I’ve been meaning to write up my thoughts on this month’s trip to Greece for weeks now, but things immediately became so hectic upon my return that it’s kept slip-sliding down the to-do list. (Case in point: I’m writing this over my lunch hour, which is falling at 2:30.) Things are good, mind you – just busy.
I’m also having difficulty summing up the entirety of such an amazing experience in only a few paragraphs. Where to begin? What to leave out? How much time to spend on what? Even the flight there was remarkable due to a layover in the Dublin airport, with its Celtic glasswork, its library-themed bar and its enormous glass Oscar Wilde. After arriving in Athens, we spent the night at a really nice little hotel just off the Placa, which is the main boulevard in Athens with all the shopping and puppet-wielding street performers that entails. The next morning we took a big, BIG high-speed boat (like this one but not) to the beautiful slumbering volcano of Santorini.
Ah, Santorini.
Seriously, I’m sort of at a loss to describe Santorini. Our hotel was on the inside slope of the caldera of the volcano, the center of which was a vast stretch of ocean dotted with other islands. Our villa was amazing, with doors that opened out onto the views and a quiet that’s unlike anything I’d ever heard before. The food was incredible (I have to find a recipe for grilled feta now), the weather was amazing, but the views! Good Lord in heaven, the views! The views, the views! It wasn’t just the sunsets and ocean vistas, either – even the little things were absolutely exquisite – and we even found one of my new favorite bookstores on the planet.
Go, check out the pictures on Flickr. Leave your questions and comments there, and I’ll respond as quickly as I can. I know I’m meant to be a writer, but sometimes pictures really are worth a thousand words. In Part II I’ll fill you all in on the ITRA conference in Nafplio, and in Part III I’ll tell you about our adventures in Athens on the way home. And yes, pictures of the Acropolis will be included. Stay tuned!
Storyteller, scholar, consultant. Loving son, husband and father. Kindhearted mischief-maker.
I'm the Director of the Games and Simulation program at Miami University in Ohio, where I am also an Assistant Professor in the College of Creative Arts' Emerging Technology in Business and Design department. I'm also the director of Miami's Worldbuilding and Narrative Design Research Laboratory (WNDRLab). I have a Master's in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and a PhD in Media Arts and Practices from the University of Southern California.
In past lives I've been the lead Narrative Producer for Microsoft Studios and cofounder of its Narrative Design team, working on projects like Hololens, Quantum Break and new IP incubation; in a "future of media" think tank for Microsoft's CXO/CTO and its Chief Software Architect; the Creative Director for the University of Southern California's World Building Media Lab and the Technical Director, Creative Director and a Research Fellow for USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab; a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whittier College and director of its Whittier Other Worlds Laboratory (WOWLab); the Communications Director and a researcher for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab; a founding member of the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT (now The Futures of Entertainment); a magazine editor; and a award-winning short film producer. more »
The opinions put forward in this blog are mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions of my employers.
