I think I’m up to day nine – Sunday – Rome. We had to be up again early so Mary ordered breakfast in the room. This morning we were ahead of schedule for the most part so we were not pressured. It was also the first morning in a while where nothing was broken. Everything was going well. I hope that it would continue. After breakfast, with all of our junk in our bags, we went back downstairs to The Explorers Lounge. We made it there with about 10 minutes to spare. We sat there for about 15 minutes before being directed off the ship. We went through security and down the ramp. At the bottom of the ramp we were instructed to go to the tour buses. I immediately thought we were in store for another big bus but as it turns out there were mini vans with lifts. They were built to hold two or three chairs. We were loaded onto one of these vans with another family. The husband was in a wheelchair – manual. The wife was in a scooter. The driver loaded up them first. I got in last. Mary and I sat next to each other. After everyone was loaded the tour guide introduced herself. What was becoming a theme, happened again. She was on a microphone that really just garbled her English which was pretty good but hard to understand with her accent. So the combination made it difficult to understand what she was saying. That didn’t stop her from talking nonstop for the hour or so it took to get to Rome. We are actually in a town about 50 miles away from Rome itself. Nonetheless, we were off. The lady talked while the guy drove. Again, after some sidestreets we found ourselves on the autostrada. We went for quite a while until we actually hit Rome itself. For the next hour or so the driver drove around Rome. We saw the Coliseum – because I recognize it. We passed several other buildings that I’m sure meant something to the people were able to understand the tour guide. Rome is not a very clean city. Everything had that layer of dirt feeling. None of the buildings were white. They were all kind of gray. Obviously some of the more historic ones I can understand. But everything was gray. Many buildings, too many, were covered and graffiti.. We went by all kinds of monuments. Unfortunately because we didn’t understand the tour guide, we didn’t know what we were passing off. This didn’t stop Mary from taking pictures. I think she said she took 183 today. She’s well on our way to 1000.. At the end of this driving around town segment, we pulled up outside of Vatican City. The driver let us all out and the tour guide walked us about four or five blocks into an area where there were hundreds of people trying to get in to see the Pope. He was to give a Sunday address had 1 o’clock in the afternoon. We got caught up in that rush of people. Mary wanted to go inside but I said no. I didn’t want to get lost in a sea of hundreds of people knowing that I had to be at the pickup point in 45 minutes. Again, I was the bad ass. So instead Mary took pictures from outside the gate. She actually got some nice ones of the TV screen projecting the Pope. I did a sound recording of him. It was only about 15 seconds and it was all in Italian. While we were standing near the entrance to the common area where people could see the Pope, one of the crew members of the ship asked us for help. There were two women who need to talk to the Princess representative. Our driver had wandered away so we didn’t have a representative right by. While Mary was taking pictures and I was wandering around, a Princess representative showed up. We hooked the two up together and I don’t know what they worked out. It was at this time that the Pope started talking. I think his sermon was for about 20 minutes maybe. We were in the store which was the pickup point when he ended. We had found the bathroom that would work for us – we were lucky again. By time we finished the cath and Mary bought us water. Our tour guide was ready to take us back to the van. We only spent maybe an hour outside of the van. Before heading back to the van, Mary bought for kitchen magnets with Rome on them. This was after she got some euros out of the ATM. She was down to know euros she bought €300 from money in our checking account. It came to about $379 I guess. So, with the kitchen magnets purchased we made our way back to the van. We were loaded back up in the van and we drove back. That’s pretty much what happened. About an hour later we were dropped at the dock. We tipped both the tour guide and the driver. What manner way back on the ship after we cleared security.
Once upstairs in our room we took a few minutes to cool off and gather our things. It was only a little after 3 o’clock so we went upstairs to 14. I worked on this log. I played with my GoPro camera.
Monday, August 26, 2019
Mary and I are sitting on the 14th floor. The ship is anchored off the coast of Sardinia. I would say that we are about a mile offshore. You can see the boats that they use the test go back and forth down below. It is another perfect day – large puffy clouds in the sky. It’s cool where we are sitting – probably in the 80’s, but in the sun was probably closer to 100. Because we knew I couldn’t get off the ship I slept in a little bit. Mary got up about 730. I got up closer to 830. Before coming up to 14 I spent some time managing the pictures on my camera, my iPhone and my laptop. I cleaned off the cars on the GoPro so I shouldn’t worry about space for a while. I copied the files from the camera to my laptop. On my phone, I believe a bunch of pictures that I did not need to free up some space. All of this management took about a half-hour. We got our stuff together and walked up to 14. We had a quick breakfast. That was about an hour and a half ago. It took me that long to update and edit the log entries that I wrote yesterday.
Just to close out last night – after we came from Rome – we cleaned up and went to dinner. I guess needed to dinner about 730. We were seated in the same area where we are always seated. At least one couple in the same area were familiar to us. We took one of the bottles that Mary bought for me in Florence. This was a test to see what would happen when we brought our own wine to dinner. The busboy picked up the bottle and opened it – end of story. So far we have not seen any corkage fee. The wine itself was excellent. Mary could not have found a better bottle. Even Mary had two glasses. As an appetizer I had a crab and artichoke dip. It was good. For my entrée I had an ox tail and pasta dish. It too was very good. Mary had two appetizers – both soups. One was a hot chicken broth of some sort and the other was a cold apple of some sort. The first was good. The second not so much. For her entrée she had cottage pie which was very similar to shepherd’s pie. For dessert I had apple and walnut spring rolls. Mary just said fruit. We drank about half the bottle of wine before the waiter went away for the night. We spent probably another half hour or more talking to another couple that was seated in the sink.. Her name was Deborah and his with Brian they were from Ottawa. I got the impression that she was a nurse because she and Mary talked nursing for quite a while. It was another good dinner. Mary and I discussed it this morning – as the food better now or worse? I would say that the food is as good or better than it has been in the past. It definitely is not worse. After dinner, we made our way from 5 to 6 and then to 7. Along the way, had our pictures taken. Mary is quickly approaching 100 pictures taken of us. On seven we picked up the pictures that were taken the day before. We then walked by Explorers Lounge. It was 10 o’clock and a game show called True or Moo was starting. We found a spot and waited for the show to begin. Mary waved a waiter over and I ordered a Sapphire Princess Martini. It was a special drink of the day. Mary ordered a Coke zero. The game show was simple – the host would post a fact and the contestant have to decide if it was true he or she would say true if it was false or should say moo. If they were able to get three out of five correct they won a prize. Almost everyone won a prize except for which booby prizes such as straws and napkins. My martini was pretty good. Not something I would drink often. The game show lasted about 30 minutes. From there we went back down to five to get tea and cookies before bed. It wasn’t long and we were asleep. I guess that was day nine. I will have to go back and verify that the numbers. I already covered how we started daytime above. Will probably sit on 14th for a little while longer. I want to go to seven and push for a while. I think that’s good for now. I’m over 18,000 words. That’s about 2000 words per day. That’s okay this will provide a good history 10 or 15 years from now when I reread it. I’m sure it will bring back good memories.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Again, I am playing catch-up. As I write this the ship is off the coast of Portugal heading north. Today is an at Sea day as well as tomorrow. Mary is down playing bingo right now. I stayed in the room to pay some bills. Even though or 2000 miles from home we still have to pay bills. The Internet connection on the ship works but it’s terribly slow. Overall, we are ahead of schedule budget wise for this trip. This doesn’t mean that we should start spending like crazy but we are spending less than projected. This is a good problem. I went and spent some time looking at this document. I know that there are some typos buried within. I try to review it at least once before I publish it, but it needs a deeper dive. I am truly confused on the number of days right now. If I count Southampton as one we should be on day 12 today. Which means yesterday in Cetua, Spanish Morocco was day 11. The day before that was day 10 and we were at sea. Which makes the day we were in Sardinia day nine. I think this is where we pick up the story.
To reset the stage, I left off that day nine in the afternoon. We were anchored off the coast of Sardinia. We could not get off the ship because it was a tender spot. I made updates this log well were sitting on 14 this took most of the early afternoon. It was somewhere near 2 o’clock when we went down to the seventh floor. Around the outside of the seventh floor is a track of sorts where you can walk literally around the ship. Actually, on the ship at the front of the ship there are stairs only those that can do the stairs can walk completely around. I am able to push from the front porch side all the way to the front of the ship on the other side. There is a sign that says three complete loops is a mile. Over the next two hours or so I probably did that loop four or five times. It’s the first time in several weeks that I actually got in more than 3000 pushes. I’ve been watching my shoulders to make sure that they don’t get overworked. Doing the 3000 felt good. It was a perfect day outside. It was not too hot. There were several people on the deck with me but it was not crowded because many people were ashore. While I was doing this Mary sat on a lounge chair and listen to one of her lectures. It worked out good for both of us. I guess it was about 430 or five as the ship pulled out of Sardinia when we went upstairs. We came back upstairs to the room and got cleaned up for dinner. I kept some notes and they say that for dinner I had ceviche as an appetizer. For my entrée I had steamed mussels. Unfortunately I didn’t jot down what Mary had. For dessert I had a tart of some type. We finished the bottle of wine we started the night before. I didn’t make any notes on if we met anyone that night at dinner. Chances are we did or, more likely, we talked to people that we had met previously. It seems that the maître d’ seats the same people in the general area night after night. For example, Barb and Bob, we have been seated while they were seated several times ready. This is neither good nor bad – just an observation. After dinner, we stopped to get our pictures taken. There were four spots where they were taking pictures. We hit them all. From there we went to the pictures area to pick up pictures from the previous night. I will mention it later but our stack continues to grow. Mary is on a bingo kick. After we picked up our pictures, we wandered up to Club Fusion to wait for bingo to start. We were there early so there was a previous event in action – Dance to the Music. It was a British band and they were playing primarily British music so I did not recognize much of it. There are a lot of kids – little kids. This must be where families hang out because it’s kind of off the beaten path. There’s a lot of space for kids to run around. While we were waiting for bingo I ordered a drink called Greyhound – this was vodka and grapefruit. About 45 minutes later bingo started. Mary plays six cards. There are four games. The last game is the one where you have the ability to win the jackpot. The jackpot right now is somewhere near $2000. They also have a raffle ticket piece and Mary won additional tickets for the last game. On one of those sheets we came within one number of winning the prize. Someone got bingo before us though. After bingo, we went to five. We got our tea and something to nosh on before we went to bed. That pretty much wraps up day nine.