Fires in Greece

I was sad to see the forest fires happening in Greece this last week. In all of my travels I really enjoyed Greece. It is exotic without being overwhelming, laid back without being boring, and best of all, inexpensive.

My wife and I spent about 6 weeks in Greece, a few days in Athens, then to the islands of Hydra and Aegina. After that we visited the Peloponesian peninsula, mostly the pretty town of Nafplion. Nafplion is an old Venetian city and the architecture looks more Italian than Greek - lots of red tiled roofs.

After that we took an overnight ship to Crete, where we stayed at the really cool old city of Hania. It is an old town with winding narrow alleys and a perfect little port with a great waterfront. There is a great wide sandy beach.

Then we travelled by bus through the picturesque mountains of central Crete to the South coast, to some rocky little beach towns with hidden nude beaches strung along the coast. We spent the next 2 weeks like this, moving to a new little town every few days.

Finally we left for Santorini, where we spent 4-5 days, and celebrated Linda's 40th birthday. Santorini is one of the most spectacular settings in the world, and a great place to finish our Greek vacation.

Credit Crisis

Watching the stock market meltdown over the last few weeks has been interesting but too not too disturbing (as long as I don't check my 401-k balances).

I did hear a good analysis of how it happens that over-rated mortgage backed securities can cause such a drop in the DOW. Banks lend to each other over night, and the collateral they use can include large bundles of mortgages that have been sold on the market. Since everyone knows they have been historically overvalued due to mortgage credit being extended to subprime borrowers, as the housing market softens the lending banks start to get nervous about loaning to other banks with such collateral. Not being able to borrow overnight means banks cannot lend as much, putting upward pressure on interest rates, and making businesses nervous.

Many European banks have invested in these mortgage backed securities, which spreads the fun internationally. Eventually these securities will become properly valued and credit will return to the markets. However there will be spasms of overreaction, both market level and regulatory, causing continuing upheaval and inefficiencies in the markets.

Construction Project

They finally laid blacktop on my street yesterday after a six month project. They replaced water lines, storm sewers, sanitary sewers, cement roadway, sidewalks and driveway aprons. What a mess that was! We had to park on the next street over and walk for a few weeks while they were tearing it up in front of our house.
It was noisy and very dusty but now it is a brand new street. We really had needed new sidewalks. Next year the city is going to plant trees along the tree lawn. They had to rip out a couple of old trees to do the work.
My daughter was endlessly fascinated by the huge machinery and giant holes in the road.

Glad this is over!