Banquet

Wednesday night was the banquet, I assumed a buffet like the night before, I was wrong. It was a more formal setting (and I was in my t-shirt and jeans) out on the deck of the Thraki Palace. This hotel has a lot of stuff outside, there is the pool and a smaller kids pool, of course it has a small pathway down to the beach, it has a lot of grassy area around it that includes a playground, giant chess board, archery targets?, and some game that looks like it is played with a ball (not sure I have not seen anyone play). There are also two kayak type boats that I guess you can take out on the sea, and a row of bicycles that I am guessing guests of the hotel can check out (I wish mine had that). I hear that the rooms here are very much like the ones at my hotel, but you’re not in them much so its ok. Anyway the banquet meal was long (9-12pm), it started with seafood pasta that had shrimp and clam? in it, next was a bit of sorbet (literally like 2-3 tablespoons), that was followed by a salad that had something in it that was way to strong for my tastes (it didn’t matter really I was getting full by now anyway), next was the main course it was lamb (very good), and dessert was a delicious chocolate thing; it had a semi hard shell, a soft almost fudge interior and a cake bottom, I think it may have been some sort of truffle.

Just so you understand...

Just so you can see what makes it kinda difficult to blog in Greece. I also had a similar problem when trying to do a blog in Paris.

Wednesday-Trip to Evros Delta

Morning at my hotel - the area that can be seen in the background is where my room is.

Today was the excursion to the Evros Delta, it is the delta of the river that runs between Greece and Turkey and makes up that boarder between the two countries. It is a partially protected wetland and from what they said a very popular bird watching area in the springtime. To get there we took a bus ride (a very long bus ride) down a little dirt road with the tour guide sounding mostly like a broken record, “to right, grey heron and spoon bills”, “to left a colony of black heron.” Then every once and a while she would add something else in that was a little more interesting. Once at the end of the bus ride we took a boat tour in some small boats (groups of 6) around the delta, all the little channels were kind of neat. Back on the long dirt road to Feres for lunch. Again really no clue what I was eating; salad (tomatoes, cucumber, and onion in oils), some king of meat ball thing that was wrapped in a leaf of lettuce, and some thing that was like pot roast on rice (it was really good). After eating we visited “the Church of Panagia the Cosmosotira (World Savior), which was built in 1152 by I. Comninos and is a miniature replica of the famous church of Agia Sophia in Constantinople” – it was a neat little church and is in the process of restoration. Apparently it was stripped of its artwork and such when the Turks were in possession of that area (a little bitterness with the Turks sensed). Then we headed back to Alexandroupolis. Now I am here at the Thraki Palace typing my blog. I think dinner starts at 9 and ends at midnight tonight.

I found this sign at the place where we had our boat rides around the delta, I'm not sure why it was there.

This was the boat that our group road in, it was by far the most

homemade boat in the tour.


Since I typed this I went out to the beach and fell asleep for about an hour, I am trying to upload some picture to my photobucket, but it doesn't seem to be working. They may have to wait until I get home.

Tuesday Night

Above is the Hotel Egnatia for the BBQ - Lots of meat and some other things, I have no idea what I ate.

Apparently this place is very alive during the night. It sounds like there may be a big party going on just down the beach. And I took a walk a little ways from the other hotel that the BBQ was at and there was a lot going on down the street that runs along the beach (it is closed to cars during the late night). Also, dinner is really late here, it seems that it is generally between about 8:30 and 10:30.

The rest of Tuesday

From the deck looking in.

I did go back to the hotel and shower, and then caught the bus that I didn't know was coming (I need to find out more about the busses)over to the BBQ at the Egnatia Grand. The food was really good. Right now I am bumming off their internet because my hotel doesn't seem to have any (I think just the one in my room is bad). Since it is my only contact with my world. I think the hotel that I am in is really old, it was rated as a 4 star--I think it is more like 2-3 star. It looks like they are still renovating (I read somewhere that they were working on it 2 years ago). From the outside the place looks like a dump, but then the lobby and dining area is beautiful. The rooms are so-so, they are pretty small, but who is going to stay in them anyway. I will take a picture sometime later of the room. I am having a hard time doing my blogs also because all the stuff on the page is in Greek.

Sleeping in

View off my rooms deck.

I arrived at the hotel at about 7:45 am and checked in. I went to my room and put my stuff down then spent about 15 minutes figuring out the lighting system, you have to put you key card in a slot at the door to turn anything on in the room. I then decided to take a little nap before I get prepared for my presentation (since I hadn't really slept much for the last 30 or so hours). Well, I woke up at 4:00 pm (so much for alarms) and my presentation is at 5:40 pm. Rush to get dressed and go, I got to the Thraki Palace at about 4:45 pm and registered for the conference. I then made my way to the room I was presenting at. Anton (from Sandia) was very happy to see me and said that he was worried that I might not make it there. Anyway I had about 20 minutes to look over my presentation, then Anton gave his and I gave mine followed by one more lady from Purdue. We had about 15-20 in the audience, and I was asked about 3-4 questions on my presentation (Anton helped answer a few as he knew some of the details of the chip that testing was done on). That was it for the evening session of the conference. Now I am sitting in the Egnatia Grand waiting for a BBQ in 2 hours – I am considering going back over to my hotel to shower since I didn’t get time before the conference (so since Sunday morning) and I feel dirty.

So Far I am in Paris

Well here I sit in Paris, apparently a 50 minute layover is not enough to make a connection here. I got to the counter in time to see them closing the door to the plane out the window. There are 2 reasons I missed my flight. 1. We left Atlanta a little over an hour after we were supposed to and 2. The Paris airport is a. Huge, b. confusing, c. Lacks any real information desks, d. There are 3 parts--View the image below:
At the bottom is the overall map of the airport. I believe we landed in area 3, we unloaded out of the plane and onto the runway-thats right, not even into the building-then we crowded into buses which carried us over to 2. At this point you still have no real clue as to where your next flight leaves from, but its in 2 somewhere. The signs pointing everywhere don't really explain much, I literally ran to get to my gate, just to see my plane leave.

So now I go talk to the Air France people to see when I can get going again. At first she says she can't get me in until Tuesday night (my talk is on Tuesday at 5), but then she "forced" me onto a flight Monday evening. I should be in Athens by about 10 or 11 tonight. Then I have a 5:30 flight out to Alexanderopolis. By the way I also had to pay 20 Euros to get this internet to buy the 112 Euro plane ticket to get on path again. I hope I can get reimbursed for all this.

Thats all for now.