I need vacations like Hobbits need breakfasts

It's official. I'm going to Greece in September. I'm trying to sort of be European about these things (I deserve 30 days of vacation per year!) and not feel bad that I already went to the U.S. this summer. Also, I'm pretty sure that Greece will be awesome. And, sadly, Jena starts to get cold around the end of September so it's an excellent time for a second vacation.

The plan for this trip was hatched by my friend Ko (the one I went to see in Göttingen a while back). Ko has been concerned about how and when he might be introduced to my blog reading public and suggested that this might be a good place to mention him. I had other ideas, but he vetoed them. Probably just as well. Anyway, Ko has wanted to see Greece, and I really enjoyed the setting of "Mamma Mia" so it seemed like a good idea to me. I think it looks sort of like this:



Plus, I keep thinking that I should travel as much as possible while I'm in Europe. If I don't like Ko after spending ten consecutive days with him, then probably it wasn't meant to be. Although it'd be best to keep that to myself until the end of the trip, since Ko's the one who has been listening to Greek tapes. I just plan to speak English loudly. People appreciate that, I've noticed.

I'm sure I'll be posting more about this in the future. And I definitely need to get a camera sometime soon (I've gone through two since I moved here - I think it's me) so I can document things for all of you. In the meantime, I've been learning about Greece from the CIA world factbook. It's pretty useful, like wikipedia but more reliable. For example, did you know that Greece is slightly smaller than Alabama? Or that it imports 527,200 billion barrels of oil per day (compared to the 13,710,000 billion barrels imported into the U.S. each day)?

Perhaps I'll come up with some exciting Greek poll to put over there on the side. In the meantime, I'm gonna work really hard. Except that it's sunny outside.... I hear it calling me....