Home Sweet Home

Yes I am home, sorry for all of you who were worried that I was still trapped at Heathrow Airport. I got home late Thursday night and my family was waiting for me with Tyler and a dozen beautiful red roses (sorry long stemmed roses). Friday was spent doing laundry, yeah clean clothes!, sort of unpacking, sleeping, and going out for dinner with Tyler to Sook Jai Thai as he had taken the night off work. We came back to my house and Tyler fell asleep at 9pm and then I did too. Saturday involved the weather being crap, I think I would like to go back to the 40 degree weather in Greece thank you, so we didn't go mini-golfing with Jer. But we did go to the Ratskellar Restaurant and drank boots of beer for Jer's birthday. Then some of us headed to the Red Jacket club for some dancing. It certainly was nice to not stink of smoke when we got home. It was nice to see friends, but weird to hear only old music - I'm not sure if that is a Red Jacket thing or a Victoria thing, hmmm...
Sunday involved shopping, ya shopping on a Sunday!!!!! Ty had to buy new cleats for soccer and I bought a new pair of Diesel kicks that were listed at $149.99 for the low low price of $10!!! Who cares if one shoe is a 7 and the other a 7.5???? Works for me. They are blue and sparkly! But I know I can't really afford to do any more shopping but all the shoes I bought in Europe I can't really wear in a lab here, which is where I will be working, starting in October. So you see, I had to buy shoes :) Tyler even encouraged me.
Tyler's off to work now so I have to entertain myself. Lots to do though. I'm planning on signing up for dance classes of some sort - probably ballet, French classes, I want to read some new books, figure out where all my stuff is, you know, real exciting stuff. For the moment I am living downstairs at my parent's house, until the new tenant moves in Sept 4th, then I will go upstairs to the guest room for a few days and then over to house sit at my Grandma's until Nov. 22 as she will be away travelling in England. After that, who knows? I was hoping to maybe rent a flat right away so that I could have somewhere to unpack, but I think we've decided to save those 3 months of rent for travelling later this year. Got to get to Nick's wedding in Texas in June, Cancun in April and I have all sorts of other travel plans in the works. For the moment, I am hoping to drive down to San Francisco mid to end of September to see Chris and Nicole and then see the X-Prize launch on Sept. 29th at Mojave. I'm supposed to start work Oct. 4th so I will have to drive back pretty much right after that. Then I have the IAC conference in Vancouver that week so I will need time off work to attend that and see some more ISU friends. So much to do all in the same 2 weeks!!!
Anyways, I will keep y'all posted as to my plans, where I'm living etc. I hope everyone from ISU made it to their destinations safely and I hope to see you soon. You are all welcome to come and stay at my house in Victoria during IAC if you need a little break from the conference! For all you Victoria friends - call me, I don't have much to do until the end of September!!!!

Hello from Heathrow!

After two large traffic jams, Bill and I finally made it to Heathrow airport at about quarter to one. I now will be sitting around waiting until 3pm when I may be able to board the plane. Then 6.5 hour flight to Toronto, 2 hours there, 5 hour flight to Victoria then home!!!! So basically I am now just killing time. I bought a sandwich in the name of Conrad and will eat it shortly.
I went to Milton Keynes yesterday with Bill to pick up stuff that Dinesh had left in Bremen - most importantly all my CDs with my documents and pictures on them. And my hair dryer!
Let me know what's up everyone! Send me your new addresses and keep in touch!

Athens 2004

So we went to a football match Sunday night which was tres cool as it turned out to be Iraq vs. Costa Rica. Who knew there were so many Iraqi's in Greece? The stadium holds 25,000 people, about 12,000 were there, and I'm sure at least 11,000 of them were Iraqi. It was kinda cool. They went mental even before they Iraq team scored, and when they did score, they all jumped onto the field and ran around with their flags like crazy. It was so exciting. And there was an American guy behind us filming the game who was with the Iraqi team and interviewed Chris and Nicole on their American perspective of the game. Pretty cool.
Yesterday we went shopping for a long long time, mostly because of Ruey wanting to buy all of the Olympic souvenirs possible. We had real gyros in the city centre that were damn tasty after hours of shopping. I tried to find Jer a dirty greek t-shirt for his birthday, but with no luck as the shops were closed for the afternoon, maybe in London tomorrow. Then we headed down to the ocean for a beach volleyball match. This was the first event we went to that was almost sold out - there were no cheap tickets left so we had to pay a whole 35EUR to watch these matches. First was men's - Sweden vs. Germany, then Greece vs. Portugual. The Greeks went mental as well. Then there were women's matches - Greece vs. Australia and finally USA vs. Canada. The whole event was a gong show, lots of people drinking and partying and skanky girls dancing in between sets. Everyone was totally into it and we did the wave, chanting etc. It was fun. Unfortunately, both Greek teams and the Canadian team lost :( but it was still good fun. The Canadian game was really close and good to watch, and we seated ourselves with the family and friends of the athletes, so we were shouting Allez Canada in our best Quebecois accents!
All in all, the Olympics are much more exciting than I thought and I've had a good time. I'm looking forward to going home though, I need some clean clothes, good pillow, my car, and of course my friends and family.
Thanks to Elias and his family for putting us up at his house for a week. I would like to take his mum home with me - no offense to my mum, but she certainly doesn't make me breakfast and awesome lunches everyday (and for my friends)!!!
Next post.....home.

Olympics!!

So if you haven't noticed, the Olympics in Athens started Friday night. We were back at Elias' in time to watch the Opening Ceremony on TV, and could sort of see the fireworks out the window. Tres cool. Saturday night we went to see the middle weight boxing event, which was pretty cool although the stadium was pretty empty. This morning we went to see tennis as we wanted to see some sort of event in the Olympic complex where the cool stadium is with the track and swimming events too. We just picked tennis as it was cheap and we could get tickets. However when we showed up, it was Venus Williams playing a Hungarian girl. Venus won but it was really cool to watch her play. Then next up was Andy Roddick versus a Brazilian guy who was ranked 81st in the world (Roddick is 2nd) and it was actually a very good match. It was quite close for a bit and there were some awesome plays.
We came back to Elias' house for a wonderful lunch - his mum has been making us the best meals - and we have been siestaing ever since. Tonight we are going to a football match, not sure who is playing though. I would really like to go see beach volleyball, and maybe when some Canadians are playing too. Tonight there is also a DJ Tiesto set somewhere which I am trying to find out about - he played a 90 min set at the opening ceremony too.
Chris and Nicole leave tomorrow morning, but I have plans to drive down to San Fran in September to go see them. And of course I want to get to the X Prize launches at the end of September as well in Mojave and Saskatchewan.
2 more days in Athens then off to London. Man will I be glad to be home to smogless Victoria. I will be staying in the guest room of my parents for a bit, then maybe house sitting at my Grandma's for a couple of months. I start work back at the Centre for Plant Health (where Ty now works) sometime in October. I will work there until at least the end of March, then who knows what?!?!? However, I am looking forward to coming home and not living out of a suitcase. I had to buy a shirt today so that I had something clean to wear! Best of luck in finding jobs to all the ISUers, and see all you Victorians on Friday night!!!!
Any last minute requests for things from Athens, Olypmics, or London????

Alive and Well

I am back in Athens, after a wonderful week long boat trip on a 42 foot beauticul Catamaran. We went to Aegina, Poros, Hydra, Spatsa and a few other tiny islands for beach bbqs along the way. Last night I slept under the stars on the deck of the boat. It was awesome. A few more days in Greece - some Olympic events, shopping, and sightseeing - then back home Thursday night.
Hope all is well all around the world.
Happy Belated Birthday Will!

Alive and very well!

Just a quick post to say I am alive. I went to a farm in the south of France with Ollie - and organic farm and I played with the sheep and chickens for a day or so. Next stop was Cinque Terre in northern Italy and I hiked between the 5 towns along the coast - awesome, one of the best places in Europe. Then I spent 2 days travelling from there to Athens. I arrived here at 8pm last night after taking 8 hours on trains, 19 hour ferry, and 5 hour bus.
Today we went to the Parthenon, it was tres cool. Very Exciting. Tomorrow we take off on our 7 day boat tour of the Greek Islands. I can't wait!
I'll be home August 19th!