Sunday Sept 30

A day at sea. We had plans for the day that weren’t exactly ambitious, but they were all cancelled after I had a run in with some kind of shell fish. I guess I ate something last night that had come in contact with shellfish and I just had some latent effects. Didn’t need the epi pen at least. That kept us up for a good portion of the night and so the day was even lazier than planned. Lots of reading on our deck or in the room, snoozing, walking on the deck and of course eating. Tonight is formal night, so we have to get all spiffied up. After that there is another show with the singers and dancers. It was so good last time, that we’ll likely go again.
The next five days will be very busy with 8-10 hour tours of Naples, two days in Rome and then Florence. We are on a bus, so that will give a chance to rest between stops. Naples tour includes Pompeii and the Almafi Coast. **WARNING** postings may be sporadic!!!
We told our room steward of my need to avoid shell fish, so rather than our usual appetizers, he just brought a cheese tray with smoked salmon, crackers and fruit. Wendy wants to know who will be doing this when we get home, as well bringing fresh towels twice per day, changing the sheets, bringing fresh flowers, morning coffee and freshly squeezed oj??

Saturday, Sept 29

Turkish night was fun last night, but overly crowded. The food was good, but it was hard to find a table. We finally did, and then shared it with tablemates from Windsor. Turkish music is…different. No real beat and kind of goes on and on. They had ethnic dancing after, including belly dancing, and that was fun to watch. Very colorful costumes.

We slept in Saturday and had a relaxing morning. After our waffles and omelets, we walked along the waterfront. Palm trees, warm sandy beach, it was great. We walked to Pigeon Island for which Kusadasi is named and enjoyed some shade. Forecast was for around 30c and it felt like it. I thought we should at least walk through the bazaar area, even if just for the cultural experience. We did for a bit, but found ourselves back along the beach. It was interesting that in a Moslem (albeit moderate) country that having that kind of beach ware would be present.
After three hours of hot sun we headed back to the ship for lunch. Freshly made hamburgers and ice cream we watched the sail away from port. We then talked to Carl by IM, and came up to our room to watch the sun set from our deck. Then we had to get ready for supper. Such stress! This was the night for the Chocolate Midnight Buffet. We dropped in to watch the Newly wed/not so newly wed game which must have been very embarrassing for the participants. Glad it wasn’t us. The buffet was amazing, but we both just looked and didn’t partake

Friday, Sept 28

Kusadasi, Turkey is the name of the port, but the main attraction here is the ruins at Ephesus. We had a full day tour in about 30c heat walking through Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins. We were told that John had fulfilled his promise to Christ by bringing Mary here to live. She is apparently buried in the hills up from Ephesus. Of course there are shrines and stuff for her, but we didn’t want to see that. There is also a Church of John the Baptist where he is apparently buried. We didn’t see it, but we saw the arena where the riots occurred when Paul was preaching there and the jail area where he was held. The ruins there are extensive and it was great to be able to explore there. Then we went to Myletis, where Paul met with the church elders before going to Jerusalem. We read the corresponding scriptures and it was great. Our next stop was Didyma, which is a temple for Apollo. Oracles were given there. Our last stop was at a Turkish carpet show room. Beautiful stuff and apparently great prices, but still more than we were willing to spend.
Tonight is Turkish night: food, music and dancing. Should be fun.

Thursday, September 27

Thursday
Amazing production to get all of these people out on their tours. Ours was Athens sightseeing and the Acropolis. There were about 40 people on our bus (#12) but I think there were a total of 15 buses for this one tour. Traffic is horrendous; slow and dangerous. Not a place I would want to drive. We only drove past some sights I would of liked to have seen, like Hadrians Arch and some Roman columns for the Zeus temple. We did get to spend 1.5 hours at the Acropolis. The crowds were so bad that you if you stop on the way up to take a picture, the Tourist Police yell at you to keep moving. We did have time to explore around some and take pictures. Amazing sight. They are doing a lot of restoration work, but with cranes and scaffolding. Not the way it was done originally! A highlight was seeing Mars Hill where Paul first preached to the Athenians. We could sense his bravery. Acts says he was troubled by what he saw and so spoke up. Even now the temples are awe inspiring. 2000 years ago they would have been even more so.
We had planned on spending more time in Plaka for shopping, but it was too busy and not that interesting looking after what we had seen, so we came back for a nap instead.

Wednesday, September 26

Colin’s birthday today. It is hard being away for special days.
Last night, the meal was excellent. Filet mignon cooked just right and very tender. Must have had 8-10 oz each. Getting dressed up was fun. A lot of men had tuxedos. After we went to the ‘Salute to Broadway’ show. We were amazed at the level of talent for both singing and dancing. It was a late night, especially with a one hour time change.

Wednesday was a sea day. We had thought about going to a talk on Greece and Turkey at 10am, but didn’t wake up until 10:30! We had a really lazy day, walked around the jogging track 8 or so times. We had received an invitation to the art auction with the promises of give a ways. I made the mistake of going and somehow (it was Wendy’s influence) we ended up with two Kincaid prints. They wanted to frame them for cheap, but that is how their frames looked – cheap. It will probably cost us a fortune to frame them, but one is of a canal scene in Venice and the other has a golden retriever in it. Pretty hard to resist.
We had a nice meal again. We are starting to get to know our tablemates and are enjoying them. The show sounded good, but we went right to bed with our Athens tour leaving at 7:45. The weather today was overcast and a bit cooler. Seas were 5m and we could feel it. Some people were quite bothered by it. Fortunately by evening it was still, warm and muggy.

Tuesday, September 25

We drank our morning coffee on our deck as the ship sailed into Dubrovnik. We had a casual breakfast in one of the other restaurants and took a bus into town. Dubrovnik is a medieval town with thick walls, turrets, palaces and more red roofs. Absolutely beautiful. We walked, and walked, and climbed up and down stairs and then more stairs. I think we wore off our crepe suzettes from last night. Still have that wonderful pastry stuff we had for lunch though. Between the hiking and climbing we do exploring, plus the walking and climbing stairs we do on the ship, I think we will get good exercise. The dining room is on deck 4, we are on deck 8 and the pools etc are on 10 and 11. The gangway is of course on deck 1. We have resisted using the elevators when ever possible. Tonight is formal night, so we will get showered and dressed up. The Captain is having his welcome after supper and then the evening entertainment. It will be a late night, but tomorrow is a day at sea.
Photos aren't loading well, so will skip them for now at $.38 per min (or phone at $8.00/min)

Monday September 24

After a pretty good night we went to the main dining room for breakfast. Bit too stuffy for us. It was fine, but we decided to try casual next time. We took the shuttle in to Venice to take the ‘secrets’ tour of the Doge’s Palace. The Doge was the elected ruler who with his cabinet held absolute rule over their empire. Venice was self ruling for centuries and was quite powerful. Beautiful paintings, gold work on the ceilings, etc. One of the most famous prisoners there was Casonova who managed to escape. Another famous Venetian was Marco Polo. His maps are on the wall.

We caught the shuttle back and got ready for our muster drill. Pretty uneventful…until I realized that I had left both our room keys in the room. It was 3:45 and the ship was leaving Venice at 4pm, and we really wanted roof top views for that, but without my camera??? Fortunately we were able to get help, get the door unlocked and run up to the top deck to watch the most incredible sight. The ship sailed along the island and we could see over the entire city with the red roofs, sparkling canals and masses of people and boats.

We dressed for dinner and again had a marvelous meal. We have noticed that most of the people on the ship are within 10-15 years of our age. Not a party ship, but not an old geezer one either. (and no comments from our children, please!)