Off in Minnesota

I flew to Minnesota this morning. Mom was supposed to be home alone next week on vacation – the original plan was for her to go visit Dad in Colorado over the 4^th, then Dad’s job got put off until he wouldn’t be able to take that week off, so Mom was going to be alone at home with a week’s vacation. Finally, the job’s been postponed again, so Dad will be in , but Dad’s job in Colorado has gotten postponed so that he won’t be there next week. Anyway, when we thought Mom was going to be alone for that week, I decided to come out and visit. Mom made a plan for us to drive to Chicago to see the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum. Even though Dad was still home, we decided to go forward with our girls’ weekend.

So, here I am in Minnesota for a couple days before Mom, Gram and I drive off to Chicago. I’ve spent most of the day going through Dad’s pictures from the last twelve years. Dad has this bad habit of taking pictures, developing them, and then…well…nothing. They sit. For a long time, they sat in paper bags, completely unsorted. Dad organized them a bit when I told him I wanted to go through the pictures of the time we went to that Canadian fishing lodge. My real goal is to grab pictures of Allie and Sammy – our cats who recently died. Allie died earlier this year; she was 18 years old. Sammy died last year, and she was 16 years old. They were our first cats. And I want to put together a little scrapbook for Mom (in fact, I’m using the mini-book I made at the scrapbook convention last week).

This evening, Dave and Jen came over with Kira and Sofia. Since Sofia’s birthday is next month, I brought my presents for her so i could watch her open them. What fun! She’s so cute with her presents. She even loved the outfit I gave her, hugging it to herself right after opening it. Kira helped her little sister with her presents, and showed her how to make the little cat stuffed toy “meow”.

Then we all went out to dinner at Macaroni Grill, meeting Kevin and Brock and Amy, Halley, and Eric there. We had a great time, and Kevin even brought me one of the button candy strips from the 40th Birthday Retro Candy Box I sent out for his birthday earlier this month.

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Last Stop: Naples

Naples was our last port before returning home. We got up early to grab breakfast before our shore excursion. When we walked out onto the aft deck with our breakfast trays, we saw the sunirsing over Mout Vesuvius. Wow! My breakfast got cold while I snapped a few pictures, but that was well worth the resulting pictures.

It seemed that most of the ship was going to Pompeii, but Andrew and I had decided on Herculaneum. Pompeii had been covered by ash from Vesuvius, but Herculaneum, on the other side of Vesuvius, was covered by 30 meters of mud.

Our guide was a bit of a putz, but did point out some cool things to us (when we could find him and hear him). One of our first stops was a thermopolium – a shop that sold food of some kind. There were counters with huge pots embedded in them where food would have been kept and sold. Across the street was a wine shop, with similar large pots, but half-buried in the ground to keep the wine cool.

Our guide also showed us an intact store that was found, complete with a second level. The wood wall fittings still hanging on the walls and a railing on the second-level. In several places we saw carbonized wood – original wood still in place.

In addition, there were lots of mosaics that have been excavated and painted walls could still be seen. All in all, the site was spectacular.

On our way back to the ship we stopped at a cameo workshop where I picked up a beautiful cameo for myself.

Check out all of my pictures from the day in my Herculaneum Excursion Flickr Photoset

Eclipse Day!

Wow. Just wow!

We weren’t sure what time, exactly, the eclispe was going to start, because we’d gone through several time changes, and didn’t know which time zone our ship was currently running under. So, just after breakfast, Andrew and I staked out a claim above-deck, armed with books, our eclipse glasses, cameras, and pillows. The pool chairs had all been cleared from the deck to allow more people to congregate above deck to watch the eclipse.

As the time for the eclipse drew nearer, the deck started to fill up with people. Andrew and I had a great spot, and watched the moon “eat up” the sun through our eclipse glasses.

About 15-20 mintues before totality, the light got silvery. It was an odd sensation, as the light deminished, but was still coming from straight overhead. I could feel my body saying that it was getting close to sunset, but my eyes told me something different. I can imagine the experience being even more odd for animals who don’t know what’s happening.

Totality was awesome. I didn’t get any pictures, but instead wanted to concentrate on the experience. One thing I was surprised by was that it didn’t get as dark as I was expecting. It got more like twilight, with some red around the edges of the sky, than like night itself. I could make out a couple of planets, and thought I’d spied a star or two, but the sky was still fairly light. Still the sun was spectacular. The entire ship erupted in applause and woots when the sun’s corona appeared.

Words are insufficient to describe the experience, but I can say that Andrew and I will certainly look for another opportunity to see a total eclipse again someday.

The dining room seemed charged when we arrived later that evening — it seems that everyone was still jazzed up from the eclipse. We had a fun night, with an Italian theme, dancing in a mambo line and watching waiters dance for us on a nearby table.

Excursion in Turkey

I’ll be honest, I was a little nervous about going to Turkey, almost more nervous than going to Egypt. Why? Because Turkey is a strongly Muslim nation, and I’m a US citizen. Sure, Turkey is the most secularized of the Muslim nations, but that wasn’t much comfort. I’ve said before, I’ve lead a bit of a sheltered life.

Our port, Antalya, seemed a bit like the Myrtle Beach of the States – a sea-side town built up with lots and lots of hotels and resorts. My fears of Turkey were quickly forgotten as I saw women dressed much as they would have been in the States: skirts of all lengths, jeans and slacks.

Our first stop was the Antalya Museum. We had hesitated about signing up for an excursion that would put us in a museum, since, presumably, we could see similar things at a museum near us. However, the other stop on the excursion, Perge, sounded interesting, so it wasn’t like our entire time in Turkey would be stuck in a museum. Once again, our apprehensions were silly. Despite its small size, the Antalya Museum is now on our list of favorite museums, and I think we’d be happy if we could go back sometime and spend much, much more time there.

There were about three rooms filled with Roman statues, the remains of which were found in Perge (our second excursion stop). One thing we really liked about the museum was that they displayed even half-complete statues. They didn’t fill in the missing parts. Instead, they mounted the pieces that they had allowing spaces where the missing pieces would go to allow the imagination to fill in the full statue.

Another unique thing at the Antalya Museum was its displays of finds by different researchers. There were several cases showing pictures of archeologists with a brief background on the researcher and the site where they were digging. The cases held random-looking items, all of which found during a dig with the showcased researcher.

We didn’t have enough time to explore the other rooms at the museum, but would love to return sometime to see all of the treasures in the Antalya Museum.

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All Rhodes Lead…

Today was our most enjoyable shore excursion yet! The ship arrived in Rhodes around noon, so we had a leisurely morning lounging, reading, and journaling. Our shore excursion left around 1PM, and we rode in the bus for about an hour. Rhodes is beautiful with mountains and seashore vistas throughout our ride.

Our destination was Lindos, a village of a few hundred people, built in a traditional Greek style – boxy houses painted white and washed with lye soap twice a year at Christmas and Easter. The roads of town were twisty and narrow (and confusing!)

We walked with our tour guide, Anastasia, through the village and then up, up, up, up to the Lindos Acropolis (acropolis: acro meaning height and polis meaning city, so high point of the city). The acropolis was surrounded by a medieval fortress built by the Knights of Sir John. Inside the fortress is a temple to Athena, the goddess of Rhodes. Somehow, I was still able to climb all of those stairs, despite my back troubles from the camel ride.

The trip up was well worth the work! It afforded us a spectacular view of the ocean and of Lindos:
      

We had two hours to explore the acropolis and the village – a wealth of time compared to our other stops. Andrew and I explored the ruins of the temple and the fortress. Then we took our time descending back to the village, snapping pictures along the way. We explored the village a bit; its a charming place with winding streets and lots of shops (yay!).

We had to walk up a bit of a hill to get back to the bus, but took our time, finding a small cemetery and then grabbing a Diet Coke at a small convenience store (next to the cemetery, oddly enough).

On our way back to the ship, we stopped at a local ceramics workshop, where we saw a demonstration and had the opportunity to buy some souvenirs (which, of course, we did). Then it was back to the ship.

A few notes I want to remember:

• There were goats all over the island
• we could have hired donkeys to get us back down to Lindos from the acropolis, but it seemed a bad idea after all the trouble I’ve been having since the camel ride
• the guide told us that the deer is a symbol of Rhodes because deer were brought to the island to help with the snake problem – the idea is that deer will stomp on snakes and kill them

Check out all of my pictures from the day at my Rhodes/Lindos Excursion Flickr photoset.

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Cyprus

We pulled into port at Limossol, Cyprus around 1PM. After a short bus ride (anything seems short compared to yesterday’s 3-hour ride!), we arrived at our first stop: Kourion. There was a hillside with several different archeological sites. Sadly, we only had time to make one stop: a Roman private residence with a public bath and a nearby amphitheater.

The house had amazing mosaic floors that were fairly well preserved.
   

There was also an incredible view of the ocean:

When our group moved to the amphitheater, Andrew and I skipped off to explore the theater on our own. We weren’t ready for another history lesson, but wanted instead to experience the theater without the background drone of a tour guide. We snapped a few pictures, and checked out the beautiful sea-vista from the theater.

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Walk like an Egyptian…

Who knew a day could be so filled with contrasts. Today was a very good day – exciting, thrilling, magical – but it was also a depressing, guilt-inducing, and hard-to-take.

I think many of us have romantic visions of Egypt. Pyramids in the desert constructed in an ancient world before cranes and forklifts. The land of Cleopatra, Ramesses, King Tut, and the Nile. The imagination runs away with images of hieroglyphs, mummies, and cat worship. The truth of Egypt is that it is a third-world country today, not matter what it was in the ancient world. That single modern truth takes most, if not all, of the romance out of modern-day Egypt.

Our day started when the ship docked in Alexandria. We went above-deck to look at the harbor, and the first thing that struck me was the number of police patroling the harbor area. Several of these police had rifles slung over their shoulders. These were hardly the last police we saw today – they were everywhere.

We gathered for our shore excursion, and the second we disembarked, we were assaulted by vendors trying to sell us postcards, hats, and bags. This mini-assault was just the beginning, and mild compared to what was to come.

Once all of the buses were loaded, we took off in a caravan, complete with a police escort. We drove for about 20 mintues through Alexandria to get out of the city. Many of the buildings we passed had large portions of bricks missing from the foundations and first floor walls, yet most of them had laundry hanging from the balconies. These certainly would have been condemned in the States, but here they were important housing for the people of Alexandria. Many street corners boasted more police, most of them with rifles.

There was a check-point (or gate?) at the edge of town – it was very cool, with “Alexandria” spelled out in both English and Greek alphabets. Yet, the approach lanes were all lined with ads for Pepsi and vondaphone. I couldn’t help but think, “This checkpoint brought to you by Pepsi”. That’s not exactly the image I think Pepsi would want to be associated with, but who am I to judge.

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When in Rome….

I didn’t sleep well for the first half of the night — I woke up every half-hour or so. There were weird noises, the bed was rocking, the light from the porthole, all contributed to my odd sleep. Around midnight, I got up to look out the porthole and saw some specks of light moving quickly through the air – birds of some sort. for a few moments I thought I saw the lights of a city off in the distance, perhaps an island or the coast. Then those “lights” broke up and flew off. I crawled back into bed and slept until 6AM after that.

We docked in Civitavecchia, Italy, shortly after 6AM – perhaps the manuevers into port woke me…or the rising sun. After a quick breakfast in our room, we were off to our first shore excursion: classical Rome. Rome was an hour and a half bus trip from Civitavecchia. Our first adventure came with our “pee-pee” stop at a gas station on the way – toilets with no seats. Fun, fun.

The reputation of Rome traffic (or “circulation”, as our tour guide would say) is well deserved! I sat by the window, so I got to see every close encounter and crazy move of cars on the bus’ left side. Yikes! Our driver must have nerves of steal to navigate that city, in a bus, not less. Parking was a premium, too, so many people had small cars, like the SmartCar in the picture.

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Getting There

Whoever said “Getting there is half the fun” was an idiot.

Andrew and I left the house at 1:30 PM yesterday for our 5PM flight to Paris. Why so early? We first had to hop on the Metro to get to a shuttle to Dulles — there’s no good way to get directly to Dulles (usually I drive, and park there, but since our stay is going to be nearly 2 weeks, I didn’t want to pay for the parking, even in the economy lot).

Mental Note: if the airline you’re taking only has two flights per day, be prepared for a bit of a wait at the check-in counter. Fortunately, we still had enough time after checking-in and going through security to grab a bite to eat before boarding. There were lots of annoying children in the gate-area, so we worried that the flight might suck. However, the plane was large enough, or the children quiet enough (yeah, right), that we don’t remember hearing them at all.

Our flight left DC at about 5PM and arrived in Paris at about 7AM, so we knew that we’d need some sleep on the way. But AirFrance actually served dinner (!) — I didn’t know that any airline still did that — so, I had to wait until after the meal service to try and sleep. I tried watching The Constant Gardener on the in-chair screen in front of me, but had to give up when the woman in front of me leaned her seat back so far that I couldn’t make out the picture anymore.

The airline had given us sleep masks, so I popped mine on and slept on-and-off for about 4 hours. Of course, this was airline sleep, so it was not exactly refreshing. Still, I think it helped me stave off some of the jet-lag.

The Paris airport was…um…fun to navigate. Even though Andrew knows French, and I remember enough French from high school that I could read most of the signs, it wasn’t enough to help. We blindly followed the crowd, but couldn’t tell from the signage if we were really in the right place. Eventually we made it through customs and into the rest of the airport, but that was only part of the fun. From there we stumbled around, trying to find the signs for our gate, but never quite sure if we’d made the correct turn (one problem I remember is that the airport used the down arrow to indicate both “straight ahead” and “go downstairs”, which ends up being confusing).

Before we passed back through security, we stopped at a cafe for a bit of breakfast. Can anyone tell me why the tea and coffee were so expensive in Europe? It was €4 for a cup of tea. €1.50 for a pastry. Diet coke? €4.50!! Yikes!

It’s a good thing we grabbed something before going through security &#150 after security there was only a single vending machine, no restaurants, and there were no refreshments on the plane due to a strike. I slept much of the flight from Paris to Genoa. Poor Andrew didn’t; nor had he slept on the flight to Paris.

Next we hopped a bus to the cruise ship. The ride to the port was only about 40 minutes, but there was such a line of buses loading people onto the ship that we ended up waiting another 40 minutes or so. We saw our first Eurpoean kitty while waiting, but I was unable to get a picture.

Once we got off the bus, we….waited and waited and waited and waited in the Costa building for our boarding number. Sigh. Andrew had not slept, and we hadn’t eaten anything since our morning croissants. We were both getting a bit cranky, and just wanted to get to our rooms.

Finally, our number was called, we boarded the ship, surrendered our passports, and were shown to our room. Surprisingly, the luggage was already there, so we unpacked, read through the materials in the room, and freshened up. I wanted to go upstairs for our departure from the port, so we popped above-deck before dinner.

Not many people were above-deck, but I thought it was fun. My first cruise. My first time out of North America. The beginning of a grand adventure, and we were finally off!

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Boston Sunday

Despite tired legs from walking all around Cambridge yesterday, Andrew and I headed off on foot this morning across the Charles River and into Boston. Our first goal was Quincy Market, and from there we went to the New England Aquarium.

At the aquarium we decided to take in an IMAX show, too – Sharks 3D. I’ve been going to IMAX shows since I was in third grade. My family bought and maintained a membership to the Minnesota Science Museum from that time, so that we saw every IMAX film that came through the museum. Twenty years ago, IMAX films were few (at one time, our museum had already shown something like 20 of the available 25 films). Even 10 years ago, there weren’t that many IMAX films, and they were still generally educational. Sure, the filmmakers would use the unique medium to its fullest &#150 zooming in on a landscape, following beavers through a lake into their den – but the films largely told a documentary-like story. What I’ve noticed lately, though, is that the IMAX films, while still marginally educational, focus more on just showing pretty pictures than on telling a good, consistent story. Sharks exemplifies this new trend. We got lots of cool footage of sharks, as a friendly sea turtle gave a tour of his neighbors. The turtle started out by telling us that he wanted to show us that sharks aren’t just mindless killers in the sea, but then when we saw the footage of the great white shark the music might as well have been the Emperor’s theme from Star Wars.

< getting off the soapbox >

From the aquarium, we grabbed a quick lunch at Qunicy Market, and then walked to the old City Hall and meandered through two of the old burying grounds.

Another tiring day with lots and lots of walking, but also a lot of fun.

By the way, be sure to check out Andrew’s pictures, too – Andrew’s Cambridge/Boston Flickr Set

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