Ajax: Tougher than Greece?

I ran across the old slogan of Ajax, "Tougher than Grease," but the Greek warrior Ajax was on the side of Greece.  On Ajax' website now (yes, I Google everything..Love you Google!), it now has the slogan "Stronger than Dirt" so you'll be happy to know that ColgatePalmolive is no longer implying than Ajax (the warrior) was fighting against Greece even if Ajax (the cleaner) still fights grease.

Now that I got that important tidbit (yes, important...very important) out of the way, I'll catch you up on what I've been up to yesterday and today.  

Yesterday, we had a full day of classes and my piece I submitted was workshopped.  In a workshop, everyone in the group has read the 20 pages and made comments on the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of what was written.  It always takes me time to digest all the information but it makes a huge difference in the end result after I take all their suggestions and edit the pages.  I'll have to share a chunk that I've edited at the end of the week with my group so they can see how I've taken and used their suggestions.

We also got a chance to hear each of the faculty read from their own pieces of work.  It is always a pleasure to hear the author read from their own material so it was a real treat to hear passages from each genre represented here this year.

After classes, I had signed up for the optional Cape Sounion trip to the Temple of Poseidon located at the tip of Attica.  It took about 1 1/2 hours to drive there due to the curvy roads but was worth it.  

Before we walked up to the temple, we saw these things that looked like they were trees from a Dr. Seuss book.  They were coming up from some type of cactus.  The internet at the hotel is too slow for me to really investigate what type of plant it was so if any of you know, please inform me.  

Here is the Temple with the Seussical-looking plants in the foreground.  And yep, I made it to the top of that hill.  It actually wasn't as bad as climbing up the Acropolis and we lucked out that it was a bit overcast making it windy but not as hot.

I took photos from each side but in this one you can see that we were there before sunset. The area closes at sunset and I didn't see any real lighting on the pathways so we left before it got any darker.

One of the really great things about traveling with a whole bunch of writers is that we assembled near the structure and several took turns reading a poem by Lord Byron.  Why a poem by him?  Well, he apparently carved his name into the structure.  If you look closely at this picture, you should be able to make out his name.  (Or you can Google it and see a much better picture than I have here.)  :)





We had dinner on the way back in a restaurant right along the water.  Here are a couple of pictures as the Sun set.






Today I spent resting and having the hotel staff help me break into my room safe that decided not to open.  I'm happy to say that I have everything out of it and am repacking now for our trip to Crete tomorrow!