Schoolness

We're back at school and Cat's been to all of her classes at least once. Cat says Japanese is pretty cool, especially since there are people who are worse at it (yes, even with only 3 days of class, she can tell). Theatre Senior Seminar is like Theatre-group-therapy- because-no-one-knows-what-they're- doing-for-the-rest-of-their-lives. Cat's glad it only meets once a week. Scene Design got taken over by the new Theatre teacher - which threw Cat. Not that this Janet person isn't nice or not a good teacher, but Cat was mentally prepared for a Ron class. African American English involves a lot of reading, so I'm glad it's Cat that's taking it and not me. Of all the classes, Cat's the least sure about that one. She thinks she'll do well, but it will be more work than she expected.

In more interesting news, Cat got her Traveller rulebook (finally) and she has some characters and a spaceship (how often do you get to say that?!). She's working on stuff for them to do with their characters and spaceship.

Some people might find this interesting - Cat dyed her hair again, so now it's all one color. It's pretty close to her original hair color. The sun-bleached part was really getting to her.

We have a new addition to our house - Shawn Samuel. He's a perky little kid - all the same, Snibbly and I have been staying away from him. He's nice to the other animals, particularly Clem, but the other animals are on a more even size with him - Snibbly and I are afraid of the damage he might inflict on us. Maybe when he's older. . . Cat's settled on the nickname Spud for him, but only when her friend Sean is around. Otherwise, things would be way confusing.

Other than that, things are pretty normal. Cat's working on homework and studying for the GRE. She has to sign up for a date still, but she's working on it. She hasn't been writing as much as she'd like - once the spaceship thing gets off the ground, that should improve.

University

I cannot say how much I regret the lack of information I have provided this summer. Miss Caitlin has been enjoying work, though it leaves her overheated and fatigued. This week she has spent preparing for our departure.

Tomorrow, we return to University, though Miss Caitlin's classes do not begin until the week following next. She is in for a busy semester, though she has only thirteen hours of credits. She will also try to write most of an essay to receive Honors in English, as well as resuming her work on her novel series. This she has promised to Miss Allison (friend of my dear friend Gip) and Miss Courtney (companion of the esteemed Hamlet the Younger). Everyone in the room, humans and pigs alike, had been disappointed to hear of Miss Caitlin's lack of diligence concerning her own writing. I remained silent, though I was secretly overjoyed when the young misses extracted the promise from Miss Caitlin - I feel it will do her much good. I only hope that Miss Caitlin's friends will remember to encourage her, remind her, and guilt her into working.

Miss Caitlin will also be working on a science fiction role-playing game with at least some of her friends. I feel this will detract time that she could otherwise be working on her novels, but Tipsy is extremely excited about it. She keeps babbling about "space cows." Like Miss Caitlin would allow something so ridiculous in her game.

In other news, the beautiful Comfort will be accompanying us on our trip to University. Miss Caitlin has greatly missed her oldest friend's company and is glad to have her traveling with us. I only hope Comfort does not get into trouble.

Happenings

Cat's busy with camp, studying for the GRE (which is this sort of test thing she's taking in August - I guess it's sort of important), and reading Harry Potter. She's also working on the final make-up design for her costume for the release of the new Harry Potter book. Most of her time is taken up by camp though.

Now on to the real news. Anyone who knows Clem will remember that he was suffering from a beanie deficiency. This deficiency was making him look thin, ill, and distinctly un-Clem-like.


There is good news however. After Cat and Mr. Cat's Dad located the tackiest beanie-pillow currently on the market, Cat and Mrs. Cat's Mom ransacked the pillow for beanies for a Beanie Transfusion into Clem. The procedure started at approximately 3:30 and took about 45 minutes to complete. It was principally performed by Mrs. Cat's Mom because of her superior knowledge and experience in stuffed-animal emergency care. Clem is now resting comfortably, under the care of his friends. Mrs. Cat's Mom has informed us that a secondary procedure might be necessary once the new beanies settle. This would be done sometime in mid-August, before our return to school.


Let us all hope and pray for a complete recovery.

Cat Stupid and More Pictures

Sorry this took so long. Cat was stupid. First she made us take baths - both of us, even though I wasn't nearly as dirty as Snibbly. It was not fair. Though she didn't put me in the dryer and she did shove Snibbly in there - heehee. I got to air dry. Anyway, after that, she started work at camp, and then the computer was off most of the time during the day and Cat was tired and crabby at night, so we didn't get to play on the computer. Grr. We're in K-town now, checking up on the apartment and paying bills. It's kind of creepy - no one's here but us (Snibbly, Cat, and I) and the My Little Ponies. Clem and the bigger animals stayed at Mr. and Mrs. Cat's Parent's house.

So, without FURTHER ado, Greece Pictures Part 2:

Our first picture is from Mycenae - Supposedly this is where Agamemnon was buried. Not sure about that, but it was the grave circle of a very important dude. So important that later generations extended the wall to included it in the settlement - something that the Greeks usually didn't do. They liked to keep dead people out of their cities. So that they made and exception means they revered the dead here big time. They found at lot of stuff here. It's in the National Museum. I didn't see them. I'm okay with that.

This is in Nemea - near where the Nemean Games were held. They were kind of like the Olympics, or the ones held in Delphi, except they were done in honor of some dead kid. Anyway, this is the Temple to Zeus there. It was cool because you could actually walk on the Temple. We're inside the Temple in the picture, but it's hard to tell.

This is us at the Venetian Castle overlooking Nafplion. It was cool because you could climp all over it and there were murder holes and blind alleys and arrow loops and other cool things like that. There were seven separate towers that were supplied separately and had to be taken on one at a time in case of siege. It was a defender's heaven and an attacker's nightmare. Cat wanted to spend more time there, but no one else did, so she couldn't. She wanted to find how to get to all seven - instead she only could play in two. It was really hard to find how to get around - everywhere there were places you could see (and they could see you) but you couldn't see how to get there. Cat said that was part of the defensive thing.

This is at the other Venetian Castle - the one on Acrocorinth that wasn't as cool. This is part of the main keep. Behind Cat (who's taking the picture - duh) is like 10 feet and then a huge drop down to the plain below.

This is us and the plain of near Corinth. We're on the top and on the edge of the arch things you can see in the other picture. It gives you an idea about how high up we were, right? Cat didn't have too many problems with heights on the trip, but this was one of the times she was kinda nervous. We all got up and down fine (though Cat kept throwing us in the bag up or down. She said it was so we didn't get in her way. Hrmph.)

This is us in the Theater at Epadarus. You can sit at the back and hear things perfectly that are going on on the stage! On of the girls in the group sang "Build Me Up Buttercup," and we all heard her perfectly. One of the professors dropped a coin at the exact middle where the sound is the best and we heard it in the back row. It was pretty neat.

This is us in front of a smoking sulfur vent on the volcano place on Santorini. It was the closest thing to real volcano-ness we saw on the whole island. That and a lot of black rocks. Snibbly and Cat thought it was really cool. I thought it was kinda lame. No lava. Snibbly got really dirty here, because he kept leaping about, trying to look at things on his own.

This is us on the boat. See the volcanic island is in the middle of Snatorini's bay - Santorini is shaped like a crescent in case you didn't know. Cat says it has to do with the volcano thing. Something about the last big eruption that was a long time ago. Anyway, to go where the sulfur vents are, you have to go on a boat, since it's on a little black island in the middle of the crescent.

This is us and the little black island that the volcanic stuff is on. Far in the distance on the left, you see the southern part of the crescent. Beyond the bigger black island is a smaller one that Cat says is older, but still newer than the eruption, and an even smaller, older island that is the same age as the crescent. Cat says the little island used to connect to the crescent - so the cresent was like a big donut almost. There was still a little opening for the sea to come in the middle of the donut. Cat says they know all this because of the rocks, so I should respect them more. I still say they're boring.

This is us and Fira. It has pretty houses. They're all done in white and blue for waterproofing. Seriously. Everyone's like - oh, they're so pretty, so exotic, but really, they have to put paint on every year for water proofing and white is cheap, so they use white. They don't have a freshwater source on the island, so they collect and purify rainwater from all flat surfaces. That's why it has to be waterproof.
Here's us and the sunset in Ia. It's supposed to be really awesome. We thought it was way to crowded to be awesome. But that's alright - sunsets are pretty anyway.

That's it for our pictures. After that, we went back to Athens, shopped for the next day, and then got up really early so we could be at the Athens airport at the butt-crack of dawn. Cat was sleepy and her ears hurt on the plane ride. Then it took her a really long time to readjust to the time difference back at home. We visited with Cat's Grandparents - we'll be visiting them again soon for the 4th of July. Her Grandpa's doing well - he's doing things he's not supposed to and annoying her Grandma and everything! For the 4th, they'll be able to drink the wine Cat bought for him in Santorini.

Santorini and Pictures of Our Journey

As you can begin to see, we have found a place and opportunity to upload pictures. My profile picture features my ancient counterpart found in the Karamikos Cemetary's museum. I assume that Tipsy will also change her profile picture to the cow we found near the pig.

I shall try to present the pictures from earlier in the trip.This is us at Hadrien's arch, back on our first full day in Athens. Notice the people and cars in the picture for a sense of scale.This is us at the Theater of Dionysos, after Miss Caitlin's presentation. We are seated on one of the chairs reserved in the first few rows for officials. On site, there are chairs that are significantly more intact, however they are roped off. This is the only one that people are allowed to sit on. Miss Caitlin also got her picture taken while she was on this chair.

The picture of us at the top of the page was taken on top of "Socrates' Prison" and features a nice shot of the Acropolis in the background.This is a picture of us at the Temple of Olympian Zeus. This is the more striking view of the Temple, including most of the columns that are still standing. There are some that are standing in the corner off the picture to the left, but these are the majority of the ones that still stand.
This was taken later in the afternoon at the Roman Agora, featuring the Tower of the Winds in the background.Here we are overlooking the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. It was a very exciting site - miss Caitlin says that it may have been her favorite, though she is enjoying Santorini immensely.Here we are with the town of Delphi far below us. This was from when Miss Caitlin and several of her classmates hiked above the village in search of the Sanctuary of Pan.

Unfortunately, I do not have time to display all of our pictures. While it will be less exciting, I will present them when we return home. We leave on Wednesday, and I will be sorry to leave this place, though Tipsy and even Miss Caitlin are tiring of traveling and are looking forward to being home.

I feel I should mention what we did while staying in Ancient Corinth. We visited the sites there, including the Agora and the acropolis, which is dominated by a crumbling Venetian Castle. We also visited Nemea, Epadarus, Myceane, and Nafplion. Miss Caitlin enjoyed Nafplion extremely - she quite enjoy hauling us all through the Venetian castle there - it was considerably better preserved that the one on top of Acrocorinth.

Santorini has been intensely exciting. We have been hiking around the caldera, listening to one of the leading volcanologists talk about the geology of the island and the mechanics of the erruptions here. Not too many of Miss Caitlin's classmates are interested, and we weary of them more and more everyday. Perhaps it is for the best that we are to leave soon. However, it will still be a shame.

Almost Pictures

Cat found us a computer with a USB drive and a good connection - but she totally left the cable at the hotel!!!! This is Fira (not Akrotiri, where we're staying) so it's not that close. But Cat promised us that she'll come back tomorrow so we can put up some pictures. And we'll go into more detail and stuff. Right now, we don't have too much time because we have to meet up with the others to go to Ia, which has pretty sunsets.

Cat's back turned red and she complains about it a lot. It seems sorta impractical to me. She should grow some fur.

Cat also says her legs hurt a lot. I don't know what she's complaining about. It's been pretty easy for us - I mean we've been exploring the island, and we haven't been on the bus that much because Cat walks us around, so it's much less tedious. We went a third of the way around the cliff - caldera thing, and we walked up and down a mountain, and all over the real volcano part, and today we'll go around another third of the caldera - cliff thing, but really, I don't see what she's complaining about.

Cat and Snibbly are still on about rocks. I don't get it. I'm more excited about the museum we visited today. It was of all this stuff from a town called Akrotiri (like the town we're staying in - I guess they're not all that creative with names here). I guess you can't go to the real site because they're still working on it. Everything was preserved really well because of something that happened when the volcano exploded a long time ago. Cat and our guide guy (who's like a geologists or something) keep telling me that the volcano used to be bigger. It wasn't that impressive when we visited it yesterday. Anyway, at this museum, they had another ancient pig and cow. Well the cow was a bull (not exactly the same thing), and the pig was a boar (I think Snibbly's pretty boring, so it's almost the same thing), and they weren't a set like the ones in the museum in Athens, but they were still pretty cool.

The weather's been strange here. Today's the only day it's been sunny all day. Otherwise it's been cloudy, which isn't so bad, and yesterday it was rainy. That was pretty bad. They had to shorten our boat trip. We only saw these little islands in the middle - one was the volcano, and one was that looked kind of like the volcano one, only it had grass and goats on it.

We'll write again tomorrow - with pictures!!! Cat's not sure how much we can put up, but we'll at least do a few! Ta 'til then!

Island Place

We're at this Island called Santorini. It's really touristy, except not the place where we are staying. So we don't have too much of a chance to use the internet. Cat got time here at this black beach place, but she used most of her time to answer her e-mail (lame), so I can't say too much because of time. Cat's walking us around a lot and the view's cool. Cat and Snibbly keep getting excited about rocks and stuff. I mean, they're kinda neat, but I don't know what all the fuss is about. Something about a volcano, but that's silly - there's no big mountain shooting lava anywhere! I think it's like the "Roman" thing.

Corinth was cool. We spent a lot of time on the bus. We met a nice animal named Bunny there. oddly enough, he/she(Bunny predates gender apparently) looked like a bunny. We'll right more about those adventures later.

So well try to write again (better) soon. Until then - bya!