Hey guys, since I last talked to you I have toured through the ancient city of Olympia, spent two nights in Patras, and made my way to Parga, Greece.

On Tuesday, I left Kalamata enroute to Parga and noticed that the ancient city of Olympia was just a few kilometres off my route, so I decided to make a stop there. I toured the museum of the the Olympic games, the archaeological museum, and the excavated ancient city. It was hotter than a two dollar pistol walking around there (over 100 degrees), but I was glad I stopped and I saw some interesting stuff!

Here are some artifacts I found interesting from inside the Olympic games museum:

Here are some scenes from the excavated ancient settlement of Olympia:

Here are a few artifacts from the archaeological museum of Olympia that I found interesting:

After the visit to Olympia,I continued on to Patras. Patras is the third biggest city of Greece, and I wound up having a great time there. My first day there, I just went around to some of the sights in the evening to check things out. In the evening, I popped over to the beach bar across the street from my hotel and lucked into meeting the owner, George. He was very interested in my story and wound up agreeing to have me play for an hour the next evening at sunset for 30 euros. I told him I could play for 3 hours, but he was skeptical that the people would like country music, so we agreed that an hour would be fine. I was excited to get a gig in such a random way and I intended to show him that he was wrong about Greeks and country music!

The next day, I slept about half the day away. The constant running around and being in the heat must have drained me because I slept about 12 hours! In the afternoon, I went for a quick swim and then killed a little time until I needed to head over to Mare Mare for my 1 hour gig.

This morning was a rough one to say the least, but sometimes you just gotta let it all hang out. I was riding high from the show and hanging out with my new buddies from the bar. Before I left town, I got together with Marios and the other waiter from the bar, George, to grab some lunch. They were great dudes and I really enjoyed getting to know them.

After lunch, it was time to get on the road to Parga – about 3 hours to the north. Leaving Patras means leaving Peloponnesia and crossing over the giant bridge to the mainland. The bridge is basically a modern marvel of engineering and was only built about 10 years ago. It was cool to drive across, but not cheap.

Driving to Parga provided some nice scenery along the way:

After arriving in Pargas and getting checked into my Airbnb, I went to the heart of the city to check out the beach and scout to see if it was worthwhile to busk there. I discovered thousands of people walking around, so I decided to have a quick swim and then set up for some busking. That was a good decision – in 2 1/2 hours I pulled in 86 euros, my new highest total for the trip!

Tomorrow, I’m headed back to Serande, Albania. Greece has been great to me, but I have a show scheduled there for Saturday night at the hostel I stayed in on my last night before entering Greece. I’ll be there for 2 nights, and then I’ve got to high tail it to Skopje, Macedonia where I have another gig scheduled for Tuesday night – and two very special arrivals on Wednesday. Anna-Maria and her friend Mary both arrive in Skopje on Wednesday to spend some time with me. I’m very much looking forward to seeing them both in a few days!

Talk to you guys again soon!