October 29, 2011

October 29, 2011

Since I last wrote we went to Cannes (not Nice as I’d said) and it was not the best port experience.  That is our only tender port and of course the weather turned on us and it was raining and blowing a gale.  We’ve been sending postcards to Jacob from every port and although we had postcards from our 3 Italian ports, we had never found stamps for them so we felt we really had to mail them from Cannes, so off we went.  We were soaked through by the time we got to the main part of town.  I know that the scenery is beautiful because I’ve seen pictures, but you sure couldn’t tell that day.  We found a postcard, bought enough stamps for all the postcards and went to a café for a coffee.  It was so miserable that we gave up and just posted the cards and returned to the ship.  We were so wet and cold by the time we returned that we just took hot showers and did laundry.  Our clothes were wet already so might as well.  My tennis shoes were soaked through so I put them in the little cabinet that holds the fridge.  It’s warm from the fridge motor so they actually dried overnight.

At lunch today I learned that we could have just bought stamps from the Purser here on the ship and they mail them just before we leave port.  Figures.

Our next port was Barcelona.  We had a walking tour of Gothic Barcelona.  It’s a beautiful city and we would love to return and spend a little more time some day. 

Yesterday we were in Lisbon.  They have the bridge that was inspired by the Golden Gate and looks very similar, but not as substantial.  We just walked around there also.  We had no agenda, and just kept climbing the hill in front of the ship.  Many of the houses have beautiful outside tile work over the stucco and as you can imagine, it takes lots of maintenance so we saw scaffolding and workers all over the place.  The streets were so narrow that only one car could fit through and then only if pedestrians stepped into a doorway.  Finally we got into areas that felt a little less than ideal, so we made our way back down the hill and back to the central area. 

Tomorrow is our last port (the Azores) then on Monday we hit the Atlantic in earnest and won’t see land again until next Sunday morning when we arrive in Ft. Lauderdale.  On one of our cruises a crew member said he hated sea days because the passengers get bored and demand so much entertainment.  They certainly have enough here to keep you from getting bored.  One of my favorite things so far is a lecturer named John Maxtone-Graham.  He’s an elderly Englishman who has written several books about cruise lines, specifically those doing “the crossing” of the Atlantic.  His lectures are so interesting and he‘s got that dry English sense of humor so you have to listen closely or you‘ll miss a little joke.  His second lecture was about the Titanic (have to do that one of course).  In the early 70’s he interviewed a woman who was a stateroom stewardess on board and was then retired to the English coast.  She had wonderful stories and when she died, her heirs discovered a manuscript she’d written about her life.  Mr. Maxtone-Graham edited it and had it published.  It’s called Titanic Survivor and I plan to buy it when we return.  I bought a Nook e-reader before this trip and bought 4 books for it.  Well, I did buy them, but I neglected to take the final step of actually downloading them to the Nook.  I saw them listed in the book list and assumed they were there.  Wrong.  I went to open them and they all said “Download Now”.  Oops.  I couldn’t get it to connect to any wi-fi network on this trip.  Fortunately I realized this problem before our stay at the hotel in Venice.  We were able to get wireless in our room there so I used that to go the our Redmond library on our netbook, download some e-books they have for lending and then load those on to the Nook.  Crazy.  But it’s been a savior.  I’m on the last one now, so I’ll have to go the ship’s library next I guess.  What a doofus.  I’ll have to load them all when I get home.

Well, it’s almost time for the lecture on whales, so I’ll close now. 

 ,

Caroline

PS:  If you’re ever offered Turkish Delight Sorbet, I’d suggest you pass unless you like eating frozen roses.  Our waiter said it was like flowers with fruit pieces.  I didn’t think he meant actual flowers.  It was like eating perfume.  Uck.