Come Sail Away

Well I lied. I honestly can't believe that eight days flew by so quick at sea. It does blend together after awhile. Wake up, eat three meals, see a show and BOOM ! You're packing your stuff. It also helped that this week we had the most amazing lecturer on board. His name is John Maxtone-Graham and if you ever have a chance to see him speak it is truly amazing. He gave six different lectures and every one was entertaining, hilarious and informative. He used to stage manage Broadway shows and in the '60's he managed a show in Chicago. He said that to unwind he would go over to Second City and watch the sets and shows there. It was such a treat to have him on-board. His old-timey gentleman ways and slides of cruising in the 30's and 40's made me long for a parasol and poorly equipped life boats.

Right now Brendan is up in the room packing. It seems weird to be going home for many reasons. This trip has seemed like it was 3 yrs long. I'm sure what happened with Penny had a lot to do with that. It will be good to get home and take care of that part of the grieving process since it has seemed to be a bit in limbo since August. It will also be nice to hang with family and friends and drink a giant pumpkin latte from Starbucks. YUM ! We'll be in Miami tomorrow and stay the night so we can ship some trinkets and whatnot out on Monday before we fly out. We've got so much stuff that we bought but it looks like we'll at least be able to get it off the ship to the hotel. That's good news.

This cruise has been a real doozy and FULL of characters ! It began when an old woman fell into the ocean off the gangway in Livorno. She fell into the 4 foot area between the ship and the dock. We were on the shuttle bus so didn't see the aftermath, but apparently she was ok and insisted on going on her tour. Then we saw a woman boarding the gangway in Rome in a fury at one of the security guards because she couldn't swipe in. Well, she couldn't swipe in because she had missed the boat in Livorno the night before and had to be driven by a port agent to Rome. The story was that she got into an argument with her kids (16 and 18) in Florence and wandered off from the tour, missing the bus. This woman had only what I can describe as REAL crazy eyes. I guess she was away from her meds for the night and was a bit wackadoo from that too. YIKES !

Our last stop was Gibraltar and we had a ball ! There are rock apes on Gibraltar and you can get real close and real friendly if you want to. They were adorable ! The views of the rock are also spectacular.

Rock Ape being all Nat'l Geographic for me

Rock Ape looking to make a jump

I hope to continue this blog on land. I hope people are still reading. I apologize for my lack of updates, but when you get into the last month of being on this thing you really just want to get the hell off. Hehe. Laziness ensues ! I feel like I still want to talk about our second Venice trip, Florence, more Rome and of course Egypt. I shall be back in the land of free Wi Fi then !