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 !

Jag-a-thon

That's what you all think I must be running lately since I haven't updated this blog. This is a quick one until the next longer one. I know, I know. I've become the married man in your mistress of a life that keeps telling you "I'm going to leave my wife!"

Well know that tomorrow we only have ONE port left and then we will be EIGHT DAYS AT SEA. EIGHT. DAYS. AT CEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. On the ocean. With nothing. Going back to good 'ol Miami.

I will catch up then. Until that time please enjoy this picture of a goat we saw in Mykonos.

Photo Credit: Brian Morris

The Written Word

Blue Mosque at Night

Derrrrvishes

Man with Fortune Bunnies !

Lazy McGraw here! I’ve been lacking in the ‘ol blog department lately. Here are some updates to the best of my traveling brain ability. These are also completely out of order. Huzzah!


Istanbul
This city was a real treat. We basically get three days/two nights here while people are disembarking and embarking so we did it up. When we got to Istanbul it really felt like the first place that we went that was kind of exotic (until Egypt. Yikes.). Muslims have been celebrating Ramadan so that’s the first thing you notice. Since they pray five times a day, some of the prayers are broadcast from the Mosque’s out loud via a giant speaker. It’s very cool to hear. That first day we went to the famous Grand Bazaar and looked around. It’s a lot less intimidating than I thought it would be but we didn’t buy anything. I tried to haggle for a lamp (by “I” I mean Brian) but the guy wouldn’t budge! We go back at the end of this week so we’ll see if he’s any looser. Cody then took us to a small entrance to a park where he claimed there were rabbits telling fortunes. Hot damn there sure were. It’s basically what you see in the picture. An old man who might (?) be homeless with two rabbits and a bunch of papers filled with fortunes in broken English. For three Turkish YTL he asks you your name, says it to the bunny and basically has the bunny by the scruff and it knocks out a fortune from the box. They were real cute and I was happy that they at least got some lettuce after their fortune telling feat. That afternoon we also had a delicious lunch of chicken and rice and I fell in love with apple tea. It’s a Turkish delight. We wandered along the waterfront and found a great place to relax, drink apple tea and do one of my favorite past times, smoke the hookah! They had a bunch of delicious tobacco flavors but I chose apple. I got a ton light headed and it was a ball! That first night we also made it to a Whirling Dervish show. Brian had attended one last year and praised it highly. I’ll say that my picture above it about 6 million times cooler than the actual show. I will also say we were all pleased that in the end we did something cultural but Brian was pissed because it supposedly was NOT like the show at all last year. We definitely saw the night an understudy was in because one dude was not up to the challenge of whirling for an hour. He almost fell over a few times and was tipsy turvy when returning to his praying position. It was also held in a train station and we sat in lawn chairs. YES! Culture in lawn chairs! Take our Turkish money please. What the hell is wrong with us? Post Dervish show we went back to the boat, cleaned up and went to where the young folks hang, Taksim Square. We met some
other ship jokers at an Irish Pub where they tried to charge us for the nuts they served us and we moved on. After another bar or two we wandered back to the boat for a night of Turkish sleep.

We visited the famous Blue Mosque the second day. The Mosque also gave us another installment of “People are Idiots”. It’s the rules that for ladies your shoulders and knees must be covered going into the Mosque. Some American ladies take this as a cue to play Jasmine from “Aladdin” and make the rest of us look like disrespectful jags. One woman insisted on putting on a jangly 3 dollar head scarf you find at souvenir stands with a ton of coins attached to it while posing for her husband against the columns. I’m sure the women being trafficked (that one’s for you Bonesho) really appreciate your support trash-a-tron! The Mosque is beautiful. It’s known as The Blue Mosque because most of the 21,000 tiles lining the inside are blue. Post Mosque we went back to Taksim Square to do some shopping and have lunch. That night we went back to the Hookah place and had a nice quiet Kebob dinner and did some more smokin’. Well I did at least. Hooray for Istanbul!

Mykonos
These Greek Islands have been so fun. The food is great and they are all insanely picturesque and beautiful. Mykonos has been my favorite so far. Probably because we rented SCOOTERS! This day was a total blast and as I type this we are on our way to Mykonos tomorrow and we’re doing the same thing. This island is incredible. Some of the views are absolutely breathtaking. I’ll say I did have a leg up on a couple of the boys since I drove a motorcycle for a couple of years. Brian had also rented one before he did this trip last year to prepare. I was hesitant to give any pointers to anyone in the parking lot of the scooter rental place since we were trying to give the effect of being seasoned riders. Well once we all took off it was on. And by “it was on” I mean minor wipe out time. I figured mine out pretty quick but my sweet Brendy took a bit of a spill. We turned a corner and all of a sudden all I could see behind me was Brendy on his side, on the ground semi-under a car’s fender. YIPES! Of course he is a-ok and it looked a ton worse than it was. Once we pulled into the Starbucks parking lot I was able to give a few riding pointers and I think he really flourished under my tutelage. And a mocha frappucino. He is now READY TO GO! Ever since we’ve been back he’s constantly watching “Wild Hogs” on the passenger channel and going “VRRROOM VROOOM!” miming his hands on fake handlebars. My little Hell’s ANGEL! We really can’t wait to ride again. Cody bit it once too but I think he might take the puss-out route tomorrow and rent a 4 wheeler instead. He can eat our dust!

That day we visited two beaches, had one of the most delicious lunches we’ve had so far and I saw a bunch of cute goats. Cute goats and good food = successful day.

Ship Life
*I promise to write about Egypt soon. That’s a whole other night’s worth of writing. I can’t believe we only have two cruises left after this one! We still have some great repeats coming up including two more Rome’s and another Venice. Of course we still miss Penny terribly and think of her every day. I think getting home will be hard, but it will be another grieving hump to get over. We’ll also have to start looking for some work which will be another hump. YEAH! FUN! (NO! AWFUL!)

*The cruisers have gotten substantially older. We get caught behind what someone once coined as “The Cane Train” a lot. A lot of slow oldies taking their slow ass time.

*Pre and Post Egypt has begun the fight of “GI”. Or Gastro Intestinal protection. This means in the buffet the workers now have to serve you everything so you don’t spread your nasty ass germs (that means you old people). From plates, to silverware, to coffee. Now to you non-cruise living folks this might seem like it’s not a big deal, but oh boy is it a pain in the ASS. I mean a PAINNNN. After awhile you just want some control over your cereal milk. The rumor is that it might last another MONTH until we get back to Miami, or it might end in Istanbul. Sweet Christmas for the love of mike pray it ends in Istanbul! For us and for the extra shifts the workers have to put up with.

*I’m officially done with most other entertainment on the ship. I can’t see another dance show, violinist, comedy-juggler-face-painting-cabaret-tapping-Benny Hill-talker.

I miss all of you reading this right NOW. See you soon!

More Egypt pics

CHEOPS !

SPHINXY !

I promise more on these adventures to come....

Egypt...A Pictoral

hold on.

WHAT.

HAVE.

WE DONE.

More on Egypt later. I'm lazy. Or does this say it all ?

Wouldn't It Ve-Nice

Above are pics of St. Mark's Basilica and me getting my blood pressure taken by Dr. Kiss and the boys. Read on.

One at a time ! I’m going to get behind on these but oh well. We're on our way to Egypt as I type this ! In the mean time, here’s a blog about our trip to Venice !

Venice
This has been my favorite stop on this trip so far, hands down. It was our first overnight and I think that had a lot to do with it. It’s so fun to have a night in a city instead of having to rush around and get back to the boat by 5:30. Venice is also (in my 7th grade mind) what I thought every European city would be like. No cars or scooters. Only foot traffic, gondolas, water buses and taxis. Super quiet at night too. Brendan and I treated ourselves and rented a hotel room for the night right off of St. Mark’s square. We’ll get to this very special episode of Mr. Bean later, but first… the city. We took a water bus in and the ride was great. It’s finally starting to cool off for fall in these cities so the weather was perfect. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and wandered for most of the day. Just looking in shops and munching on stuff. St.Mark’s square is just as insane with pigeons as you see in the movies and people are CRAZY. They literally hold bird seed on their arms, head, throw their toddlers in there with seed (no joke. we saw it.) or use any crevice possible so these birds can feast. It’s terrifying and gross. I think Brendan put it best when he said “It’s not like they’re puppies!” This led to a heated debate between Brendan and myself where we discussed the “Jackass” version of what St. Mark’s might be. Brendan said it would be a guy wearing a Speedo dipped in honey and covered in birdseed. I went a step further and said they would dip their entire naked junk in honey and bird seed and let the birds feast away. I think the thought of this disturbed my sweet Brendy more than anything.

Venice offers a bunch of concerts throughout the evening. String quartets and the like. We decided to take in an “Opera’s greatest hits” concert off the square at 7:30. This was definitely the right thing to do. It was a quartet of musicians and two opera singers in a little church turned concert hall. The performance was great. After the show we wondered if the singers actually liked performing these heavy opera hitters for people. Or if it was like us performing Dr. Know It All for Japanese tourists. When the concert finished, we walked to an amazing little area of Venice where Brian had seen a jazz club advertised. This area was incredible. A ton of outdoor cafes, people just sitting and having a ball. As is Murphy’s Law with Brian, the club was closed. So we found a great café to sit, eat our 50th meal of the day, drink mojitos and watch people. This is where we were accosted by a Venetian bachelor party. We had heard and sort of seen a group of about 8-10 guys strolling around with a guitar singing various songs while we were at this café. You could always tell their proximity to you because suddenly you would hear the “Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa’s” from U2’s “With or Without You”. We ignored them the first time they came by because we thought they might be surly Venetians looking for change while they sang. When they finally approached our table we realized they were a bachelor party. The groom-to-be was wearing a doctor coat and holding a blood pressure cuff. He insisted in taking my blood pressure and then threatened/informed me he was going to kiss me. Brendan prepared himself for a olde tyme Venetian dual, but was off the hook then guy just grabbed my face and gave me four hard kisses on the cheek. We then got semi-invited to the wedding and they left us with a rousing “With or Without You”. Good luck Dr. Kiss !

After the café Brian and Cody went back to the ship while Brendan and I navigated the streets of Venice alone, trying to get back to the hotel. We only got lost once which was great considering what a maze Venice is and retired to our hotel. And by retired I mean got uncomfortable. While the locale of this hotel was great, everything else was just ok. The bed was so bumpy (ie: is that a spring in my back?) and it was about 6 comic inches too short for our legs. So after a pretty rough nights sleep I entered the decent sized shower where the shower head was located directly in the middle of the wall. The shower curtain was about also horizontally challenged by about a foot. After spraying water all over I exited laughing maniacally. Mr. Bean has arrived ! We have another overnight in Venice in two weeks or so and I can’t wait.

Pictures for Now

Hi friends !

Here are some pics for a quick Europa fix. We are in a coffee shop in Istanbul with some fast wireless so I wanted to get a couple pictures posted.

This first one is of a lovely beach in Croatia.

Here is Brendy standing in front of Mt. Vesuvius at Pompeii !