Our Big, Fat Greek Trip

A number of people have asked for information about our trip to Greece. I don't update this blog often, and we went on that trip eight weeks ago or so, but updating this blog seems the best way to answer questions about the trip.

The day after Christmas, Helga and I flew from Phoenix to Athens (the three legs of the flight were miserable, especially the one from Phoenix to Washington-Dulles; they got better once we switched from United to Lufthansa). That was the week of a terrific snowstorm that moved up the East Coast, so we were delayed three hours flying out of Dulles. That made us miss our flight from Frankfurt to Athens. We were scheduled to arrive in Athens at about noon, but with the delay to a later flight we arrived at 5:00 p.m., right during rush hour. We had to catch an over-capacity bus from the airport to downtown and had our first third-world vignette on the bus. The driver didn't stop at one stop and for the next ten minutes a passenger shouted at the driver; speaking no Greek, we didn't know what swear words he was using. The bus aisle was too packed to permit the angry rider to confront the driver directly, so he just berated the driver from the back of the bus.

That was the closest we came to any violence on the trip. There had been riots in the streets before and after we were there, and a motorcycle bomb went off in downtown (but that was the day we were out of town in Delphi), so these Greeks were bearing no gifts such as a good riot for their guests the week we were there. All the banks and many of the businesses downtown had cracked windows from the riots, but we saw none of that turmoil. Our hotel was a few blocks from Syntagma square (where the riots are held) and we were constantly walking through a quiet square; it remains the case that the only riot I have witnessed was in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

Because of our flight delay, we got off the bus at Syntagma Square and had to carry our bags (our academic hosts had warned us before arrival that no Greek taxi driver can be trusted to charge an honest fare, and an honest fare from the airport to the hotel would have been 50 euros, so we were warned to take the bus or the subway) through the streets of Athens after dark. The hotel was a five-star accommodation, but I am afraid that by American standards the rooms were cramped and the toilet had to be jerry-rigged in order to work during that week. The view from our room was a wall, but the hotel is on the tallest hill in Athens (Lycabettus Hill) and the view from the restaurant to the south was just magnificent.

I presented my paper. There were historians from Russia, Britain, Brazil, Egypt, Australia, and many other places there--most were from the U.S. In my paper I chided historians for not being more philosophically sophisticated and urged them to give up their major cohesive idea that binds the discipline together--that historians should attempt some form of objectivity. Later, when we were touring Athens, Penny Corfield, a distinguished British historian cajoled me and urged me to read her book which she says will demonstrate the philosophical erudition that I criticized historians for not having; I am still trying to obtain the ASU library's copy.

We spent some part of two days touring Athens. There is much to see from the Acropolis with the Parthenon and other ancient ruins to the ancient Agora (marketplace) that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle walked. I made a special trip the day we flew home to visit Mars Hill where Acts 17 tells the story of Paul preaching on that very spot. That was New Years Day, early in the morning, and there were still a few drunks sleeping it off there. Perhaps I should have shouted, "You men of Athens, I perceive that of all people you are most Dionysian and superstitious." We ran into, by the way, a missionary couple right at the bottom of the Acropolis, so the gospel is still being preached there just as it was in the book of Acts.

The day after the conference papers ended we took a bus ride the two-hour drive to Delphi. This was the major religious shrine in the ancient world. To the temple of Apollo people would travel to consult the priestess for prophecies of the future or guidance on major decisions. The site has been restored (archaeologist had to relocate the modern village of Delphi and dig through sixty feet of dirt before hitting the ruins).

We spent one day on a cruise to Greek islands. These islands get up to ten cruise ships a day in peak tourist season, but we were there during the low season, so ours was the only ship visiting the islands during the winter. We visited three islands: Poros, Hydra, and Aegina. Two of the islands were unimpressive, but Hydra was all that you expect of a Mediterranean island. No cars, the only transportation is by donkey (we didn't pay for the ride, by the way). The residents live off their shops selling jewelry, paintings from the local art school, and souvenirs. Hydra was quaint and gorgeous.

On our last day there we rode the subway back to the airport. Everywhere in Athens you have marble, even in the subway. Our tour guide in Athens noted that his relatives from America came over and saw the marble in the subway and used as sidewalk material and wondered at the wealth and extravagance that represented. When he came to the U.S. he saw how ubiquitous was the use of wood in our homes and buildings, he wondered at that waste of a precious resources. Marble is abundant and cheap in the mountains of Greece. Lumber is rare and precious.

The flight back was uneventful, more endurable because instead of taking the red-eye over the Atlantic we had an 18-hour layover in Amsterdam, so we booked a hotel room and got a good night's sleep and real food for breakfast. My sleep patterns were all messed up the whole time I was in Greece and for a week after I returned. No matter where I was I kept waking up at 2:00 a.m. I teach my students about ancient Greece in my ethics and history classes, so the experience and the photos will come in handy in future classes. It was a great trip to go on.
We saw sites we have heard about often but never experienced. The experience recedes into memory but with a fondness for the place and the people. The food was magnificent and the people gracious. We have nothing but praise and admiration for our Greek friends.

Blogging with the Arizona Goffs, 2009

Change is in the air: change in Washington, change in the economy, change in my hairline--everywhere there is change going on. I notice that the last time we posted an update to this blog was a year ago, so some things never change. Isn't it nice to know you have a bastion of stability in a world of flux?

We have two major news items that occurred in 2008. I had eight weeks with full pay and no work obligations this past year during March and April (when DeVry switched from 16-week semesters to 8-week sessions, the faculty get their teaching obligations filled in five of the six annual sessions, so we get a session off). We intentionally chose those two months for my free time so we could do work on our house before the temperatures got above 90 degrees. I swore to Helga that I wasn't going to spend that eight weeks doing landscaping (DeVry was talking about spending $60,000 to have me write a bioethics textbook, so we hoped to use that money to pay for the landscaping work to be done while I wrote), but I would instead spend the time writing and publishing. But the book deal never really got serious and we took a look at the bids to see how much it would cost to have contractors do the landscaping. I spent the two months with shovel in hand and pushing a wheelbarrow as I did landscape demolition. We had the six palm trees removed, tore out brick borders, hauled off the gravel, leveled the dirt, had concrete poured around the yard, put in an irrigation system, painted the house and fence, had a pony wall constructed, planted shrubs and flowers, had a few citrus trees and a fruit tree planted, and installed a grass front yard. Look at the before and after pictures of our yard. Our neighbors (some we have never met) still stop us on the street and genuflect before us in gratitude for helping to improve their property values by revamping the yard that was the neighborhood eyesore. People driving on the street often used the three palm trees in our front yard as landmarks, and some expressed dismay that we cut them down; but we put up a tree bench in the front yard and that is now the new neighborhood landmark. Count them, we filled eleven dumpsters with dirt, gravel, bricks, and rock in the demolition phase. I was glad when my work semester started again, but I was in good wheelbarrow shape for most of 2008. Helga and I had spent so much money on home projects and so much time that we decided on a staycation this year; gasoline priced at $4.00 a gallon last summer helped us make that resolution. We enjoyed our backyard rather than driving somewhere on a vacation.

Helga and I did take a break from home improvement in March to go to San Diego. I delivered a paper at the Western Political Science Association meetings there. We offered to take our kids with us, but they told us San Diego is boring, nothing to do. Feeling we had done our parental due diligence by making the offer, we didn't disabuse them of this notion and decided to go by ourselves. We later decided to drive to San Diego through Hollywood so we could see the musical Wicked at the Pantages Theater; Morgan was upset with us because she had wanted to see that play so much that she demanded we take her with us to the play then fly her home when we drove down to San Diego; we declined. We did the Hollywood Walk of Fame and seemed to be the only heterosexual couple in Hollywood that day. I have posted a photo taken from our hotel room in San Diego. We ate wonderful food there and went on a whale and dolphin watching cruise; no whales showed themselves but plenty of dolphins did. Helga and I both found out we get awfully queasy out on the open water. Neither of us will be joining the Navy.

I did a few other academic conferences this year, reading a paper at each: the Association for Mormon Scholars in the Humanities conference in Buena Vista, Virginia (at Southern Virginia University) and American Political Science Association meetings in Boston. No more trips to Boston for me though, because since the passage of Proposition 8 in California and Proposition 102 here in Arizona, I have decided to boycott Massachusetts and Connecticut, the two states that endorse gay marriages. I'm sure those two states will soon feel the economic pinch from my boycott and will reverse their court-imposed usurpation of the legislative process. I arrived at the hotel in Boston just as Barack Obama was giving his Democratic Party nominee acceptance speech from Denver; even though those political scientists had TVs in their rooms, they were all down in the lobby and bar hooting and hollering at the communal TVs. The next day I attended sessions in which those same academics proclaimed their objectivity and nonpartisanship. Conference attendance paid by DeVry is the only way Helga and I get to see the world. I'll be up in Provo in May and Snowbird in October this year; Helga is deciding whether or not to go along with me.

The other main event this year happened in September when I was called into the the Dana Ranch Ward bishopric. So I now spend most of my Sundays across the street at the church attending meetings and many weekdays emailing ward members and visiting people in their homes. Fortunately, Helga had to be released from the Relief Society presidency when the new bishopric took office, so at least one of us can be home. I had to be ordained a high priest (I still think of myself as too young for that); I look forward to a time when so much of ward administration can fall on someone else's shoulders. When we moved into the ward a year-and-a-half ago, I wanted to fly under the radar and was reluctant to tell the then bishopric that I had spent the previous fifteen years as a Gospel Doctrine teacher or Elders Quorum President, but worse things can happen than teaching Sunday School. Most people are just great in their devotion to the church, but some people have to be cajoled and encouraged to fulfill their callings. I am now chief cajoler. My first day conducting sacrament meeting was the fast Sunday after election day. After the testimonies, I stood up and said, "I am Alan Goff, and I endorse these messages." Now people feel cheated if they don't get similar humor from me every meeting.

I have posted some family pictures so you can see that Helga still looks so beautiful and youthful and our kids are growing up. Morgan is in ninth grade and is taking orchestra and seminary as her electives. Addison is also a Taylor Junior High School Trojan in seventh grade and is enjoying the chess club after school. Just as Morgan wants to skip high school and go straight to college, Ethan is eager to skip sixth grade and start junior high. Next year we will have all our children in junior or senior high school; Morgan will be a Mesa High School Jackrabbit (I am not making up this mascot; Helga graduated as a Jackrabbit). Ethan recently won his elementary school's spelling bee and will soon be competing at the district level; every word new to him that comes up in conversation he now has to stop and ask how it is spelled. So we are constantly spelling words such as I-N-T-E-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N.

No conversation with family or friends occurs without a question about Helga's health, so I might as well take the initiative and address the concern. Helga's stroke happened August 2007. She has recovered well with some remaining lack of sensation on her left side. She also has residual clumsiness, often stumbling to the left or running into doorways on her left side. Other than these traces, she is fine and all of us are in good health. Helga walks vigorously each weekday and I ride my bike about 10 miles a day, five days a week (I am wearing out my first set of tires on a bike now over a year old); we may have to wear stocking cap and gloves during the winter (we have had frost on our grass the last two weeks), but we are fortunate to live where we can be outside all year long as we exercise. Besides the odd cold or strep infection, our kids are also doing well physically. In a year Ethan will be taller than Helga, making her the shortest person in our family.

We rejoice in the attachments we were born to and those we chose as we cherish family and friends. We recognize that our lives aren't projects we build by ourselves and express gratitude for the love and devotion we have received from you. That is no change, but it is continuity you can believe in.

Thank you,

Alan, Helga, Morgan, Addison, and Ethan--the Goffs