Christmas Break Plans

finally plans are coming together for christmas in ohio (i know, i am getting more and more exotic). it looks like eleftheria and i (yes you read right) will be flying into cleveland hopkins on christmas eve. and staying at mom and dad's place. i will be staying through the 9th of january and eleftheria will be in the states until the 2nd. we have a couple of plans, but for the most part should be around. i hope that all of our plans and schedules over lap so that we will have some time together.

Keith and Sarah- sorry about not coming first thing to ny but the timing and the logistics were just too complicated. i would, however, like to spend a couple of days on the home-front with you. i don't know if it will be when eleftheria is here or not, we'll see.

Adam and Leanna- when and how long will you be home? i will bring my stuff to climb, but don't know if our timing will work out and who knows about the weather. i just can't wait to see you both so no matter what happens it should be good. oh and adam, do you have access to any pro deals any more?

can't wait to see everyone. please let me know what your plans are and when we'll get to meet up.

what have you been up to?

in class we have been working on density. dish soap, rubbing alcohol, olive oil, detergent concentrate, and vinegar organized so that they create seperate layers in a 25 ml graduated cylinder. one of my favorite labs.
Eleftheria's parents' house in the village. Eleftheria designed the house by herself.
Bella
patuna: aka big foot
so, these are actually backwards, but its cool. this is what i have been up to. i helped eleftheria's family harvest olives over a weekend a little bit ago. this is me dumping a load of olives into the sorting machine.
the sorting machine in action. there are different categories of olives dependent upon size and quality.
that is eleftheria's mom picking out spoiled olives that make it through.
olive trees are super cool. and there are massive amounts of olives. the family owns two fields of 150 and 300 trees. the weekend before i worked the the larger field was harvested: 10 tons of olives.
getting into it.
eleftheria's father in retired but he does this as a hobby.
the neighbors are the ones who collect all the olives from the village to sell to the distributors. pretty convenient.
protests. i am always impressed with my camera.
illustrating the significance of protests. this man is selling coulouri (a local bread) in the middle of the street as the protest passes him.
cool random pic.
cool random pic.
petralona cave. a massive cave system (6 km long) in chalkidiki. an early hominid was found here. it is considered to be middle species between homo erectus and early sapians. there is a super interesting back story to the whole thing full of theological cover-ups, scientific mis-calculations, exaggeration, hit squads and ethnocentric foolery. fun stuff.