As Far As You Know

While in Greece, I figured it would be good thing to get out on the water, taking a page from Odysseus. I don't think Homer's epic involved a high-speed catamaran painted to promote a European wireless company, though!

At any rate, I made it out to Santorini (a.k.a. Thira), one of the Cyclades in the middle of the Aegean Sea. Most of the island disappeared in a volcanic eruption and there is some evidence that Greeks of the classic era may have been referring to Santorini when they described lost Atlantis.

Out here in the middle of the Aegean--or is it the Mediterranean?--I watched one of the most beautiful sunsets from the balcony outside my hotel room tonight. My room overlooks the caldera (a volcanic crater) toward the west of the island of Santorini, which gave me a terrific vantage point from which to see the sun melt into the horizon.

The picture above I snapped at dinner; you can see how the village of Thira is perched on cliffs over the water.

The combination of the architecture at the hotel I am staying at on Santorini (the Majestic, if you make it here--I recommend it) and the cool weather at the end of a warm day gives me a strong sense of deja vu: particularly of spring break in the Califiornia desert or Florida. It dawned on me that I didn't get my annual fix of warm weather in March this year, as I was in China with the tennis team instead. Of course, I don't regret that trip at all, but I did miss the gentle climate I have gotten accustomed to at the end of the winter term. Even in the three years I have taken the Choate squash team on a U.K. tour, it was always followed by a trip south. So I guess I am getting my spring break in the Greek isles this year in June!