The return to Athens

We went to the two Olympic stadiums. It was raining when we went to the first one, the modern one:

We look like ducks on a pond :s

under one...umbrella!

As you can see, besides being rainy, it was windy too!

Then this is the Panathinaiko stadium (the first modern Olympic stadium, used for the 1896 Olympics)

See the Olympic logo at the end?

just to show you the side of the stadium

Er...I don't know why Alex looked so fierce :P

Then this is Zappeion (I have no idea what it is exactly) We arrived there at dusk (as you can see from the photos)

inside

One of the places we really wanted to visit was the temple of Olympian Zeus. We had already seen it from Acropolis:


But the site closes at 3pm, so we only managed to enter it on the morning of our last day in Athens.

you can see Acropolis in the background

And this is the group photo you already saw in an earlier post.


Later that day we left for home...in France.

There will be further posts about Greece, because there are other photos/anecdotes I want to share. But this is the last of the must-read posts, the touristic posts.

Conclusion?

I love Santorini. More than Athens.

Athens is all old buildings. Interesting, but not breathtaking. And I'm not interested in museums or architecture. Santorini, on the other hand, is truly breathtaking. It was like, wow. Who would've thought that there were so many types of scenery, so different from each other on one small island? The cliffs, the buildings spread out over the countryside, the islands, the sea, the beaches (black and red)...and not forgetting the sunset we were lucky enough to see.

This Greece trip was my most expensive trip ever. It was to be expected...since it's not exactly next door to France, and also because it was so long. Seven days...I think Italy (my first European trip) was the only one about as long...six or seven days, I believe.

And I believe that this trip allowed me to get to know the Metz seniors better (namely Alex and Kai Lun), since we spent the whole trip together, unlike some of the others who were on the second flight to Santorini. (hehe, now I can see why Sia Ven loves the Metz seniors so much :P) It was pretty lucky since it's their last year in France.

So, as a curtain to my Greek adventures, I would like to thank my bodyguards on this trip, the five guys who were on the same itinerary with me, from start to end:

Just cruising

We woke up early the second day in Santorini (or at least I woke up earlier than the others)

early morning view from the balcony

Since the buses there didn't pass very frequently, we rented two cars.

the car I was in
It's a Hyundai Getz for those who are interested (hey WW, I looked at the name specially for you! :P )

with Alex and Kai Lun, my chauffeurs ;P

those in the other car

We went up to ancient Thira first.

on the way up

yes, the view is spectacular, so here's another

but the site was closed for work

We walked up a bit all the same, up to the closed gate.

looking down
Look at the cars parked at the roundabout...do you notice something strange? Actually we arrived when there were no cars there (except the one parked a bit outside the roundabout) so we (they? :P) turned left...but in Greece cars drive on the right, so we should have turned right! Hehe...so the other cars had to follow us :P

photo of me blocking the view...lol

and this was the road we drove up

On the way down Kai Lun was driving, so Alex could have fun taking photos and videos :P

Next we went to the black beach we had seen while driving uphill.

that's ancient Thira (you can see the winding road we went up; click to enlarge)

We had fun taking shots of us leaping up into the air (with Kai Lun's camera)

the guys

me with the guys

black pebbles on the beach (thanks to Sia Ven for this photo, I tried taking one too, but it didn't come out as good)

the guys posing with the pebbles they collected

Then we drove off to look for the red beach.

a building we saw on the way

I like this one better though.
There are so many churches like these in Santorini, whitewashed with blue roofs, I've lost count!

a nice view (guess who's the photographer? :P )

hehe, I wanted a photo too

We arrived at the red beach.

I love the contrast the whitewashed walls make with the red rock.

a photo with us!

the guys posing (I didn't dare to walk out there)

more red rocks

Then we walked beyond that white building, and saw this:

the actual red beach

Alex and Goh walked over there, but it was more of a climb than a walk, so the rest of us decided not to go.

After that we went to see a lighthouse, but it turned out to be a disappointment.

You call that a lighthouse?! -_-'

But at least we've been there :P

Later the other seven arrived from Athens and the rented themselves a car as well. We went to Ia with them (and that's where we took some of the photos in the other Santorini post)

the seven latecomers :P

That's all for Santorini, next will be when we got back to Athens.

Of flashes and photos

empty lecture hall, guess who's teaching?
(answer at the end of the post! :P )

Okay, I said I was going to write about the PRT. It stands for Projet de Réalisation Technique (which I suppose you can translate to English all by yourself :P ) We were supposed to make a flash for macro photography using LEDs (for the uninitiated, LEDs are simply tiny lamps) Our flash was supposed to be fixed onto a real camera, and it was supposed to look something like this:

well, maybe with a plastic ring rather than cardboard :P

As you read on, remember that I said "supposed"!

Actually I wrote this post mainly to show you what tiny components we used :P These were our six LED drivers:


And our Schottky diodes:

(ten of them)

One of the inductances:

for size comparison, the container is the type in which there are six small screwdrivers of different sizes...see what I mean? (if you don't I don't know how to explain it! :P )

We were lucky enough that one of our classmates helped us with designing the circuit board and soldering the components onto it...otherwise I don't know what we would have done! (merci encore Albin!!) He even passed us tiny resistances to go with the other tiny components. The only "bigger" things we used were the LEDs (at least we managed to solder those to the wires by ourselves!)

But in the end not all the LEDs worked...and instead of the lovely flash you saw in the earlier photo, we got...this!

haha, half flash

We weren't quite sure why it didn't work...and by the time we managed to do this it was two days from the presentation date. So we just left it as it was and told the teachers that we didn't know why it didn't work (they came up with a few possible explanations, but we never tested them out)

This project really had us stressed out...and the day before the presentation several of us were preparing it after classes at 6pm. (each group has a different topic to work on) And that's what was happening in the first photo ;) Here's a zoom:

Marvin "the prof" explaining something to Thierry (and that's my project partner Camille sitting down, waiting for them to finish so that they can go for dinner...I think!)

Mind you, it was past 6pm! Are we motivated or what? lol