Two days in Athens

A week after returns from the US, I had to attend a meeting in Athens. Since I just returned from a trip and since it was the week of passover, I did not extend the trip beyond the minimum possible.

We took off from Israel early in the morning and landed in Athens toward 9am. I took a cab to the meeting hotel in Vouliagméni, a suburb of Athens to south of the main city. After spending the whole day inside, I was yearning to get a glimpse of the beautiful day outside. 


In the early afternoon Ido and I managed to sneak out of the poster session and go for a walk before dinner. The hotel receptionist suggested we walk down to a small nature reserve on a small peninsula.


As promised, the peninsula was very impressive. Ido wanted to try the water, and we had hard time to find an accessible beach. 

After jumping in, Ido immediately decided that the water was too cold to bath in :-)

We continued walking along the road and reached a very fancy marina. We decided to explore and saw that there is a local pub/restaurant. Since we were thirsty, we stopped for a beer, and ended eating a salad and a small meal. The place was super fancy, and we got small appetizers "on the house" with the beer.

We continued down the beach to the ruins of a small church. 

From here we climbed to the top of the hill, and proceeded down some impressive rock structure toward the tip of the peninsula. 

Since dinner time was nearing, we headed back along the coast toward our hotel. On the way we saw the sunset.

The next day was cloudy. After a day of talks, we finally finished our business. I went with Allesandra and Marco, and we decided to start with the obvious destination - the Acropolis.

Unlike the peak of the tourist season, the acropolis was fairly empty at this time. And so we got a chance to see the ruins without walking in a crowd.

The hill of the acropolis is pretty impressive. It stands high above the surrounding city and looks like a natural fortress. 

Some of the structures were under-renovations. I learned that the whole place was rebuilt in the early 20th century in an attempt to reconstruct the past. The current renovations are intend to save some of the structures that started to become unstable, and also to correct errors. At some places we saw "spare" stones that were collected during the work and apparently didn't fit in.

From up here, we could see the large spread of Athens in every direction. 

Going down from the Acropolis, we climbed on a hill that serves as "shoulder" of the big hill. From here there was an impressive viewpoint on the whole Acropolis compound.

From there we picked a small footpath and followed it down the hill. We ended on a wide avenue with many blooming Judeas Trees and many outdoor cafe/pub establishments. We stopped for a refreshment and chat about science.

By now it was late, and so we continued down the avenue to the local subway line. Being obsessive photograph I tried to make a composition with the brightly painted subway cars, but was approached by a security person who told me that photography was prohibited. I found this odd, but decided not to start a scene.

We rode the subway to Piraeus, the local harbor. We exited just after sunset next to the big ferry terminal. These provided a wonderful background for the sky.

We continued to a small, but famous, restaurant few blocks from the harbor where we met other participants from the meeting to have dinner. I thought this was going to be a traditional place, but it turned out to be a fancy tasting dinner of about 10 courses. It was very very good and enjoyable.

Cold Spring Harbor Labs (with a stop in Boston)

Every two years there is a conference on Systems Biology of Gene Expression at the Cold Springer Harbor Labs. This is a great conference and I try to attend it regularly.  This year I was an invited to be a speaker, and so I gladly accepted.

view from the plane after takeoff

On the way over I stopped in Boston to visit Ollie Rando in Natick. Unlike previous visits we didn't have time to explore, but we did enjoy a surprisingly warm and sunny day for talking science.

Ollie playing with light beams

The warm spell continued during the conference, although we had few foggy days. On the first day, still jet-lagged, I woke early before dawn and had a stroll to the foggy beach.

The mood of very diffused early light drove me toward B&W photos. The local geese agreed to pose for me.

In the end the sun did come out and we got to see some bright clear days.

Few pictures of early spring flowers - dogwood and magnolias.

On the way back to Boston, we saw this truck carrying a truck carrying a truck.

Boston itself was rainy and so I ended up not taking any photographs. On our way to land in Israel we passed some impressive clouds, which made me wish I had a chance to go and do arial photography...

A quick trip to Eilat - lights and strobes

Another quick weekend trip to Eilat. On the way, we stopped in the desert and got to see Venus and Saturn bright on the night sky. The moon was full and so they were competing with a strong light from the east.

This time, one of the divers was a child, and so most of the dives where shallower. This actually increased the opportunities for taking pictures of wildlife.

In the night dive we got a chance to see the protective bubble formed by a parrotfish.

The water was full of jellyfish and their close cousins, and so I get a chance to get some photographs of these beautiful life forms.

A new object for exploration was a fiber optic appendage to my strobe that allowed for concentrated light. I am still learning, but so far it lead to interesting effects.

On our last dive we spent more than 15 minute with a octopus that was very sympathetic.