Today we were in Costa Maya, Mexico. (Yay! Another country on my list of “been there’s”.) Costa Maya itself is not a very big town and the only industry is tourism. It consists of a cruise pier, a multitude of shops where locals set up to sell to the tourists from the cruise ships, and a few houses. The Mexican government is (trying) to develop the area into a large tourism city to compete with the Caribbean ports, but it definitely isn’t there yet.

Happy New Years’ Eve! Today was a day at sea. I did a bunch of things today including: playing chess, playing soccer, eating, reading The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 1, Fundamental Algorithms, Third Edition by Donald E. Knuth, eating, watching the Chelsea-Swansea City game, and watching karaoke.

I could describe the day in detail, but that would be boring, so I won’t. Tomorrow we are in Costa Maya, so that should be more interesting.

Today was our last day in New Orleans. This morning we rode the St. Charles Streetcar through the Garden District and this afternoon we boarded our cruise ship: the Norwegian Dawn.

Streetcar

The New Orleans streetcar system is the oldest streetcar system in the world (or maybe just in the United States? I’m not sure). The St. Charles streetcar is the most famous route of the New Orleans streetcar system and that is the one we rode. We got on near Canal Street and went all the way on through the Garden District and a way into the neighborhoods west of the Garden District. The Garden District had some very nice houses. They were old Southern-style mansions with large porches with ornate columns. The windows on the cars were pretty dirty so I didn’t take any pictures, but I’m sure you can find some on the web.

Today we spent the entire day at the National World War II Museum.

There were three main exhibits: an exhibit about the European Theatre of the war and an exhibition about the Pacific Theatre of the war and an exhibit with some WWII planes. Overall, it was a good comprehensive overview of the war. My writing skills can do it no justice so I won’t try. I also didn’t take many pictures, so there won’t be much to this post besides a recommendation to go to this museum.

Today we went on a Segway tour of the city and then went straight to a river boat tour which went down the Mississippi River to the site of Andrew Jacksons stand in the Battle of New Orleans.

Segway Tour

After breakfast, we walked to Decatur street where the Segway tour company is located. We practised riding the Segways in the company’s “office” and then headed out onto the streets.

This morning we woke up to very dense fog. (See below.) I don’t think I’ve ever been in such dense fog for such a long time.

We ate breakfast downstairs and then headed out down Decatur St. (duh-kay-ter) to Toulouse St. (toe-loose) where we met a guide (BilliJo) for a plantation tour. We boarded one bus, but then we had to move to another bus since the first one had some sort of problem. Not a very auspicious beginning to today’s excursion. Eventually we got on a bus and there weren’t any more vehicle troubles.

Abstract (because I know nobody reads the whole thing anyway)

We flew to New Orleans and walked around the French Quarter.

Today we began another adventure. We began the day in Denver, CO and ended up in New Orleans, LA (pronounced: naw-lens). My day started at 04:00. Yes, that’s 4 AM. Let’s just say I don’t want to have to wake up at 04:00 again any time soon.

Today we rode the entire hop on hop off circuit and walked around the Montreal underground city.

Tim Hortons

For breakfast we decided to go to Tim Hortons. It’s the thing to do in Canada. I got a coffee. Because that’s what you do at Tim’s.

Hop on Hop Off Bus

It was raining very hard as the weather report predicted so we didn’t want to do anything outside. (We were extremely glad that we’d done all of the outside stuff yesterday.) The hop on hop off bus was a double decker bus with an open top, but the bottom was covered. We had to walk to the bus stop though, and we got pretty wet doing so.

Today we disembarked from the cruise and went to a few sites in Montreal.

Disembarkation and Arrival at the Hotel

The disembarkation went smoothly and we were able to get a taxi to the hotel very easily. We were unable to check in to our room, but the hotel stored our luggage and the concierge gave us some information on where to go to get the hop on hop off bus of the city.

Today we went on a walking tour of Quebec City.

Lower Town

Quebec City is divided into two parts, the upper town and the lower town. The dividing line is a tall cliff, so the upper town is literally above the lower town. The lower town is the part of the town closest to the water and therefore closest to the place where we docked.