See. I did say that I was going to post again soon, and I did. I’m so happy when I keep my promises.

Today was an incredible day. I woke up and went on a tour of the Church of a Hundred Doors here with our Art History Professor. He is so smart about everything, and I really love learning things from him. I gained a lot of knowledge about the church, and I was also able to scope out some interesting photo ops there.

After that, I was hired by the person that runs the apartments that I live in to photograph them and put together a portfolio of the different apartments. He was really happy with my work, and he asked me to extend my job. Officially, this means that I’ve had a job in Greece and when I’m older I can say, “When I lived and worked in Greece!”

At about 12:00, Jared and I decided to rent a four wheeler and go around the island with it. It was a lot of fun. We started in the port town and went counter clockwise around the island. I got to take a lot of cool photos of him, and I also just got to take a lot of cool photos. It’s been a long time since we both just up and went and did something like that, and I know we both enjoyed it even though it was quite cold.

When we got home, I decided to go back out again and brave the weather. It turned out to be a great idea. I had an incredible time alone, and I got to discover places I have been wondering about since the first day I was on the island over a year ago. I visited the ancient quarries twice. On my way to Lefkes, I ran into thousand year old olive trees that I have been fixing to photograph for over a year. When I got to Lefkes, I happened upon some old windmills where the grain used to be ground into flour. They are deserted and falling apart. I got the chance to photograph them and explore them, and that is something that I have been looking forward to doing since I made it here. It was very exciting for me. One of them even had a donkey outside. I went to visit him, but he wasn’t to excited at the idea of having a visitor. Jared says that I have donkey radar, and I would have to say that he is right.

On my way back, I was able to stop and visit many of the old sites. It really made my day to do all of the things that I did.

I’m going to post some photos up here so you can see us in action.

We head to Naxos tomorrow. More stories and photos when we return.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Ok. It’s been over a week since I’ve written. I’m sorry about the lag, and I promise that things will get better. Pascha was an amazing experience for me personally, and it was the height of a lot of energy for quite a few people here (in the school as well as the Greeks around the school). Having Easter come and go was quite wonderful. My friends and I had a very nice potluck on Easter day. One of the students’ mom owns a restaurant, and she made a remarkable lamb stew. It tasted quite good. The man that runs the area that we live in brought us a loaf of fresh bread that he had made. It was quite enjoyable.

Over the past week, I have been organizing my life and getting things restructured here so that I can come out the other end of my studies here with some actual things to show for. For the past month, I have been taking lots of photographs of all sorts (both in film and digitally), and preparing them to be printed. I am now in the throes of printing them all. I have stopped taking some of the thousand classes that I WAS taking, and I am now concentrating almost exclusively on photography only. It is a very refreshing experience. I spent 7 hours today in the darkroom, and I am now on my computer again evaluating some images to be printed digitally.

Jared has arrived on this beautiful island of mine, and we are having quite a bit of fun. I have shown him many of the ancient sites that I have seen. I don’t know that he has the exact same take on them that I have, but at least he has been able to see them.

I have a great plan for the next couple of days though, and I thought that I would share it.

Tomorrow, I am taking a tour of the Church of a Hundred Doors (the oldest church in Christianity) with an art historian. He is amazing, and he is going to get us access to the parts of the church that you can’t normally go it. I am very happy about it.

After that, I think that I am going to rent a four-wheeler with Jared and drive around the entire island with him. It sounds like a lot of fun, and I believe that I will be able to take quite a few photographs that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to take (without walking for days and days).

On Saturday, I am going to go with Jared to Naxos. We are going to rent a car and drive around for a while. I am looking forward to seeing many of the ancient sites including the place where Zeus was born! I am also very interested to see the ancient korous, which is a sculpture that was started and not finished. It is VERY big.

I will tell you more of my adventures as they happen, but I thought that it would be good to at least give you and update and tell you that I am alive and well.

Some poppies growing in a grape field I happened upon.