Over the North Atlantic at sunrise. It's weird how fast the sun comes up when you're moving over the ground at 650 mph.

Typical Athens street at dawn. This whole jet lag thing is kind of neat. I don't think I've seen this many sunrises my entire life.

Typical Athens crumbling building. They are everywhere.

The view out the window of our Athens hotel. At least it was in a safe neighborhood.

The ferry ride to Syros. Good riddance to Athens.

The beautiful place we are at on Syros.

One of the beaches on Syros at sunset.

At night on Syros.

The city has a completely random street plan, as apparently all Greek cities do. They have some kind of aversion to parallel lines, so none of the streets are parallel.

One of the city's hundreds of cats. They seem to not spay their cats, so they are everywhere. I watched this tomcat spray somebody's jacket on the wall to the right. Don't leave your clothes on the ground here, I guess.

Daniel notes:

The bus system is quite a rush. The buses run between the cities on roads that would be considered one and a half lanes in the U.S. The rule of the road seems to be "bus wins". This works pretty well, except when there are two buses. I think the rule then is "craziest bus driver wins". I've never seen anything like it. The bus drivers will drive past parked cards, mopeds, pedestrians, and anything else that's in their way with less than six inches clearance. It sounds like I'm exagerating, but I'm not. I can't believe how reckless people drive here. It's also weird how fearless the people are on those stupid mopeds. The bus we were on back from the beach was tailgating a moped in front of us with less than three feet clearance. The moped guy didn't even seem to care.

Syros seems like a tourist island, but all the tourists here are Greek. We've only seen a couple of native English-speakers, and didn't talk with them. We must be something of an oddity; we noticed a couple talking about us ("Americano") with the waiter at a restaurant. The sad thing is that I can't tell the difference between Greek and American tourists. Every time I think I have identified an American tourist, they start speaking Greek. Greeks wear the same tacky clothes as Americans, and their skins tones range from pale to dark. There is no way to tell someone is Greek until they start speaking.

Another thing: you know that advice to not wear a fanny pack because it will peg you as a tourist? The people wearing them here are the natives.

The Greek language is an interesting mix to my ear of Italian, French, and Spanish. It probably just seems that way because I've never heard much Greek and my brain wants to fit it into a mold I'm familiar with. The strange thing is, when Greeks are talking, it always seems to us that they are fighting. The tone of the words is rising or falling in the wrong places. For example, the Greek word for "yes" is "neh", said with almost exactly the tone pattern we would say "nah" with. They speak incredibly loudly, and seem agitated all the time. Either this is just normal speech here or they are fighting a lot.

Janet notes: I love the vines and bright fuscia flowers dripping from rooftops and whitewashed walls. The landscape here has a similar feel to Puerto Rico and parts of Hawaii. The maze of unnamed winding streets are a great mental challange. It is refreshing to rely on light and shadow for direction, instead of numbers and names. It is easy to walk along the water's edge to get back to the hotel, but that feels like cheating.

I read that the streets of the port cities on the islands were desgined like labirynths and mazes to confuse the pirates who entered the city. The ancient people were invaded so frequently they had to redesign their towns. If I was a drunk mad pirate I'd never find my way in this town at night.

On August 27th we watched a siamese stray jump from street level to the top of a first floor air conditioner. She climbed up and behind it, and ascended a slanted pipe to traverse herself along a horizontal pipe on the second floor. She scaled the wall until she got to her squeeking kitten in an open window of the vegetable market's second floor. Other people walking by the street cafe enjoyed this scene as well.

Oh, and not to forget, we have discovered some very tastey local treats. Syros makes nugat with almonds and pistachios and wafer coating. I don't know what you call it but it tastes way better than I describe. We bought a bunch to send home, but realized they would not travel well in the mail.

So we heartily thank you for our daily treats. We'll run out in a week or so. We will buy different treats for you on another island and maybe eat them too. This gift purchasing is working out nicely!

xox, Janet
ps - Daniel no longer has glowing translucent white skin. He actually has a slight carrot tone from the sun! And I am getting darker by the minute.