Spring Break Trip to Greece

Spring Break Trip to Greece - the Flight

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.

Modern high-rises mixed with traditional red roof houses interspersed with olive gardens.

Stripes of color in carefully plotted farm land.

Mountains ringing the city of Athens.

A familiar Scandinavian blue IKEA typically planted new the airport.

Blue and white stripes with a white cross on the a blue field flying in the stiff wind as a welcome as we touch down.

Let the relaxing begin…

Comments

String Quartet Broken String

We attended a marvelous concert last night, at the Porto Museum of Casa do Infante , a beautifully-renovated 1325 building near the river. At one point it served as a customs house. The government sponsors Portuguese musicians to return from other European orchestras to perform in their homeland. We heard and saw this group play a traditional piece – Haydn string quartet Opus 20 #2. Then the modern Benjamin Britten's Three Divertimenti – the stunning last movement of which they performed as an encore. They performed (and I recorded) the Shostakovich Quartet #9, during which the first-violinist broke a string (it features several strongly-plucked chords!) and had to retreat&repeat!

EUA: tanto estrago em tão pouco tempo

As part of my effort to learn about Portugal, both the country and the language, I'm subscribing to the centrist newspaper, O Publico . There are plenty of newspapers: conservative tabloids, and socialist and communist-sponsored daily papers; I find O Publico to be most sober, with consistently interesting columnists and opinion pieces, in addition to some local (Porto) news, with just enough sporting news to keep me chatting with the taxi driver. Today's opinion piece sums up, I think, European pundits' view of the U.S. government. As the title puts it: so much damage in so little time. I shudder at the rank incompetence and corrupt behavior, demonstrating a cynical attitude toward public service, showing indeed that the cruelty is the point. What scandal, what damage will be the tipping point to collapse this government? And what will it take to recover from the damage? Who will be able to trust the US government again, ever? Only ni...

Música Tunas e Boémia

We attended an unusual concert last night: Música Tunas e Boémia (bands and parties) University student folk-music groups — big groups of 40 and more each! put on a great show of singing, playing, flag-twirling, tambourine-swinging, all at the major (private) concert hall. The most unusual thing about it was that nobody used any electronic device (except for microphone amplification)—no electric guitar or keyboard, no big drum set…every instrument and prop was hand-held. The singing was quite good, given the effort to synchronize 40 voices.

Thomas journals

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