volcano woman

I went to see Al Gore give his speech on global warming at Megaro Mousikis tonight.  Unfortunately, I only got to hear the last 15 minutes of his presentation due to my professor's lack of forethought in 'planning' our excursion.  I use the term planning very lightly here because he did not tell us we were going to the presentation until an hour and a half after it had started-and 30 minutes into our class period.  30 minutes we spent sitting in the classroom, wondering where he was.  He showed up just as we were planning to leave, and then drug us two metro stops across Athens to hear a speech we already knew was over.

We did, at least, get to sneak into the auditorium at the very end, so I can at least say that I saw Al Gore in person. I've read a lot about his presentation and would have loved to have seen it, especially since it was free.  Too bad our prof is nuts!  We also had our picture taken with the leader of the PASOK party, which is the major opposition party in Greece.  Lena got so excited that she called her entire family. It was pretty cool.

I just got back from a little outing in Plaka with some of our group, we had originally planned to go to Brettos, but ended up getting crepes at the rooftop cafe.  They dropped me off and headed out to a club.  I probably would have joined them were it not for the fact that I have to get up early tomorrow and meet the Vice Chancellor of the University.  As it is, I'm going to be exhausted.

As an update, the drama has somewhat subsided, although the school may be getting involved-which will probably just make things worse.  College students don't take well to being reprimanded, so we'll see how that goes.

The title of this post refers to the lecture we had last night in my Economic Geography class, where my professor compared women to volcanoes and the two theories of Human Geography.  In the first theory, the environment and humans have only one possible outcome - a volcano/volcano woman can only lead to catastrophe; the second theory says there are many possibilities for the interaction of humans and the environment - likewise a volcano/woman can be handled in many different ways to produce different outcomes, only one of which may be catastrophe.  It was a very strange metaphor, but absolutely hysterical to hear in a classroom setting.

I'm exhausted, and tomorrow is going to be a very long day. After my meeting in the morning, I'm going to put in several hours of internship work, and then hopefully get an adequate siesta.

We're headed to Andros for the weekend, a group of 11, we got ferry tickets and reservations in a beach hotel.  I can't wait; I really need to get out of this city.

~RLM

PS. Thanks for all the support and comments.

Comments

[C]

Yet another interesting night to add to the Athens saga. I have to admit though his speech on glabal warming is very compelling and actually very clear and consise, you should rent the recording and watch the whole thing when you get back here. It looks like you, Cara and V-nasty had a great time in Santorini and I hope that moments like those are what will keep you there for the duration of your trip. I am going to Trader Joe's to pick up some things for your care package so I hope you like what I send you and that you enjoy waiting and receiving your package. Talk to you again soon.
C

[Melody]

About a month ago Al Gore was in our building (my employers are large campaign contributors). My friend Leah was waiting in the lobby for the elevator to bring her to the 8th floor. An elevator opens up and....there stood Al Gore!

He stuck out his hand and said, "Nice to meet you". She managed to squeak out, "SO nice to meet you as well, Mr. Gore."

So she comes tearing upstairs and we all think she has been mugged or something because she is running and frantic and saying "You wll NOT believe what just happened to me." She just kept repeating it over and over.

Then she said, "My hand.....he shook my hand...."

Then she ran into our department heads office and said in a trembling voice, JOHN! I JUST SHOOK AL GORE'S HAND!"

And the paralegal I work with said, "Oh honey, I have your hand sanitizer right here!"

LOL!

Glad things are settling down....I'm so proud of you!

hugs
M

[Sonia Bonia! :)]

Neat-o! I wanna meet Al Gore. The speech that he gave is An Inconvenient Truth and you're seen that already, right?

Anywho...told you things would be OK!
Glad you're having a good time...for the most part and I miss you! Come Home! :)