Day 7 – Istanbul, Turkey

As mentioned in the previous post, we stayed overnight in Istanbul and as mentioned in an even previouser post, we had scheduled tour for the day with Ekol Tours. Much to our regret, we received a call this morning from mom and Lyn that neither felt well and were not going to be able to come along with us into Istanbul. There is nothing worse than being sick and away from home. I felt and feel so bad for both of them. I sure hope that whatever got a hold of them runs its course quickly as I would hate for either one to miss another port.

Melauna and I had a nice breakfast this morning up in the Lido prior to leaving the ship and were actually joined by a very nice older Asian couple who were looking for a place to sit and saw two open seats at our table. They were from northern California and as sweet as could be. After exiting the ship, we were met right away by Űlkű (ool-ku), our guide for the day who did an outstanding job of giving us the history behind all of the magnificent places we saw today, even with a slight language barrier. We were picked up in a six-passenger van and accompanied by a driver who also did a great job of negotiating the insane traffic that I spoke of yesterday.

Most all of the sites that we visited were contained within walking distance of one another, so after our driver dropped us off at our first stop, we didn’t see him until the end of the day. Many people have mentioned how easy Istanbul is to do on your own, and I wouldn’t necessarily argue with that provided that you had a good guide book and more time than one day. Also, although you could walk from the cruise terminal to the Sultanhamet where most all of the points of interest are contained, you would spend probably two hours walking to and from, taking even more precious time away you’re your tour. The other option that has been recommended is the public tram…no thanks…every tram that I saw was packed like sardines. There didn’t appear to be two inches of space between the standing passengers. That is just not my thing, if you don’t mind it, then maybe that’s another option. In the end, I was glad that we had a pre-arranged driver to deal with that mess out there. In all we visited the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, Topkopi Palace, the underground cisterns as well as a tile making demonstration in a very nice pottery shop. Melauna found a piece there that she couldn’t live without to bring home as our little piece of Istanbul. Before our last site in the Sultanhamet, the Topkapi Palace, we stopped for lunch at an authentic little Turkish diner and had lamb kebaps and Turkish meatballs and washed it down with Aryan. What is Aryan you ask? Well, it is a special elixir of saltwater and yogurt and was as delicious as it sounds. I hated to be rude by insulting her country’s cuisine, but suffice to say that I will not be hunting down my local Turkish grocer when we get back home to load up on Aryan. Saltwater and yogurt? Maybe I had already unwittingly insulted her without knowing it and this was her response. By the time that we reached Topkopi Palace, I will admit that I was about tired of walking. There were a lot of really interesting things to see in the Palace that Melauna and I both just skimmed past because we were tired of both walking and the crowds. After a brief stop in the Palace Museum gift shop, we met back up with our driver and drove to the Grand Bazaar for apple tea and coffee. Not sure why we did this as it seemed, in retrospect, like an awful lot of trouble to go to for tea and coffee, but nevertheless, we did it. After finishing up, we met back up with our driver and began heading back to the ship.

For me, Istanbul was one of those places that I am very happy to have experienced and have had the opportunity to see some of the historical sights but have little desire to return to. The people that we encountered were all very friendly and the history of Istanbul is very fascinating; however it is so crowded that finding a peaceful spot to soak it all in is all but impossible.

Back on board, I sat out on the veranda and watched the sail away from Istanbul and the start of our course to Mykonos. We had a little while to relax before dinner this evening since we had reservations at the Pinnacle Grill at 7:30 and so I was able to catch up on the blog and do a little reading before we had to go. The Pinnacle Grill was fantastic! Melauna had the King Salmon which she claimed was the best that she ever had, and she is somewhat of a salmon connoisseur. I had the “Land and Sea” lobster tail and filet mignon…wow! What a great dinner! After dinner, we headed off to the casino to make our charitable donation for the evening. Neither of us had any luck and now I am back in the red…stupid dice.

Day 6 – At Sea and Istanbul, Turkey

After a late breakfast this morning and catching up on yesterday’s blog, I met mom and Lyn in the Showroom for some bingo…because you cannot go on a cruise without playing bingo at least once. I think it is some kind of maritime law or something. Unfortunately, my winning streak did not carry over from last night, nor did mom or Lyn come out victorious. Guess we will have to try again.

Regarding catching up on the blog…I have been meaning to mention that although I have had wireless internet access in our room everyday, the connection speed certainly has left something to be desired. I have been typing up the blog in Word, then after connecting, doing a copy and paste into Blogger. We were able to take a lot of really nice pictures in Athens yesterday; however with the internet connection what it is, it just isn’t practical to try and upload any pictures. The one of Melauna on one of the bridges over a canal in Venice that I posted on Day 2 took about five minutes to load…so forget it. I think I will just wait until we are back home and upload them all to Flickr or something similar.

After a quick lunch in the Lido, we all got ready for our arrival in Istanbul. I sat out on the veranda to watch the sail in which was really pretty neat to witness. Since Istanbul straddles both Europe and Asia, you get a rare opportunity to see two continents all for the price of one admission. Tom the Tour Guide was pointing out some of the highlights that we will be touring tomorrow; the Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace to name a few. We docked around 3:30 and after picking up mom and Lyn, made a quick exit off the ship. We had decided to use the time that we had today to go to the Grand Bazaar which we actually had scheduled for tomorrow, hopefully freeing up more time for tomorrow’s sites. We opted to hire a cab to take us to the Grand Bazaar rather than take the ship’s tour bus and really glad that we did. Our cab driver’s name was Yasor Mataraci and what a great guy he turned out to be. Istanbul is a city of 15 million people and I think that everyone of them was out driving cars, cabs or busses. Holy cow, the traffic! This is an enormous city and incredibly congested. After making the drive to the Grand Bazaar, which is not far as the crow flies, but took about a half an hour, we asked Yasar if he could be there to pick us up at 6:30. He said that he would and I tipped him a little extra in hopes that he would make good on his word. I cannot possibly describe the frenetic place that Istanbul is…I suppose New York City on steroids is as good as I can do. From our drop off point to the entrance to the Bazaar was about a five minute walk after which the sales onslaught began. We have been to bazaars in Morocco, so had an idea what to expect, but the unrelenting salesmen beatdowns that you encounter from guys selling watches, rugs, scarves, and everything else under the sun is enough to make your head spin. Two hours was plenty of time although you could easily spend a week in there if that was your thing. I enjoy getting to see other cultures and gathering places that are so different from what we see in the US normally, so from that standpoint, I did enjoy it; however there were no bargains to be found and actually the prices were outrageous in my opinion. I expected the whole banter back and forth on coming to an acceptable price, such as our experience in Morocco, but that really wasn’t the case here. For example, I like old maps and especially ones from the place that I am visiting. I found a store that had some old maps scattered amongst 50 billion other things and asked how much they wanted…$750US. What? I had bought a similar map in size, age and quality in Sweden for $80US in a store that specialized in old maps. Obviously I am not implying that everything in Istanbul should cost the same as in Sweden, but that is a pretty big disparity in price for similar objects. Anyway, I shook my head, set it down and said “too much”. The store owner shook her head and that was it…ok…whatever. No haggling, no nothing… Lyn experienced this several times with items that she found. Small antiques primarily. Seemed like everything that wasn’t a fake Rolex or evil eye amulet started at $500US. In the end, I didn’t buy a single thing and I almost always can find some memento to take home with me. Melauna found some overpriced dishes to buy, neither mom nor Lyn ended up with anything either. In the end, I am glad that I have experienced the famous Grand Bazaar of Istanbul but can check it off the list and have no desire to go back.

We made our way back to our original drop off point and lo and behold Yasar was there waiting for us right where he said that he would be. He had shed the taxi and had picked us up in his father’s car. Still no a/c however, but fortunately is was a pleasant 75°F outside. On our way back to the ship, he stopped at a shop that sells “the best baklava in the world”. I haven’t tried baklava all over the world, but after tying what this shop sold, I would mind giving it a shot…wow…was that good. I think Melauna bought about 35 pounds of it…two of everything that they sold…and this was a big shop, not some crappy little hole-in-the-wall baklava shop like they have in Romania or Botswana.

After a traffic laden trek back from the Grand Bazaar, Yasar had us to the ship and then didn’t want to accept any payment for the ride…What? I had read that the Turks were very kind and friendly people but come on! Yasar was paid well and received my heartfelt thanks for his efforts and keeping his word.

We had originally intended to have an authentic dinner in Istanbul tonight, but everyone was ready to be out of the hustle and bustle and into the relative quiet of the ship. So, after dropping off our crates of baklava, Melauna and I met mom and Lyn in the Lido for a light dinner before bed. After saying our goodbyes for the, I enjoyed the rest of the evening reading out on the veranda to the sounds ships passing through the Bosporus Straits.

Day 5 –Athens, Greece

As morning arrived today, Melauna and I walked out onto the veranda to witness our arrival into the port of Piraeus, Greece. As the sun had not quite come up yet, we were speculating on which barely visible hill was the one that the Parthenon sat atop of. As it turned out, whichever one we finally decided upon was ultimately the wrong choice but still fun anyhow. After breakfast, we met up with Lyn to make our way off the ship to meet our guide from Athens By Taxi for our tour of this great city. Mom has been to Athens twice already and had early on opted to skip this tour deciding rather to spend the day relaxing on the ship.

We were able to leave the ship at about 7:45 and immediately found Dimitrius, our driver for the day waiting for us and ready to go. He got us settled into his yellow Mercedes taxi and off we went for a full-day tour. As mentioned, the port that the ship docks in is Piraeus which in practicality is just a coastal extension of Athens itself which is an enormously sprawling city of four million people. Athens is bound on the east, north and west by mountains, and the Aegean Sea to the south. As we drove away from Piraeus and into Athens proper, Dimitrius gave us a lot of interesting information on the port of Piraeus which is one of the busiest shipping ports in the world and in fact the primary revenue generator for the country, with tourism coming in second. Our first stop in Athens was the Acropolis. Dimitrius filled us in on important dates, events and people as they related to the Acropolis prior to dropping us off. The tourism department does not allow unlicensed tour guide to enter the Acropolis and we didn’t think that it was necessary to hire one prior to entering, so armed with the information Dimitrius had given us we proceeded to the gates of the ancient city center. We spent roughly and hour and a half wandering around the 4th century B.C. Propylaea, Parthenon, Temple of Athena Nike and Erechtheion. It is really amazing to be standing in front of these famous structures that we have seen so many times in books, TV and movies. There really is no comparison to being there and imagining all of those historic figures walking the same path that you are walking. Amazing! After making our way back down from the Acropolis, we found Dimitrius waiting for us. I will say here that Dimitrius could not have been better. He spoke very good English, was very knowledgeable about the history of all of the sights we were visiting and allowed us any amount of time we wanted at each and every stop. Never once did he try to hurry us along and was completely accommodating to every request that we had. I could not recommend highly enough.

After leaving the Acropolis, our next stop was the Temple of Zeus. Unlike the acropolis with its multitude of structures, the Temple of Zeus sat by itself save some surrounding ruins of Roman bath houses and ancient private homes. Afterward, we drove by the Modern Olympic Stadium built in 1863 and used for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 the up to Lycabettys hill which gave a commanding view of the sprawling Athens below. Afterward, we had timed it such that we could see the changing of the guards in front of the Parliament building. This is done on the hour, every hour but fortunately we arrived at about five minutes until 11:00 so didn’t have to wait long at all. After watching the formality of the guard change Melauna and I each had our picture taken with the stoic guard. By now, we were all ready for lunch, so Dimitirus drove us to the Agora and pointed out a restaurant that he recommended for an authentic Greek meal, Γυριστρθύλα, where we enjoyed Γυρος χοιρινός, Πτομάτες γεμιστές, a couple of Χωριάτικη as well as Φετα ψητή Π.Ο.Π. Everything was delicious and our waiter was fantastic. I don’t know about everyone else, but I was ready for a Greek nap after all of that. Instead, we made our way down the path to the Agora, passing some tables set up by local folks selling old Greek currency, antique watches and pendants, books, etc. We all found a little something here to pick up. In the Agora, we wandered the gravel pathway in and around the Stoa, the temple of Hephaestus, the Byzantine church and other various statues and ruins from this Roman era center. After finishing up at the Agora, we headed out to the Plaka, which was really just a series of narrow streets lined with souvenir type shops that if I were to do it all over, would skip over. On our way to our final stop of the day at the New Acropolis Museum, we stopped briefly at the Roman Agora and its most notable ruin, the Tower of the Winds. At the New Acropolis Museum which houses some of the most incredible pieces uncovered from the area, most notable were the five of six original Caryatids that supported the roof of the tomb of Kekrops, the mythical founder of the city. They were absolutely beautiful and the level of detail in the sculpting just incredible.

After meeting back up with Dimitrius, we headed back to the ship and said our goodbyes. All aboard was set for 4:30 and we stepped onto the ship right at that time. What a fantastic day and again, I cannot say enough of the wonderful job that Dimitrius did in showing us his magnificent city.

After back on board, there was a little time to sit out on the balcony and watch the ships departure from the port of Piraeus before heading to dinner that evening. We had our full compliment of four tonight for dinner and good food and conversation was had by all. After dinner, we all met up for the night’s entertainment, Richard Burr and Josette, Five Time Guinness World Record Holders and World renowned masters of Magic and Illusion. Another great show…I am now three for three in after dinner show enjoyment, a personal best for me!

After the show, Melauna decided to call it a night…wiped out from the day. I headed down to the casino to see if I could win back my catastrophic loss from the first trip down to the craps table…and what do you know…I am back in the black baby! It was a slow start with me the only player at the table for about the first hour, but it started to pick up around 10:00 and by 11:00 I was walking away ahead for the trip.

Another great day in the books and on our way to Istanbul. We are set to arrive in port at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow.

Day 4 –At Sea

Maybe one day I will tire of the omelets that are served in the Lido, but it hasn’t happened yet. Melauna slept in this morning, so I made my way to Explorations Café for my morning café mocha then up to the Lido for my usual. I did however add waffles to the mix this morning and they were equally as good. After breakfast, we met up with some folks from Cruise Critic in the Piano Lounge for a meet and greet planned by Cathy Brock. Congratulations to Cathy for putting together such a nice get together for so many people. There was a lot of good information that was shared as well as another opportunity for folks to team up with others that had planned shore excursions and still had room for more passengers on their tours.

We were fortunate enough to have another beautiful day outside and so we took advantage of that by having our lunch out by the pool. This area has several hot tubs dotted around the larger pool covered by a retractable glass roof allowing it to be closed during inclimate weather and opened otherwise. The lunch buffet sported a 10-yard long cheese spread that was incredible! All manner of cheeses, fruits, breads, etc. Who knows what all else was being served, I made a meal out of that. I’ll probably need a pair of calf pullers come tomorrow after the three pounds of cheese I put away, but I will deal with that then… I do know that they also had kung pao chicken, since that is what Melauna had. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable lunch out on the Lido Deck.

We attended Explore the Mediterranean talk that was given by Tour Guide Tom in the Showroom at Sea. I am sorry that we missed Part 1 of this talk given yesterday with a focus on Venice, Athens and Istanbul, but today’s talk on Mykonos, Santorini, Ephesus and Olympia was really well done. He gave a little background history on each port as well as some highlights from each area along with some good ideas on shopping and restaurants. Melauna left a little before the end of the talk to get properly gussied for High Tea in the Manhattan. I decided to meet her there and was able to make it through one and half cups before my man-meter ran into the red and I quickly found the exit. I looked around at the poor guys that I was leaving behind and shook my head. At some point you just have to save yourself. I went and found a sports bar showing a football game, drank a beer and did some push-ups. Feeling manly again, I headed back to the room for a nap in my underwear.

Tonight was our first of three formal nights and the dinner was outstanding again. This is beginning to sound like a broken record so this is the last time I will comment on how good the food has been. In our experience, the food is almost always been good on every cruise we have been on. Usually you will have one or two meals that were ho-hum, maybe even a bad one here and there, but thus far on this cruise, every dinner has been very good and two out of the three some of the best I have ever had…ok…enough of that. Anything regarding food from here on will only focus on bad, bordering on horrible. Mom and Lyn opted for the buffet tonight in hopes of finding something simple and less formal. Mom had come down with a bit of a sore throat this morning and so was trying to lay low most of the day letting it run its course. Here is hoping that will not linger! We opted to forgo the after dinner show titled Showtime: NYC starring the Nieuw Amsterdam Entertainers…nuff said. Thank you honey for taking pity on me. Instead, we decided to call it an early evening since we would be rising early for the 8:00 arrival into Athens.

Day 3 – Venice, Italy and At Sea

Our third day finds us still moored in Venice awaiting arrival of new printed circuit boards en route from Germany. Our captain has advised us that we will have the circuitry in hand, installed and ready to sail at 12:00 this afternoon. It is certainly a disappointment to have missed visiting Croatia, but what do you do? Venice is not such a bad place to be stranded if such an unfortunate occurrence is to beset our ship.

Melauna and I were up and about by 7:00 this morning. After another delicious breakfast in the Lido Restaurant, we set off to explore some parts of Venice that we may have missed yesterday. We decided to take a different route this morning and visit some of the more residential parts of the city. It was certainly a different look at the city with the locals going about their Sunday morning routines; grocery shopping, heading to church, hanging out the laundry for drying, etc. It was interesting to get off the beaten tourist path and see the “real” city. On one of the narrow roads, we found some tables that had been set up for selling items similar to a small flea market. We purchased some old postcards of Venice, some dating from the 40’s. Kind of a neat piece of nostalgia…I will have to find someone who can read Italian to tell me what the original sender of the postcard was saying to his/her recipient. With some time still left before needing to return to the ship, we made our way back towards St. Mark’s Square just to soak in a little more of the history of Venice. We have had a beautiful day so far for wandering around; clear skies and very comfortable temperatures.

After returning to the ship, I slipped out on to the veranda to soak up some of the Venetian sun and read while Melauna went up for lunch at the Lido. On the subject of the lunch buffet…maybe an hour or so after Melauna had returned from lunch, I accompanied mom and Lyn to the Lido for lunch to find the place absolutely jam packed. Every single passenger aboard the entire ship must have decided to have lunch…at the same place…all at once. Had I gone up there by myself and seen that horde of people, I would have quickly made my exit and found one of the other umpteen different venues offering meals on the ship without a second thought. Am I the only one with any common sense? What would possess people to subject themselves to that? Hunger, and here I am talking about the kind of hunger that presents itself a mere three hours after the last free meal, apparently releases some sort of chemical blocking agent that inhibits rational thought as well as common courtesy. Sheesh! Anyway…I found a table to hold for the three of us while mom and Lyn joined the herds at the feed trough. Fifteen minutes later, after they had arrived back with their lunch, I went back in to find the lines had diminished to reasonable lengths most of the crowd dispersed mitigating the displeasure of having a fellow passenger wedging herself between myself and another to yell “what is that?” to the friendly server behind the glass, or anybody else within earshot on Deck 9. A little common sense coupled with common decency folks…common sense and common decency…that’s all I saying.

The rest of the afternoon I enjoyed just relaxing out on the veranda with a book. The weather has been perfect today…and oh yeah…were sailing! We got underway around 1:00 or so. The mid to upper 70’s temperature and breeze blowing off the Mediterranean cannot be beat. While I was enjoying the veranda, Melauna had scheduled a spa treatment and so was being pampered, doted upon and generally soothed. This evening, the four of us enjoyed dinner at the Manhattan Dining Room and were treated to the singing of Happy Birthday in Filipino in honor of mom and Lyn’s birthdays. Dinner was wonderful as always and was begun with a complimentary glass of wine courtesy of the Captain as an amends for having to skip Croatia on the itinerary. This was a nice gesture I suppose…I mean, I understand that it was an unforeseen malfunction and probably could not have been anticipated or avoided but skipping one of the ports on a Mediterranean cruise is kind of a big deal in my book and to offer a complimentary glass of wine as compensation was…I don’t know…I suppose I would have been content with just an apology, which we obviously did receive from the Captain. I certainly didn’t expect any sort of monetary compensation as we did not have any excursions booked either through the ship or otherwise, so we were not out any money due to the malfunction. We were just out the opportunity to see a place that the likelihood is that we will never have a chance to see again, and part of the reason why we chose this particular cruise in the first place, so the free glass of wine kind of cheapened it for me I suppose. But, maybe that’s just me…

The after dinner entertainment was excellent again! Katzenjammer was a piano dynamic duo that was able to blend classical piano with comedy, which is no small feat. Both guys played side-by-side on the same grand piano simultaneously with hands and fingers just a blur. There was a video camera that was situated over the piano such that the audience had a close up of their hands as they played. One of the players had on white sleeves, the other black so that you could differentiate between the two…hard to explain, but a joy to watch. For anyone interested, search for the name Katzenjammer on YouTube and check it out for yourself. Melauna was able to get the guys to sign the DVD that they were selling to give to our nephew Gabe who is a fantastic pianist in his own right.

I probably should have called it a night after the show, but the craps table was calling and like the siren’s song, ended with me smashing my cash ship into the rocks. Mom, on the other hand faired really well at the casino, hitting a $237 payout on one of the slots. All’s well that end’s well. Another great day in the books.

Day 2 – Venice, Italy

Well it is about 3:00p and we have returned from an enjoyable day of exploring Venice. We set our alarm for 7:30 this morning to try and get adjusted to the time change and get back on track. After a quick shower, I headed for the Explorations Café for a cup of coffee and to register for internet service; a quick and easy process. After returning to the room, I tested out the wireless connection and found it to be somewhat slow but working nonetheless. Certainly well enough to post the Day 1 blog from last night, which I hope you enjoyed! Melauna and I made our way to the Lido deck for breakfast and found the lines to move quickly, the food excellent and the service very personable and pleasurable. We both agreed that the buffet breakfast was some of the best we had ever had. I had an omelet that could not have been any better. The orange juice is freshly squeezed and delicious!

After breakfast we decided to walk off some of those calories by exploring the ship. It’s always kind of fun getting “the lay of the land” on a ship that you have never been on. The appointments and decorations are very understated and tasteful. No Las Vegas glitz and glam here which is nice. We found several small tucked away lounges that we promised we would have to try out during the cruise. We finally found our way back to our stateroom and got ready to venture out into Venice. The weather this morning was overcast with the remnants of the storm that had moved through last night still lingering around. Throughout the day however; the clouds cleared up and all in all it was a beautiful day. We spent the afternoon just wandering aimlessly alongside the innumerable canals and crossing the equally numerous bridges stopping occasionally in little shops or to watch one of the many local artists painting portraits of the surroundings. We wandered around St. Marks Square along with several thousand other visitors and an equal number of pigeons. We wound our way along the Grand Canal to our furthest point at the Santa Maria Della Salute cathedral then began our trek back. We got a call from Lyn shortly after making the turn to retrace our steps to check in on us and to let us know that she and mom were now both up and rearing to go. Mom had slept until 11:30, not even woken up by the room service breakfast delivery that Lyn had ordered. We decided to meet along the Grand Canal closer to the ship and said that we would give them a call back once we got there. As we made our way back through St. Mark’s Square, the water had risen to the point that much of the square was ankle deep or more in water; forcing all of the many tourists to traverse narrow platforms to keep up out of the water. It was wall-to-wall people crowded onto these narrow footbridges making this far less enjoyable then our pass through earlier in the day, but we made it though unscathed but hungry! We found a nice restaurant alongside the Grand Canal, so gave Lyn and mom a call with our coordinates and waited for them after finding a table for four tucked away in a quite corner. Mom and Lyn had just recently had breakfast so it was just Melauna and I that got to enjoy our first authentic Venetian meal. I had grilled angler, Melauna had spaghetti and both were fantastic! We had a local Pinot Grigio that was equally as good. After lunch, Melauna was ready for a nap while Lyn and mom were ready to take on the day. We said our goodbyes at that point and made our way back to the ship, hopeful that our luggage had been delivered. Unfortunately, our hopes were dashed upon entering the room.

Next up on the order of the day was the standard muster drill and I was glad to learn that Holland America had followed suit with other cruiselines in eliminating the need to don the actual lifevest prior to walking to your designated lifeboat station and be given proper instruction in what to do if our lovely ship suddenly began sinking to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. After that little pep talk, Melauna and Lyn headed to the Guest Relations desk to inquire as to the status of the lost luggage while mom and I headed to the Lido Restaurant for a little snack. Upon arrival back to our staterooms, wonder of wonders, our long lost luggage had finally arrived! As we are rejoicing in the homecoming of our worldly possessions, our captain chimes in for an announcement in his polished Holland America captainspeak…”Uhh…ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking…blah, blah, blah…we have had a minor setback with out scheduled departure time of 5:00 due to a malfunction in some navigation electronics on the bridge…” Ok…now I know what you are thinking… “This guy is just making shit up now for some cheap laughs.” Not so! You can’t make this stuff up. I think I know what happened though…they swapped out the inoperative American Airlines navigation equipment with this ship’s navigation equipment, because really what are the odds that the two primary modes of transportation involved in this eastern Mediterranean adventure should suffer the same fate…the inability to navigate? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? REALLY??? So, off we went to dinner.

Mom and Lyn opted for room service so Melauna and I had dinner for two in the main dining room. We met our waiter that will be taking care of us for the duration of the cruise, Ulysses. What a great guy! Very personable, funny and attentive all without being intrusive. Dinner itself could not have been better. We both thoroughly enjoyed every course as well as the chenin blanc that it had been paired with. We both agreed that the food, although we had only sampled a day and a half’s worth of it, was the best of any of the now eleven cruises that we have been on. After dinner, we met back up with mom and Lyn to head off to the evening’s entertainment: Cantare. I am not sure what musical category you would place this four-man singing tour d’force, but they were fantastic. I am not typically big on the ship’s after dinner shows, not that I don’t recognize talent and appreciate the effort, it is just not really my thing unless it is a comedian, a juggler, a dwarf contortionist or some other low-brow form of entertainment, but these guys were good!

Oh yeah…it was during the introduction of Cantare that the cruise director snuck in the little factoid that the decision had been made that we will stay in port overnight in Venice, skip tomorrow’s port in Croatia, and spend the next two days at sea sailing for Athens. “Now…who’s ready for Cantare?”
Oh well, at least we didn’t have to wear the stupid lifevests during the muster drill.

Day 1 – Embarkation in Venice, Italy

The short story…we made it to Venice, and are comfortably settled into our spacious Superior Veranda Suite; stateroom number 6113 aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam.

The long story…I will attempt to limit the profanity that may be necessary to retell the tale that leads up to the comfortable settling in to our room aboard the ship; however I am not making any promises. So…where to begin? I suppose the beginning is as good a place to start as any. Melauna and I left OKC around 11:15 to drive down to Dallas DFW airport to meet up with Mom and Lyn to catch our 5:40 flight to Madrid. We were successful in making our Rendevouz point in Grapevine and caravanning to the airport with plenty of time to spare prior to our 5:00 boarding time. So, 5:00 comes and goes without any announcement of boarding our flight, then 5:15…5:30…when finally the departure time magically changes to 6:00 which is then updated to 6:20. We finally boarded the plane at 6:30 for our now newly updated departure time of 6:40. A quick note on the boarding procedure…chaos. Our seats were on rows 22 and 23, by the time that we actually found any place to stow our carry on luggage, it was scattered in bits and pieces from row 8 through 30 and if you have ever tried to swim upstream on a fully booked Boeing 767 you know the frustration. But finally, all our bags are stowed to the satisfaction of the FAA and we are nestled into our two square feet of real estate that we will enjoy for the next nine hours and fifteen minutes…that is until the captain comes over the intercom system to inform us, in his polished American Airlines captainspeak…”uhh ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking…blah, blah, blah….both navigation systems appear to be inoperable making it difficult to steer across the Atlantic and arrive safely in Spain…so grab your shit that you just spent the last 30 minutes trying to cram in any available space aboard this no navigating, overbooked tin tube and get the hell out!” I don’t recall if those were his exact words, but I think that is close. So back off the plane we go and are herded back to the pre-flight corral, blissfully mooing as we go. From my bay in the pre-flight corral, I see that our new scheduled departure time is set for 8:30. Yep, you guessed it…8:30 comes and goes and we are still sitting amongst our hay and poo. At 9:00 we try this whole flying thing again, this time with a different plane. At 9:40, a mere four hours from our scheduled departure time, we go wheels up. By the way, I should mention that immediately following our captain’s navigation bombshell, Melauna grabbed her iPhone thingy and changed our connecting flight in Madrid to a later time…some quick thinking that saved us a lot of standing in line time as well as the possibility of having that flight booked up.

After finally getting in the air, the flight to Madrid goes according to plan with no further delays, arriving at about 2:00, giving us plenty of time to catch our 4:10 flight to Venice. So we make our way to our departure gate, which apparently was planned to be the furthest possible point from our arrival gate. That was handy. We make it to the gate to be told that we needed to go to the Iberia Check In desk to obtain our boarding passes. Where is the Iberia Check-In desk you ask? Well, it is technically still in Madrid, but just. So we make the trek back across the airport and receive our boarding passes so that we can head all the way back to the departure gate. By the time that we finally make it to the departure gate, the plenty of time that we had had dwindled down to scant seconds before missing the flight. But alas, we did make the flight and arrived in Venice at 6:30.

Finally, we had made it. Just a quick walk down to retrieve our checked luggage and we were off to the Nieuw Amsterdam to begin our adventure. After checking the monitors, we find that our luggage is to be spit out of whirly thing number 5. Where is whirly thing number 5? Oh, it’s the last one at the faarrrttthest point from where you are standing…can you see it?…way down there? We make it to the #5 whirly and stand around waiting for our luggage to be ejected…and we waited…and we waited. I checked the monitors again to ensure that there wasn’t a mistake in my whirly selection to see the notice that all luggage associated with Iberia flight 3306 from Madrid has been properly ejected. What the hell? Surely not. But yet, surely so. Yes, they had lost all of our checked baggage. So, Melauna and I go to speak with the Italian authorities regarding our misplaced worldly possessions. After waiting in line for 45 minutes due to all of the other fellow bovine that had just had their worlds rocked, we were able to speak with a friendly Iberian associate about reclaiming our, oh I don’t know…CLOTHES AND STUFF FOR THAT WE THOUGHT WE MIGHT WEAR FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS…Fortunately we were told that they knew exactly where the luggage was and would be able to deliver it to the ship in the morning before we sailed. Since everything else having to do with the airlines had so flawlessly been executed, I have little worry that our luggage will arrive just when they told us.

Prior to departing on this adventure, we had procured the services of Venice Limo to escort us from the airport to the cruise ship. And so, after signing all of the requisite paperwork for our lost luggage, we exited Marco Polo International Airport and lo and behold our driver is there holding a sign with my name beautifully stenciled on heavy stock Old World cloth parchment that Venice is so famously known for….Oh wait…I’m sorry, that was what I was expecting. The lack of sleep over the past 36 hours is beginning to blur the lines between desire and reality…no, he was there, which I suppose is a small miracle in light of the everything else that had or had not happened, and he did indeed have a sign with my name on it that appeared to have been written on a sheet of notebook paper with a Mark-A-Lot held between his toes. Whatever, just get us to the frigging ship already. So, it is quickly apparent that he is as conversant in English as I am in Italian. After Buongiorno, our conversation had run its course. This hacked me off somewhat because the Venice Limo website specifically stated that all of its drivers were fluent in English. I suppose fluent is a subjective term. Anyway, after a 15 minute drive we have our ship in sight. We pull up to the embarkation terminal and begin to unload our carry-on luggage. “Finally” I sigh quietly to myself…”We made it”. A smile begins to form across my beard stubbled face. It is 8:00 p.m. on the nose, and interestingly enough, the embarkation terminal closes at 8:00 p.m. So as we were unloading our bags, those sneaky Italian embarkation bastards were closing up shop. We get everything unloaded, turn around and…what the hell? Are you kidding? Nope. Closed. So now, the whole language barrier starts to come into play. Our driver goes and talks with someone, comes back and shrugs his shoulders. That I understand, shoulder shrugging is a gesture that knows no borders. In fact if a Martian had landed at the Venician Port Authority at that moment and shrugged his shoulders, I would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he didn’t have a clue what the hell was going on. So, I shrug my shoulders back at the driver and he begins talking to me in Italian. In reply, I tell him “No comprende”. He groans, looks around and decides on a different tack. He tries speaking to me in Italian…oh wait, he just tried that. I reply with “No comprendo” this time, thinking “No comprede” may have in fact been Spanish and “No comprendo” would clear everything up. In response I got another groan, which I take as a victory, since I was able to convey in a language other than my own to this guy what my thoughts were…”I don’t understand”, while he had failed miserably in conveying anything to me other than a should shrug, which, as we have established, even a creature from outerspace could comprehend. So, as a last ditch effort, he tries speaking in Italian again. Maybe bolstered by my flawless “no comprendo”. This time, I tried “I….DONT…..SPEAK…..ITALIAN!” That seemed to work. He walked off. It at least worked in the sense that he didn’t try any Italian on me again. Finally I see him waiving in the common “come here!” motion. Got it! Gestures work so much better than words. A gesture is really hard to screw up. We finally are handed off to some folks that speak a little English and begin our “backdoor” check in to the ship that at this point I am really beginning to wonder if we will ever board.

Another 45 minutes and we are checked in, loaded into the Holland America network, had our pictures taken (I’ll admit that I have looked better at this point), given key cards for our rooms and are sent off with a smile. We make it to our staterooms at straight up 9:00 in dire need of sleep and sustenance. We opted for the main dining room and I will apologize to all for my presence in the splendid Manhattan Dining Room looking like roadkill in shorts. Really, I am sorry. I am one of those that would have leered down my nose had I seen myself walking in there looking like that. Hopefully you understand. Dani, our waiter was superb, as were all of our meals. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed all of the courses that were offered. After dinner, and hugs and kisses to Mom and Lyn, we made our way back to our rooms to sleep off what had been quite an eventful day and a half.

So, now here it is 1:00 a.m., or as we say in Oklahoma, 6:00 in the afternoon, wide awake but comfortably snuggled into our room aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam.

So far so good…