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.