Today we stopped at a Grecian island called Corfu. It is in the middle
of the Aegean sea, as most Greek islands are. The first thing that we
did is get off the ship. Profound statement, eh. You know I think that
I’ve been around Canadians to much… Anywaay we had to tender from the
boat to the dock. I was perfectly fine all the way but mom didn’t fare
so well, she was very glad when the ride was over. Anyway we got out and
our taxi guide was right there at the dock. His name is Spiero (I
think). The first thing that we did is drive thought the town of Corfu
and then drive up through a mountain village and to a great lookout
point. Over this point you could see a large part of the island
including Corfu town and the first mountain town that we went through.
As well we could see our ship and a few islands off the coast. We then
made our way thought the mountains seeing all sorts of nice villages. In
one there was a church that was about three metres across at the front
(a little more than 3 yards) and maybe ten metres deep (we kept on going
and on the way Oma took a lot of pictures of the olive trees. You could
tell which ones were and weren’t taken care of. The ones that were small
and pruned were the ones at we taken care of. They pruned them because
they produce bigger olives that way. The ones that were large and looked
almost like a wad of vines were not taken care of and had small olives.
It was kinda funny because the ones that weren’t pruned back and that
hung over the street would drop heir olives and when the cars went over
them it would make the roads very slippery. At home we have snow and ice
to make roads slippery but there in Corfu they have olive oil to make
their roads slippery. We hen arrived at another lookout from which you
could see a beach. There weren’t any people on the beach. It was a great
day for sightseeing because there was some cloud cover and it was just
right as far as temperature. We drove through a few other villages one
of which we got out of the car and walked around in. The streets in this
town literally just footpaths. We wandered around for a little while and
even had a conversation with an old woman. It was all Greek to us, all
English to her. We did have one word in common, salad. Anyway we went in
our way and as we drove a few time Oma got out and made some pictures of
the olive trees. She made at least forty probably. Anyway we came
eventually back down the mountains after going through some other
villages and made our way way to the
Today we came into the port of Dubrovnik at around six or seven o’clock.
We literally went right next to the shore, not more than one or two
hundred yards away, we were able to see the houses and all which was
really pretty. They were all close together and so quaint. We saw all of
this from our table at breakfast and after we had eaten we got of the
boat to meet our guide. Her name was Tanya. The first thing that we did
is go up to a lookout point where we could see all of Dubrovnik. On the
way to he top of this hill we went up a one way road that was used as a
two way road. It felt like we were back in Vietnam driving to Ba Be
Lake. At least our driver didn’t play chicken on the road, they would
pull over and let the other pass instead of just going for it. Anyway
from the lookout point we could see, on the water side, four islands,
three of which were inhabited, as well as the old town and most of the
rest of Dubrovnik including a Costa ship, it wasn’t crashed, listing on
its side. On the other side of the hill was a stretch of about a mile
(that is close to two kilometers and because I am just guessing you can
use that if you like the metric system. I will try to remember to also
use the metric system in my writing because I realize that this is
definitely an international audience that is reading this blog. Just a
side note; this trip has really made me respect the metric system a lot,
it makes so much more since than our “standard” system) wide walking but
maybe half a mile (close to a kilometer) as the crow flies. And then
Bosnia & Herzegovina started. If you looked down the coast about ten
miles (16 kilometers) you come to Montenegro. I know the ten miles stuff
because I had read somewhere that Bosnia & Herzegovina has ten miles of
coast because of some treaty that said that they had to have that much
land on the coast. During the war between Croatia and Bosnia &
Herzegovina (I’m going to call it B&H from now on because it is much
easier to type) B&H shot missiles from where I told you that B&H started
into Dubrovnik. This war occurred in the nineties, a few years before I
was born so not in the very distant past. You could tell which of the
houses in the town were hit because of the roofs, if they were hit they
had very bright new reddish tiles but if they were old the roofs they
where brown. Most of the houses were hit by either a direct missile shot
or by shrapnel form the missiles. We then made our way down to the old
town. On the way we had to stop because someone was pulling out of their
parking spot. We backed up just a little to let them out but there was
another car behind us that came from behind and hit us!!! No damage was
done except in think that mom almost had a hart attack. The drivers got
out of the car and started yelling. Obviously they agreed to go down and
stop in front of the old town. When we got there the other guy came out
and started yelling. I was glad that I don’t know Croatian because it
didn’t look pretty our guide was not pleased that he did it in front of
guests (us). Anyway we let our driver, the other driver and the police
man sort it out. The entire old town was surrounded by a wall that was,
I think she said a hundred or more feet (30 metres) tall and, at points,
sixteen feet (5 metres) wide. These walls withstood the missiles of the
B&H army in the war, it just scratched the walls but it was so well made
that it was fine. We walked first across a bridge and a small draw
bridge into the town. We walked down the streets and it, except for all
of the tourists was very nice we really enjoyed it. There were some nice
little churches and shops. They were shops on the bottom but the tops
were residences. We came to the main square and then went into the
church there. It was baroque in style and it had a modern front altar
because it had to be repaired because of an earthquake I think. In the
middle of the square was a statue of someone, I think a prince that
defended the city from someone sometime but don’t take my word for that.
We then walked down the main road. There were all sorts of small alleys
in all directions that were so nice and of which we took many photos we
then turned and went through another square. In this square the was a
market and we stopped and bought a bag of sweets, nuts, dates, and
orange peels covered with sugar. Then we turned to a street leading back
in the direction that we had come. On this street we stopped and Tanya
went into the shop and came out with a traditional sweet. It wasn’t very
sweet, typical of most of the world except us Americans. It was kinda
like not sweet donut holes. At the end of this street was the old port.
This port is now used for private boats as well as for cruise ships that
tender from the ship to he dock. We walked around for a few minutes and
then we went back to the van to go to one of Tanya’s mom’s friend’s
house. One of the options for the tour was to go eat with a local family
and so we took up the offer. The family was so nice, there were three
generations there, the girl could speak excellent English, her mom could
speak pretty well but the dad couldn’t. The grandparents couldn’t speak
much at all but we had our guide to translate. The funny thing was that
they grandpa spoke German and so he and mono communicated in that
language because mom lived in Germany for four years and she knows
German. The appetizer consisted of smoked ham and a cheese that tasted
like Parmesan but a little stronger. Then we had a homemade noodle soup,
the noodles were handmade and they grew the carrots as well. It was very
good I had an entire big bowl of it. Then came the main dish. It was
really interesting how they prepared it. They used a traditional method
of cooking food in which they had a huge cooking instrument that was
about two and a half feet wide (70 cm probably; just an estimate on
that) and four inches high (10 cm). This vessel was flat on the bottom
and in it they put lamb, veal and potatoes then they put this in the
area of the fire but not on the actual fire. Then they used this bell
shaped thing to cover it and they put coals on top of the bell as well
as round it to cook the food. After two or more hours it was ready to
eat. It was really good expert it was just too much. For desert we had
this thing that was like crém burle and another desert that was [FIGURE
OUT]. Then we talked about their lives, what they did for a living
besides rent parts of their house and do what they were doing for us
today, where they went to school. We told them about ourselves. There
was an instrument on the wall and we inquired about it they turned on a
traditional song and it used that instrument in it. As we were listening
to it all of a sudden the grandma and the dad were up dancing! Mom
described it as looking like a traditional Greek dance. After having the
windfall meal we made our way back to the ship. Today there was a church
service and so went to that before our dinner. Before that though I
played a few games of ping-pong with Angus. I actually beat him once (he
beat me three times though). In between he service and dinner I talked
to Noah and Elijah’s mom about what we had done for the day and then
watched put the window as we left the port. After that nothing much of
interest happened, the boys were just going to dinner as we were coming
out so I have just been trying to write this blog post. I am glad that I
have some time in which to do this through because Dubrovnik is such a
neat city.
Today was my first sea day that I didn’t have Colton to hang out with.
Luckily however I found some other boys that are nice. It just wasn’t
the same t I still had fun. The first thing that I did was go to the
meet and greet hosted by the cruise critic people. At the beginning one
of the crew members spoke and hen people got up and started to make
announcements. Mrs. Irene asked me if I wanted to make an announcement,
meaning of course about having an iPad class. I made an impromptu
announcement. And I sat back down with an iPad class at three. Then I
went to find someone to play with. I found Noah, Elijah, Logan, and
Hannah in the Lido Dining Room. We decided to go play chess on this big
board with huge pieces we played Noah, Elijah, and me against Logan. We
got into a stalemate. Then we played another game “Go-For-It” style. We
kept on attacking with our king and we were doing pretty well until we
realized that the king was kind in danger without anywhere to go for
protection. We lost that game. At that point I had to go and do my iPad
class. A lady came to me and said “So what are you going to teach me?”
she got out her tablet/computer (she had an Android tablet with a
keyboard attached. I had never seen one but like I told Mrs. Irene later
I think I looked intelligent enough, anything that I did was more than
she knew. That took up the first part of the class and then I helped out
Mrs. Irene a little bit. She has three different accounts, and it’s a
mess figuring out what has what and which one has anything etc. with no
Internet connection. I found the boys again in the Lido Restaurant and
we decided to go swimming. Only Elijah Logan and I got in. Then they had
to leave and I played a game or two of ping-pong with a boy named Angus.
He’s an Australian and he’s good at ping-pong he won. Twice. Anyway then
I went back to my room to get ready for formal night. After dinner I saw
the boys going to dinner but on the way we stopped to listen to a string
quartet. They’re from Russia and played some songs that I think Hannah
has played before. Anyway, after that I went to the Loft to see if
anyone would come. No one came but I played games with the leader until
bedtime.
So today we were docked at a port which I won’t tell you the name of
because I can’t even spell it let alone say, or pronounce it. I will
tell you however that it is close to Rome so I will just call this port
Rome for simplicity sake. In this port one cruise starts and another
starts, like I told you about in the last post. Therefore we had to get
up early to get packed up to move cabins (if you recall, we are
upgrading to a room with a balcony/verandah). I wnet looking for colton
to say goodby to them, I couldn’t find them for a while but then I found
them and was able to say goodbye. It has been nice for the past few
weeks to have someone to hand out with on the ship and so I was pretty
sad to see them go. Luckily I have their email so we can stay in touch.
It will be hard to find someone to take their place as boat-friends but
it doesn’t matter so much for this part because there are a lot of ports
and not so much time on the ship. Then we had to wait a while they got
our room ready. After our room was ready and they had already moved our
luggage in we came in and out our stuff down. Next we went up to the
Lido Deck for lunch. As we were eating we looked out the window and
watched all of the people come in. At one point a family with two boys,
Noah and Elijah, we assume that they were Christians because before
they ate they prayed, I never got to really ask them. Anyway, Noah is
fifteen and Elijah is thirteen. Another family also came in with kids,
one is named Hannah (I don’t know if she spells it with an “h” at the
end or not). She is eleven. Her brother name is Logan. He is fourteen
and looks about sixteen or seventeen or so. The girl as well looks older
than she really is, she looks to be about fourteen or so but as I said
she is only eleven. After lunch mom and I went to go see a talk about
some of the ports that we are going to in the Vista Lounge. It was by
the official travel guide along with another lady and all that they did
is advertise the ships shore excursions. We were a little surprised
because the other talks that he had done were actually interesting, not
just “Oo ah, buy our shore excursions, yay”. Anyway at right I went up
to The Loft to see if any others would come. It was just me and her
leader for most of the time, one girl, from the Philippines came for
half an hour, maybe fourty-five minutes, somewhere around that. We just
played some games and then when Hannah was done with her stuff we went
back to the room and got ready for bed.
Today was an at sea day. Nothing much happened of too much interest so I
will describe our plans for the rest of the trip. Our next port is
C-something (I can’t remember the actual name). Here one cruise starts
and another ends. This is because there are actually two cruises that we
are going on, a sixteen day one and then a ten day one. So far we have
completed the sixteen day one and will continue on the ten day one.
Unfortunately the Baldersons are not coming on the next part of the
cruise so I will not have much to do each day, not that that matters too
much because there are a lot of ports that we are going to in the next
part of the cruise. I will still miss them though to have something to
do in the spare time that we do have on the ship. So I told you guys
earlier that I have been doing some Club HAL activities. I am actually
too old to do those activities as it goes up through twelve. There is a
teen group, of which I am the only member right now but in the next
cruise there will be fourteen other teens. Tomorrow or maybe it is day
after that I will go to the meeting and see if I like any of the kids
and if they’re jerks or not. I definitely won’t be able to go to any
Club HAL activities though. Oh well. Anyway the next cruise ends in Rome
and Oma will stay with us there for a few days and then she will fly
home and dad will come over to join us. We will stay in Rome for a few
more days and then go on to Florence, Venice, and I think another city
that slips my mind at this time (I have a lot of times that that has
been happening as I have been writing this blog, maybe it is because I
am writing this at **:**pm. hey last night I was up ’till *:**pm
[dad don’t read the part that you just read]). Anyway eventually we we
will reach Germany and dad will fly home, the rest of us will go and
visit the town that mom and dad lived in for four years in Germany back
before Hannah and I were born. Then we too will fly home to all y’all.
Unless of course you live somewhere else besides Denver, Colorado. Well
I about to have some nice views of the back of my eyelids so see ya!
Today we went to Barcelona (bar-sell-oh-nuh or if you want to say it in
the Catalan (cat-uh-lin) language you say bar-th-eh-loh-nah). Barcelona
is in an area of Spain called Catalan. In this area the Catalonians live
(I say that as if Russians live in Catalan). Anyway, Catalan is almost
separate to Spain it has it’s own government, flag, language, as well as
many other cultural differences. In a way you can compare Spain and
Catalan to the relationship between Canada and Quebec just more extreme
differences. OK, next subject: The ship came in at ten o’clock to the
port of Barcelona and we got off the boat. We were supposed to meet in
the Placa Sant Jaune (I think that is Catalan for Saint Jhon Plaza) for
a guided bike tour. It was about two or so kilometers to the plaza and
we had about twenty minutes to get there. We tried to get a taxi but
they didn’t want to take us for such a short distance, they could make
more money if they did taxi tours so they directed us to a shuttle bus
that took us to the Columbus monument. From here it was about a
kilometer to the square. Once at the square we had some trouble finding
the correct company that we were doing the tour through. We went to the
first company and gave them the papers. They said that we were at the
wrong place so we went to another company that had their meeting place
in the same square. They looked at the papers but they were not the
right company either. I went to go see if the last company was he right
one, they weren’t. The second company helped us and called the number on
the paper for us and after a while he told us that it was the first
company that we went to that was the correct one. Once that was sorted
out it was pretty straight forward from there. We were directed down a
little street to the shop to get our bikes. Then we went back to the
square. There were twenty-four people so they split us up into two
groups. We were with the girl, she was from Canada. We learned about the
square before we went on our way. The square had two significant
buildings, both were, and are, important to the Catalan government.
After learning about those buildings we rode down some small streets and
got to the palace, the very palace, where Columbus went to ask Isabella
and Ferdinand for money to go find a westward route to India, of course
we all know what happened then, he found a whole new continent, the
Americas. Then we rode down some really nice streets and eventually we
got to the Sagrada Familia. This building is the cathedral of Gaudi
(g-ow-dee). His finest achievement. It will, when complete, have twelve
towers representing the apostles, four for some saints or something like
that, one for the Virgin Mary and the last for Jesus Christ himself.
Currently there are eight towers and two facades. The best way to
describe the towers is how mom described it, that someone took a candle
and let the wax melt down the side. It really looks like something that
you would see in Disney World. Many architects and artists have taken
over some of the work now that Gaudi is dead, he has been dead for
almost a century since nineteen twenty-six, they are trying to complete
in in two thousand twenty six, the hundredth anniversary of his death.
It was supposed to be completed in two hundred years, using the
technology of Gaudi’s day. One thing that I though was very neat was
that the tallest tower, the one to Jesus, will be exactly two metres
shorter than the tallest hill/mountain in Barcelona because he says that
he doesn’t want his creation to be bigger than that of God. I thought
that was pretty neat. After going to the cathedral we rode down a long
street to the beach. Here we stopped at a little beachside restaurant.
We didn’t have anything but the view was neat. The beach was manmade for
the Olympics that were held in Barcelona in nineteen ninety-two (I
think). There was this sculpture of a goldfish which, when hit right by
the sun, looked as if it was a goldfish in the water with the light
reflecting on parts of it. There are a few buildings in Barcelona that
look exactly like a building in Dubai. Of course the architect that
designed them claims that he didn’t copy them even though they are the
same as the ones in Dubai. After that we went back to the square,
dropped of the bikes and then made our way back to the ship. We went
down the Las Ramblas (loss rahm-bau-s), the most famous street in
Barcelona and then got back to the bus stop to go back to the ship. The
rest of the things that we did were not of much note but I will say that
there was an Indonesian crew show at eleven tonight. We went to that,
there was a lot more people in this one than the Filipino crew show.
There was one number that was a dance/play (I like those better than the
dances that the people who are professional do). It was about the good
king who falls in love with the pretty princess and then goes off to get
a golden deer for her. He leaves her in the care of the monkey king and
then went off. But while he was away the bad king came and capture the
princess and kills all of the monkeys. But one monkey, the king who had
been away, survived and wonders why everyone is dead. He tries to do CPR
but all that happens is that the monkeys tail flies up. Then he goes to
get some highly sophisticated devices to try to revive the monkey the
devices were flip-flops! Then he uses a magic spell to resurrect all of
the monkeys. Is time it works! Yay! Then the good king tries to go get
the princess, he fights with the bad king and then the monkey king gives
him a weapon and he wins!!! Well all’s well that ends well and that
brings me to the end of this post.
Today our port was Cartagena. Cartagena means little Carthage (I think).
Whatever the meaning it was the port for the day. We didn’t have a tour
for this city so we went to walk around after we had had our breakfast.
We made our way on a pedestrian street and then down a side street to
get to a Roman theatre. We couldn’t figure out how to get into the
theater area so we satisfied ourselves with just taking pictures from
the top. The theater was pretty big, probably fifty to seventy-five
metres (and about the same in yards) across. The structure was very
incomplete but it was the first Roman theater that we have seen so far
on this trip. Even though you can’t see it now it must have been the
coolest thing in the time of the Romans. Just the scale of the project
must have been awe inspiring. We then made our way to a castle. I was
more just walls that used to be something but we did find a neat little
playground and stayed there for a long time swinging and see-sawing. It
was really nice because it was breezy and cool up there on the hill (the
theater was built into the hill and the castle was on top of the hill).
From this vantage point we could not only get a good view of the city
but see many other sites of where ruins of Roman or even Carthaginian
buildings still are. All around almost wherever you look there were
ruins. Of course we didn’t have a guide to tell us what the ruins where
from but it was just neat to see them. After staying at the castle for a
while we went to go find the cathedral. We walked to the place where it
showed it on the map but it was not there. We gave up because we won’t
have any shortage of cathedrals on our trip. We then made our way back
to the ship for lunch and after that we went back off to go to Burger
King for free wifi. Unfortunately it didn’t work but we went back up the
pedestrian street to see how much a museum that held some ruins of the
city. It wasn’t worth the cost so we went back to the Burger King and
this time the wifi worked, maybe it had less traffic but regardless we
used it because anything is cheaper and faster than on the boat. We
decided then to go back to the boat for a swim. I swam for about two
hours actually, the last part of that time was with the Balderson boys.
After we were finished swimming Colton and I played some ping-pong. We
had a lot of fun but then we went back to our rooms to get dressed for
formal night. After dinner we came back to the room, Hannah went to Club
HAL and mom, Oma, and I watched some of Ben Hur together. We didn’t get
very far and I don’t know where it’s going but I do know that it is
about chariot riding and that there as been no mention of that activity
at all during the first fourty minutes of the movie. I decided to go up
to the theater to try to catch Colton as he was coming out and then we
nt to go play ping-pong. Of course we were still in suits but hey, a
very formal game of ping-pong it was. After that we went to bed.
Today we started in the port of Malaga, Spain. Like yesterday we went
with a semi-private tour group with basically the same people as before.
Today we went to the Alhambra (al-haw-m-ber-uh; just add a little accent
and you are good. The Spanish however do not say he H sound so it is
pronounced something like this al-ahm-ber-uh). Anyway we went on her bus
to the Alhambra and with us on the bus was a lady from England. She had
moved to Spain because she married a Spanish guy and she learned the
language and everything. She explained some of the things that we saw on
the way. The drive to Granada, the town where he Alhambra is located,
was a two hour drive with a ten minute stop with forty-five minutes left
to go. By the way, the air conditioning worked, almost too well I
actually turned off my vent. I slept a great deal of the way to the
Alhambra but I was told that he scenery was beautiful. I’ll just take
their word for it. When we arrived at the Alhambra we met our guides at
the main meeting place that everyone uses so there were a lot of people.
Our guides name was Miguel. (Remember hat there were two groups, we were
in group one and the slow complainers were in the other one. I must say
though that no one complained today. What a relief!) We were given
headsets so that we could hear what he was saying without him having to
talk to loud. I felt like a tourist being shoved through the sights en
mass. It was kinda go in, explain the stuff, take pictures and get out
of the way of he next group. But hey, I’m thankful that I got to just
go, not many people have that opportunity. So anyway where was I… Oh
so our guides name was Miguel he took us about 600 metres, or at least
that’s what he said to a building that was circular on the inside but on
the outside it was square. We only peeked at this building for a moment
because we had to got to the gates to the Alhambra before our time
expired. We made it and then we went to he oldest part of the Alhambra
called the Alcazaba (I won’t even bother telling you how to pronounce
that because I don’t actually know how you do). There were some really
nice views of the city from the walls. We went as well to a watch tower
in this area. Then we went to another palace. We went through lots of
rooms and courtyards in the palace. I will tell you about them in
general and then I will pick the most spectacular ones to describe
separately. If I described all of them I would be writing until I get
back to the States. The palaces were all built by the moors the Muslims
who ruled in Spain from around seven hundred AD to fourteen hundred AD.
For their time they were very advanced in mathematics, astronomy, and
just learning in general. They had preserved many of he writings of
Aristotle and Plato and all of the other great philosophers of the
classical age. Their advancement in the architecture of the buiddings of
the Alhambra was evident here everything was mathematically correct,
there are all sorts of cool little mathematical algorithms that they
used to construct the buildings, unfortunately the guide didn’t go over
that so even though I know they exist I don’t know the patterns that
were used all over the building. The archways were all in a horseshoe
shape, not he semicircular or pointy ones characteristic to the
renaissance and gothic periods of architecture respectively. They also
had stalactite like points on the underside of the arches. Water was
also an integral part of he moorish architecture. This was because ha
Arabs came from a place where here isn’t much water, the Sahara desert
therefore water is rare and if you have lots of it, as needed for pools
of water and little fountains, water is a symbol of wealth. The last
thing that I will tell you about is the designs on the walls. Everywhere
there were Arabic script mainly from the Koran which because Arabic is
so pretty in the first place looked really nice. Now I will tell you
about some of the individual rooms in the palace. One courtyard had a
rectangular reflecting pool of water down the middle with small
fountains on either side at the end of the pool. These flowed into the
big pool. If you’ve seen anything about the Alhambra you have seen a
picture of this. It is a classic photo that looks great, even with an
amateurs camera. I probably annoyed some people by sitting down and
taking a picture across the pool right behind the little fountain but
hey, I got a pretty good shot. Another place which I was looking forward
to seeing but unfortunately they were restoring, is the lions courtyard,
this courtyard has a fountain with twelve (at least I think there are
twelve) lions decorating it this is the second most common picture that
you see of the Alhambra. We went through some other rooms of lesser
importance but they were still really neat. A little side track. If you
read our blog about our trip to Vietnam you probably read about the
ruins of a palace in Hue. I thought to myself that if the Vietnamese had
preserved the palace that it could be as grand as the Alhambra,
unfortunately they probably won’t ever be able to restore it because of
lack of funds. After those palaces we walked through some beautiful
gardens with some great views of the city. I think that Oma thought that
she was in paradise (she likes gardens by the way). The gardens were
made by some king during the Rennaisance period as a way to make it more
contemporary. Once we walked through the gardens which were extremely
beautiful but which I don’t have enough time to describe we went to
another palace. This was built by the kings of Granada as a pleasure
vacation spot. It was built by a Moorish architect so it had some
moorish influences in its design. As we were waiting for the bus to
arrive we ate our sandwiches that we had fixed at breakfast this moring
and then we we left the Alhambra to go to the center of Granada for a
little while. We went down a pedestrian street, much like sixteenth
street mall in Denver. And went into an ice cream shop for a little
break. Not a word of English was spoken, all of the communication was
done in Español. It is really hard when they speak to you at a hundred
miles an hour though, I should have though to say speak slowly please
because I know how to say that but hindsight is twenty-twenty and
unfortunately I didnt ask. Anyway we made our way back to the bus to go
back to Malaga. No one complained on the way and I slept for a good
chunk of the ride. That was about all, of course we did all of he normal
evening and nighttime activities but I will not tell you about those.
Today we started early, went to breakfast and then got out in Cadiz
(cad-ese; with an emphasis on the s), our port for the day. We had a
simi-private tour to Sevilla (seh-vil is the English pronunciation but
if you want to be more proper and use the Spanish version it goes like
seh-v-ee-yuh) today and it started in Cadiz. As we drove out of Cadiz
the guide, Francisco, talked over the intercom about the city. It is one
of the oldest cities in the world and was settled by the phonetians, the
Carthaginians, the Romans, the Visigoths (I think), the moors and now
the Spanish. Cadiz was the starting point for Columbus’s journey to
discover the new world. It used to be an island and Sevilla was on the
coast of th sea. It has a long history of being a sea oriented city as
well as an aerospace center. It was an hour and fourty-five minutes
drive to Sevilla. I slept a good deal of the way. The countryside that I
did get to see was beutiful, nothing like anything at I have seen in the
States. Anyway when we got to Seville we drove down the main avenue and
saw all of the beautiful buildings. Then we stopped at one of the
squares in the city. American square I believe was the name. This park
was made for the world exhibition that was held in nineteen twenty-nine.
In this park was a nice fountain and a lot of pigeons. The pigeons were
a gift from someone, maybe the king of Spain or something like that. On
one side of the square was a renaissance style building made by
Seville’s equivalent to Gaudi. There was also a moorish style building
on he opposite side. The next thing that we did is get back on the bus
and go to the old Jewish and Muslim quarters. The first quarter that we
went to was he Jewish quarter. This area was very nice with lots of
small streets and alleys with hole-in-a-wall shops and buildings that
were built in very tight spaces. We went all over going down streets and
through small squares. It was nice because the whole area is pedestrian
only. So we didn’t have to worry about being run over by cars or
motorcycles like we did in Vietnam. We went to a palace called the
Alcazar. This palace was built b the moors (the Muslims in Spain) and
hen taken over by the Christians in the reconquest of Spain for
Christianity. Inside there was much moorish influence in the
architecture and in the decoration but in some places the Christians had
Christianized the buildings. One such place was a courtyard that was
moorish on the bottom but on the top they had put a renaissance style
floor. It didn’t look good. It was really hot, 44 degrees centigrade,
112 degrees Fahrenheit and though it was really neat it was always just
where’s the next shady spot! I need shade! Etc. After going to the
Alcazar we went to a square in between the Alcazar and the cathedral.
This square was called Plaza del Something I forgot the name of the
square but it had a statue of someone (descriptive, eh?). This was to be
our meeting place after a little free time in which we could go and do
whatever we wanted. We decided to go walking looking for an ice cream
place that we had seen. We didn’t find it but we found a different ice
cream shop and we went inside. We used our Español (Spanish) to order
our ice cream. You should have seen us trying to communicate, there was
lots of pointing and attempts at using the other persons language. The
main language that we communicated in was Español though. We made our
way winding through the streets back to the square where we were
supposed to meet to go to the bus. Like I said it was 112 degrees
Fahrenheit (44 degrees centigrade) and some of the peoples tempers were
as hot as the weather. I will back up just a little and tell you that
there were two groups of people going on the tour with two tour guides.
One group had organized themselves through Cruise Critic and the other
didn’t we don’t know where they organized themselves. Regardless of
where they did, they obviously didn’t get the memo that there was a lot
of walking involved. There was one person with a cane and another with a
walker in their group which held everything up for them. When we were
about a block from he bus the husband of the woman with the walker came
up to the guide and had a mild explosion “You have to slow down and wait
for the people who can’t keep up!!! La de da de da…” anyway this went
on for a while because some other people got involved as well. One of
the people from our group said that he was going to go tell the guide
that we were going to walk to the bus by ourselves. That made the
caravan get moving. When we got on the bus it felt like a sauna it was
like a greenhouse! Some people were complaining about how hot it was and
it resounded like these seventy and sixty year old people had just
gotten out of preschool! On the way back I do not know if the complained
any more but I do know that the back of my eyelids are very black.
Today we were again in Lisbon, Portugal. Today though we went out intro
the countryside to a town called Sintra (center-uh; without the “r”
sound at the end of center). We met Susanna in the same place as
yesterday and then got into her van to drive to Sintra. On the way to
Sintra we saw suburbs of Lisbon. The suburbs here are nothing like those
in the States because all around there are tall apartment buildings. All
around you couldn’t see much of anything except for apartment buildings.
Unfortunately it did not seem like a good place to live. There was
graffiti galore and you just looked at it and knew that you didn’t want
to live there. Another thing that we saw on the way was an aqueduct.
This aqueduct was built in seventeen or eighteen hundreds. It was made
using Gothic arches (the ones that are pointy). One of the arches that
makes up the aqueduct is the tallest in the world. It is also I believe
the widest. It did not take long to get to Sintra. When we arrived mom
commented, “Now we are in Europe.” It really was too. It was the typical
small European village with narrow streets that don’t have any pattern
whatsoever and quaint shops and hole in the wall restaurants in hidden
corners. There was a palace that we were going to go into but because
all of the big tours of like fifty people were going to the palace at
that time, we decided to walk around before going to the palace. As we
were walking mom commented, but not to loud so as not to make Susanna
feel bad, that the village looked like a little German village. We
walked down the side streets just taking in the beautiful buildings and
shops. One of the specialties of Sintra is their quark products. They
love to make stuff out of quark. They make everything out of the stuff.
There were purses, bracelets, and many other apparel including iPhone
and iPad cases! I was thinking that I might buy one just for the sake of
doing so but I realized that they aren’t any cheaper there than here.
They cost around 30€ which is somewhere between $50 and $60. When we
were done with our walk around the town we went over to the palace. It
was a grand palace for the Portuguese kings to go and have a nice summer
vacation. Even though Sintra is not that far frame Lisbon it has enough
difference in temperature that it was a nice vacation spot for the royal
families. And of course if the king does it everyone wants to do it so,
a town is formed. The scale of the building was immense. Just the
stairs leading up to he palace took up a lot of room it was easily fifty
to seventy five yards across. This part of the stairs was not covered.
It was open and the stairs wee on either side of a platform which was
probably thirty to fifty yards across. Then there was a covered part
with stairs in either side leading up to the main palace. It had that
old grandeur typical of the time which it was built. There were some
great view of the city from here and also there were some interesting
rooms with glazed tiles all around. It was in interesting mix of
materialism of the age of discovery as well as both the Muslim and
Christian religions. The chapel that was built in the palace was built
by moors (Muslims living in Spain) and had the glazed tiles typical of
the age. Oval the style of the building was the Manueline because it was
primarily King Manuel that built the palace. There we all sorts of neat
little fun facts like magpies that were ordered to be painted on the
ceiling of one of he rooms to represent all of the ladies in waiting
that we’re present when a secret was leaked an who spread the word
about this around through gossip. There was also one room on which was
painted the many coats of arms of the rich families in Portugal at the
time. King Manuel’s coat of arms was the biggest and the only one the
was carved and then painted. It had lots of symbolism but I don’t quite
remember them. Regardless whatever the importance of the different
symbolic things in the cost of arms it is important because it is the
coat of arms of Portugal. After going to the palace we made our way
thought the countryside to the furthest western point in continental
Europe. I enjoyed all of the scenery along the way, even though part of
the scenery was rather black, like the back of my eyelids. I wonder why
that is? ;) yes, I went to sleep. I do have the excuse that he roads
were very windy and I just was lulled to sleep by the movement. There
was a car show going near the monument so we had a hard time parking but
we did meet a man who we though was one of the car owners and got into a
conversation with him about how some island in the Azores was used as a
military base by the allies during WWII. He also said that if you went
directly west from that point you would reach NYC. Well in between NYC
and New Jersey he said. After getting pictures we got back in the car
and drove past many coastal villages or towns. They aren’t very distinct
towns because it has molded into one big town along the waterfront but
they were still called towns. Most of the way it was beaches with
restaurants serving seafood. She to,d us that it was expensive to buy
seafood in Portugal compared to the United States she said 50€ per kilo!
That’s like almost $75 for a two person meal! The areas that we went
through were used first by the royalty as a summer vacation spot. And
then the population caught on. We saw lots of people on the beach but
Susanna said that only tourists go to those beaches because the water is
so dirty but the locals stay away from those beaches. We got back to the
boat about thirty minutes before we had to be on the boat at two or so
and went up to the Lido deck for some lunch as we were eating we saw the
Baldersons coming on and then about twenty minutes later some other
people and then even though they were fifteen minutes late to the boat
they were just meandering along. Of course they could see that they were
raising the gangplank and making the ship ready to leave but they didn’t
step up the pace at all. Later Mrs. Angie commented that, and I quote “I
would have been bookin’ it!” some people just don’t know when it is
right to speed up just a bit. That was about it for the day and I assume
by now that you know the drill, make up the rest of the day because it
was the same as all the other afternoon/evenings. ~Sumner
