Hard at Work

The University of the Aegean is young and growing. They plan to have a new campus in 3 to 5 years, but for now they are using whatever they can find. The lab where Minis and his students work is in a small two-story building that is like a small shopping center, though the parking lot is much smaller. On the first floor, the lab is next door to a shop selling pet food and similar supplies and a market with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. The second floor has more offices for faculty. Next door is another two-story building that looks like a small motel: the first floor is used for classrooms, and the second floor has more offices. Just down the street is a small church and an apartment complex used by undergraduates.

The whole place is a bit north of Chios town on the main road that goes along the sea. One cannot see the sea from inside the lab because it faces the parking lot and another building, but there are good views from the second story offices. Across the road and down a bit is a small, rocky beach. Yesterday (Monday) there were some families there swimming in the cool, blue water.

The students picked me up at 9:30 and took me to the lab. We had some meetings about their projects until about 2:00. Then we went to lunch at a restaurant a short walk from the lab. The restaurant was in the front yard of a house on the main road. The tables and chairs were under a nice shelter; I would say like a carport in construction, though it was nothing like a carport and more like a garden, the whole thing painted in blue with a hedge for a side wall and flowers in pots and birds in cages singing (and a rooster in another one crowing) and decorations in a nautical theme. I had a tomato and a green pepper stuffed with rice, George had fresh sardines and green beans, Taksiarchis had octopus, and there was also bread and feta, of course, and a plate of roasted zucchini.

After lunch I used a pay phone on the road to call home, and then I went down to the beach to put my feet in the water.

Back in the lab I worked on the presentation that I will make Wednesday morning and checked email and reviewed a paper that Taksiarchis had written on cost analysis in product design.
I wanted to Google something, and Google determined that I was in Greece, so I was automatically rerouted to www.google.gr. So then I had to Google how to avoid that rerouting and found somewhere in the Google help pages a hint to set my preferences to English instructions, but the first time I had to figure out which word in Greek meant "English," which is a bit confusing, because the Greek word starts with an "A" (like Anglican) and then has "yy", which resembles the beginning of the Greek word for "Greek", which starts with an "Ell" (like Hellenic). So I've been confused a few times already. But I was successful in the end.

Around 6 PM I went for an afternoon snack and got an ice cream bar. Being early summer fresh fruit and vegetables are plentiful and good, as I saw in the market, where I bought some peaches and cherries.

A bit more work, then we took a taxi back to Chios town. The students had work to do, so I down to the waterfront in Chios, did some shopping to get a newspaper and some mastiha cookies (mastiha is a Chios specialty), and went to dinner at a place that the guys had recommended on Sunday. I ordered souvlaki with bread but didn't get the gyro I really wanted. Still, it was tasty, especially with a Mythos (the main Greek beer, somewhat like Budweiser). Then it was home to have some cherries and cookies and get to bed to catch up on sleep.