. . . the wonderful Oracle of Delphi.

I forgot to mention how gorgeous Athens was. You probably noticed in the pictures, but the amazing thing about the city, in my opinion, is that there are small mountains speckled throughout the buildings, and to me it looked like someone just came along and poured the city into this basin, where the buildings just spread right around those mountains. In addition, there are orange trees everywhere, and when one finds one’s self atop one of the hills, the water is always in the distance, and the city almost looks like it continues into the water. YES, it’s dirty. Yes, the people can be a bit pushy. Yes, we got amazing weather. Nonetheless, I recommend it highly.

Moving on.

On Friday, we took a highly recommended (by Jenn & Griff) tour to Delphi, the site of an ancient Oracle, a monument to Apollo, and a village of other amazing ruins, all of which are thoroughly steeped in mythology. The basic story is that people traveled from throughout Greece to ask questions of the Oracle (”dis is a place, not a pehrson”) . A woman (the pythia) sat on a sacred tripod over the oracle, which was a crack in the ground that emitted fumes. She was ecstatic and could not be understood without the help of two translating priests. When people came, they made sacrifices and brought offerings to Apollo in exchange for answers to their questions.

Aside from the monument to Apollo and the oracle itself, the site includes ruins of each city-state’s treasury, where the small offerings were kept. Large offerings (statues and the like) were kept outside of the treasuries. On the site are also the ancient theatre and stadium. We took a bus there, and we arrived in late morning at the site. Our tour guide walked us through the museum, where we learned that the site was not excavated until the 1890’s, when they found some extraordinarily well-preserved statues. Highlights of the tour included the explanation of that statue (she points) “Dis is Socrates question mark. We are not sure,” and another statue, “Emporer Hadrian was homosexual. Dis was his lahver.” Nice. No “so they say,” no “allegedly,” just out with it already.

There were TONS of cats living in Delphi. Not so many dogs.

Delphi is also the home of the omphalos stone, which was deemed by Apollo to be the center of the Earth. You can see Andy manipulating the center of the Earth in one of the pictures below.

The most interesting thing about Delphi, to me, was that many of the stones from which the walls were constructed were covered with ancient Greek writing. Our tour guide explained that people carved their stories into the stones: “I came here on this day to ask the Oracle this question. I offered ___ to Apollo. The response was ___,” “___ was king when we started building this wall. ____ was king when we finished building this wall.” Things like that. AMAZING. I figure this blog is the same thing, except I didn’t carve it into any walls. Maybe I’ll start working on that tonight.

After checking out the monument, we took a quick visit up to the theatre, where Caton pretended to sing and I got shy; the stadium, where we wrestled and I tried to race but couldn’t find a competitor; and the fountain of youth, where I lost 10 years and for about 30 seconds (until Andy splashed in it) made Andy look like a dirty old man married to a hot teenager. Now we’re even again. Phew.

That’s about it for that day - we took the bus back (stopping for lunch on the way) made some baked pasta with the leftovers, played with Anna, who was feeling MUCH better, watched some AFN and hit the sack.

Ahhh . . . it was warm in Greece. Come on, Spring! I need the feeling back in my fingers!

PS. I love March because I think it’s a hopeful month (crocuses, some warm days, etc). Andy thinks it’s a disappointing month (you always think it will be warm and it never is). I suspect we’re both right, but I sure as heck hope it warms up before he gets back on Sunday, or I’ll definitely lose this debate for 2006.

Photos from our amazing trip to Delphi.

Eat, for goodness sake, EAT.

When we arrived on Wednesday afternoon, we went for a nice walk through the park by Caton’s parents’ house, and we went shortly thereafter to the grocery store, where we acquired the requisite olives and feta. MMmmmm. . . . Mark made us a yummy Greek salad (Greek salads, by the way, don’t have lettuce) and a wonderful pasta dish with chicken and artichokes.

After dinner, we watched some AFN - satellite American television provided to the Armed Forces and other members of the foreign service (i.e. Caton’s dad), complete with a truly impressive selection of reassuringly low-budget armed forces commercials. You know - talk to your sergeant about this new service we offer, don’t steal from the commissary - that kind of stuff. The best part was Oprah. Oh how I’ve missed her. After some Dave (as in Letterman), we very sleepily stumbled up to bed.

On day 2, Caton & Anna stayed home in effort to rest off a nasty cold-type sickness, and Mark, Andy & I went to the Acropolis. Let’s clear this up right away. The Acropolis is the hill, the Parthenon is the building. I had no idea until we went there. To get to the Acropolis, one must hike up a big hill, past the Acropolis arena, past another monument that is currently being taken apart and put back together, and up to the Parthenon itself, which is AMAZing. It is huge and just as beautiful as it looks in the pictures. We spent some time looking at the building itself, and then we perused the museum, said hello to the resident doggies (there are resident doggies all over Athens), checked out the Erecthion and headed down the other side of the hill.

Quick note about the museum. I once mentioned the British Museum of Stolen Goods, in which they have a gorgeous display of some of the most important pieces of the Parthenon. There has been a disagreement between the Greek and British governments. The British originally told the Greeks that the stones would be better cared for in the British Museum, because Athens did not have an appropriate facility. SO, Athens built an appropriate facility, and the British said, “Well we didn’t say we would GIVE them to you if you DID have a good facility.” The POINT is that in the Acropolis Museum, the descriptions often said what the item was, and then something like “the remaining pieces are kept in the British Museum.” Knowing the story, one could almost sense the bitterness, and of course it did seem odd that they weren’t there. Poor Athenians.

On the way down the hill, we spent some time exploring the Roman Agora, a gorgeous little chapel, loads and loads of ruins of other ancient buildings, and the Thission, a monument built in about 450 BC that is in excellent condition. After all of that, more importantly, we stopped at a taverna looking up at the Parthenon. I had a Greek salad and Moussaka, and they were both FABUlous; I knew I had good eating to look forward to for the rest of the day.

After lunch, we walked around the Plaka, a shopping district, looking for a specific jewelry store where Mark wanted to look for a birthday gift for Caton. We eventually found the store and had a great time drinking Ouzo with the owner and trying things on while Mark picked out something gorgeous.

We headed back, had dinner nearby and headed back home for some more AFN. Tune in next time for the details of our tour of Delphi.

PS. In England, when things go wrong, they often say, “It’s all gone pear-shaped,” which makes me wonder: what shape were you going for?

Photos from our first touristy day in Athens.

I got back from Florida yesterday, and Andy’s still in China. He sent me an e-mail saying he just got back from somewhere I’ve never heard of and he has a Chinese name - An Di. It means something, but I can’t remember what. I think that it might mean a tall man of silly disposition who finds humour in the simplistic.

OK, let’s see. In Florida, I hung out with my mom and Amber, and I was quite lazy. I did some highly unsuccessful shopping, had some nice dinners, laid on the beach and by the pool, and rented movies. ExACTLY what I needed. They’re very nice ladies, those two. I sure as heck didn’t want to come back to cold England! BRRRrrrrr . . .

On my last day in Florida, I remembered that I wanted to pick up some Cadbury Mini Eggs, because they’re different here, and I thought my coworkers would be interested in a taste test. Well, we conducted the taste test today, and I was happy to discover that the response was mixed. I fully expected to be the only proponent of the American ones, but there were two or three other fans. All in all, I’d say about 60% of the testers prefered the British ones, but only ONE of those testers did it blind. I did it blind and still picked out the American one. I thought it was the British one but had to confess that I liked it better anyway, BUT it was the American one, so PHEW!

Now I’m watching the British “What Not to Wear,” and they just said, “You look like a million dollars.” Surely it should be a million pounds, but what do I know? I guess maybe she doesn’t look as good as all that.

We’re back from Greece, it was wonderful. Expect pictures and stories soon. For now, I’ve been meaning to post about something that happened for a while, so recounting our Athens trip will wait.

Back in February I got an invitation to the Electrical Contractor Association’s annual dinner. The dinner was on Valentines Day and my host was desperate to fill his table. Since Tiffany has classes on Tuesday evenings I accepted the offer.

The invitation read “dinner jacket” so I pulled out the suit jacket I almost never wear and set off for a nice evening. As I was walking towards the venue, I noticed a couple of men wearing a tuxedos. I saw three, five, a dozen two dozen more men in tuxedos. “Wonder where everyone is going?” I thought. Once I arrived at my destination, the Grosvner house on Hyde park, it became clear that it was their destination as well. Through the glass facade of the Lobby was a sea of tuxedos.

I called my host to tell him that I must have missed something and was woefully underdressed and tried to back out. He said that he already had three empty seats at the table and could not bear to have one more so it didn’t matter to him what I was wearing. So I went in, and was very embarrassed. Upon finding my host, I told him that I thought the invitation said dinner jacket. He informed me that in England a dinner jacket (or sometimes DJ) is what we Americans call a tuxedo. It seems I learned that one the hard way…

As I tried to sneak in to the dinning room relatively unnoticed, a man quietly asked me my name at the door. Then as I went through the door he shouted “PRESENTING MR. ANDREW MCNEIL!” And I found myself face to face with two guys wearing medals and other fancy adornments - the president and vice president of the association. It wasn’t the discrete entrance I was had hoped for.

Of about 1000 people at the event there were maybe 50 women wearing gowns, 910 men in tuxes. 25 men in kilts with tux jackets, 14 men in dark suits with black ties, and me in brown pants and a dark grey jacket with green tie. Whoops!

This was the same man that hosted the Croquet Tournament to which I didn’t wear white. Well lets just say that he now knows that he needs to tell me exactly what to wear to any event. He has bravely invited me to the Lighting Design Awards dinner later this month. This time I’ll know exactly what to wear… A powder blue Dinner Jacket!

Other interesting things that happened at the dinner:
- We toasted to the Queen.
- Dinner music was provided by a brass quartet that played mostly marches, Mozart and umpa. But they somehow managed to squeeze in Eternal Flame by the Bangles.
- There were several boring speeches finished off with a mostly funny comedian (”You do the ECA dinner twice in your career, once on the way up and once again on the way down. It’s good to be back”).

While I’m catching up on the old blog-a-roni, I have some pictures to add:

Photos from quiz night with Brooke and Melinda.

The only photo we have from Todd’s Visit.