So, as those of you that were there have likely found out already I have not been to Anthrocon after all. Too many people i cared about were not going plus the flights were just too expensive for an unemployed studentkitty.
Instead I took up my parents' invitation to tag along on their holiday to greece. Those of you who read my venice report know that my parents are pretty cool anyhow and also where we are going is more than big enough to not step on each other's toes.
Where *did we go? Well, this sounds horribly corny, but 38 years ago my dad and friends from his diving club discovered a rather nice spot in greece. 2 years later he met a young lady at the spring fair in vienna, takes a shine to her and asks her whether she wants to come along to holiday to greece ( quite audacious in that time) She of course replies that she cannot go abroad with someone she is not married to, and thus he well, married her. So the reason I am alive today is that my dad wanted someone to accompany him to holiday :D

A few years later once more they moved that spot from the inner side of the Gulf of Volos to the outside, found a totally untouched paradise of a beach called Paltsi and with very few exceptions have been going there every summer ever since, taking later me and even later my sister along, so the place is almost like a second home to us. Over the years things have changed some of course, by now there is electricity, a tiny hotel and since 3 years ago even an asphalt road there, but compared with pretty much everywhere else it is still an almost untouched paradise.
It is very unlike how most people imagine greece, i.e. dry, baking hot and desert islands with mostly just a sea to swim in. The region we are in ( the Pelion mountains) are very green with lots of little rivers coursing through the valleys and a cool breeze blowing in from the sea. In fact my parents sometimes wore sweaters at evening because it does get positively chilly, and in winter they have several feet of snow.

In prior years we always drove by car there, but ever since the Yugoslav wars my dad took an alternate route, from Vienna to Turin in Italy and there by Ferryboat to Igouminiza in Greece, then again driving the last leg, while my mom, who has less time off work, usually joins a week or two later by plane. The ferryboat is pretty nifty and huge, but sadly the place where we spent the night... The ferry travels for slightly over 24 hours, and since a cabin is pointlessly expensive we usually ride on deck only, sleeping on camping beds. Now prior to boarding my dad instructed me which place i should try and capture for the camping beds, claiming it was " the most perfect place on the ship" When i got up there i found that it was indeed pretty private and protected from possible rain but also sadly right next to the engine, so it was twice as loud as any other spot on the ship. I too late found out that my dad, who is slightly hard of hearing at some frequencies, simply does not notice it >.< Well, since it was rather too loud for me to sleep i spent most of the night in the ship#s main lounge, watching greek TV, including Alien: Resurrection. The trouble being *here that greek TV broadcasts in original language ( no problem) but with greek subtitles that obscure the full lower half of the screen. no kidding!

Part of the nice things about always going to the same places is that you know most of the people that go there as well. This can also be a problem though since sometimes you don't know them well enough as it turned out. My dad has a dinghy with an outboard engine, and since that takes a lot of space ( yes, we know it can be deflated, but still ;) ) he left it down there in the "care" of a friend. Now, once we got the tent and all ( yes, my parents are 60 and go camping. Told you they are nifty) me and Markus went up to that place to fetch the engine (Markus= son of a friend of my dad's who also goes there since 30 years now, also friend of mine. will be important again further down so remember the name). When we arrived at the site of the friend who "kept" the engine we didn't find said friend, but we did find.. some arcane ancient device covered in mud, cobwebs, spiders, snail and general refuse. Now i know how these "Out of Time" artifacts, like the Bronze clockwork computer dated 1500 BC came to be! Someone left their outboard engine in the care of their Greek friend for a year!
We bravely dug out those bits that mostly resembled metal and carted it down to the beach after removing the most disgusting bits clinging to it and evacuating most of the inhabitants. Maybe we shouldn't have done that cause my dad wasn't even closely shocked enough when he saw the engine.
Then again my personal opinion is that when comparing the time he spends cleaning and fiddling with the engine, driving around or parts, putting up the boat and all with the time he actually spends *driving it, the main pleasure certainly must lie with the former ^.^

Now this holiday would likely have gone like most of those before, i..e. swimming, snorkling, exploring the river valley and such if i had not come up with the idea of going snorkling at night. Markus has been doing Scuba diving for over 10 years now, like our dads before, and actually is a certified PADI instructor by now,whereas i have always just been snorkling. Well, it's actually quite sufficient for my needs, since i regularly go down to 50 feet with a bottom time of a minute or so, which is enough to see a *lot underwater. Anyhow i asked whether i could borrow one of his diving lamps and it turns out that he had wanted to go nightdiving himself, but his girlfriend Nena did not feel comfortable diving in the dark, so on impulse he offered me to teach me diving so he has a partner.
Now those of you who took Scuba courses know that it's usually a lot of theory, followed by public bath diving lessons, followed by very carefully spaced free water courses. My course consisted of being told how to breath and adjust my jacket#s weight and then getting pushed overboard, on my second dive i got down to 60 feet ( with 55 being the actual limit a beginner should ever do) and my third dive being a night one which you usually need an extra course for. :D
Well, so what? Was easypeasy for someone who has been at home in water as much as me ^.^ Actually he gave me the textbook for the theory as well, so now i just have to do one more technical public bath dive and send in for my Open Water Diver Certificate, for free( apart from the clerical fee Padi asks) too! Life is nice to me!
The night dive was very nifty too, lots more fishes outside, the only creepy thing was that we found a moray eel. Biggest i had ever seen there, at least 5 feet long. Now morays are kinda spooky how they leer at you, but they normally stay in their caves so you can stay clear of them. This one was sitting on the sandy ocean floor though c.c; We gave it *quite a berth and after we passed it we both shone our lamps back to make sure it was still sittng where we left it... especially since i didn't even have a wetsuit on. Markus had a spare jacket to lend me ( actually his and he took his girlfriend's) but no wetsuit that would have fitted me so i was just in Tshirt and bathing trunks, and not fond of the idea of poison fishfangs in my ankles.. Luckily it was a nice moray and stayed put tho ^.^

Even though diving was fun i certainly won't give up snorkling though! it's so much quicker and easier ( not to mention cheaper) and in some ways less limited too, since when you use only your own lungful of air you can go up and down in the water wherever something fun is to be found, but with Scuba you need to stay on a constant depth or a steadily ( if slowly) rising one. no swimming up 3 meters, then down 4 where the next interesting bit shines out or else your headache will make sure you do that only once ^.^ And even though the sea is dreadfully empty by now compared to 20 years ago ( they still do a lot of trawler net fishing there which cleans out every bit of marine life. -.-;) there is still a lot to see. Heaps of stingrays, hermit crabs, octopi and more. I caught several octopi to have a picture taken with them crawling all over me but even though they were quite content about hitching a ride on me for long stretches, as soon as i got within ten meters of the beach ( where my dad & camera were) they always got nervous and swam off. must be that the water is too warm there or something :(
And snorkling has one other big advantage to Scuba in greece. During the first and second worldwar as well as the grecoturkish wars a *lot of ships were sunk in the Aegaeis, so a lot of wealth & ammunition rests in the sea there, making the coast guard very ( and understanably) wary, and Scubadiving basically forbidden except for a few freed locations. So the only way to check out all those nifty wrecks is by snorkling there. One is lying at a lighthouse about a mile out at sea where a reef has cost quite a few ships, the highest wreck lying at between 40 and 70 feet. Not really high enough for a leisurly exploration plus quite a noticeable drift out there but high enough for me to capture a small anchor as a souvenier ^.^ I have to go there again next years, *very interesting fishies and i couldn't stay as long as i had wanted.

Part of what makes the place different from greece as one imagines it that once every time we are there we have a torrential rainstorm, with a timehallowed associated ritual of emergency sealing the tent, saving our belongings, rescuing the dinghy from the story sea and so on. This year no exception. Almost at the end of my stay, duty calling me already back to vienna, the day was already slighty grey, all the fish behaved hectic ( I don't know how to explain that, but those of you that have experience diving or snorkling know how fish get odd before a storm) and the natives also agreed that " it would rain tonight" So, seeing how we had ample warning we packed up and got everything ready, then got a call from Markus and Nena. Their dad had several years ago decided that camping was not as fun as it had once been and built a house there ( which would be quite a story in itself). So, seeing how they also knew it was gonna rain they invited us to spend the night up at the house in the dry. So, up we went, on the way seeing the first free range badger i had ever seen waddle across the street ( likely also to it's house ;) ) and awaited the storm.
Over the night a light breeze came up, and approximately 6 drops of rain fell.
:P
Soo, in the morning, rather disillusioned we went back down to the tent, unpacked everything, set up camp, and then my dad went to drive markus and nena to the inside of the gulf ( not important why) Me and my mom were left. finishing the setting up, complaining about the faking whether, when within 10 minutes the sky turned a solid black and the sea decided to reclaim the land by airdrop! total frantic packing up again and torrential icy rain flooding everything! So i guess we were not denied our rainstorm after all. When it had eased up again we went to the beach and had another first, namely a waterspout out at sea, already a hundred meter or so in diameter ( estimate), growing and coming closer o.o; Well, luckily it dissolved again after 10 minutes or so and the same thing happened a few more times but by then we were not quite as panicky anymore (btw, that's my mom floating through the air along with me on that picture)

As always time passed way too soon, so with heavy heart I headed home.
which was a lot easier written down than done, as odd instead as to deserve it's own travellogue...