Sunday, Augest 29, 2004 - Olympic Spirit - En Memorial

There's nothing that says Olympic spirit like grown, hairy men swimming around in a pool with only speedos on kissing each other.

It's closing ceremony night. People are saying goodbye or "See you in Toronto." Some Asburians are striking (tearing down stuff), but time is more value than money right now. We just got done having our own highlight show. We did impressions of all the staff here in the record room: the uptight ones, the relaxed ones, the bombastic ones, and the quiet ones.

I keep wondering how this trip has changed me. I'm not sure. This being my first foreign flight has made a more aware of the world. The thought of being around people that don't speak your language is humbling or at least aren't fluent in it, but I'll still probably never learn a language unless I move to another country. Makes me wonder when I'll travel again, too. I've learned that other countries' broadcasting is just as one-dimentinial as it is in the States. I've become more appreciative of my car due to public transportation. I've realized that my backyard (Kentucky) isn't that less beautiful than the Greek Islands. It's just greener. :-)


~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/

Sunday, Augest 29, 2004

Final day of work. I hear that there is a big party that happens here that involves kegs and cases. I think it goes on during the closing ceremony. So I am stuck here on the last night, but que sera. The other three people that were coming to Olympia with us are not coming now. It will make it a little more expensive for Joel and I, but we'll have more freedom to do what we want. They wanted to stay around Athens and just do day trips was the reason.

The highlight of today was that I found out that the train that connects Olympia and Athens only comes twice daily but the connecting trains to Pirgos are several times a day. The short and long of it (mainly the short) is that we can see Corinth on the way back from Olympia. That frees up another day, so Joel and I are planning on going to Andros which is a 2 hour slow ferry from Rafina (20 min away). So I'm psyched! I wanted to go to Andros in the first place. Two other Asburians, Jon and Luke recommended it, too. They went around on mopeds, which I think would be great. So yeah, that's Andros, Olympia, and Corinth all in three days. Got to love it!

~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/
photography: http://www.smjdesign.com/photo/

Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 360 degrees view of Athens

Here is a 360 degrees view of Athens, Greece from Lykavittos Hill.

http://www.smjdesign.com/athens/athens360/

~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/
photography: http://www.smjdesign.com/photo/

Thursday, August 26, 2004 - Halfway to Corinth in the middle of nowhere

I really wasn’t that disappointed when the monastery was closed. What I want to get from this trip is to bring back ideas from the Grecian way of life and evaluate them against my way of life. I mean we took a bus, to a metro, to a bus, then walked 20 blocks to catch a bus, missed it, bought tyropitas, got on a bus, got off the bus walked two blocks in the middle of nowhere, got on a bus for 2km, got off the bus, walked a block, caught a bus 15km, got off and walked three blocks, sat down on one of the ugliest beaches in an industrial port, and got on a bus back to where we started to wait for a bus to work. For the majority of our adventure, we were surrounded by elderly people. Some had trouble walking. It’s humbling to not be in control. The weirdest part of returning will probably be having the use of a car.

Bryan, a man from the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, made me think today. He asked if Joel and I were trying to share our faith with the people around us. As he came by, I saw his t-shirt with a cross on it. He asked if we wanted a free guide to the Olympics.

I asked him if it was a track. He stopped and asked us if we thought we were good people. I gladly said that we were the paradox of the saint, yet sinner. He kept on asking us questions like what gave us a guarantee of going to Heaven and if we died today, would we go there. After we quoted paraphrased scripture to him, he backed down and started asking us if we had shared the gospel with others and if we were sure that everyone in the Asbury group here was saved. He started saying that people need to be confronted and convicted with the law first before telling them about the love of Christ first.

I thought this sounded very Southern Baptist and a little Calvinist. He began talking about persecution and it being a sign of a godly life. Joel mainly nodded his head in agreement and answered in three word sentences. He started talking about watered down churches in the States. I couldn’t resist throwing in “You mean seeker-sensitive post-modernism.”

He said, “Exactly.”

I told them I was a pastor’s kid and we had just recently moved. He said that my Dad must have been preaching the truth of Scripture, because we were being persecuted by moving. I wanted to say, "Uh, no, it's that churches always blame the pastor first if they add members every year--as if the pastor's supposed to invite all the new visitors." I talked to him about some ministries I was aware of in Atlanta, and he said he’d look into it. Then, he said he had to go make it to the USA-Brazil women’s soccer game. His church had bought him tickets to the game in order to walk around and talk to people. As he walked, I said to myself--at least he's passionate.

It’s the crippled grandmother-widows withered by the everyday wars of living and the unknown bachelor never noticed except when he fusses about the way things used to be that I want to photograph. You know to pause and pray every time you pass a church in the U.S. might not be a bad idea. There’s so many of them and we are always in a hurry.

That reminds me, we randomly ran into a journalist for a Seven-Day Adventist magazine from Norway on the first day here. I gave him my card, but haven’t heard anything from him in over a week. I’ve been burning an apple blossom candle by my bed regularly before I go to sleep. This is mainly because I cannot burn candles in the dorm at school.

~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/
photography: http://www.smjdesign.com/photo/

Tuesday, August 27, 2004 - Excuses

The annoying part of writing postcards is that it takes away from my blog. Once I write down an experience on a postcard, I have shared it and do not want to re-write the experience on my blog for everyone to read.

~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/
photography: http://www.smjdesign.com/photo/

List of Athenian Institutions - Friday, August 27, 2004

The Greek Orthodox Church
Coca-Cola
Feta Cheese
Sprinkled oregano and salt
Afternoon in and nights out
Street side kiosks of ice cream, soft drinks, and magazines
American music
Dining outside
Breaking the speed limit
Family Bakeries
Ignoring red lights
Graffiti
Jaywalking
Arguing with the police
Sitting silently on public transportation
Helping lost tourists
Anything with a techno beat
Having at least one English speaker in every restaurant
Cucumber or olive mayonnaise sauce on dry, chewy bread
Cans of soda with to-go meals
Bottled water and Heineken beer
Traffic jams and car horns (thankfully they aren’t that loud)
Small cars
Exact change, yes, exact change
Chanting “Hellas” at sporting events
Paying on one meal ticket
No paper flushed in toilets
Stray dogs
Pictures of cats on postcards
Clubbing till 2 a.m.
Metro and bus police
Bra straps, spaghetti straps, midriffs, and see through blouses
Half-built buildings with rebar
Roasted corn and sugared donut stands

~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/
photography: http://www.smjdesign.com/photo/

Thurday Augest 26, 2004 - Direlect of duty to write

Today I got lost halfway to Corinth in the middle of an industrial town with refineries trying to find a monastery that when we found it after three hours it was closed. :-) Anyway, if you know me well, I didn't mind. We got to hear some more Greeks argue with each other about bus tickets. We also ran into a guy from an Atlanta Baptist that was there to do street ministry. Yesterday in a nut shell was an art museum and running around by myself eating and a little shopping, since I didn't have to be in till 6:00pm. I saw some El Greco and some busts of Handrian (no, not really, today I actually didn't see any busts of Hadrian--it felt kinda strange :-)

Today, I saw a 10-year-old gesturing the sign of the cross on a street corner for money, an agruement over bus tickets that were a few hours over validity, a plum and raison crossiant, people swimming with oil tankers as a backdrop, and about 10 elderly people all gesture the sign of the cross simutaneously as we road the bus passed a church.

Yesterday was my alone day. I missed the bus by 30 seconds and waiting for the next one. I went to the art museum on my own and ate dinner by myself. It meant that I could watch a Greek family buy the "variety for 6" meal and share all the meat and sauces. I wrote a few postcards, too. I bought some souveniors in Plaka. I wanted to buy another poster. It was for the movie, Magnolia, expect the title was in Greek. I liked the small one, but I didn't want the big one, because I'm not a big ad promoting person.

~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/
photography: http://www.smjdesign.com/photo/

Monday, August 23, 2004 - One minute till air

I actually felt like I did something important today with the CBC. There is a daily update of the decathlon competitors on the CBC. I was assigned to log the high jump section of the decathlon. I knew from previous nights when a producer came in and told one of us, shotlisters, that we needed to do better in keeping track of the track and field. There people are under pressue to deliver highlights of competitions as soon as they finish. I asked for some tips from the previous logger of the decathlon. She told me a little. Tonight I started logging, and it was the hardest thing to log in the entire time I have been working. There were two high jump bars that the video feed was switching between. This meant that in order to catch both the one video feed had to switch to the other before posting the first one's results sometimes. This meant that I coudln't always get the name of the guy jumping much less his bar height and his attempt number. I always could get the country tricode if I couldn't get the bib number. So about halfway through the producer cames in and says I need to focus on three people and give me the names and numbers. This makes it a little easier, because I at least know what the guy wants. Then, I can sacrifice some for the the coverage of others for the coverage of the one's he wants. While I was still logging the rest of the competition, he went to another computer and tried to find the entries of the "three clowns" as he called them. Then, another person from the edit suite came in and said they were changing the story to the winners of the high jump. Then, the story changed to the leaders in the standings overall in the decathlon when I went to the edit suite with the shotlist. There was a brief exchange of words between the two suites and I wasn't wuite sure what to do, so I guessed and searched the timecode of the shotlist for the three people I knew he wanted. I had made an error in my bib numbers in the log, but I had put KAZ (for Kazhastan) and there was only one Kazastanian in the competition. He ran the tape to that place and it was a great shot. The man jumped up and roared and ran a few yards. The other suite took it, and they wanted to see the high jumps of the top three athletes in the decathlon. The producer I was with stayed his ground and wanted the original favorites shown, not the leaders in the standings. I was busy finding the good jumps of the leaders in the standings when he said he didn't need them. He said that I did a good job and thanked me for my work. I went and took a bathroom break. I hadn't even been able to eat dinner (not that I was particularly dying to). On my return from the bathroom (we are talking 60 seconds here), I walked through the CBC lobby to see the clips that I logged on the screen live on air in Canada.

~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/
photography: http://www.smjdesign.com/photo/

Sunday, Augest 22, 2004 - Logging a Marathon is not marathon logging

I just saw the women's marathon run past the Pikermi bus stop where we wait daily on our way to work. About two blocks from the arial shot at timecode 19:17:00 on CBC 2004 Summer Olympic games tape GRE90582 is where we have been living for the past 20 days--make that sleeping. The last runner came in about an hour after the first runner. The Japanese got their 3 people in the the top 15. A USA women came in third which was unexpected. The favorite and world record holding British women hacked and coughed and sat down about 3/4 of the way through the marathon. I have to say the audio for the shot was better than I expected it would be. Doesn't that sound rather insensitive?

I mailed some more postcards today. The lady gave me three stamps instead of one which forced me to cover up some of my words on one of the cards. It was annoying, but that meant it had more one-time only Olympic stamps on it. I wonder how many of my postcards will actually make it to America.

Other highlights of tonight were Sam hitting me with her nails when USA completed an attempt in track and field. I was the innocent bystander standing behind her talking to my boss about the marathon I logged. Another highlight is that I didn't have to come in until 5:00pm. Our bus route was cancelled for four hours this evening due to the marathon, so I came in early. Joel and I ate at the Olympic McDonald's. It wasn't anything special. It was fast, but they have twice as many workers and half as many items, so it makes sense that it would be faster.

~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/
photography: http://www.smjdesign.com/photo/

Sunday, August 22, 2004

So it's currently 2:22am Athens time. I am sitting next to my pal, Joel Claes, while he logging by hand the tennis match that started at 11:00pm. The reason my friend Joel is logging this almost four hour match by hand is because the Canadian database is currently down. We are in the fifth set right now of the Gold Medal Match for men's doubles. Last night, the last game of the night lasted 4 hours and tonight's game will probably last that long if not more.

Joel and I have amused ourselves with quotes from Auqateen Hunger Force. He can finish every line I start when I read the transcript of the Mooninites' episode. Everyone except Trina, Joel, and I got a ride home at 1:30. Trina is required to stay. I'm just here to keep Joel from going insane. He says that it is helping a little bit, but not a lot. We are on our third tape now. Each team really wants that Gold. Do you think we could buy one of the teams off? Probably not on our daily rate.

~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/
photography: http://www.smjdesign.com/photo/

Friday, August 20 2004 - Cemeteries, Club Sandwiches and Peloponnesian Planning

I’d just really like to see some trees. One Greek told me that Athens was as ugly as any other city and that I needed to get into the countryside to really see how beautiful Greece is. So Joel and I have spent part of today and yesterday today trying to figure out how to get to Olympia. The travel agency lady, Erini, said that she could get us a double at the Olympia Asty for 87 euro. She said it was a great deal. I looked into on the Internet. The only thing I could find was a Best Western for 115 euro that Dr. Owens recommended. I did find pictures of the Olympia Asty and it looked just as nice as the Best Western. So I went back today and asked to make a reservation. Catalana said that the hotel was not within their network. I said that Erini had given me the quote. They figured it out and explained that it had been through a local travel agent and that the local agent could get special prices and said to come back on Monday, because they probably could not contact the agent until Monday due to it being a weekend. The agency doesn’t charge any money to make reservations, which is great. I do have to say that they weren’t very helpful in trying to find the Athens-Peloponnese bus station. They knew were it was, but couldn’t find a map that had it on it. We do know how to get to Olympia by train though. Currently, Jon said he wanted a day trip, which Joel and I know, isn’t possible. Chris didn’t want to go. Sarah said the she would probably wanted to if Vanessa wanted to. Vanessa said that she wanted to. I found out today that if I am not spending the night at the seminary then I don’t have to pay for the room there, which makes staying in Olympia practically free and even less if others come along.

Yesterday, Joel and I went to the Temple of Zeus. We also another gate built by Hadrian. We got to take pictures of the Acropolis from the Temple of Zues (well, the columns that are left of it. Joel said that it was the best thing besides the Acropolis that he had seen so far. After the Temple of Zeus, Joel and I walked about 10 blocks to the Athens Cemetery. It was pretty creepy. It’s all aboveground and very ornate. There are even giant arches when you come in. Some of the mausoleums were mini-chapels. It’s kind of eerie to walk underground and realize there are 10 dead people around you. We walked about 6 blocks to the east and figured out where the metro is. Joel keeps commenting that he likes hanging around with me, because I have an itinerary planned and I know where we are or at least can find it. We both usually have camera with each other, too, so we stop at random spots and take a photo. So once we found the metro, I wanted to see what Goody’s was like. It’s a Mediterranean fast food restaurant. Joel didn’t want to go, but I persuaded him. We both bought club sandwiches and fries. He got a can of coke, too. Joel hates mayonnaise. We figured out that if we said no white sauce we could get it.
Epiphany of the day: I just realized that I have Art Survey 1 when I get back. This class only covers art before the middle ages. I am in Greece. I can imagine myself in class watching slideshow and saying to myself smugly “I’ve been there.”

~ Stephen

site: http://www.smjdesign.com/
writing: http://www.tpkpoetry.com/
photography: http://www.smjdesign.com/photo/