Happy Friday!

Happy Friday!

Hope you are all doing well. Not too much going on here in Athens. We have a three day weekend this weekend because of a Greek Holiday on Monday so we are looking forward to that. Weather has still been wonderful here in Athens.

We have been dealing with a ridiculous number of strikes recently here in Greece. Usually it is the transportation sector (trains, taxis, buses, airport) but on Wednesday the power company joined the flight. Right after we walked into the door last night we lost power and it lasted for three hours. There have been rolling blackout all over the city for he past two days and it is supposed to continue for many days to come. David and I just took naps because there really isn't anything else to do but sit in the dark. When we were about to walk out of the house this morning the power cut off again. Wonderful!

The Greeks are protesting pension reforms (http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7363346). This is a good time to thank God that you are living in the States. Can you imagine a time when our entire country would be shut down over anything? I mean literally no planes are flying, no schools are in session, no one is going to work (except us).

Lets see...oh yesterday the Embassy was forced to close early because of protests over Balkans issues (Kosovo and Macedonia) in front of the Embassy. Is this a fairly regular occurrence unfortunately. Getting out of work at 5:00 on a beautiful day isn't so bad but it begs the question who would the world protest if we were not around?

Well we are going to try to visit one of the beach communities on the mainland this weekend. Hopefully we will have stories and pictures to post early next week.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Love from Athens....