Greek Life....

In Athens we saw lots of Graffiti......some very artistic....

 Some not so artistic........

 Interesting ads......

and great markets......

 with a huge choice of local olive oils.......

and, of course, fish.........

the cats obviously do well there.....

....time for a snooze.....

There was plenty of choice of Ouzo..

 and Raki, their grappa.......

and if you didn't want a raki digestive....... you could make an infusion......

We also noticed another use for fish.......

You can choose to sit with your feet among the fish.............

Or have a party fully immersed in a tank......

 And just in case you might get bored....... they have WiFi!!

We wondered if the Piranha did a better job!

Olive picking time, Provence

Its that time of year in Provence when everyone with olive trees needs to pick the olives and take them to a local olive oil mill.  Our local  is the  Moulin Dauphin.....

which is in the nearby village of Cucuron.

One first has to set up a date when one will bring in the olives.....they don't want too many at once!
Then one has to pick the olives the  day before, hoping that the weather will co-operate!

Getting ready, early morning......

 Heavily laden branches......

 Finished picking, after about 3 hours, and now have aproximately 25 kilos! From one tree! The other 4 trees had absolutely no olives!!

 We now feel we have earned lunch......

The olives look great..

We arrive at the Moulin and have our olives weighed..

then they were added to a large bin....

We will get our share of the olive oil produced from this specific bin!

The mill itself is very interesting.....

One can watch the whole process......

First the olives are separated from the leaves and are taken up on a conveyer to the next stage.....

 then they go to be pressed......

 then after the oil is separated from the pulp....

and then pressed.......

one finally gets .........virgin oil......

It is very interesting to watch......
and of course we had very few olives compared to most of the people arriving.......

San Francisco.......... here we come!

We did return to San Francisco in June ..... but it was still somewhat cold!  Blue skies, but warm jacket needed......
We like the SF MOMA......

so returned to check out their current exhibition.....

We sat out on the roof garden restaurant...... but didn't try to remove jackets!!

loved their cakes.....

and  had a fantastic view of the surrounding buildings and rooftops....

Then on to Chinatown..... still pretending to be tourists!

We also returned in early August...... just check out this photo of Union Square... now no blue sky and still somewhat cool......

We returned to stay in our favorite hotel there, the Clift........

We love the quirky lobby........

 and the hotel rooms are very comfortable..

...with nice little touches!

For dinner we went to Canteen

 which is very small so one needs to book ahead.
The food is excellent, however they have a prix fix menu so it might not suit everyone.

The kitchen is also quite small........... amazing that they can produce such good food there!

This amuse bouche was a clear tomato juice which was fantastic.......the red at the bottom was a cherry!

 and they have good wines......

For lunch we went back to an old favorite the Grand Cafe.  This is just next door to the hotel so is an easy option......

we love its quirkyness also......

and the casual food is very good........