(I recently learned that I may be naming these posts incorrectly. If anyone who knows Greek can tell me, please do)

After the ordeal on Wednesday, I had a mission Thursday: get a phone that would work in Greece. I wasn’t all that interested in the talks that were being given that day, so I figured that it would work out. I meant to stop at one of the stores that I had previously walked by on my way to Viktoria station, but they were all closed at 9am - stores open kind of late here, apparently. I gave up on the search until later in the day.

The next stop was the national gallery, which has a lot of very nice paintings in it. I was particularly took by a fairly small painting of a girl at a window - I don’t know why but I could easily look at it for a half hour or more I feel. There was also many Greek artists’ work, and some very large work there. I was there with Hyeun for about an hour looking at everything. Hyeun noted that there wasn’t much from before the 18th century there. I think she thought we were going to go to the archaeological museum.

After that, we went to the conference hotel where I posted the previously-written posts from yesterday (parts one and two) and then went to lunch at a bistro near the hotel. I’m somewhat surprised about the price of some things here, they are very different than in the US. Here a 500ml coke bottle is 2-3€ or so, but a large Carbonara plate is only 5€ where it would be about $9-$10 in the states. So I have spent much less than I had anticipated.

After lunch, I took upon the cell phone task yet again. The conference hotel directed me towards a cell store ΓΕΡΜΑΝΟΣ, which was about a mile away. I expected it to be quicker and wandered around looking for it a while, then went back and asked to see where it was on a map.

I found it and looked at phones for a while, and finally settled on a Motorola L6 for 135€ which is tri-band and I believe unlocked as many of the phones that were available were. The seller was kind enough for me to switch it to English so I could use it. I had to charge it for a while before I could use it, and it seems to be working fine. I am hoping that I can sell it to someone else for a reasonable recoup if my old phone is actually still usable in the states. I did look it up and I should be able to use this phone in the twin cities if my old phone is broken. Also, I can’t find my old T-Mobile SIM anywhere. Does anyone know if I can get it replaced easily?

After that walk, I was sweating like crazy so I stopped at the restaurant in the hotel where everything is very expensive - a 250ml soda was 5€! I then did boring thing like work on my talk for Friday and also check email, but I managed to meet a nice french guy named Guillame and another guy who works in robotics. They were generally nice and interesting to talk to, so I sat near them at the banquet which happened later that night. The banquet was basically standard fare for conferences, not excellent.

It was quite late when we finished, so I shared a taxi with Hyeun to get back to the hotel. The driver turned off the meter at the end and wrote a handwritten receipt while charging us more than what the meter showed when we stopped. I think we might have gotten scammed because many sites say that you should get a official receipt from the meter. At that point I was very tired and just wanted to go to bed.

Today I need to give my talk at 9:30, so I am working on movies at the last minute of course. It is the last day of the conference, and I am much more tired than I expect to be at this point. I hope it is not something serious and only exhaustion based on lots of walking and the heat.