. It was good to take a shower on the boat, but the strange thing was that the shower was very small and was in the same “compartment” as the toilet. I thought it was kind of funny that water splashed all over the toilet seat.

When we arrived back at the house in Athens, I just crashed for several hours. It was the first good sleep in about five or six days.

Tags: Greece, Travels

Café: I didn’t sleep very well, probably because I had taken a 5-hour nap earlier in the day. But after a couple of cups of Greek coffee, I felt fine. We left for the day’s sightseeing events by 9:30 AM.

Parelia Beach: First stop was the beach front property of Papu. We heard an interesting story regarding that property from Uncle Chris and Aunt Voula, which I will reserve for a private entry. Josephine’s Uncle Andy owns the house now, but it is not maintained very well. Unfortunately, it looks very run down with tall weeds growing all around the house. One interesting thing that we saw was a poisonous plant called: We avoided touching any part of that plant. Notice the warning colors on the leaves.

Psira, don’t touch it

Black balls: That’s the literal translation for Mavro Volia, the beach near the village of Emborios. The beachfront was formed naturally by a volcanic eruption. The resulting black lava rocks were softened over time by the crashing waves onto the shore, hence the name. Up close and dry, the stones don’t look black at all, but rather like a dark grey. However, when wet, the stones look very dark black. And from a distance the entire beach head looks black. Aunt Voula secured two black stones for us even though it is prohibited from taking them from the beach.

Black Pebbles

Black Beach

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Tags: Food, Greece, Travels

Dawn’s Early Light: I didn’t sleep very well on the ship because I purposely left the light on so we would not miss our disembarking point at 3:00 AM in the morning. At about 2:40 AM, someone knocked on our cabin door to let us know that we would be arriving in Chios very soon.

It’s 3:00 AM. What do you expect?

Surprisingly, the port city was fairly active at 3:00 AM. Apparently, the arrival of ships to Chios is very predictable so coffee shops stay open to serve the people/tourist getting off the boat. We had some coffee and water at a small coffee at the port.

Coffee Shop Open at 3:00 AM

Panayiamou (Translation: Mother of God): Aunt Voula had arranged for a rental car for us. The village of Lithi is about 21 km from the port. After our drinks, we headed out for the village at about 4:00 AM. The streets of Chios are small and narrow, windy, and made of stones, pebbles, and cobblestone. It was pitch dark, with the streets empty and houses were darkened. People were asleep, as they should be at 4:00 AM. However, our start was punctuated by a strange sight. Josephine had seen something very strange. I know this sounds unbelievable, but Aunt Voula saw it too. There was a man wearing only a shirt and boots, naked from the waist down, going for his “morning exercise” I guess, which consisted of walking on a dark road on a remote island in Greece and playing with himself. Aunt Voula said she saw him, but couldn’t believe her eyes and said she didn’t want to say anything because it was too weird. But after Josephine said something, we all had a good laugh about it throughout the day, especially in the morning. Uncle Chris says that the village is a “sexy village.”

Φωτογραφηα: Getting to the village house at 4:30 AM provided the best photographic opportunities I have ever had because of the very soft lighting of the moonlight and early morning. So you’ll have to check out some of the pictures in the photo album on Flickr.com.

Lamp to Light Our Path

Moonlit Streets

Best Picture Ever In My Entire Life

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Tags: Food, Greece, Travels

9:40 PM, Greek Time
Noise: We got to sleep in somewhat until around 8:30 AM, but the noise from the construction at the next house made sure we were awake. The person next to Uncle Chris and Aunt Voula is adding on two stories to their home because his two children and their families are moving in with him.

Yaya: Josephine’s 94-year-old yaya came over while we were all having our morning coffee. Aunt Voula brought her over. Josephine had not seen her in almost 20 years. What a treat. Yaya does not speak too much English, basically none at all. So the little communication that I had with her was mainly just smiles and nodding my head. Yaya is a spunky old lady. If not for the difficulty in walking, she would be dancing up a storm with me.

Yaya and Josephine

Weak: The U.S. $ is pretty weak here. I changed $300 worth of currency which was only about 250€. So basically the $1000 that I brought with me is only worth about $750.

Chios: Uncle Chris and Aunt Voula are taking us to see the island of Chios where Josephine’s father grew up in the village of Lithi. We had to take a ferry, which was actually more the like the size of a medium-sized cruise ship, an 8-hour ride. I wanted to take some pictures of the ruins of Poseidon that you see a lot in the movies, but I was in the bathroom taking care of business, so I missed it. We “set sail” at 7:00 PM, so we will disembark at 3:00 AM in Chios. So right now as I finish writing this, we are supposed to be taking a cat nap so we are not too exhausted. By the way, the two tickets for the cruise ship cost 150€, which is a little less than $200. It’s pretty expensive considering it’s not a luxury cruise liner like the ones in the USA.

In the Ship’s First Class Lounge

Port City of Piraeus

Disgusting: From what Josephine’s sister told us, I agree that the public bathrooms in Europe are very disgusting. You are not supposed to place toilet paper in the toilet for flushing. Instead the bathrooms have a “special wastebasket” where you place your used TP. The reason, Aunt Voula, says is that the pipes are narrow so if people flush the TP, then there would be sewage blockages. So this is true, even on this ship. I will spare you the pictures of it.

Tags: Greece, Travels