Well, nothing much has happened for the last two days. On the 13th, we drove down to Kalampaka and met the early arrivals. We had a late lunch in the center of town, on one of the plateias. Zvi Garfunkel and Minella Shallo (from Israel and Albania respectively) ate with us, and, after Emily Davis (Fresno) arrived, we returned to the hotel.The following morning, whilst most of us awaited the arrival of the other symposium members, Dina took the advance party up to Meteora. Note to self: must make my way up to St Stephens
Nunnery at some stage - they make good souvenirs (of higher quality than the komboloi given us by Kosta, our host, at the Arsenis Hotel). In the evening, Alan, Yilderim and Alastair gave their first talks over drinks, after which we went out for food at the Hotel Kosta Famissi in Kalampaka. There are three Famissi hotels in Kalampaka - unfortunately myself, Agni and two of the other symposium members (who arrived during the talks that evening) managed to find the wrong one (the Eden, which is much more tasteful than the one we were aiming for - there's only so many statues of people in various states of undress that I can take!Anyway, today we made our first official trip of the symposium. The Koziakas mountain range is a stack of nappes, the most obvious feature of which is a Jurassic tectonically disrupted ophiolite complex, 'smooshed' (Annie's word, not mine) against Cretaceous carbonates.
The first picture is of the 'Steinman Trinity' outcrop, where there are exposed, from left to right, serpentines, lavas and ribbon cherts. The second was taken at a cafe after our third stop. The guy about to lay his losing domino was very happy with me taking pictures. I think they spend a lot of time here - there doesn't seem to be much else to do. And yet, importantly, there is no violence here, no vandalism, and no binge drinking or rioting amongst the young folk. So no more 'our kid is alright, he's just bored' nonsense, huh? Let's become a little more like the Greeks!
This evening, Patrick Boyde gave a fantastic talk entitled 'Pangeia in Dante'. I think some of Dante's ideas on obduction were less crazy than a few of the others we heard about in later talks! Overall, the talks went on a little too long, and by the end (around 10pm) we were all pretty knackered. One of the local restaurants in Kalambaka was the location for our dinner in the evening... but not before Kosta had convinced us to clear up the reception after the talks (precipitating a minor nervous breakdown from Anna). On our return, we set about packing for the following day.
No comments:
Post a Comment