“Anthony Quinn Beach”, Rhodes

In my typical (some, you know who you are, would say “by nature”) late style, I’ve finally gotten to editing down the 275+ photographs I took in Greece to a more manageable 98 and made a photo gallery for them for your viewing pleasure.In short, the trip was idyllic - truly an excellent “vacation”, with plenty of time spent on beaches or in crystal clear water. We flew from Budapest to Rhodes/Rodos (there are about six spellings for every place or thing in Greece, not including in the Greek alphabet itself), a largish island in the south east corner of the Dodecanese archipelago, pretty close to Turkey, which is popular with Hungarian and British package tourists. We spent our first night in a fleabag room with sheets that looked like someone had been murdered in them, but we had a grand old time exploring the old town of Rhodes, which is actually entirely within massive walls. Most of the Greek islands have some fortifications of one type or another built on them, as dominance of the Aegean sea has changed hands unwillingly many times over the millennia, from Greeks to Turks to Italians and so on. On that island we rented a scooter and spent a night in the coastal city of Lindos, which was much quieter (though still touristy) and had idyllic labyrinthine streets and those archetypal white and blue houses. The third day we spent first buzzing around Rhodes’ interior, first going to a natural spring and then to an orthodox monastery in the mountains, and then boarded the ferry to our next destination, Astypalea.

Map of the Greek Islands. Download high-resolution version HERE (zip file, right-click to save)

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Pics from Greece coming soon . . .

I think it’s my annual tradition to write something introspective and searching about the state of politics 6 years after you know what. But I’m pretty sick of it all, so I’ll just post a link to the following documentary film, which you should have a look at, even though it’s a conspiracy theory and anyway it’s irrelevant because the war hawk neocons got away with their dastardly deeds for another attempt at world domination anyway, and we still haven’t done shit to stop it. I guess when that mortgage bubble pops and oil prices continue to rise we’ll finally have to do something, right? Whatevs, just give this a look if you have a free 90 minutes.

Only about a month late on this, but HERE is the photo gallery from my one day at Sziget Festival 2007. It was hot, dusty, filled with drunken hippies and corporate sponsorship, plagued by sound problems and we were ‘on the job’. I think I’m too old for this.