APRIL 13, 2008 – BARCELONA AT NOON TODAY

Ed and I woke up at 8:30 am and we did get a little more sleep last night. The howling of the wind is quite remarkable and at dinner last night, Twyla and Dave remarked on how many folks with cabins on the starboard side were complaining about the noise and difficulties sleeping, so we were the only one. I got ready, checked out the sales in the atrium this morning, picked up the crossword puzzle from the library (the 5 deck climb to the library wasn’t fun but I have to work off all this extra weight I’ve gathered recently; my clothes still fit me but I check out my pot belly in the mirror before my shower each morning and it’s not reducing in size.). Then I went to the internet café and checked the email almost all of which was deleted.
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS AT ANY AGE: This is lecture is done by a lady who is new to the ship. She is from England and spent some time explaining why she got interested in this area. She talked about the different dressing styles: classic, sporty, dramatic, romance. I can see that I offend the criteria often. I had to laugh because we’re all sitting in the audience in our sweats (and we are not all sporty) listening to this elegantly turned out lady. She does look delightful and we can all learn something from her. I don’t know how many lectures she’ll be doing.
PACKING: I went back to the cabin and Ed had been sorting out some of the papers and such he’s gathered. So he wanted to do some packing and as he asked me to get some stuff out for him and it was clear this was going to be a testy time so I left and took the computer so I could catch up with the blog. As I’ve sat down, another passenger sat down and said she wasn’t going to bother me and proceeded to start chattering. I can’t blame her as I’ve done the same thing.
TOUR We have a quick tour and then we’ll walk around Las Ramblas. The ship doesn’t leave until 11 pm so it’ll be a long day for us.

APRIL 12, 2008 – CANNES, FRANCE

The ship rocked and rolled so much during the night that I doubt anyone got much sleep. For those of us with a veranda, the wind sounded like a terrible winter storm. The (new) Captain must have been running this boat close to it’s recommended max of 20 knots. This Capt. does almost all of the announcements (so far) himself; he is clearly Italian but his English is fine. And we still don’t know his name though we suppose the Patter will put something about him soon. Some who have seen him, say that, unlike our previous Italian Captain, this one is shorter and more rotund in the order of the Commandatore who wants “real food” when he eats, that is to say: cream not skim milk, and butter or olive oil.
It turns out that the Captain showed up as we were waiting for our tours. He does fit the description I gave. Probably in his 40s or early 50s like the last one, and it goes without saying: Italian.
Anyway, we are now in Cannes and this is a tender port. I had lost track of this thinking it is such a big shot place, surely it has a pier. Probably only for yachts and smaller craft. (this turned out to be true: Cannes has one of the world’s largest “pleasure boat” marinas).
Getting people onto the tender was an unexpected challenge as the swells near the ship were as much as six feet! We have discussed the difficulties with boarding folks in wheelchairs and with walkers and canes. The staff are wonderful about assuring people’s safety but they are risking their own health in the process. Do the passengers care? I doubt it even crosses their minds.
ST. PAUL DU VENCE: This is a medieval village high on a hill overlooking Cannes and the ocean. It is like a Disneyland community except it is real and people still live there. Forget about cars: this is a walking spot. There are the usual souvenir stores but there are also upscale clothing stores like Fragonard, and one which offers only black and white clothing; the prices were in several hundred euros so you get the idea.
I loved the tablecloths and other linens. This is near Provence after all. And nearby is the city of Grasse where flowers are grown for perfumes.
These mountain top villages were fortresses and were well protected as well as serving as a method of notifying outlying residences of danger. The streets are all cobblestones and about wide enough for a donkey laden with products to maneuver. And at the center is the large fountain. Behind it was a laundry site where everyone got the latest gossip—kind’ve like the laundry room on this ship at times.
LUNCH: After the tour, we walked along the waterfront near the marina and sought out a place to have lunch. We saw the ship’s MD, Nikolas with Ursula his wife, having a picnic on the beach as we left the tour bus. His beeper was clearly visible nearby. By this time, it was 1:30 p or later so many had finished serving by that time. We had in mind to find a place that served only French food; it turned out it served Italian and Ed had the prix fix dish of lasagna. We couldn’t get a sense of how large the dishes were because of the language barrier. In addition to the lasagna, we ordered what turned out to be a large Insalata Caprese (those who know how much I love this know the size wasn’t a problem), penne pasta with artichoke hearts, a fruits de la mer salad for Ed, and a bottle of rose wine for two.
Everything we had was delicious but had it not been for watching some other diners, and asking piece by piece for the items, we would not have had bread, basalmic vinegar, olive oil, and a plate for same. We gave up at the Parmesan cheese stage and were happy with what we had. The mozzarella cheese was especially good. Waste not, want not: we ate it all. It didn’t take long for my portion of the wine to hit me suddenly and unexpectedly. Even the volume of food I was eating didn’t have much of a sobering effect. And the wine didn’t take like it had that much alcohol. I think we’re accustomed to the watered down drinks on the ship by now considering the few drinks we order.
I didn’t ask how much the bill came to but I assure you it was probably three times what it would have cost us at Emle’s or another local eatery. We passed on dessert.
LOCAL FAIR: This was a Saturday and there was a local fair for artists and the usual booths with cheapie necklaces and such. This was fun to see and the art work is good as you’d expect for this location. The site is across from the theatre where the film festival will be held next month and preparations have begun for this. They have cardboard standups of some of the movie stars where you can poke your head in and have a photo take with the “star”. I noticed that most were of male stars with a head slot for the women; one was George Clooney for example. No, we didn’t take any of these photos.
We walked many of the side streets which were bustling with Sunday afternoon shoppers and strollers. We found a book store and bought the USA today and the International Herald Tribute (the type face on this one is hard for me to read except under ideal conditions.
By this time we headed back to get the last tender to the ship.
DINNER: Given our late, and large, lunch, we showed up for soup, salad, and dessert. Ed did have an entrée in the end; I had fresh fruits for dessert. Dave and Twyla were there; they had gone to the Casino at Monaco. Bill and Lea arrived later and Lea brought a book for Ed that posits a theory that the original “holy land” is not in the current nation of Israel. She is writing a novel, so she’s interested in these fringe theories and their possibilities for plots. It’s hard to tell how much of the theory of this book she really believes but she can be very passionate about the points made.
We have mixed nuts to snack on in the room and I had a few of those before going to sleep.
TONITE’S SHOW: The “kids”, our dance and singing troupe, but on another fabulous shoe titled “Bonjour Paree” with their usual penache and skill. The Captain must have slowed down the ship for the duration of the show, but as soon as it was over, the pitching and rolling began anew.
COMPUTER INFO: This laptop has served us well and I’m not complaining but it is a challenge sometimes. The CD/DVD drive does not work. If you are typing along it may suddenly jump to another location and put your keystrokes in there. And there seems to be no rhyme or reason to this. Locating the cursor is sometimes a real challenge so that you can make the corrections; usually, it is easier to simply jump to the end of the document and continue as before. It has a few other peculiarities but it has done well for this trip in that with all the peripherals we have along, we’ve been able to store all of the photos we’ve taken and make some DVDs with them for storage as well as making DVDs for others when we’ve had photos of them or when their flash cards are full.
SPEAKING OF LAUNDRY: As we have traveled these various countries there is one constant: laundry hanging out to dry. Think about what you can learn about a household from the laundry: How many people live there, their genders, ages, sizes, and probably socioeconomic status too. Even one of the tour guides remarked about that.
DOGS: My Lord the French love their dogs, usually on the smaller size in the cities because of the small apartments. It’s a debatable question as to who is walking whom.
WISTERIA: We have seen boughs of this gorgeous lavender flower all over Italy and now France. And I actually saw lilacs today!
UCLA: In one of the shops, the merchant saw my UCLA togs and started discussing the competitions going on now! Even in his somewhat limited English, it was clear he follows UCLA sports. I’m including this information for the benefit of our UCLA GR folks.
BARCELONA: This is our next port and we are really looking forward to seeing it again. After that, we have a much needed sea day though we’ll probably be up and running with lectures and trivia anyway. Which reminds me that I need to reconfirm who will be attending in our trivia team and when so that we can find replacements for those times if we can. Otherwise, we will meld into other groups with similar problems, or just play short numbered, which works OK for me too.

APRIL 11, 2008, CONTINUED…

CIVITAVECCIA: It was sprinkling most of the morning but I walked along the waterfront and into the town, almost all of it old city, which is what civitaveccia means. There are lots of nooks and crannies to walk through; upscale and ordinary shops. I was actually looking for a market to buy some diet Cokes; this kind’ve gave me a goal for my wanderings. I found McDonald’s and decided to try it since it was handy. I ordered a large diet Coke; what I got was about the size of our medium cups, no ice but the drink itself was cold, and it cost 2 euros, 20 cents. The current exchange rate is about 1.57 USD per euro so it’s an expensive drink in any event even without considering the volume. So the Cokes on the ship are now cheaper than those on shore.
I ran into a huge open air market and you could find almost anything there. One section for fresh fish, butcher products was another, kids clothes, adult clothes, flowers, fruits, vegetables; everything except diet Cokes. The rain varied but never became a deluge; the jacket I wore has a lining and a hood so I was fine but humid. The temp was in the 60s I imagine. Eventually I went back to the ship and found Ed in the Buffet where I also had some fruits and salad, after which we went down to get on the tour bus for our afternoon tour. Just as we were going to the bus, the sunshine came out and we had no rain during the tour even though it returned to the ship’s location later in the afternoon.
MEDIEVAL HILLS AND OLIVE OIL: We explored a city, Tuscania, which was founded by the ancient Etruscans (that’s redundant isn’t it?). It is in the Maremma region for those of you with maps and dates back to the 9th century bC. An earthquake destroyed parts of it in 1971, but they have been restored and still reflect the Etruscan history. We also looked around an ancient site: Tarquinia.
In the countryside, we visited a family owned farm where olives and vegetables are grown, sheep ad beef cattle are free ranged. The owner took us to an olive tree and explained how olive oil is made. After this, we went into a building where tables were laid out with pecorino cheese (from sheep), prosciutto, 3 aromatic olive oils, bruschetta, red wine, and artichoke hearts in olive oil. Ed bought a small metal canister with some of their wines.
Along the way we saw lots of gorgeous countryside. It is the beginning of spring here and everything is some shade of green. There are fields of durham wheat, artichokes, and many other crops. For Nancy’s benefit, this was near the road we took to Orvieto.
When we got back, we finally got through to Lisa on the phone to catch up on events. She asked about the laundry room and we confessed that we have to endure one more run at it before we return home.
DINNER: We came late to the table had 4 folks from an adjacent table at our table with Dave and Twyla; our tables share the same wait staff. The couples all play trivia but on different teams. We started visiting when Bill arrived so the guests returned to their table. We talked about the various sites we’d seen today (Dave and Twyla went to Rome and saw the Colleseum and St. Peter’s Basilica. We talked about various sites in Italy that one or another of us had seen.
We have a new captain on board and he came on to announce that one of the tour busses was stuck in Rome traffic and wouldn’t arrive until 6:45 p (we were us to leave at 6 pm). So later he let us know that the bus had arrived and we were on our way. That is the advantage of booking your tours through the ship: if you tour is late for some reason, the ship will wait for it. If you go independently and are late, you have to fly to the next port to meet the ship after finding a place to stay overnight. It only takes one time like that to make up for the money you saved by booking on your own. If you’ve got a lot of money, I suppose it doesn’t matter.
CLEAN UP: I will download the photos from these two days tonite so that things don’t get too far behind. And recharge the batteries. One corner of the cabin looks like an electronics display only not nearly as neatly organized.
I asked the cabin steward for two additional pillows so I can elevate my feet at night. These long bus rides result in a lot of swelling and tingling around my ankles and lower legs so I need to address it in some way. I can’t use diuretics because of my arm; I prefer trying the simple things first anyway. My tennis shoes are large enough that I don’t have any problems with getting my shoes on and off.
TOMORROW CANNES, FRANCE. We have scheduled a tour of an old medieval town (do you see a pattern here?) that will take about 4 hrs., then the rest of the day we can just roam the streets. We’ve been through Cannes before but never stopped in it.

APRIL 11, 2008 – CIVITAVECCHIA

We were awakened by the sounds of the ship’s routine into the berth. This port serves Rome and many of the passengers were off to tours in Rome. We have one this afternoon to parts of Tuscany.
Ed got up first and went through his ritual with the drugs then went off to exercise. I’ll upload this blog and then go into Civitavecchia to see what there is to see and return for lunch. It is overcast and chilly outside with a light mist. There are 3 cruise ships in port that I can see besides ours. I can already hear the scraping of the paint on our side of the ship. They are in constant motion keeping the ship up to shape. When we are in port, they really work hard.

APRIL 10, 2008 – AMALFI COAST

The alarm rang at 6:30 am but it wasn’t a welcomed sound even though I had turned down the volume. I had awakened earlier and never really got back to sleep. Since my regular watch is losing time, I am no longer able to turn on it’s backlight to see what time it is when I wake up in the night.
I got ready first while Ed greeted the room service fellow with our nibbles. We were in the Cabaret Lounge by 8 am as we were directed. It took a little longer to get the ship cleared by the local authorities but eventually we went to the tender for the trip to the pier in Sorrento. As they boarded a wheelchair onto the tender, I recalled our conversation the other night about how many back injuries the staff sustain helping disabled passengers onto and off the ship. The swells were 3-4 ft. and so it requires that they give us their hands as we transfer onto the tender but many of these folks require much more assistance.
AMALFI COAST TRIP: It’s everything you’ve heard and more. We had plenty of seating to choose from; there were 20 of us on a bus that holds around 50. I try to get on the side opposite the driver so I’m on the sidewalk side. However, on this trip, it meant that I was frequently looking a few thousand feet straight down to rocks and broiling sea. The habitats look like someone glued them onto the side of these steep cliffs. At one point I saw an old retaining wall about half way down the side of a cliff. The only possible way to get there would be by rapelling!
The weather was in the 60s which suited me just fine; the locals had jackets on. It was overcast and when we got back to the ship, a few sprinkles arrived. We had Patrick, the drummer in the band, with our bus. He’s a talented musician and a fun young man. We had fun talking with him during lunch.
The tour took us through lots of towns you’ve heard of. On the tender ride back to the ship, I sat next to a man who was a US soldier who landed at Salerno in 1943. We talked a little and I asked him some question (I can’t recall what it was at the moment) and he started tearing up. I started tearing up as did his wife. He was between the two of us and we both hugged him. The wife gave the man and me a tissue to wipe the tears. We wound up laughing that someone would ask us how we enjoyed our tour and we’d say it was marvelous as we dabbed at the tears rushing down our cheeks. This was his first visit back here since the war. Later he told me a few things and his wife said this was the first time she’d heard these things. As many of you know, there’s a special place in my heart for these WWII vets.
AMALFI CENTER: We had about 45 min. to walk around this cute little city center. There is a large and absolutely stunning cathedral in the middle. I would love to have toured it but there wasn’t enough time. We found a restroom and a diet Coke, in that order, and then just looked and walked. I got some great candid shots of these old streets. Ed picked up some spice packets.
LUNCH: We were in a restaurant in Mayori (not the right spelling I’m sure; my Latin and Spanish helps me a little with some Italian; I wouldn’t starve in other words). We had a local red wine, sparkling white wine, and still water. We started with cannelloni stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach. Mmmm good. Then we had chicken breast with Parmesan cheese, peas and onions. The breads included really thin bread sticks, Ed’s favorite, and a healthy, and delicious, hard roll. For dessert we had an egg custard with a caramel sauce. I’ve probably forgotten something but I cleaned my plate and we finished all the wine among the 4 of us (we were joined by an older gentleman named Charles.
The wisteria were blooming everywhere and the lavender color was a delight along with bright yellow and red flowers. Speaking of yellow: this is lemoncello country and the lemons grow to be the size of cantelope and larger. The peel is used to make this local liquer which is exported all over the world. And be forewarned (we had it at supper on the ship), it is a high proof liquor. Wooo wee.
MT. VESUVIUS: You can often see it and it’s easily recognizable. It has little wiffs of smoke from the top. As you probably know, it is studied by volcanoligists daily.
DROP OFF: We were dropped off in the city center of Sorrento to wait for the shuttle bus; the streets are too narrow for anything larger. Sandy, another passenger and I, decided to walk down the stairs. We’re talking steep and several hundred if not over a thousand feet. We found the 4 flags to which we were directed. There a man pointed us in the direction of this nondescript set of stairs so off we went. There were several decision points as the trajectory of the stairs changed but we made the right choices and found ourselves at the bottom where there was a hairpin curve and lots of tall, walls made out of clearly old stones. We soldiered on and pretty soon we saw one of the shuttle busses coming from the other direction so we knew we were on the right path. Quickly enough, the tender was seen at the pier which rises out of nowhere.
One tender left just as we arrived and the final tender of the day was on its way to pick up the “left overs” as this was to be the last tender of the day. So back on board.
GOLDEN RITA: Ed wanted to go up to the Pacific Lounge to watch the “sail away” and have a blended margarita. These margaritas come in gallon size (I am exaggerating but…) upside down pyramid gigantic stemmed glasses. He picked a seat at the front of this Lounge looking out over the front of the ship. My seat had a tremendous view of the enormous snake plant next to the line of sight, just beyond the window were several struts and other supports for the ship, and just beyond that was the wind break for the spa on the deck below. And oh yes, in the far distance I could just make out that there was a bow on the ship and something blue beyond. Clearly I wasn’t understanding the charm of this location, so I asked Ed to change seats with me. Not much improvement I’m afraid. I tried to crane my neck to see out the side windows of the lounge and as you may expect, that had its own set of problems. Just between you and I, I could have enjoyed a better view with less hassle from our balcony.
But I think I have it figured out. It wasn’t really the view of the “sail away” that was his interest. It was the woman singer backed by this grammy winning musician. They really are both quite good but…
SUPPER: We met Erna and Hank on the way to supper. They had gone on the farm tour with Dave and Twyla who were waiting for us at the table. Erna and Hank said they had eaten too much already today and wouldn’t be joining us for dessert. Twyla remarked that she was hungry as they had only eaten samples everywhere though they did have a great trip and thoroughly enjoyed the farm.
Dave bought himself a bib with bottles of wine on it and he proudly wore it through supper. Our head waiter gave us an up close and personal appraisal of the value of the various wines shown on the bib.
It seems that Mauritzio, the head waiter, had been so excited to get back to Italy. He had talked about it for days. So as soon as he could, he went on shore. As you leave the ship, there is a sign alerting everyone to the next port of call, the time of the last tender, and at the bottom the time the crew must be on board which is always about an hour before the last tender. Somehow Mauritzio hadn’t picked up this little bit of information in his zeal to be back on the soil of the motherland. So when he came on board and stuck his cruise card into the machine, the ghurka guards took his credentials from him (which effectively means he cannot get off the ship again until the Captain gives him permission). He was stunned and wanted to know why they were taking his papers away from him: he was 1 hr and 5 minutes late returning to the ship. It’s a funny story as much because the staff farther down the food chain are usually the ones who get busted.
LEMONCELLO: Since we had not had lemoncello, we decided to take advantage of the ship’s special tonite of lemoncello in a small glass with a cute bottom to it. This was $5.25 and you couldn’t buy the glass for that much less the whole megillah. I expected some sickeningly sweet, watered down version of the real thing. Oh no, this stuff would start a bonfire if you lit it with a match. Is there something above 100 proof? If so, that’s what this is. so I’ve now tasted it, and that’s enough drinking today to last me for a long while yet.
COMEDIAN: We had asked Patrick about the show tonite as we were ambivalent about going. He told us a little about it and we decided to go. This guy, (web site –I think—is ComedianJimMcDonald.com) is good looking in the Rob Lowe sort of way. He kept us entertained for the hour and had created a very eclectic show that included slide shows at various times and some props now and then. Several of the ladies were cackling more than I was so that’ll give you and idea of how the crowd received him.
NEW CAPTAIN: Fr. Austin and Capt. Lupo leave us tomorrow.
CIVITAVECCHIA: I have the pronunciation from real Italians: cheh-vit-a-vek-kee-ah. We berth at 7 am and leave at 6 pm. Our tour isn’t until 2 pm in the afternoon and we are supposed to tour Tuscania. I hope to get some window shopping done in the morning.

APRIL 9, 2008 – SORRENTO TOMORROW

The 7:30 am alarm wasn’t welcomed but I finally rolled out at 8 am and got ready. Ed went to breakfast and met me at the lecture later.
PORT TALK: SORRENTO: This was interesting to me for several reasons. Not until I heard this talk did I have a sense of the relationships among Capri, Naples and Sorrento. This is a tender port and the boat shuttle ride is 20 min. which seems longer than I would have expected. We have signed up for a tour along the Amalfi Coast and that will take up all the time in port. The speaker does a satisfactory job but it is pretty much by the book except for a few spontaneous questions where he is much more spontaneous.
COOKING AROUND THE WORLD: Yesterday the Commandatore personally delivered our certificates and the cookbook with recipes from the passengers. As it turned out, our book had 2 blank pages so we got another. I had many folks autograph their recipes and that started the idea for others. It was kind’ve fun actually.
He did two recipes today and a dessert from the cookbook we bought. This was his last denmonstration and we have, by now, become accustomed to the usual: salt shaker that doesn’t work, dials on the burners that he can’t make work right, and the hoo yah expression when something is hot.
YACHTIES & KNOTIES UNITE! This was an interview and Q&A with Phyllis and Ralph about their 6 yr sailing experiences on their 50 ft. ketch over 45,000 miles throughout the So. Pacific. This was very interesting as you may expect and we had been looking forward to it but I left before it was over for Trivia.
TRIVIA: Only Mary, Sid, Ed and I. Bill stayed to the end of the interview and we never knew what happened with Elizabeth. So we soldiered on, just the 4 of us. We did ourselves well but two other groups (full 6 complement I might add) tied and so it required a tie breaker question. The prizes were passport holders today.
Elizabeth came as we were ending and told us she didn’t want to play anymore. Apparently there was some kind of temper tantrum in the group while we were gone and it’s no fun she said. I know enough about the individuals mentioned to have some idea of what happened. While we were sitting there, another group asked if the 4 of us would join them this afternoon as 4 of their members weren’t going to show; we said yes, of course. Mary leaves us in Rome so there will be several shortages among us. I asked Sandy if she and Berk would be interested in joining us but she declined; they may show up sometime and if there’s an opening in a group, they’ll play with that group. That’s too bad; Sandy and Berk are great team additions and we’ve always enjoyed playing with them.
LUNCH: I went to the buffet so I cold have salad and fruit. I guess we’re running low on fruits as only cantelope and honeydew were the only offerings. Then of course there was the cookie (raisin oatmeal) to top it off. So no cookie at 3 pm today. We visited with a couple from Seattle and discussed the housing situation and Boeing’s impact on that area.
SPECIAL NOTE TO AMY: You have no idea how much I am going to appreciate my next haircut with you. My bangs are past pupil level by now.
NEWS: We got CNN for about 10 minutes just now, then no signal. Forget the BBC and the newspapers were stopped in the library on 4/1 with the note that we would be getting the BBC News as of that date. We all think it was an April Fool’s joke on us.
I was looking at the International Herald Tribune in the Cabaret Lounge before the speakers today and one lady in an excited voice said: “Is that an English newspaper!” Then Phyllis came along and stood looking dumbstruck quickly followed by the look of someone who’s been starving when they first see food again. However, I don’t know when I’ll have time to quietly savor it. The first part is the general world news by the way with an insert in English which contains only Greek news. Pretty clever.
NEGOTIATING IN FOREIGN CULTURES: this was most interesting. Ambassador Fritts described the model used by the Russians during negotiations: like a game of chess. The Japanese and others don’t want explicity language, nor often do they want them in writing. They prefer words like “best effort” and “work toward”. Americans want instant gratification and that’s not what the rest of world works on. In many countries, they are taught from a young age to lie and he outlined how this came to be the survival tactic in that culture. He gave an example where LBJ made a major faux paux by having a private conversation with the Japanese Prime Minister with only the Japanese translator. LBJ’s understanding of what was decided at this private meeting was different than the Japanese’s version. It could have been avoided if LBJ had done things through the experienced and knowledgable people in the State Dept. had aided him and certainly he should have had his own translator with him as well; you never rely on the translator from the other country.
DISASTER AT THE OPERA: We were laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe. He described the story where Tosca jumps off the ramparts; the stage hands were to put several mattresses on the other side for Tosca to fall into. The stage hands were angry with the diva and put a trampoline there instead. Another was a performance of Aida where an elephant crapped as it went across the stage. Someone said something to the effect: Terrible manners, great criticism. There were more. And the way he describes things, even when innocuous, is hilarious. He’s Irish after all.
TRIVIA: We joined the group who calls themselves the something birds. Well we joined two of their six members; the other four had another obligation. We were invited for this session as I described in the morning. When I sat down, one member gave me the “rules” and how this group does things. Fine with me; I liked them all. So anyway, Ed, Mary, Sid and I did our bit. It was a fun experience and very cooperative without the anxiety we’ve often had in our regular group. And we WON! And we won by 2 points! Our reward was can covers and one of the group gave me his as he has plenty. I told him it wouldn’t go to waste.
FORMAL NIGHT: Yuk, but we got dressed up anyway. We were all there except Bill and Lea. It was fun with our usual wide ranging discussions. I had given Hank and Erna some papyrus pages and he put our names in hieroglyphics on one of the pages and gave it to us as a thank you. It had his name in hieroglyphics too! I love this kind of spontaneous, unique gift.
ENTERTAINMENT: We didn’t do this. I got into my sleeping gear and finished some stuff that had been waiting for me. We’re still tired. Ed went to listen to some music after he finished some emails he “had” to get out.

APRIL 8, 2008 – ATHENS

We woke up at 7am and room service arrived at 7:30 am. Our tour gathered at 9:10 and we were off soon after. We sailed into the harbor of Pireas which is about 20 min on the expressway into Athens. We had to take a shuttle from the ship to the port entry. The shuttle busses are the widest I’ve ever seen and they’d take up more than one lane on a highway. Surely they’re only used inside the port.
I can’t pronounce, much less spell, the name of our tour guide but she sure looked Grecian. The motorcoaches we were all on today were very well appointed and like almost all of our drivers, today’s driver was very careful but not a slow poke. The two cities are continguous one with the other, just like LA. This was a pretty rigorous 8 hr tour. They tell you several times that there are 80 steps to the top of the Acropolis, and that’s not counting the other steps through the tiny streets of the Plaka and other sites we saw.
First we went to the National Archeological Museum, a large structure filled with visitors of all ages including school kids. Some of the latter had little workbooks where they had to draw things and write notes. This certainly helped focus them. The guide had provided us with something new they were trying out. We were given a receiver, roughly the size of a cell phone today, and a single ear bud. The guide talks into a collar mike and you can hear her without shouting over the other noise in each room. This wasn’t perfect but it was a lot better than we’ve experienced elsewhere. There were lots of interesting statues here and what enhanced your appreciation of them was a discussion of how they were made, the culture when they were created, the changes the sculpturers began to incorporate as they gained more knowledge and skill in working with the various media, first stone, then bronzes of the lost wax method. Further, she told us how and where many of them were found, what it entailed to get them into the museum and caring for them. As you may expect, we only got a taste of what this museum holds before we were onto our next site.m
ACROPOLIS: The weather today is perfect for this, around 70 F. So you still work up a sweat but it’s not a killer and on top of the hills, one can sometimes enjoy a breeze. There is scaffolding and renovations everywhere here. She explained how the repairs are being done and that the marble shows up as white now but will become the same patina as the older pieces with time. There’s a temple to the virgins on this hill as well and stadia you can see from the top of the hill that were amphitheatres in old days. The 80 steps didn’t include the flat walking at an upward incline. Like many cities, Athens is on several hills and so the top of this one gives you a good view of the whole city. Also like many metropolitan areas, it suffers from smog, and at this day, some of the blowing sand from the hamseem Egypt is enduring.
LUNCH: We left the exit for the Acropolis and walked down some narrow paths and streets in an older part of Athens. This was fun as you might expect and it led us to our restaurant. Ed and I disagree on it’s name but we do agree that one named after Sisyphis (spelled and pronounced differently here in Greece of course) was right in the immediate area.
We had a wonderful, huge Greek luncheon with local wine (probably a blush of some kind: we couldn’t read the Greek as you know), a great tomato, feta cheese, olive, red onion, cucumber, and olive oil salad. There was hummus and tehina though they tasted different but still delicious. We had this with large slices of crusty bread. We had a meatball, probably of lamb, beef in gravy, moussaka, spanikopita…I think that’s everything. For dessert there was a unique type of ice cream.
LA PLAKA: After we rolled out of the restaurant, we again walked many tiny old streets. The guide gave us our meeting place and we were off for an hour of just wandering around. I got a red hat for my activities and Ed found a Greek fisherman’s hat that fit him! And he liked the way it looked so he got one for himself. Other than 2 diet Cokes and a copy of the International Herald-Tribune, that’s all we bought and we managed to get Euros through a roundabout method too long to recount here. On the way back to the bus, I picked up the latest issue of the Economist (waayy expensive here by the way) and got more change in Euros from a reluctant vendor.
OLD OLYMPIC STADIUM: On the way back to the ship, we stopped here for a photo op. This stadium was rebuilt recently to it’s ancient glory and holds 72 thousand (you read it right) people on it’s all marble steps; the Hollywood Bowl only holds 28 K. This is the same stadium where the eternal flame was started on it’s way recently toward Beijing.
Along the way we saw the Greek Parliament building, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Hadrian’s Arch, Statues of Lord Byron and Harry Truman (remember the Marshall Plan?), the Temple of the Olympian Zeus, Constitutional Square, the National Gardens, the Academy and University Library.
We got back to the ship about 5:40 p and the ship left at 6 pm.
SUPPER: Twyla and Dave were already there when we got there late. We talked about the various sites we had seen in Athens and the entries in the photo contest. Suddenly Hank and Erna showed up for dessert. We had so much fun and again we were the last ones out of the dining room.
TONITE’S ENTERTAINMENT: Ed had warned me that he wanted to watch the basketball game tonite at 8 pm; you know it’s important to him when he’ll miss the entertainment elsewhere on the ship. So I’m going to try to catch up with all the blogs.
Tomorrow the lectures begin at 9 am so I have to get up early; we are all still tired from the overland and the sleep deprivation. People are tired so it’s good that tomorrow is another sea day.
Apparently Frankie had a very successful white elephant sale while we were on the overland and we’ve asked for another one. This is for folks to auction off their buyer’s regret purchases and donate the money to their favorite charity. One small quilt that a woman bought for $10 went for $150 to the Cancer Society.

APRIL 7, 2008, CONTINUED…

DINNER WITH THE SHIP’S PHYSICIAN: Nikolas and Ursula hosted us along with Jason (of this morning’s trivia) and his wife Jennifer. They are from New Zealand, while the MD and his wife are from Germany. This was quite fun and we never lacked for things to talk about; again we were the last to leave the dining room. There was a discussion of the disabilities folks have on the ship and whether they should be allowed to go on many of these tours. Also how the staff are expected to lift and carry many of these folks up and down ramps, onto tenders and such. It’s not an official part of their job descriptions and many suffer long term injuries in the process.
And the laundry room was a long discussion with lots of laughs and “omigod”. And to clear up the rumor mill: there have been no deaths on this voyage: repeat no deaths on this voyage. Jennifer will convey this information straight from the horse’s mouth to the “stitch and bitch” crowd (knitters, crocheters, and needlepointers).

APRIL 7, 2008 – TO PIREAS (ATHENS) GREECE

I will write about our marvelous overland experience as I have time. We are entering a period where we are off the ship for several days at a time so I may be tardy in finishing a day’s blog. I have several photos from our Egyptian overland which I hope I remember to post.
As soon as we left Port Said last night, the boatbegan rocking like we haven’t experienced since the Pacific. Lots of folks are looking a little peaked and it means you have to hang onto something when you’re in motion. The sea outside doesn’t look that menacing but I walked the open upper deck this morning, and the wind was so fierce I thought I might be blown down before I reached the sanctuary of the other side. Needless to say, none of the tanning lounge lizards were out. Oh and some folks are complaining that it’s too cold; it’s in the upper 60s and I’m delighted!
LAUNDRY: I knew I’d have to confront this when we returned from the overland but that doesn’t make it any more palatable. I set the alarm for 6:30 am and groaned when it rang. We will be sleep deprived for a long while now; you’ll see why when you get the blog from the overland. Finally, I got my act together and got to the laundry room about 7:30 am (thank goodness I had sorted out the laundry last evening!). I managed to get a washer after a little while; by then Ed had brought up the rest of the laundry and other washers were opening up. So I had l 3 washers going about 10-15 min. apart. And then managed to get two dryers. So I put the heavy clothes together in one, and two loads of permanent press heat in another. This latter one had to be separated later so that a 3rd dryer was called into action and Ed took out his almost dry shirts to iron.
So finally, it was all done. Ed and I had taken our showers last night so it didn’t take that long to get ready. Ed had breakfast while I monitored the laundry room progress. Later, he came down and we were both busy folding, ironing, or lugging the stuff back to our room. I had done some hand laundry last night from the overland: my compression sleeves and bras, cold wash black T-shirts; these are still hung all over the room to dry after a night in the shower in the room.
US DIPLOMACY: WHAT DO AMBASSADORS DO ANYWAY? I spoke with Fritts before his talk. While we were away, he did a talk on US immigration policy and I was very sorry I missed it. I have not seen it listed as being shown on the TV in our room. (And speaking of TV, we STILL cannot get the BBC News.) He listed many of the functions of the embassies and consulates and their personnel. There are actually very few people in our foreign service; I don’t recall the numbers but it’s shocking small and this is even after Colin Powell managed to get the force increased almost 2 fold. One bit of trivia: All of these places have caskets for those times when US citizen die abroad. And he discussed the ethical dilemmas they encounter which was fascinating.
TRIVIA: Elizabeth wasn’t here so Jason replaced her. I had to leave early (next entry) so I didn’t see the result though when I got back to the room and didn’t see any prizes I knew r wwe hadn’t won. The questions were fair but not easy. I don’t know our ranking among the groups.
FACIAL WORKSHOP: This was actually a good thing after all the dry air and sand we’ve been breathing and ingesting the past few days, coupled with our sleep deprivation. We all sat in chairs and the “teacher” gave us globs of creams and such and directed us in doing our own facials, all the while telling us of the “amazing” results we’d see with these products. Even with that, I didn’t consider it a hard sell. It was fun to do it with other women and we left with one of the products: a full sized container mind you. All of this for only $33. There’s one for men this evening too as I recall. And they will schedule another one before we end the cruise. Since I didn’t feel any pressure to purchase, I may do it again.
AN INTERVIEW WITH SCIENTIST/ASTRONAUT RUSTY SCHWEICKART: He was gracious and stayed for about 10 minutes, but he’s been suffering with sea sickness and had to leave as he wasn’t feeling well. JJ pulled a fellow passenger from the audience who had worked on the Hubble Telescope and other interesting projects and this old fellow was gracious and equally as interesting.
PORT TALK: PIREUS AND ATHENS: We apparently now have a permanent port speaker until the end of the cruise. He’s a young fellow from New Jersey but seems to be sufficiently informed to provide the information we want along with photos that illustrate what we’ll see and such. We had to leave a little early for
TRIVIA: We were in the same room but they made us move to another area in that room. It meant that our group got separated. Ed, Bill, Mary and I were working together; poor Sid was alone in our regular area (the same one we were shooed away from!) and I don’t know what happened to Elizabeth. We worked well togther though we didn’t win and I can’t tell you if we came in #2. This trivia was done by a fellow passenger whom I like very much. But you know how I feel about fellow passengers doing this: always a bad idea and today was no different. The staff person who was scheduled to do it was present; it’s the same one some of the groups complained about and sent a contingent to give their “rules”. I don’t blame that person for agreeing to have another passenger do it under the circumstances.
PHOTO CONTEST: Tonite is the deadline. It’s so hard to choose and so eventually, I just picked two from the overland and turned them in. We are # 46 and 47, so that’ll tell you how many entries there are. Since we on the overland had a chance to see the pyramids before the hamseem (that’ll be in the blog; in So. Cal. It’s known as the “Santa Ana” winds) obliterated everything, perhaps there’ll be some who are interested. And these are photos we will enjoy living with.
DINNER TONITE: We are both sleepy and tired but we agreed to have supper with the ship’s doctor and his wife. Mentally I’m looking forward to this experience. I’ll write about it in the next scheduled blog entry. In the meantime, I want to get this uploaded so you’ll know our ship escaped the pirates in the Red Sea. Ha.