Last two days in Europe

Tonight we are back in Helsinki, Finland. We are on top of the world here! Well, almost. When’s the last time you looked at a map? Here in Finland we are practically neighbors with Santa. Oh and Santa, if you have just sat down with your pipe, your large plate of pancakes that Mrs. Claus always fixes for you and your laptop to enjoy our blog, well….I might recommend you do something different with your time. Maybe go buy some nicotine gum or eat a nice green salad? I just think you might fashion Mike’s stocking with coal is you continue reading. If you insist on continuing anyway, let me just mention that Max, Madison and I did not even try a bite of the sautéed reindeer. Yes, you read this correctly, tonight at dinner Mike indulged in a local Finnish food-sautéed reindeer. And he thoroughly enjoyed it. Wonh woh.

This will be our last blog from this trip. Madison has suggested we do the round-robin format we have done in the past bringing you through our last two days in Europe-yesterday in Barcelona and today in Helsinki. So here we go…

Madison: By the time I woke up yesterday our ship had docked in Barcelona-our final destination. We said our good-byes to the ship and headed on our way. When we got to the taxi stop, let me tell you there was a line! We had to wait about a half an hour just to get a taxi. We finally got on the taxi and arrived at our hotel. We couldn’t check in yet, but we locked up our bags, headed up the block and began our day in Barcelona with… Starbucks.

Aimee: Yes, Starbucks. Hang our heads in shame. We also went to McDonalds later in the day, but just to use the bathroom. Oh and now that I think of it we went to another Starbucks again-just another bathroom stop that time. We knew that our energy was low after 12 days of touring and cruising. We wanted to see Barcelona, but didn’t have that same traveler’s oomph that we started with so we decided on taking a tour bus around town. It was one of those “Hop on Hop off” buses that you see in every major city. It did the trick. We saw amazing places like the church of the Sagrada Familia designed by Gaudi, the former Olympic stadium, the old gothic quarter (where our hotel is), La Rambla (which we walked later) the waterfront, many beautiful churches etc. etc.

Mike: We toured a church called Santa Maria del Mar. I liked that the church was a hidden gem and we got this great tour. We even got to go out on the roof. We stood at the very top and had view of all of Barcelona.

Max: We went to a cathedral that was very funky. It looked cool and it was cool. For example, it had a lot of turns and a lot of things coming out of it. It is very, very hard to describe. At one part there were a bunch of spike type things and they had fruit on top. People have been working on it for around 130 years and it still isn’t finished. They only run on money donations.

Madison: Now to dinner. We were looking for some places to eat and couldn’t find anything because most things were seafood and dad is really the only seafood fan in our family. We decided to just look around and find a place we would like. We ended up at a restaurant called Bernie’s Diner-yes, you may realize that’s in English. This is because it is an American restaurant with hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, chicken fingers, etc. Sure we may not have eaten someplace traditional, but the food was really good. After dinner we headed to a place we had been eyeing for dessert. We got a little lost on the way, (editor’s note: that’s a matter of opinion), but when we looked at the hot chocolate we knew it was worth it.

Aimee: Have you ever made chocolate pudding on the stovetop? Maybe you stuck a spoon in for one little taste as it was cooking? Well that’s what this hot chocolate was like. It was hot, thick, and beyone delicious. What a luxury. It comes with churros, but that put me over the edge. The churros were unnecessary in my opinion, but Max and Maddee might disagree.

After a day and night in Barcelona we flew to Helsinki. We stayed overnight at this great hotel called the Glo Art. We highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in Helsinki.

Max: It is my favorite hotel that we have ever been to. We have two rooms put together one room for the kids and one room for the adults. The kids room has sixteen lights and the adult’s room has 12 lights. They are both very big for hotel rooms. The kids’ room has two separate beds, twin sized and the adult’s room has a queen size bed. They both have TVs with mirror entertainment centers where the TVS sit upon. The kids’ bathroom is very large. The adults’ bathroom has two parts – a bathroom, bathroom and a door leading into a shower. I’m probably boring you guys with facts, let’s hope Madison doesn’t…

Madison: When we first checked in to our hotel the lobby looked like a cathedral with pretty painting on the ceilings and old arches. When we got to our room, however, I was very surprised. Almost opposite to the cathedral idea were two very modern rooms, right in front of my eyes. There are mirrors surrounding the TVS, adjustable lights, lights under the beds, so many cool features. The only problem is that you have to insert your room card to have the electricity work. So if someone has to go to the bathroom and the other person wants to explore there’s a problem.

We are really glad we got to spend eight hours exploring Helsinki on the front end of our trip, because this time, even though we have more hours here, we are pooped and it is rainy. So we have taken the opportunity to lay low.

It’s now 11:15 am on August 1^st and we need to make our way back to the airport where we will board a plane to NYC followed by another plane to Seattle. We will fly for over 15 hours not counting our layover time. We will still somehow manage to land in Seattle on August 1^st though our internal clocks will say that it’s already the 2^nd. All of this in trivial as long as we have  safe and (fingers crossed) smooth flights.

Thanks for experiencing our travels with us. We will get pictures up at some point hopefully soon.

It's a Small World After All or The First Blog Mike stayed Awake to Hear

It’s our last night on the ship (sad). We are all packed and ready to go. We will leave the ship at 8:45 in the morning and head back into Barcelona. I can’t believe how quickly the trip went. It was so interesting and very fun. The cruise was so smooth, too. Today is really the only day I have felt motion. Everyone has commented on how smooth it has been and how lucky we are.

We have met some great people from all around the world. Our dinner companions were from Germany and Ottawa (Canada). Our stateroom attendant is from Indonesia. Our waiters (we have the same two waiters every evening at dinner) are from India and Peru. We have heard several languages spoken and have had some interesting conversations through good old fashioned body language.

Today when the ship was really rocking a Spanish speaking woman standing near me started to talk to me about the choppy seas. It was quickly obvious to her that I had no ability to comprehend, so she stared to act it out. I responded in kind and there we were having a full blown conversation without the assistance of words.

This was of course one of many times that I found myself trying (and sometimes succeeding) to communicate with people whose language I didn’t speak. When we were in Florence I met a Spanish speaking lady in the bathroom line. This seems to be a universal place to make friends. Men just don’t seem to understand this bonding, probably because they don’t have to wait in such a long line. In the U.S. once we have spent more than fifteen minutes in line there is always someone who will suggest the rebellious idea of using the men’s room. For some reason we all act like 1. We have never heard the suggestion before and 2. We think it is a fabulous idea. This was no different in Florence Italy as I stood in a very long, slow line. I was finally at the front of the line and the Men’s room was empty. The Spanish speaking lady started pointing, gently pushing and saying to me “hombre, hombre.” So off to the men’s room I went. Later that day I saw the woman again. I said “Hola,” and she had this flicker of recognition like she knew me from somewhere, but…so she started a long conversation with me in Spanish. I replied like every educated person in my position with a couple of grunts, a few “si, si”s a shoulder shrug and a nervous giggle. Works every time.

When we were in Rome Mike was getting directions from a woman who was speaking fairly understandable English. I was confused though when during the discussion of the best way to get to the Spanish Steps she suddenly asked, “What’s the country of London?” I was about to say “England?” when Mike said “short.” And she said “Oh, yes, yes, short!” I was totally confused. When she was out of earshot I asked Mike about it, she hadn’t asked about London. She asked “What is the contrary of long?” She was trying to tell us the shortest route to get there.

I am totally envious of people who are able to speak more than one language. The fact that so many people in Europe speak English as a second language has made our travels fairly easy. Still, I am inspired to learn a language before our next adventure (yes I am already hoping to plan another trip, though it will be a while before we can afford something like this again). Our ship is an English speaking ship, so the entire crew speaks English. People from every nook and cranny of the world work on this ship and each and every one of them speaks English. Additionally many, many of the crew speak Spanish as well. It’s fun to listen to the announcements and try to pick out words here and there.

We have been busy touring the ports and playing around. We haven’t made a ton of friends, but we have had some great conversations with great people. We have bumped into our dinner table companions several times. We even saw them in Venice, they happened by a restaurant where we were dining al fresco. Madison and Max played in the pool today with Ainsley, one of the girls from that family. We exchanged addresses with our other dinner companions, Klaus and Anja from Germany. They hope to do a Pacific Northwest vacation some time and we hope they will look us up if they do!

One of my favorite people onboard is our stateroom attendant, Inyomen from Indonesia. He is always so happy and jolly. He misses his wife and daughter, but even through his homesickness he is always cheery with us. Our waiter Kumar will be heading home to India after this trip. He has a newborn daughter who he will be meeting for the first time. He has been at sea for seven months and she was born two weeks ago. Our assistant waiter Raul is from Peru. He was another cheery, happy person who just loved to chat with us once the dinner plates were cleared and he had some downtime.

It’s been fun meeting people from all over the world and seeing firsthand that there’s more we have in common than not. As they say in Disney, it’s a small world after all.

 

Dubrovnik, Croatia

We are a day behind in our blogs. Yipes! Forgive us! Yesterday we were in Dubrovnik, Croatia. You would think with all the history and beauty of France and Italy, Croatia would be anticlimactic, but wow, what a beautiful place. The city itself is quite lovely. It is another Mediterranean place where the mountains meet the sea. The coastline is gorgeous with blue, blue water and pretty houses. Dubrovnik is actually a city inside a city. The old town is intact. It is a walled city that was built toward the end of the 13^th century. The modern part of Dubrovnik is also quite pretty. The houses are similar looking with white sides and  red ceramic roofs.. The modern city is built into the hillside.

We started our day with a guided tour outside of the city walls. In fact it was a guided tour that included a cable car ride. The cable car was able to hold 30 people and took us up to the highest peak in Dubrovnik. From the top we could actually see three countries at once. We could see the mountains of Croatia, the mountains of Montenegro and very close by we could see Bosnia as well. We also could see places where the city was shelled in the early 90s during the war in that area.

After our cable car tour we walked down into the old city. We crossed over a real drawbridge, which used to be pulled up every night long ago and through large doors that used to be locked to keep the city safe.

It was really a great day. Mike ordered fried fish based on a recommendation from our waiter. I think he expected something breaded and deep fried. Instead he got all these little teeny, tiny fish that still had their little teeny tiny eyes and fins and scales and brains etc, etc. It looked like someone just took a scoop to their home fish tank, fried it all up and called it a meal. All those teeny tiny eyes were glaring at Mike from his plate. Mike is a trooper and an adventurous eater. When we asked him if he liked it he said “yes!” Asked if he would order again, he gave a clear “no!”.

We did more than just eat in Dubrovnik. We wandered around and took in as many sights as possible. The city had been hit by many earthquakes over the years. The worst one was in the 1700s, so while the wall was still intact and some buildings were as well, much of the city had been rebuilt in the 1700s giving it a more “modern” feeling. It cracks us up to say that architecture from the 1700s and 1800s is “modern,” given that we are Americans, but here in Europe that really is modern.

When we were in Italy, I always remembered to carry a sweater and leggings so that I could cover bare shoulders and legs when in the churches. However, we never actually made it inside any Italian churches, though we admired the outside of several. In Croatia, however, we wandered into a nice church and were admiring the different frescos and statues when someone came over to me and told me to cover my shoulders. I did not have anything with me, so we had to leave the church. Kicked out of church. Awesome.

Dubrovnik was just so beautiful though, I feel like I am not doing it justice. Once I get home I will link my photos to this blog. Dubrovnik has a smaller version of the Spanish Steps. I can’t wait to compare pictures from Rome to see how similar they are. Max and Madison, the animal lovers that they are, managed to make friends with a few stray cats. There were several lounging around and though they were trying to snooze, they never balked at a belly rub.

Croatia is also the only place we visited that isn’t using the Euro as currency. We got some kunas to spend. It was a challenge trying to convert in our heads kunas to US dollars. One kuna is worth about $5.50 and a little over $7.50 euros. Math, math, math!

Well, my computer battery is about to run out. We were at sea today and will be again tomorrow. I will combine those two days into tomorrow’s blog. See you then!

A Tale of Two Beach Days -or rather- Two Tales of One Beach Day

Tonight we write to you from the deck of our stateroom. Max and I will be authoring this particular blog. Mike and Madison have fizzled out, but in their defense they didn’t catch a mid afternoon nap, like we did. The moon is extra beautiful tonight. It’s huge, though not full. It has a beautiful orange hue and it’s reflecting on the sea. It’s so peaceful. Perfect writing environment.

Today we were in Ravenna on the East Coast of Italy. We spent the day at the beach enjoying the warm Adriatic sea. The sand was too hot, it got all over us and it hurt to wipe it off. (apparently Max is taking the glass half empty approach to this blog, I’ll go with the glass half full. See if you can figure out who is talking and when). I got sea water in my mouth, it tasted terrible, it got in my nose and it was hard to breathe. I had to spit it all out.

When we got to the beach we were given four lounge chairs under two beach umbrellas. We had access to kayaks and paddleboats. We had four free drinks with options of soda, water, wine or beer and we had a huge bag of sand toys to use as well. We took out a paddle boat and played in the water for hours.

The sea water was sometimes painful. It got in my ear and I had to sit in the boat for a long time. It was no fun. The sea water also stung when it got in my eyes. The sand, as I already mentioned, made me feel like I was walking on fire.

Mike, Maddee and Max would jump, cannonball etc etc from the deck of the paddle boat (it had a flat bow different from paddle boats I had seen before) and would splash around having a lot of fun. I wasn’t as brave, but did get in pretty deep water (for me) and tried to practice some swim moves. Note: for those of you who don’t know, I can’t swim (yet).

The places you could stand under water had seashells and the seashells can hurt your feet. I kept on falling in the water because it would suddenly get deeper. After you got out of the water you would get sand all over your feet. The sand was hot at first, but then it cooled off. We went into the beach store-a li’l shop-and we tracked mud all over their floor.

We had lunch at a pizzeria on the beach. Mike said it was possibly the best meal he had in Italy. He got a pizza with bufala mozzarella, tartufu, mushrooms and sausage. I think highly of Mike, but I know he’s not a god, though he managed to turn water to wine at lunch. Sure it was his lack of understanding the Italian language, but still. He (thought he) ordered water and we were brought a pitcher of white wine. Yum.

Whenever we sat down we would get sand all over ourselves. Even if we just touched the sand we would have sand on ourselves. And it would be annoying. And we would have to brush sand off of ourselves. And it would hurt. We nearly burnt our feet in the sand. My mom stepped on a rusty nail. I got two mosquito bites-one is big and annoying and one just really was hurting.

After lunch we got the paddleboat back out and continued to play. Everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves. I floated around in an orange life ring while Mike and the kids continued to jump and swim. We also had some fun in the sand, building moats and digging holes. Max made up a cool game that involved a good deal of splashing. Mike won every round.

I made up a game that’s boring like all my other games. It got destroyed from the tide. It was really hard to make. The black sand smelled terrible. I started smelling like the black sand. There were cigarettes everywhere.My heel was really hurting from yesterday when I slammed it against a wall. Overall we had a great time!

This was probably one of our most fun family beach outings. What a great way to spend our last day in Italy. We will all sleep well tonight. Tomorrow we will be in Croatia.

 

Day two in Venice

Today was our second day in Venice. (yay!). We actually started our day with a shore excursion to two islands outside of Venice called Murano and Burano. Murano is very famous for their glass and Burano is famous for their lace making. We went to a glass making studio and watched the master create a beautiful drinking glass. The oven was over 1,000°c. We watched him blow the glass and shape it as well. All Murano glass is blown and handmade. The glass masters are all men, I’m not sure why.  Madison thinks that it might be because they want to stick to the old traditions. Max reminds me that very few people wanted to have that job. In the olden days glassblowers were not allowed to leave Venice-ever and were also supposed to commit their male children to becoming glassblowers as well.   After the presentation we were all invited to the showroom to look at the unique pieces and to possibly pick up a souvenir for as the glass master said, “The lady who is watering your plants and taking care of your pussycat (poo-see-cut).” Well this showroom had beautiful, unique pieces. Most of them cost more than my car, a few cost more than my house. I fluctuated from being in absolute awe to being in a complete state of terror. I kept thinking of my lack of grace. I was so worried that I might knock something over. There goes sending the kids to college, or well, eating dinner ever again. I'd probably have to commit my own male child to working in the glass factory for the rest of his life to pay my debts. Speaking of my male child, Max was wearing his camera case around his neck and I watched it swing back and forth like a pendulum. I just noticed I am still holding my breath while typing this. Sigh of relief…we didn’t break anything and we found some affordable souvenirs, too.

Next we traveled to Burano. It’s such a quaint island with very colorfully painted houses. I was relieved to go there knowing I wouldn’t be tempted to buy something lacy. Ha! Wrong! I fell in love with a tablecloth and hey, we need something for fancy occasions at the Allen house. Yes, even the Allens can get fancy sometimes. And it is important to note that we had some gelato in Burano and some delicious cookies called Buranei.

Traveling to and from the islands, the tour guides gave us a lot of information about the beautiful city of Venice. I really appreciate the history we get from our tour guides as I have stumbled into this trip a little more ignorant than I originally intended. After the tour of the islands we returned to the ship to put away our goodies and head back into Venice.

Ah, I love Venice so much. We just wandered around, stopped at little shops, fruit stands, and did a lot of walking. It was so peaceful in the area we hung out in today. We took a gondola ride as well. We just couldn’t have come all the way to Venice and then thumb our noses at the gondoliers and their outrageous prices.  Our gondolier was named Tomaso (Tommy) and he took us on some side canals and a little stint on the grand canal as well.

We ended our Venice visit with dinner at a modest restaurant in a little alley. It was, of course, delicious. When we got back to the ship Madison and Max spent some time in the kids’ club. Madison entered and won the hoola hooping contest. She got a gold medal-yay Maddee. Meanwhile, Mike and I enjoyed a beverage and headed to the bow of the ship to see the sights as we exited Venice.

We finished up the evening with a swim and some time in the hot tub. We have our last day in Italy tomorrow (sad). We are going to Ravenna and spending the day at the beach. Time to dip our toes in the Adriatic Sea!

 

Venezia day uno

Greetings from beautiful Venice! Before I begin this blog I must warn a few special people in my life (Mom & Nana) that you may not like parts of this blog. There will be pigeons and there will be thunderstorms…Read on if you dare.

We slowly cruised into Venice this afternoon. There were many, many people gathered on the pool deck (including us) to take in the sights as we gradually pulled into port. You can imagine this enormous ship sailing through Venice. There were people gathered on the sidewalks pointing to us and waving as we chugged past. I finally got that Love Boat reception I keep referring to. Thank you Venice.

We passed Saint Mark’s Square which was so beautiful. We peeked into little canals and caught glimpses of huge pleasure yachts and tons of other water transportation. It took us almost an hour to get to the dock because we had to proceed very slowly. We even had a tug boat pulling us in.

Once we docked we got off the ship and got to exploring. We took a monorail from the port into the downtown area. Grabbed a map and a vaporatto (water bus) pass and we were good to go. In fact we were so on top of things this time; we helped another English speaking  family figure out the system. Well we hope that we were helpful. They are also on our ship and could hunt us down if we misguided them. Good thing Mike gave them a fake room number when they asked. 

Venice has so many foot bridges-416 to be exact. We walked across a foot bridge and down a little walkway and found ourselves on the Grand Canal. There were boats everywhere-water taxis, water police, water ambulance, water buses and of course gondolas. Mike said it looked like New York City but with boats instead of cars. It was such a cool first impression.

We walked along the Grand Canal for a bit and then got brave. We started taking right turns and walking down little side streets, over bridges and so on. It was quite an adventure. If you have been following our blog every day this is the part when I tell you we got some gelato (which we did) and it was delicious (which it was). Next is the part where we walk some more and then stop at a restaurant to eat. Pizza, pasta and lasagna were enjoyed. Wine and lemon sodas were also enjoyed.

From there we easily found the vaporatto ( well, easily might be a strong word, there were a few extra twists and turns down alley ways, over more bridges and past more little churches) and headed to St. Mark’s Square. St. Mark’s basilica is incredibly beautiful. It was past 5:00 when we arrived there, so it was already closed to tourists, but the outside was really impressive. We wandered around, oohed and ahhed, and then headed into a coffee bar where Mike enjoyed an espresso. Around this time it started pouring and the sky let out a few loud rumbles. We were indoors, once again our streak for just missing storms was intact (well for a few more paragraphs anyway).

Let me take a moment to say that while this trip is so awesome and so much fun, there have been some annoying moments. One of them happened today when a man approached Maddee and gave her a rose. She accepted and thanked him. He started walking next to her and then said to me that I had to give him some coins for the rose. I handed the rose back and said we had no money. He proceeded to say some unhappy words in a language unknown to me and walked away. Scowl! In all the cities we have been to there have been people trying to peddle things, but this guy might have taken the cake. Actually, I am sure he would have taken the cake if I was holding one. Grr!!

When the rain stopped we headed back into the open and noticed a few children with pigeons perched on their hands. The pigeons were eating kernels right out of the children’s palms and parents were snapping photos left and right. There were pigeons everywhere and many of them looked pretty downtrodden after being soaked by the storm. Of course, I think pigeons are cute (I am especially fond of the way they have perfected the head bop), but perhaps they could be considered slightly dirty little animals. I was pretty shocked to see people were allowing them to eat out of the palms of their children’s  hands. But a couple of eye lid bats from Madison and the green light from that little voice that says “Just let them do it, everyone else is doing it,” and the next thing you know my kids have bird food in their hands. There were pigeons flying up to them, landing on them and enjoying a meal. Poor Max got pooped on, but don’t worry, we have it on video, so it was worth it. We have already watched the video at least ten times. It’s really funny.

We couldn’t find a bathroom for Max to wash his hands. Just so you know, it is likely that at a later date I will do a blog on public restrooms in Europe. For now just know that they’re few and far between and the use of them will cost you about a Euro. Now if you sit down somewhere for let’s say a drink or a bite to eat, you can go ahead and use the restaurant’s bathroom. And so we just had to sit down and fill our bellies a little more, for Max’s sake of course. Mike got a latte, Madee got a milkshake, I had a delicious bellini and Max got the opportunity to wash bird poop off his hands-a win for everyone!

As we were enjoying our beverages al fresco, we looked at a stunning thunderhead forming right above the canal. The sky was lighting up with all sorts of electricity. It was a beautiful storm that may have been better enjoyed from the indoors, but it was distant enough and passed quickly. However we did take a cue from Mother Nature that maybe we had pushed our luck with the weather. So we started to make our way back to the ship. We didn’t have time for a gondola ride, I am disappointed, but we might try to squeeze one in tomorrow.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret-when we got back to the ship we went upstairs and had another snack. They say the average person gains two pounds a day on a cruise. I hope I’m not an average person. I might have to bust out some old maternity pants or some XXL sweats when these 12 days are over. I can hear my scale laughing at me from the other side of the world. But, who cares! We are on vacation!

 

 

 

A Day At Sea

Another day, another blog post. Today is Tuesday. I know this because there’s a nifty little panel in the elevators that gets changed on a daily basis. So when you board the elevator in your idyllic vacation stupor you can look down and say, “Oh, wow, it’s Tuesday. Fascinating.” And then you can go on with your blissful fantasy world. Today we spent the day at sea. The pace was definitely slower than our other days so far, but we were still fairly busy. We went to lectures, cake demonstrations, played family Bingo, visited the dining room several times (some of us more than others), wandered around, explored, etc. etc.

At two o’clock we headed to the pool to watch the International Men’s Belly Flop competition. We were originally hoping that Max or Mike would compete, but it was for adults only. (What am I insinuating about Mike, you might ask. Oh nothing, absolutely nothing). The belly flop contest was just as ridiculous as it sounds. There were six competitors in various sizes. There was one guy in the 100-150 pound category, two in the 150-200 pound category, one in the 200-250 category, and one guy weighing in at 275. Okay that makes five guys, but some of us here contributing to the blog are convinced there were six. All of the competitors volunteered except for one, who was pulled out of the audience on account of his big belly. This of course made me a little uncomfortable, but the guy was out there without a shirt on, so maybe he wasn’t uncomfortable with his size. Anyway, he was a good sport.

The guys who wanted to be part of the competition were hamming it up when it was their turn. The DJ played a different song for each guy. They all had signature dance moves , the guys from Spain looked like they had plenty of clubbing experience, the dude from Serbia, well, he had a few 80s moves, our larger friend (the one who didn’t volunteer gave a few fist pumps), and the guy from The Canary Islands was the biggest ham of all. This fellow took his first dive wearing a ball cap and had two straws hanging out of his mouth. He was nicknamed the Walrus. On his second round he took his swim trunks off to reveal a teeny-tiny speedo. He then wore his swim trunks on his head.  The mental image is unfortunately burned into my brain, possibly forever.

 So we, the audience, would count down from three and then yell “FLOP”. And so it went.  The goal in the first round was for the biggest splash. In the second round the goal was both a big splash and a red belly. There were only two rounds total. There were some decent splashes and I am guessing some red bellies, it was hard to see for sure. To score the flops, we would hold up fingers 1-5. The cruise director and his assistant would then make up some random score supposedly based on the audience’s opinion. In the end the speedo wearing Walrus won. So yes, I just spent 400 words describing a Belly Flopping contest. It’s called vacation people. Don’t judge me.

We did a lot of stair racing today. It’s a little friendly competition that the kids came up with on the first day. So if Mike and/or I were going to take the elevator the kids would take the stairs and see who got there first. This game evolved into no one taking the elevator, which is fine by me, and everyone racing to see who got to the destination first. This is not so bad on the downstairs occasions, but the upstairs is a little painful. Today we did A LOT of stair racing.  I know some of you already know this about me, but many of you don’t, so here it is…when I race or play tag, I get the giggles, I have no idea why. I’m not a sprinter any way and so I am not counting on winning such things-ever-but to make matters worse I am slowed down by my uncontrollable burst of giggles. Tee-hee-hee. My children are very generous, as you know, so they have taken to given me head starts. As in “Mom, go ahead down to floor nine and start from there; we’ll start here at floor ten [and still beat you].” This leaves me by myself, a grown woman, running down a stair case, laughing to myself as I go. I try not to make eye contact with the other passengers hoping they won’t recognize me later. “Hey, aren’t you crazy stair lady?” “Me, oh no, you must be mistaken. I always use the elevator. By the way it’s Tuesday. Isn’t that fascinating?”

Tonight was formal dress for dinner on the ship. We got all gussied up. Mike even rented a tux. Mike and Madison got an opportunity to meet the Captain. Max and I weren’t able to, but there’s still plenty of trip left. We have only eaten in the dining room a few times and we sit with the same family every night. (assigned seats, did they do that on the Love Boat-I can’t recall). There is also another couple assigned to our table, but tonight was the first night we actually met them. Like us, they have only dined in the dining room sporadically. They are a really great couple from Germany. It was nice to chat with them. After dinner we went to a show, which wasn’t really our type of music, but very good nonetheless.

As is tradition, we are now all gathered in bed, I am typing, Max is contributing and Mike is (shocker) sleeping. Maddee has actually dozed off, too. I guess this hasn’t been the most riveting blog. People are falling asleep left and right. Hey, woh, wait. Is that snoring I hear from out there in cyberspace? Looks like you’re sleeping, too. Sheesh.  No t to worry, though, tomorrow we will jazz things up as we report on Venice.