We are at our last port and two hours from now we will be shoving off for our last day of our vacation. I know I’ll be leaving for home with mixed feelings. I will look forward to living in my home again. This little cabin is pretty confining and the shower is teeny tiny. I’ll miss waking up in a new city every day and the feeling that there is a new adventure lying ahead. I will not miss dressing for dinner every night. What a pain.
Tunis was interesting but slightly disappointing. Our tour guide was a long winded idiot. He gave information that should have taken 10 minutes in 3 hours. He just kept repeating himself over and over and pausing for dramatic effect in between every other word. We did see some amazing things like the place where they did human sacrifices and aqueducts that were remarkably well preserved. Too bad the crappy tour didn’t actually stop at the aqueducts so I couldn’t get a picture. Grrr. Oh and the locals chucked rocks at us as we were leaving. I don’t recommend Tunisia.
We came back to the boat, took a soak in the hot tub and decided to nap. In doing so I kicked the camera off the bed and broke my lens. It still works but the zoom is acting really funny. I can’t believe it. I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! Grrr.
I am sad to be leaving and getting back to reality but part of me is ready. I miss all of you! We’ll see you soon!
We’re in Malta and the weather has finally broken and it turned out to be a beautiful day! I’m sitting on our veranda snacking on spicy, garlicky olives as I write this and my super awesome husband is off getting me a pina colada. Our ports were amazing rain or shine and we had a really great time in all of them so far but at times we were making the best of it, especially in Pompei, and that’s just not how you want to be feeling on vacation.
Ah yes now I have the pina colada and am properly inspired.
Up until today we have been shaken out of bed every morning as we dock by the ships engines. I’m not sure why they are more powerful as we dock, but like clockwork at 6:30am our room feels like it’s suffering from an earthquake. One morning it was so violent it shook my water glass right off the bedside table and sent it crashing to the floor. This morning was the first that we were able to sleep past 7:30 (the day we were at sea we did too but we were all prepared to sleep till like 10 or so when they made a public announcement bong bong get up and see mount Etna on the starboard side. Grrrr. Happy to see Etna but man we really needed to sleep in) since we were tugged in to Valetta.
We went through the Messina strait yesterday and it is really something to see. I didn’t have a clue that a) Italy and Sicily were so close together and b) that Sicily was so flipping big. We could see it all night on our trip and on a clear day you can actually see it from the north side of Malta. After spending some time on the very windy deck to take pics of the strait we headed down for our spa treatments. It was the second best spa treatment of my life (Costa Rica wins that contest every time hands down.) I got a seaweed wrap and half body massage. Michael got a full body massage. We were like jello afterward.
Today was Malta and we went to Mdina via open bus and had a look around. Very interesting city. We had a pizza and baguette for lunch (I love the way Europeans eat) and then headed back to the boat. It was an especially short day at this port. It’s 4pm now and the boat is ready for departure. Malta is very nice but it is really hard to follow up Rome and Pompei . There is just no comparison. Even in the rain those two ports blew me away. Tomorrow is Tunisia and we have a tour booked to go to Carthage. I think it’s a half day tour which is good because I would really like to at least swim in the Mediterranean Sea once on this trip. It’s just been too cold and miserable to even consider it. Malta was sunny but still a bit too cool to go for a swim with no towels to warm us after the dip.
We have found people to hang out with which was no small task since 80% of this boat is 80 years of age or better. Michael and I were invited to a special cocktail reception at 11:30am (weird time) for honeymooners and guests celebrating their anniversary. There were very few honeymooners and most of the couples were celebrating their 50th anniversary. Our niche is the martini bar. It’s frosted over by a refrigeration unit and creates “snow” on the bar. So, of course we made a snowman. We went there initially because the music is tolerable and the atmosphere is relaxing. We met a really nice gay couple from Los Angeles and now we have dinner with them since the couple next to their old table kept flashing them death looks. We see them ever night at the martini bar at 7pm on the dot. After a few nights we read our daily information paper and turns out 7pm at the Martini Bar is “Friends of Dorothy” hour. I really think that a majority of the passengers on the boat have no clue what that even means.
Our “Isaac” is actually named Jonny. He is quite nice.
One more port and one day at sea and this is all over. See you all soon!
On our tour to Pompei our tour guide was a real character. He was cracking us up at every turn (and trust me the road to the top of Vesuvius has a lot of turns). He was almost offensive but he rode the edge well and had everyone in stitches. At the end of the tour we were stuck with a 50 euro note, too much for a tip, and a few coins, not nearly enough. At the end of the tour the guide came up to Michael and said “I really a-like your beautiful hat.” Problemo solved. Tip covered. Now we just have to find Michael a new hat!
The fact that everyone on the bus survived the trip to Rome is a miracle. There were injuries and breakdowns and…well, I’m getting ahead of myself. We started the day at 7am and headed down with the rest of the drones to the theatre to meet for our respective tours and excursions. I should have known the day was going to go south when I couldn’t have tea and the coffee was foul. How can this boat go to places with such astoundingly great coffee and serve absolute swill on board? We left Civitavechia and headed for Rome. It was about a 2 hour ride and our guide was great. He told us great little secrets like how to get a ticket to the Coloseum without waiting in line and how not to get ripped off at every turn. We went to St Peter’s Square and into the basilica. It was totally overwhelming. It’s so huge and built with so much marble that it’s a wonder it doesn’t just sink into the ground from all the weight of it. We had a great little Panini near the square and grabbed a cab to the Coloseum, took a look at that area and walked back stopping at the Pantheon and a few other spots. We filled our water bottle all day with the water that flows out of the spigots all over the city. When we met up for the bus ride back we ran into some trouble. To get to the bus you had to go up two escalators. One of the “up” escalators was broken and we had a woman on the tour that was unable to do more than a few stairs. We ended up sitting in Rome traffic in an intense thunderstorm for 30 minutes to circle back around to stop again to collect her. Once we got on the highway it was smooth sailing until the bus broke down and we had to sit on the side of the highway for an hour and wait for another bus. To transfer from the broken bus to the working one we had to walk in the dark and rain on a ledge about 2 to 2 1/2 feet wide overlooking a 3 foot deep and 5 foot wide cement ditch. Of course an old woman fell in the ditch and we watched it happen. She said she was fine afterward but I don’t know how she was. It was a really big fall and it was traumatic to her and everyone watching. Italy in general is completely amazing. I live in Boston and Americans consider my city rich with history. One of our tour guides lives in a house that is older than Boston. Seeing structures that have been around for 2,000 years really puts things in perspective. Pompei was so much bigger than I thought. Things are so well preserved that it’s eerie to be in there looking around. To think that it was a thriving town 2,000 years ago is surreal. It is very interesting and entertaining to be in Europe for our presidential election. Every person we have spoken to from Spain to Italy has been holding their breath hoping for an Obama win. What’s happening in the US right now affects the entire world and we have spoken to dozens of Europeans that are elated that Obama won. One of the tour guides was so happy about the win he actually kissed an American girl on the tour!! It’s really something to see. I’m glad we were here for it!
All right, night 2 on the ship was way better than night one. Dinner was much better. I had an oysters Rockefeller appetizer and it was fabulous. The spinach in my salad was actually fresh (the first night’s dinner included a Cesar salad that was so wilted and brown neither of us ate it). There is no bar with decent music so we’ll just have to suck it up. The band is ok and watching the old folks dance is fun. Michael and I have our own little version of dancing with the stars going on. We judge the winner after every song. There is no chance of us getting up and dancing. These couples look like they have been dancing together for 30 years. They are flawless. Michael and I would be contaminating their dance floor. The Marsailles port was fabulous. We took a tour of the countryside and visited a few little villages. The rain held out, thankfully, and we had cloudy and very windy conditions. It was a rough day for us though seeing that we had been up since 3:15 (see previous posting) so we were both practically falling asleep on the bus. We had lunch in a café in one of the villages and it was delicious indeed. I had a baguette with pate. That was it. No lettuce or tomato or anything just baguette with pate and it was ridiculously tasty. We also got a plate of cheese knocked our socks off. The food in the ports has been amazing so far. The food on board is really inconsistent. It is either unbelievably delicious, like last nights dinner, or entirely inedible like today’s lunch. The Nice stop on the cruise actually was Villefranche and not Nice at all. We were frustratingly close to Cannes, Nice and Monaco and didn’t get to see them. We are actually tendered here so we boarded a smaller boat and headed into town. We purchased a train ticket to Monaco a 15 minute ride for 5 euro each round trip. The next train was 40 minutes from leaving so we had a coffee at a nearby café and then went back up to the platform where we were informed that the train would be delayed at least 30 minutes or it may be cancelled altogether. We got a refund and decided to take a taxi. I mean, it can’t be that expensive for a taxi if it’s only 15 minutes train ride away right? Wrong. 60 euro each way to get to Monaco. OK so we’ll skip Monaco (bummer) and go to Nice on the bus. When we finally found the bus stop we discovered that the entirety of the 3 tendered cruise ships had also discovered the bus stop and the already full bus that pulled up was only going to fit a few of the giant waiting crowd. If I wanted to stuff myself into a bus to head into town I’d have stayed in Boston. So we walked around Villefranche, which was really picturesque and pleasant, for a couple of hours had a sandwich that kinda tasted like feet and got back on the ship and sat in the Jacuzzi and napped. It actually turned out to be a great day even though we didn’t get to see the port fully. Traveling from town to the tendered ship in this port was a bit of an adventure. We traveled back in one of the ships lifeboats (good to know they work) and the crew had a hard time getting us next to the ship. It was so windy that when the attendant tried to throw the rope off of the ship onto the lifeboat the crew member missed the rope entirely because the wind blew it out of his reach. We then had to circle back around and make the approach again. The seas are pretty rough and the lifeboat captain crashed into the ship a couple of times before getting it right. It was slightly unsettling. I’m posting a few pics here but the internet is charged per minute and the pics are slow to upload. I’ll see what I can do about reducing the size of more if I have time but it’s turning out to be one full day after another. I think the days at sea will be more productive with blogging and photo maintenance.
Well here we are.At sea.It’s 4am right now and we are both awake.Michael thinks it’s the time difference but I think it’s the constant creaking and listing back and forth.
Our journey here was smooth and relatively uneventful.The Paris airport is quite the feat of architecture and it is huge.We arrived at gate E2 and had to depart from F2 so you would think it would be a short little jaunt from one to the other.Nope.It took us a good 15 minutes to walk to the next gate and that was with the people movers speeding us along.It’s just massive!At the Paris airport I experienced my first rude French person.He was standing behind me trying to get through a huge crowd of people to see the TV monitors indicating the locations of gates and flights.He let off about 5 or 6 rapid fire “excuse me’s”
In order to get out of his way I had to move into the way of other people (that said excuse me only once) so I looked back at him and said “I’m trying!”
He said “you’re trying?”
I got out of his way and into the way of the other people because, clearly, he was vastly more important.
Barcelona was completely amazing.I love it.There are crazy tiny little streets that cars actually travel on.You have to press yourself into a doorway to avoid being hit!We arrived at the hotel at 11:30 starving which was unfortunate for us because it was too early to check in and just try getting food at 11:30 in Barcelona.Apparently it’s an uncivilized time to eat.We did find a place and had some of the famous cured ham and sausage and white beans.Very nice.
Then we hopped on a tour bus.It would have been fun to explore the city without getting on a tour bus but when you have on day and a big list of things you want to see it’s totally the way to go.We saw the unfinished Sagrada Familia and it was pretty much worth the trip to Barcelona in itself.When it’s finished (if it’s finished) it will be even more spectacular.It is an absolute mammoth; this giant work of art in the middle of a functioning area of the city.Across the street are regular looking apartment buildings and shops, then you turn around and BAM you are in the shadow of this enormous structure.Sandra (the awesome lady at the hotel) made a great point.How did they build an entire Olympic village in a just a couple of years and it’s taken over a hundred years to halfway build a church.At 10 euro a pop for a tour it isn’t the money.Yes, it’s not just a building it’s art, but seriously.Finish it already.God is waiting.We also saw the Park Guell and got a pretty good feel for the city from the top of the double-decker.
Our one and only dinner on land was in Barcelona and I am convinced it was prepared by angles or fairies or something but no human can make something this good.I have the philosophy that when you are abroad you should a) always at least try the local cuisine and b) order simple food as it is often the best.I had pasta sauted with shrimp and it was the best pasta I have ever had, bar none.It was home made and the pasta and shrimp were tossed together in a highly heated pan so that parts of the pasta were crisped, almost toasted.Michael had steak, I know shocking right?Actually, yes it was a bit shocking.They didn’t ask how he wanted it prepared so he got it practically raw.Now, I like my meat medium rare but this was even too rare for me.Michael likes his meat cooked medium well so this was highly irregular for him.The meat was of such high quality that the rareness of it was not a factor even for Michael.He ate all but 2 bites, and he left those because he was full.Jenny and Dave would be proud!
Luckily our first day in Barcelona was nice because we got up the next morning and it was pouring.We got breakfast and walked around some then got lunch and walked around some more.
Then we got on the boat.
I have some things to say to the people that told me the following:
“Oh, you can’t even feel the motion you won’t even be able to tell you are on a boat.” – Okay, whoever said this must have been on a way bigger boat then we’re on because I can barely walk down the hallway without slamming into the walls.Michael says “If we can make it through the vacation without puking, we win.”Ah, a sexy honeymoon indeed.
“There is so much to do on the boat you won’t mind the days at sea and you may want to stay on the boat while you are at a port to have the ship to yourselves” – Now, granted we have only had one evening on the boat and we haven’t explored fully but 2 of the 3 bars we visited were playing an “It’s Raining Men/I Will Survive” medley.Not kidding.We have a few more bars to check out and I’m sure we’ll find our niche, but for now this is a means of transportation and nothing more.Bring on the ports, for the love of pete.
“You’ll gain weight the food is so good on the ship” – So far, not so.Dinner was very nice and the food was good but not that good and compared to the dinner in Barcelona it was not even close.You can’t even compare the two.Cruise ship food is clearly made by mortal men.Oh, and we requested a table for two months ago and didn’t get it.Apparently, there are 94 people waiting for a table for two so we are at a table for 4 with another couple that didn’t show up for diner last night, thank god.
I think different people have different versions of fun.Michael and I really just like to be left to our own devices, left alone really, so I don’t think that the cruise ship is our ideal vacation and we sorta knew that coming into it.Try everything once right?How else can you see all these cities?We were asked so many times if we wanted our picture taken that even if we had agreed to it a reasonable amount of times (like 2 or 3) we still would have been hounded 5 more times.The waiters asked us if we wanted more drinks so frequently that we were tempted to make a sign that said “No Thanks” and put it on the table.There were 5 or 6 waiters working the room and no assigned sections so every waiter that walked by asked if we wanted a drink.It was like being beaten up.At first I thought “wow great service” but, it went from great service to hard sell in a matter of minutes.
I don’t mean to be negative and I am sure this will get better and the ports are going to be amazing even if it does pour the entire time, which it’s supposed to.I am having fun!Michael and I are having a great time people watching, that’s for sure.Marsaillles is our first port and I can’t wait!We’ll be going to the Luberon villages in the countryside.Sounds great for photos!Hopefully tomorrow night is a better cruise experience.It’s formal night for dinner so I get to dress up.
OMG the friggin boat just shook like it went over a speed bump at 50mph.Sleep?Yeah right!
