Since my last entry, life has been good; fast, but good! Might tell you first about our big souvenir shopping spree - except for a meal or two, we have made two purchases: deodorant & corn pads. Not big news, but quite different from previous trips. Back to the significant stuff...we had a big day last Wednesday touring Nemea & Corinth - south of Athens. This is the area with the richest grape vineyards in Greece. Grapes & olives were growing everywhere. Of course, the scenery along the way is beautiful - the Saronic Gulf & various mountains. A lot of escavation has been done by the U. of CA in Berkeley in Nemea. We had a little time to browse their museum & view the Temple of Zeus. The new adventure we had was climbing the Acro-Corinth, the huge mountain which overlooks Corinth. During the time of Paul, there was a Temple to Aprodite there - only ruins of a church since built over it mark the site. There is also remains of a castle. The climb was a challenge, but it provided a magnificent view. On vacations when we hike, we don't usually attempt such a climb until we're good & acclimated. But, we made it with no ill effects the next day. It was nice to return to Corinth & walk through the ruins there. A lot had been roped off - probably to protect the area during the Olympics when hordes of tourists visited Greece. Of special interest was the Bema - where Paul appeared before Gallio - & the remains of the Temple of Apollos. Next was the Corinth Canal - one of man's creations - where we saw quite a few boats go through. And, the big event was Bungy Jumping here. It is the second highest Jump in the world, but that didn't deter 14 of our group - including Ali, our granddaughter! We watched them all & breathed a sigh of relief when it was all over. Friday afternoon most of us decided to try the transportation systems into the Mall & further into the Plaka. Some of the students bought the famous sandals made in the shops & some bought some clothing items. Except for missing our connection to the last bus where we exited the metro - resulting in a rather long wait for Tim to rescue the 7 of us stranded - it was interesting & fun. The students have been to the beach area here in Porto Rafti several times. We made it once & Bob enjoyed the water. I preferred to sit on a lounge chair covered with a towel because of the wind chill. We joined Tim & Rebecca at a dinner Friday evening at the Congo Palace, the site where the English speaking congregation meets on Sunday evenings & where HUG students once stayed. It has been upgraded to a 4 Star hotel (for the Olympics) & we hardly recognize it from previous visits. Anyway, Dino Roussos was host of the party honoring his family. One of his daughters from the U.S. was here with her family & he also had siblings here. There were lots of people from the church there & also the faculty with the Faulkner University group that is here for a semester. We enjoyed meeting them & asking about "old" friends from Montgomery. Yesterday - yes, Sunday - because of a schedule change - was a work day for all of us with worship at the hotel at 8:00 p.m. Bob & I helped "sweep the street" outside the gate. Actually, we shoveled dirt & debris & then swept along the wall. We joined in the painting of the wall, too. Griffiti is prone to appear on any clean surface, so we got that covered & hope it will stay that way for awhile. After the projects around the hotel were finished & a great meal was enjoyed, we each took a garbage bag & headed down one of two streets hoping to make the surrounding area a bit tidier. We ended up at the beach & picked up some trash there, too. We were all beat at the end of the day, but proud of our accomplishments, too. Bob's classes are going well, as are those of Tim & Rebecca & Vicky. I'm still hanging in with the ones I began. The students are a pleasure to be around & that makes everything even better. Today is Bob's birthday. They learned a Greek birthday song in Greek class today & serenaded him at the beginning of his Paul class. They had all signed a huge homemade card, too. (Ali had a hand in that.) Later there will be a cake, but he doesn't know that. We were scheduled to have a day of sailing tomorrow, but the winds are making the sea a bit choppy. We have really had some beautiful days here. Wednesday we leave for a 12 days trip to Northern Greece & Turkey. I don't know if we'll have access to a computer or not. I'll get in another blog when we return. We are looking forward to all of this. Thanks for reading & commenting. Please do so even more.