Behind

It was bound to happen.  Life has gotten in the way of the blog and I now find myself four days behind

 but I'm going to do my best to pick up where I left off - which actually was Thursday the 24th.  There are likely to be several posts in the next day or two so that I might begin to re-vision the past few action packed days.

The morning began again somewhat cool and hazy at the Kalikalos community in Kissos.  We enjoyed breakfast as a group as the fog began to break.  I had some catching up to do computer wise which turned out to be not so interesting, but it needed to be done.  Primarily, I spent the morning hours preparing a slide show for the lecture I was to give to members of the forestry and rangeland ecology department at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki on Friday.  After finally creating something I felt good about, I began to plan my trip there for the following day.

Unfortunately, as I searched for my options for either bus or train travel, I realized it would be virtually impossible

 for me to get there before 1 or so in the afternoon - not an ideal time to offer a presentation to University professors and students on a Friday.  After much deliberation and some challenging back and forth conversation with taxi companies and bus schedules, I decided to delay my trip until Monday the 28th.  In many ways this was a more desirable situation in that Thessaloniki is 3 hours to the north and Athens is another four hours to the south and I would have to return there late Saturday or very early Sunday for an event I'd scheduled for Sunday afternoon.  If this is confusing to you, you're not alone.  Needless to say, complex travel plans have been one standard so far during my trip.

We shared another light Greek style lunch of bread, tomatoes, grapes, feta and salad and I made the decision to get out and make the most of the rest of the day.  I chose to head to the beach once more (it seemed virtually inexcusable for me to do anything but) and I had to more or less retrace my steps from the previous days journey.  This time, the path was far more familiar and I found myself developing an even greater insight into the character of the land.

I chose to finally use the video option on my digital camera to document the ecology I observed as I descended from the mountain ridges to the sea (approximately 1600' drop).  This was my first time doing such a thing, but I hope that it will provide an interesting resource that I soon plan to upload to youTube.  

As much of the trip is far better captured in images, I'll spare the details for now.  Some of the highlights included the ripe pomegranate, figs and nuts I enjoyed on the way down.  I saw my first medlar tree and probably one of the only lowlights was my foolish decision to do something I already knew was a bad idea - taste an unpickled olive - whew! do not try that at 

home.  Or if you do, hopefully the taste and feeling will stick with you long enough so that you remember never to do it again.  It's a wonder that ancient people ever learned how to make such prolific use of this crop that now absolutely dominates the landscape.

I reached the sea and took a dip but the sky had clouded 

over lightly and it proved very difficult to warm back up afterwards.  Fortunately, several friends had driven down earlier in the afternoon and we were able to share a ride back up the mountain.  I returned and learned how to use Mac's iMovie by trial and error and put together 95% of the 7 minute video that chronicled the days adventure.  

We had a delicious community pizza and wine dinner and then followed that with their annual Thursday 'cabaret' night tradition with willing participants sharing songs and other skills.  Ekkehardt read several German poems in English and German, Natasha from Australia serenaded us with original songs on guitar and vocals, Rob entertained us with spoken word theater he'd penned, Richard sang as well and Adam sang acapella, shared some original 

spoken word poetry and a song on his home made 'feta-can' bass!  I polluted folks ears with a couple of my tunes and soon thereafter we retreated for the night.

I decided to take the early bus to Volos (at 7am) the following morning which meant another 

short night for me.  I keep reminding myself though that I can sleep when I'm dead!, right?