Panorama from Thursdays Night in Pireus

Thursday night I was out with my friend Michalis in Pireus, as mentioned in the last (german) entry. When we sat in the Cafe, I took some Pictures with the camera of my Sony Ericsson P910i, since I liked the view of the place. Well, the church isn't really beautyfull, but the road up the hill has some atmosphere. Sadly that uphill road doesn't come out very atmospheric on the picture. With the simplistic lens of the phone camera distortion is usually quite bad. Stitching the pix together worked fine though. Looking at this experiment, I plan to make some more panorama shots. And this way I get almost 1 Megapixel out of the camera :-) (which has 640x400 pixel VGA resolution). You can click on the image to see the full resolution view, though heavily JPEG compressed.

Another Visit on the Beach

So, this is where I go to swim. Apart from this beach, there are two others where I go to swim. This one is about 5 minutes by bicycle, the second is about the same distance, the third is 20-25 tough minutes uphill and downhill over dirtroads on the bicycle. The tough ride has the most beautyful beach, but I'm not in good training... yet. The brown stuff on the waterline is seaweed, it smells funny, it's funny to walk through, it's harmless, but it's not beautyfull. The other two beaches have none of it. There are other beaches that I only very rarely visit. Limnos has lots of nice, sandy beaches. But for a refreshing swim in the hot afternoon a short ride is good.

The day was a bit hazy and the camera did not cope very well with the changing light situation on each pic. No way to manual set the exposure on a camera phone. Also I should note that there are trees on the other side of the beach, all in all the other side is even nicer, but I did not like the light on the other side at that time of day, so this side it was. I just wanted to continue with my picture stitching experiments. There is a bigger view of this picture.

Sundown at Zemata Beach

Went by bike to Zemata beach yesterday again. The ride is still rough over those dirt roads, but it does not take me 25 minutes any more. Looks like I'm slowly starting to get in shape again. After I arrived at the beach, I was happy to be able to cool down in the sea. The water was glass clear, with that turquoise colour that makes looking at a beach so exciting.

I stayed a long while. After taking a swim to cool down, I relaxed a bit in the sun, then took another swim. Then I sat at the beach bar, where I happened to talk to Manos (who had arrived with the same ship on the island). He is a fellow web developer, and we took a break from vacation talk and exchanged experiences of work. It was 8 in the evening when I left, the sun was about to go down in the sea. When I had managed to scramble the bike through the uphill behind the beach, I stopped and turned around to look. I gave the sundown a try for one of my panorama pictures, but the subject is tough. I don't like that pic so much, especially since the seams near the line of the horizon interfere with the atmosphere. But maybe you can imagine an idea of how beautiful the sundown can be at Zemata beach. Click on the image for a larger view.

Myrina, Capital of Limnos Island

This morning I woke up early to catch the bus at 7 and go to Myrina. Myrina is the "capital" of the island Limnos (or "Lemnos", as the English sometimes spell it). The villagers sometimes call their town "kastro", after the castle that guards the town. So in the "kastro" I did some shopping and also got my ticket back home. At first I had planned to go to Thessaloniki, but a few days ago I changed my mind and will go to Athens via Lavrio.

Even though it takes a long time to go to Myrina (the bus takes almost an hour), which should result in many things waiting to be done at once whenever I go there, I always seem to come to the point that I don't know what else to do in town. So today I took some pictures. Apart from this little street scene, I did two series for panorama pictures. Only one strikes me as interesting enough now, it shows the castle on its rock, as seen from the "romaiko gialo", the Greek beach. (You can click on the image for a bigger view.)

The street scene on the other hand was taken a few days ago, when I went with my friend Christos to Myrina in his car. It seems that this year was a very good season. Limnos was featured in two Greek periodicals and in some TV shows. Flights, ships and hotels were booked out and in the "agora" of Myrina it was sometimes so crowded that one could hardly walk.

My stay here will soon come to an end. Thursday I'm leaving all this behind. I'll enjoy every swim in the sea double now. I try to soak up as much free time and leisure as I can for the remaining days. September will be a working month again. But I was able to gather strength (and sun), so I will enjoy focussing my thoughts on work again.

Pinakothek, Hilton

Diesen Sonntag habe ich es mal geschafft früh genug aufzustehen, um die griechische Nationalgallerie zu besuchen, die Sonntags um 14 Uhr schliesst. Das Programm rundeten wir dann mit einem Besuch im guten, alten Hilton und bei TGI Fridays (einem amerikanischen Ketten-Bar-Cafe-Pub Laden) ab...

Zuerst die Nationalgallerie (Ethniki Pinakothiki): Eindrucksvoll, wenn auch vieles schon gesehen, zumindest vom Stil her. Ich mag Malerei grundsätzlich, doch bin ich meistens nicht aufnahmefähig genug für ein ganzes Museum am Stück. Die Ausstellung wurde und wird noch umgebaut. Wir konnten zwei Stockwerke voll Bilder anschauen, wasw uns auch reichte für die zwei Stunden, die wir Zeit hatten. Der oberste Stock und einige Bereiche in der Nähe des Eingangs sind noch im Umbau und nicht zugänglich.

Im unteren Stockwerk sahen wir die älteren Werke, vom 16. Jahrhundert an. Die Ausstellung lehnt stark zu griechischen Künstlern, doch gerade im ältesten Zeitraum sind viele Werke aus Italien, Spanien und anderen europäischen Ländern vertreten. Ab der Zeit der griechischen Revolution (1821 für weniger in der griechischen Geschichte belesene) wird die Ausstellung detaillierter. Von Historienschinken zu Helden und Schlachten des Unabhängigkeitskrieges hin zu den Portraits und Gesellschaftsbildern der neuen Oberschicht. Das Bild zeigt ein solches Portrait, im Hintergrund die Akropolis, Thision und das Athen von ca. 1870. Erklärungstexte zu den einzelnen Abschnitten geben eine Orientierungshilfe. Doch bei einigen Bildern hätte ich eine Erklärung nötig gehabt. Was war jetzt genau los mit dieser oder jener Musse, mit dem einen oder anderen Helden oder Moment der Geschichte?

Im oberen Stock sind die modernen Werke zuhause. Hier hatten wir nur noch für einen kürzeren Rundblick Zeit. Die Werke reichen von den "moderen" ab der Jahrhundertwende des 19./20. Jahrhunderts über die abstrakten Werke der Nachkriegszeit bis heute. Kurz vor "Ladenschluss" des Museums schauten wir noch im Museums-Shop vorbei. Die Preise sind einiges "normaler" als in den anderen Museen, die wir besucht haben.

Nach so viel Kultur hatten wir erstmal etwas Kommerz nötig. Das Athener Hilton steht gleicht gegenüber der Nationalgallerie. Also hinüberspaziert, durch die fette Lobby mit dem überholten Kunstledercharme der so an die 50er Jahre erinnert und mit dem Lift ganz nach oben. Für den Lift sollte man einen festen Magen haben, Beschleunigung und Abbremsen werfen einem die Innereien durcheinander, scheints haben Hilton-Gäste keine Geduld für lahme Aufzüge. Nach der plüschen Lobby erwartete uns oben eine durchgestylte Bar mit Lampen (und Möbeln?) von Philip Starck. Doch leider war die Bar dicht. Immerhin nutzte ich die Gelegenheit für ein Panoramabild (Bild anklicken für eine grössere Ansicht).

Da der Kaffee im Roof-Garden des Athens Hilton flachgefallen war, nahmen wir den Bus zur nächsten Franchise-Meile (frei nach Neal Stephenson). In der Leoforos Alexandras reihen sich Starbucks, TGI Fridays, La Pasteria und einheimische Ketten wie "Goodies" aneinander. Bei uns war ein Test von TGI Fridays angesagt. Mit "Death by chocolate" (Brownie mit Schokosyrup und Vanilleglace, angelehnt an "Charlie and the chocolate factory") und "Tropical Runner" (einem alkoholfreien Mixdrink, Banane, Ananas, "Pinacolada-Gewürz" und crushed ice) verlief der Test zufriedenstellend. "Fridays" ist ein amerikanischer Bar-, Café-, Pub-Schuppen. Ganz nett, brauchbare Musik. Preise im für Griechenland gewohnten (hohen) Durchschnitt. Die Mitarbeiter verzieren ihre "Uniformen" mit Buttons, Stofftieren, Tand und Trödel, sie stellen sich nach amerikanischer Sitte mit Namen vor. Beim typischen, griechischen Kaffeepublikum (männlich, jung, immer auf der Suche nach der holden Weiblichkeit) wäre es bedeutend erfolgreicher (eher ein wirklicher Durchbruch in der Kafeteria-Erfolgsskala!), wenn sie auch gleich die Telefonnummer mitgäben. Trotz dem offensichtlichen Franchise-Konzept war alles ganz freundlich. Also alles in allem ein gelungener Sonntagsausflug.

Scary Temperatures and Nice Music

Tor reports this morning temperatures of -15C in Norway. Which I promptly used to scare the gf. Here in Athens right now it's 19C (plus, not minus) and we are expecting 24C during the day. At night it gets a bit chilly with 16C (and it was colder a week ago). Seems to me I'm living on the right end of Europe right now :-)

In other news Saad (of #bsdcow fame) has posted his monthly Wonderful Songs Feature for November 2005. He recommends each month the songs (and albums) that he listened to and enjoyed that month. His selections are off the main road of the music industry, lots of "independent" stuff, all pretty laid back. Recommended.

The picture was made on monday morning, when I took a slightly other way to work. I came by this beautyfull park full of pine trees. Almost a little grove or even a forest. And next to it this big racetrack of a road. (Click on the image for a bigger view.)

Saturday Club Life

Yesterdays visit at the HelMUG booth at the COMDEX turned into a small hacking project. But I managed to take some pictures (click on the preview for a bigger image). The smallish insert is a 1970s video phone from the booth of the telecommunications museum, absolute highlight of the exhibition. In the big picture there are a couple of its modern cousins: Plenty of Apples iSight cameras at the HelMUG booth. HelMUG webmaster stefbystef even presented the new HelMUG website over a video iChat connection. I came home pretty late from COMDEX, but not late enough to miss the party of the Greek 2CV club.

The HelMUG mini hack: I managed to write a small script to change the password of a lot of imported user accounts at once. Started out with a small expect script (found on the web, but easy to do yourself) to script /usr/bin/passwd. Then changed that a bit to our needs. Finally hooked it up with a small shell script to run on a text file with username and password on each line. The reason I used a shell script for the second task is that I don't use expect very often, and I did not want to mess up a task like this. But I love expect, even though I'm a python programmer, the tcl grammar is very cool and each time I use expect (which is based on tcl) it makes me whish I had more chance to play with it.

Then came the 2CV party: Last year I went on an excursion with the 2CV fans. So I knew some of them. At the party there were also a lot of unknown faces, since everybody had brought their friends. I enjoyed it nonetheless, good music, drinks, good people, and a very nice place. The clubs hangout is a very stylish neoclassical flat. Even at the party I could not miss my geekness. I went and fixed their 'puter. Installed a spam filter and adaware. But the poor machine is loaded with adware and spyware, so I'm not sure that will be enough. Actually it would be worth to install OpenBSD with Firefox and matching mail client, as I don't think the machine is being used for anything besides mail, web, and looking at an image CD sometime.

Evening Sky After Rainstorm

Came out of the office to see this wonderfull eveing sky. The day had started very fine, sunny and warm even in the morning. Then in the afternoon someone shouted in the office: "It's raining!" Even more so, it was thundering along to that. I was half expecting to go out to a rainy evening after work, but the sun came back and offered us this view. Click on the image for a bigger view.

Back From Hydra, Sun Hit Me

Came back from Hydra in the afternoon. Needed some sleep and a lot of water to drink. Looks like I managed to get too much sun already. I'm still sorting through my first impressions. Being on Hydra for almost two days again was wonderful. I took a lot of pictures, here are one of my "assembled" montages of the harbour and one picture of me and a certain blonde...

We were impressed with the clear blue water just outside the harbour. A little bit to the left of this picture is one place where people go to swim. Hydra is a rocky island, so no sand beach, just rocks and a couple of ladders to get into the blue. As usual, click on the image for a bigger view.

We took mostly walks, and that is how I got too much sun. We looked around town, but also went up to the monastery of "Profiti Ilias", one of the highest places on the island. I'll promise to post some more pictures from that hike soon.

One picture I can post right now is of me with this nice blonde. We met outside the monastery and got to be friends. I've always great respect for horses, I'm not used to them and once I tried to pet that one horse out of 10 who had the habit to bite people (don't worry, I was lucky and got away unharmed). So I'm careful, but this one insisted on being friendly. The walk up there was very tiresome, so I wish we could have asked our new friend for a ride back down.

Glyfada Panorama Picture

Picture from last weeks excursion to Glyfada. The sunset was impressive and I liked the scenery. Today I took the time to stitch this little panorama together, in the usual manner. You can view a medium sized and a big version of this panorama picture too.

Another Athens Panorama

Another panorama picture, Athens from above, as seen from the roof of the Divani Caravel hotel. I took these pictures when I was there for the safeline.gr meeting. The day was a bit cloudy and one can't see the swimming pool on the pic - the pool is up the stairs on the left side and on the other side of the roof.

Update: The big picture. Compare with the one taken from the roof of the hilton.

Neoclassical Houses in Athens

Went with company for a shopping trip to Ermou street and later into the smaller sidestreets (they shopped, not me). At some point I got bored and started taking pictures. Lots of neoclassical buildings there, some of them well restored.

As usual you can click on the image to see a bigger view. I had some problems with the lighting conditions. My camera phone is not really able to cope with the bright evening sky and dusky building fronts in the same picture set. Also I have to adjust for a metric ton of magenta thrown in by the image chip.

Even with those impediments, the atmosphere of the moment is there for me. That's what makes photography worthwile in the end. Having a beautyful picture and a "Vergissmeinicht" of the moment. BTW: I added a category "montage" for those panorama and montage pictures I'm making. It appears empty, but contains all the posts with pictures like this one.

A View at Kerameikos

Ever since I was hanging out in a motorcycle repair shop next door to it, the archaeological site of Kerameikos was my beloved ancient place in Athens. It's not just old stones, it's a garden in itself. Like the very best of the ancient places, it has a special atmosphere to it.

Last Sunday I had planned to visit it again. Somewhere in my memory I had stored that entrance to archeological sites in Athens is free on Sundays. Well, it is, but only in the winter season. Right now it's the full 12 Euro - a bit hefty, even if you consider that the ticket is valid for many archeological sites all over Athens. So I was cheap and didn't go, I had a walk around Acropolis instead (which led to me discovering the parrot on my way home through the national garden, another story).

Back to Kerameikos, on Tuesday I passed by it, and I snapped a few pictures from the outside through the fence. Here is one result of them, also available in medium size and huge size.

Kea: Church, Rock, Ioulida From Above Panorama

The weekends picture from Ioulida was in fact part of a panorama shot. Here you've got the stitched together version. It's a bit rough (I blame the heat, my brain must have been fried), but the rock above the church was rough too. The little church is in good shape, but does not look like it's being serviced very often (the lock on the door was pretty rusty). To the right of the rocks, one can spot a bit of a sea view. The city in the background is Ioulida (or Ioulis), the capital of the island of Kea, in Greece.

As usual: Click on the image for a bigger version.

Some Pictures from Kea Island

Here are some more pictures from last weekends excursion to Kea Island. I took only a few pictures, and since the camera in my phone isn't so great, this is what you get :-) Look inside for the pictures...

We start with a little panorama I took from the entrance of the city of Ioulida (the capital of Kea island). Cars only get till here. The picture was taken from the edge of the taxi parking lot. The island is pretty green for an aegean island, though to northern europeans it will appear dry. (Click on the image for a somewhat larger view.)

This is a street scene in Ioulida. It is so empty, because we were there during noon hours when decent people are either indoors sleeping through their siesta or sit in a cafe. We went to a cafe shortly after this :-)

Another city scene, we had met one lady shortly before this and a couple of tourists a little bit afterwards. One can see much of the city on the rise of the hill.

I liked these balconies. The upper one is nice and picturesque, but the lower one is more comfortable to sit outside in the evenings.

On the way back from swimming on Sunday, we saw this picturesque coastline. Prospective tourists rest assured, even though it looks all rocky, there are some sandy beaches on Kea.

Philip Glass - La belle et la bête

Yesterday evening Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble played in the ancient Herodion theatre in Athens. I was lucky, happy, and stunned to see them perform their music to the film "La belle et la bête" from Jean Cocteau. They basically removed the soundtrack from the film, then the orchestra played the music while four singers intonated the voices. All in the typical musical style of Philip Glass. Sounds strange? It was a recipe for an incredible evening...

The surroundings... ancient

We got our tickets weeks ago, so we didn't have to wait in line at the evening. But while we sat and watched the queue, I wondered if this was such a good idea, as the sky was full of black clouds. The organizers seemed to be sure to let the event happen. I let my view pass over the impressive skyline of the Herodion Ancient Theater. How would it be sitting on its stone steps with a downpour like we had the day before? The place before the theater, right below the big rock and the Acropolis filled up with people. We went to our entrance and still had to wait a bit in line till the doors opened. Then we went up the huge stairs inside. The inside is stunning, the seats descend so steep, it's almost at the border of triggering fear in me. Since we were early, we snatched some good seats (with our cheap tickets, seats are not numbered, the higher priced tickets have reserved seats). When I say "seats", don't expect anything like a plastic chair in a sports stadium. These are just marble benches going all through the half round stadium, with simple cushions on them, but nothing to lean against. The view is payback enough though. (Click on the image for a bigger view.)

The movie... black & white magic

The movie itself is nice but may have been strange to modern viewers. A black and white movie from back in 1946, in the form of a fairy tale. The movie asks us at the start to get back to our childlike openness to believe in magic. Its magic is made with simple camera effects. As one critic noted, Cocteau manages to enchant us better with those simple effects than most modern CGI operators with all their machine power.

The story is at once well known and new. The scheme of the beauty who is attracted and spellbound by the ugly beast is well known and retold up to diabetes inducing Disney sugar levels. But as I sat and watched I found myself hanging in suspense about how this particular turn would work out, what would happen next.

The music... magic unity with the movie

I love Philip Glass' music, the way I can get lost in it. To those who have never heard it, it's difficult to describe. It has been labeled as minimalistic music, but the label doesn't really fit. Glass uses a small set of building blocks that get assembled again and again in the same ways and the same ways until you notice that while you weren't "watching" it all changed and floated into a new atmosphere.

A small orchestra accompanied the movie, together with four singers. The musicians were sitting in front of the screen (which at one point close to the end was torn out at the lower end by the wind caused small confusion on stage). The music and singing was synchronous with the film, much like in old silent movies.

At the start of the performance I thought that the music wasn't too typical for Glass. I thought that maybe he has changed and I would have to take what I'd got. But it seems that this was just the starting theme, a few minutes later, the "glassiness" took over and pulled me in. I made a point of watching the musicians from time to time, even if this meant I would loose part of the movie. But I wanted to see the music being "made". After a while this desire went away, because of the exceptional union between the movie and the music.

Right as the flow of the Glass music was pulling me in, the movie and the music appeared to become one. The music followed (or lead?) the line of the story while the singing voices and the actors became one. The story, the music,... magic. I left enchanted.