First time to the beach!!

Hello little one. The plan for Saturday 18 July was as ambitious as it was difficult to implement. Daddy's oldest friend, Jockey, was going to be coming to Athens with Lisa, his friend and there was a great opportunity to meet up and see eachother. Lisa lives in the wooded areas around the old temple of Dionysus and we were all going to go up there and then go on to Marathon where the Persians fell foul of Miltiades' cunning and the marshy ground. There's a whole lot of stuff in this area for Daddy and Jockey to get excited about as archaeo-culture-vultures that they are, although Daddy was not so sure about whether they would overcome the inertia.

Before setting off, Daddy read to you about Neolithic stone tools. You had a lot to say about these and found the arguments in favour of specialised production (as opposed to each household producing its own) quite appealing.



After the insightful reading, Daddy played a little with Telonius - everybody's favourite robot turtle...







Daddy is still working on the definitive Telonius video - it should be coming soon. So, after playing, it's time to set off for Dionysos and Lisa and Jockey! When we got there Lisa's family went out of their way to make us feel at home. They have a very nice garden, much bigger than Daddy's with all sorts of plants - some useful some just pretty. We had a very nice lunch - a very nice homemade quiche. Although we didn't mention it, Daddy and Jockey both know that quiche is just another word for omelette pie...

After eating we set out for the beach at Schoinias. Daddy used to go swimming there when he was younger. The waters are nice and warm and the sea is shallow and the pine trees come down almost to the sea itself providing plenty of shade.

When we realised that we could not set up Daddy's camping shade without tent-pegs we folded the tarp over and put you under a tree with Mummy while Daddy went swimming with Jockey and Lisa.





The sea was nice and warm, but we didn't feel right about putting you in it to see for yourself. That has to wait for a different day at a different beach.



Here you are with your nice red hat that Daddy bought for you from that nice man, Johhny Boden.



Here you are with Daddy's friends Jockey and Lisa. Lisa used to work with Aunty Igor, although she knew her by her proper name, Aunty Annika. That was in the days when the Athynew was still a daily newspaper and still belonged to the charming Mr. Lambrakis.



Here are your first photographs near the sea! It's as close as you got that day and much closer than we got at Flisvos.





And here you are again on the tarpaulin with your toys. You had a really good day out. We all stayed out almost until the sun went down when Jockey and Lisa had to go. These were the first people you had met from the UK, where Daddy grew up and where Mummy spent some years. It was fun for Daddy to spend time and talk with Jockey, to remember old times and talk about how everyone from the past is doing now, even though Lisa felt a little left out when we talked about technical webby things like RSS feeds.

Some day, we'll all go together to the UK so you can see for yourself what things are like out there, on the edge of Europe, sandwiched between all-encircling Ocean and the savage tribes of the Hyperboreans.

The trip to Marathon worked as a "dry-run" for the next day's trip to Euboea. You worried us a little with your crying on the way back, but we think it was not so much because of the car but because you were tired and hungry after seeing foreign visitors and the vast expanse of the sea...



In all we covered about 94 km this day - quite possibly more than you have travelled in your whole life!

More shopping

Friday and time for shopping again... the summer sales have opened! This means that Mummy drags Daddy out to Ermou Street so she can show him what to buy. And when they shop at Fokas, Mummy and Daddy are happy because they get bonus points on Daddy's credit card. Something like green stamps for the 21st Century. Daddy is wondering whether by 2030 there'll be a whole new spurious justification for banks to gently push people over the edge with impulse buying. That's just about the time when you'll have a credit card... what fun!

A visit to the new Acropolis Museum

On Wednesday 15 July Mummy and Daddy took you to the new acropolis museum.







The visit to the new acropolis museum was a very exciting proposition for Mummy and Daddy and they were very much looking forward to it. The museum has been hailed as an amazing piece of architecture and design and has been the talk of the town since the opening last month. It was really nice for Mummy and Daddy to see old friends again, like the Rampin horseman, the Kritias Boy and the Blonde Boy. It was especially exciting for them to see what the back of the Kritias Boy and all the other sculpture looks like. In the old museum they were all set up with their backs against the wall, because there was not enough space…



Daddy was very upset by the ban on photography which has been imposed by the museum. He is furious and will write about it in his normal blog. He had wanted to find a nice statue to stand next to it and take a family photo with you every year as you grow older and he grows greyer... it seems this will have to wait now.

You managed to fall asleep as we arrived at the Metro station. Here we are outside the building, all angular and glass and cement.

Inside, you woke up as we reached the top floor and had a look at the bust of Alexander and some of the Roman Emperors they have on the top floor. You liked the frieze of the horsemen as well. One day Daddy will tell you about the horsemen and Marathon and the girl with her bottom showing. The whole museum is made of glass floors, which is great for looking through the floor down to the basement when you are on the top floor.

It was very close to closing time, so we left after visiting the top floor. This is Mummy with the owl of Athena patron goddess of the city, outside the museum.

A visit to Mavili square

On the Tuesday, Mummy walked to Platia Mavili with you in the sling to go meet her friend Anaita. She met Anaita at a guitar festival - did you know Mummy plays the guitar? Someday she might practice a little and play for you.

You spent the whole meeting asleep - which is quite typical of your behaviour recently, but then you woke up in time to sit up and watch everything that Mummy and Daddy did in the supermarket. That was nice, because most of the time, you are asleep and Daddy wants to show you all the vegetables and fruit and fish and brightly coloured things in stacks and rows, and he doesn't always get the chance when you are sleeping.

A visit from the general

On Monday, July 13, General Lia came to visit and thought you were all grown up compared to last time she came. She will be leaving the island soon for more exciting and mountainous parts and we'll all go visit her!

Hello Ariadne!

Hello little one.



On Sunday we stayed in most of the day. It rained again and Mummy took you outside to smell how the asphalt smells when it is wet. Daddy spent a while playing around with nails and ropes to set up your insect mobile, a gift from cousin Esmeralda. Sitting on your changing mat was always god fun, but now you love to look at the insects above with their bright colours.



After this, Mummy and Daddy got you ready for your special photo-shoot. So many of our friends kept asking us what we are going to call you and we hadn't yet decided completely for quite a while after you were born. You were now ten weeks old and it was high time we announced a proper name for you that wasn't AKO. We had a whole bunch of names for you picked out while you were still in Mummy's tummy, but when we saw you, none of them seemed to fit. The name we picked in the end we liked because it has the nice "a" sound, it travels well, it is linked to Crete where Daddy was exploring before he came home to Mummy, it is linked to Naxos where Mummy was when she found out you were on your way, it is tenuously linked to cave diving on account of your ball of wool attribute and it is also linked to caves and Anatolia (one of Daddy's favourite places) through the second century saint of the same name who was rescued from her pagan pursuers when a miraculous cave opened to hide her.

We wanted to make a competition of it so we dressed you up in the attributes of your mythical namesake and put the photo on Facebook. The actual photo used is this one:



But we took a whole bunch before we managed to get you in the right pose. So, here you are, holding a sword and a ball of wool… we think it's obvious!



So - in this way, when you were 72 days old, we announced your name to the world, Ariadne.

First trip on the Athens Metro

Hello little one.

Saturday 11 July was a big day for you little one.

Mummy and Daddy decided to go out shopping again, and although it was not your first time at the shops, it was going to be your first time on public transport and first time on the Athens Metro. The Athens Metro is a nice piece of engineering put together for the Olympic Games in 2004. Aunty Igor went on the Metro before it opened while she was a journalist with the Athens News (Greece's only English Language Daily Newspaper) together with the then prime minister Kostas Simitis. A lot of things have changed since then for everyone, but Daddy will not forget the excitement of watching the opening ceremony online and playing with the controllable webcam to look at the archaeological "section".



Here's a photo of you in your sling in the sun (see how it shines a little through the linen fabric) and here's a photo of you in the Syntagma station. Mummy is holding you so that Daddy can get the sling in order again.



In this last photo you are sucking your fingers in Ermou Street, the big shopping street of Athens. You can just see the Kapnikarea in the distance above your head. The Kapnikarea is a 11th Century church and Daddy uses it when he is taking guests around town to show how street levels rise and the basic concepts of archaeological stromatography.



Here are a couple of videos showing your first trip on the Metro: Going to Ermou and coming back…





In the evening we went to Granny Y and Grandad P. You sat while Daddy played Scrabble with Grandad P and Mummy helped Granny Y get the house ready for your cousins Alexandros and Esmeralda who are coming soon.