12/09/2008 Greece: The Adventure Begins

Well, I arrived in Greece on the 8th of September, and, having been travelling since 10:30 on the 7th finally arrived in Grevena (Γρεβενά) at around 16:30 local time. 28 hours journeying and I was quite ready to nap! A pleasant evening was then had with Annie, Dina and Babi at the pizza place on the Plateia, before bed.

On the 9th, we decided to visit the Asprokambos (Ασπροκαμβός) magma chamber. My only geological excursion so far, actually, apart from visits to ΙΓΜΕ to make final preparations for the symposium, to start tomorrow in Kalambaka (Καλαμβάκα), near Meteora (Μετεόρα).

Anyway, the magma chamber. I think I'll leave the photos to speak for themselves - but with magmatic shear along normal slip systems, and at least one roof pendant within a system of layered basics and felsics, I don't think I could have wanted for much more. As dictated by tradition, we then had lunch at the Μακεδονικών.

Yilderim Dilek arrived yesterday, so we went out to the fish restaurant on the Plateia, but apart from that, things have been pretty quiet. Tomorrow things should start getting more interesting though - in total, we have around 57 participants in the conference (not including spouses/friends), from the US, Canada, Australia, England, Germany, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, Roumania. Serbia, Turkey, Israel and, of course, Greece.