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.