Sankaran has a girlfriend!!!! No Shit!!!!

Lululemon had a sale!!!!! shit....look what happens when you leave the country...

So we've made our way to Crete, only becuase the cheap ferry sails twice a week and euros are few and far between right now...spending them all on expensive gifts for loved ones of course...

Crete is..... big.......after a while all of the islands kind of look similar....so size is crete's trademark i guess...though the locals claim it has the best climate (doesn't every local claim that...except torontonians maybe....they know their climate sucks)....Crete caters to the package tourism crowd so things are expensive here and the souvenir shops sell leather and jewelry instead of t-shirts that say "1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila, Floor......Ios!/Santorini!/Mexico!/Thailand!"

Went and saw the Ruins of Knossos yesterday (Minoan civilization from 3000 BC until 1500 BC when Santorini erupted and kicked their ass....remember that giant earthquake/250 metre tsunami??? yeeeaahhh....)...pretty cool stuff....the good word is that the Minoans were an extremely advanced society with females running the civil/economic affairs and males doing the labour/trading/defense.....labour sepcialization at its finest...adam smith would have been proud...apparently the society was very succesful (massive importers of gold, exporters of manufactured goods...the ideal economy...) and much more scientifically/socially advanced than any other in that period or for a long time after (our guide claims this was due to advanced early childhood education, division of labour and no discrimination....how he knows this shit i couldn't tell you since the Minoan script is untranslatable and the whole society was wiped out by the Santorini eruption dating 1500 BC....)...anyway...the palace is pretty cool shit...the cedar-pillars (think shock absorbers) weren't anchored to the foundation (like any non-minoan building built from 1500 BC to mid-1900's AD) ...instead they were free-set on marble bases so that when an earthquake hits the pillars are free to move slightly (like they do in skyscrapers nowadays)...smart dudes....oh...and the woman walked around with their breasts uncovered because they believed that the earth was their spiritual mother or some shit...very smart dudes....

Tomorrow we're off to hike the Samaria Gorge.....18 km of craning your neck and complaining about your feet...apparantly the pictures are worth it...

Greece won their semi-final game last night against the Czech Rep.....we were watching in a street cafe and when greece scored the golden goal the city just erupted...glasses started breaking...one dude put a potted on plant on the big-screen tv...another guy threw his chair into the street......then everyone converged to the central square for a huge party....imagine Robson st after the olympic win except WAY more people, dancing, fireworks and hairy chests.....only regret is that earlier i'd walked out the door thinking "ahh....i won't need my camera tonight...."....it was quite the scene...

keep sending me emails......and kudos to those who had the balls to vote green...thank god there weren't enough of you ensure a conservative victory.....wallace and i were over here thinking canada had gone crazy since we left.....can you imagine steven harper as prime minister....that man looks like he'd suck the blood out of a dying baby....oh...and he would have cost me $3500 in grant money :)

ryan