Thomas journals

After a harrowing time on the metro (why didn’t we send the luggage ahead in a cab as planned?)  - with doors closing on Kerri Caramella inside with her luggage outside, and the Camponeschis still inside the car – we all finally rendezvoused at the Acropolis Museum Boutique Hotel.  We immediately went to our quirky modern rooms and should have slept, but most wanted to get out and about and see the city.  Cole and I went two blocks, past seedy sex shops and closed businesses to a mom and pop restaurant called “Smile” for a souvlaki (gyro) and local brew. LOVED it (and went back several more times during our stay in Athens.) Then we went back to the hotel and crashed for an hour before meeting with our cohorts for an investigation of the Plaka – near our hotel.  Lots of souvenir shops, jewelry stores, cafes – and finally, a view of the Acropolis.  We found Diogenes Café on Lisikratous Square and had a tasty meal and wine. Thirteen of us then wandered the streets ...

From Cairo to Athens: A Birdseye View Square green plots of farmland, fed by the delta of the Nile, intersected by long straight roads – or are they irrigation lanes? The big city of Alexandria, crowding the coastline and seeming to push out into the sea. Incredible clouds rising up above the sea – huge masses of puffy cumulus Flying across the open expanse of aegean blue Mediterranean Sea in a NW direction Passing over the huge island of Crete rolled out like pie dough in all directions, surrounded by small uninhabited tiny islands with huge cliffs rising out of the water. Karpathos to the east, then more and more roads running along high ridges with towns nestled in depressions, lowlands. A white ferry pushing ahead, connecting two islands. Unusual contrast of blindingly white snow on mountains in distance with irridescent blue water ringing the islands. White windmils slowly turning on the highest tree-lined ridge. Banking west into the Saronic Gulf for a first sight of Athens. M...

Two recent news items spur this post: First, an article in Saudi's Arab News -- our main daily newspaper -- headlined Saudi Downstream Forum in Jubail . It includes an aerial photo of the petrochemical industry here. As far as I can tell, the photo shows an area very close to our school; but the photo seems to have been taken several years ago, without the new superhighway. The headline is at first curious, as there are no rivers in Saudi Arabia, and no dramatic ocean currents either. Here in Jubail, the term Downstream is a standard metaphor for the big factories here that receive petroleum pipeline rivers and process it into now-essential products of modern life: petrochemicals, polyethylene, polystyrene, and myriad items named in advanced chemistry classes. Our proximity to the factories was reportedly the main reason our recent school-expansion plans were rejected -- the Commission has now sited our new high school construction ten miles further north, away from the facto...