Yesterday we held our version of the Olympic games on Santorini. It's a sort of triathalon: limbo, lemon pass and water balloon toss. Jason Cain's Green team won the competition, though several accusations of pre-game shenanigans were hurled and protests are being filed with the proper authorities, whoever that may be.

A beach bar was kind enough to invite our students over for a post-game dance party with DJ, who at one point played the Gator pep song. The Gator Nation is, as they say, everywhere.

Afterwards, some of us detoured to the Santo Winery, which offers both breathtaking views and some spectacular wines. A gorgeous sunset provided a perfect coda to the day, as the pictures show.

On Monday, we took a fast catamaran from Mykonos to Santorini, whose iconic views of blue-domed churches hugging the cliffs overlooking the Aegean exemplify island life in Greece.

If Santorini is the most scenic of the islands, Oia (EE-ah) is the most scenic spot on the Aegean. Getting a good picture is easy: Just press the shutter button. Meandering streets lined with restaurants and souvenir shops offer distinct views with just a few steps. It's easy to spend a day staring into the viewfinder and forget that real people live here, that it's not a movie set.

The pictures shown on my picture page on this website were taken yesterday. It has taken awhile to get Internet access, mostly because the 85 students are now floating along the caldera at the center of the five islands that make up Santorini. Regretfully, I had to skip the trip for fear a rocking boat might reignite a surprise attack of motion sickness that surfaced on the catamaran trip from Mykonos.

Unlike Mykonos, where our hotel was about three miles from the town, our locale in Santori is at the north edge of Fira (FEE-rah) and within walking distance to town. "Town" in this case means a similar fare of restaurants promising volcano views and souvenir shops.

Today I had a pita at Obelix gyros. The largely take-out place licenses the character from the Asterix comics I read as a kid. Set in the ancient Roman empire, Obelix is Asterix's beefy sidekick who helps the subversive Gauls (France) outsmart the dim-witted Roman overlords. Fortunately, the pita was as good as the comic. Two thumbs up, presuming that gesture is not a obs

A few Gators took a ferry Saturday from Mykonos to the nearby island of Delos, scene of the most amazing set of ancient ruins I've seen after Pompeii.

Aside from a couple of houses for the roughly dozen residents, a museum and a cafe, the entire island is nothing but ruins. Unlike Pompeii, the ruins are in disarray, with many of the structures having been plundered for their marble and stones centuries ago. But the island is remarkable to see today, and it has a rich past.

Delos, whose history stems from 3,400 years ago, was a spiritual center of the Greek islands. Zeus had a temple here. Nearby islands kept their temple treasuries on Delos, making it a Fort Knox of its day, in the words of Rick Steves. Some 30,000 people called it home, until a warring king devastated the island in a surprise attack.

Little of Zeus' temple remains atop the highest point on the island. In fact, nothing is whole is most of what remains are partial walls and a few mosaics. Lots of goodies have been carted off the National Archeology Museum in Athens. Still, you get a sense of life here. Shells of some of the 3,000 shops and thousands of homes remain. The fact that walls still stand speaks to the careful craftsmanship of the early Greek builders, who didn't need zoning laws to produce a sound structure.

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Today began with a four-mile run up a few hills along the Aegean and ended with a nice sunset over the water. In between I worked on proofing a dissertation and went into the city on the island to snap a few pictures and haul back a few supplies, including water.

This is the first place I've been where tap water was so unpleasant that I have to buy bottled water. I hate to spend that money and create the waste. But not drinking water isn't good for the body, either.

The high temperature was probably 80 degrees and little humidity. Tonight is getting chilly and should be in the lower 60s. Compared to the Florida steambath, this is heaven.

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This morning we climbed about 1.25 miles from our hotel to the top of the island, where an abandoned lighthouse offered a terrific view. Rain clouds threatened but left us alone.

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We took a ferry from Athens to Mykonos today. See the pictures. 'Nuff said.

This will be short because Internet access at our Athens hotel is spotty and slow. After more than a day of trying, I finally uploaded some pictures from yesterday.

My short assessment of Athens: Amazing ruins befitting the birthplace of democracy. A noisy, polluted, challenging city reflecting the country's economic woes.

For any worried parents: We are quite safe. I saw a protest yesterday at the main public square for those opposing genocide. That's a pretty safe topic and it generated a pretty safe protest. The people may be waiting for new elections in June to make their wishes known.

Meanwhile, the Anglican minister at church today thanked visitors for coming to Greece during these difficult times. Visitors help Greeks feel wanted, she said. Can't say that I've ever heard than from a pulpit before.

Before he turned his full attention to his life's work, designing the La Sagrada Familia cathedral, Antoni Gaudi created a curvy apartment building that blows away the look-alike rectangle buildings on every other street corner.

Gaudi designed La Pedrera, or Casa Mila, with a curvy exterior and even a curvy roof. Everything has a purpose -- some of the intricate designs on the roof hide ventilation shafts and store water. 

He also designed the building with two courtyards so that daylight could enter every room in every apartment. One of the apartment is open to the public and is filled with furniture from a century ago.

After La Pedrera, I toured the half of the Catalan art museum I didn't have time to see yesterday. It's a nice tribute to the region's terrific talents -- two of which (Picasso and Miro) have their own museums. Catalunya can be proud of its art heritage.

Finally, I rambled down La Rambla, a pedestrian-friendly walkway lined with shops and next to a marker, where I got olives and fruit for the faculty's final Barcelona dinner, a bring-tapas-to-share meal. Tomorrow we gather at 7 a.m. to head to the airport to fly to Athens. I'm going to miss Barcelona.

Dr. Johanna Cleary allowed me to tag along on a field trip for her television students to the leading broadcaster in Catalonia, TV3. We were shown around by Laura Dugo of the station's public relations staff.

The network is like crossing a television station with a movie studio. It produces news and genuine (ahem, America!) children's educational programming. It also produces comedies, soap operas and dramas. We saw set-design shops, a live studio audience and newsrooms with robotic cameras. Its most popular show is a comedy about football (soccer).

TV3 broadcasts everything, including commercials, in Catalan. For the record, Catalan is not a Spanish dialect. It is a distinct language that seems to have as many words in common with French as it does with Spanish. Everyone who works at the station, even the stage hands, must pass a Catalan language test.

The station used to be half-funded by the government, which subsidizes news media that keeps Catalan alive instead of letting everything be in Spanish. But thanks to government belt-tightening, TV3 now gets 70 percent of its revenue from advertising. Still, the government appoints the station's top executive.

About 2,000 people work at the network. Of those, about 250 work in news -- and of those, 11 are based overseas, including Washington, D.C. My guess is that's probably more international reporters than a typical American network has.

Turnover is low, so people must like working for the network, which serves a region with 7 million people.

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Protests centered in Catalunya plaza, the heart of Barcelona, took action today to try to block banks from foreclosing on four families and sent a "funeral" procession through the streets to push back against government austerity measures.

That's the first straight-news lede I've written for awhile, and it felt thrilling to be in the midst of the action again.

Parents, have no fear. The protests were relatively small and orderly. And they were some distance from where we live and have classes.

But it was exciting to see democracy in action, however messy. Spain is suffering through 25 percent unemployment. I've been told that it reaches 50 percent among the young. And when the only light you can see on the horizon is more cuts to education and social programs -- well, you can't blame the Spaniards for feeling a bit like their world has gone mad.

I interviewed an English-speaking medical student about the economic situation and its effect on her and her friends. She said she's lucky, for her parents can afford to pay her medical school tuition bill, which is nearly doubling this fall. But many of her classmates have had to drop out of college because they no longer get financial aid or loans.

The economic woes have meant a cut in health services, too, so that people wait longer to get health care. They have also meant that banks send unemployed people out of homes when they cannot pay their mortgages (Spain had a huge housing bubble) and yet demand full payment. The person I interviewed said other protesters were planning an "action" to keep banks from evicting four families from their homes.

Spain's economic problems are far more complex than can be described here, of course, and they defy easy solutions, no matter what the signs in the square say. Still, I can't blame a young Spaniard for feeling like banks get favored treatment while a college education suddenly is out of reach for a new generation. No country can cut its way to prosperity.

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