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.

 

Vesuvius/Pompeii

Aimee: Ciao, buonasera! We write to you tonight from the Mediterranean Sea. We have left the Port of Salerno and are now sailing toward Venice. The trip should take a day and a half. We are exhausted and definitely ready for a day at sea. Tonight for your reading pleasure all four Allens will be alternating paragraphs. We’ll start with Mike, the old mountain goat. Being a Colorado boy he had a certain vision of Vesuvius looming in the distance and well, it might not have immediately measured up…

Mike: I was not impressed with Mt. Vesuvius until…we reached the summit. The size of the crater was astonishing. It was amazing to think that mother earth could expel that much land in such a short period of time.

Madison: It was a three mile hike total, going up and down the mountain (from the place where the bus dropped us off). The view was incredible! Looking down you could see the city of Naples and if you looked in the right area you could also see Herculanium. The hike was tiring, but worth it.

Max: Before the trip I researched Mt. Vesuvius. I couldn’t pronounce it; I called it Mt. Vanchewvius and stuff like that. Anyway, I found out that it is the third largest volcano on Earth. We definitely didn’t start our hike at the bottom. The views nearby and at the top were stupendous.

Aimee: While we were at the beautiful summit we noticed an Australian camera crew filming. We were shushed and hushed while they did their thing. We have no idea what it was about, but we hope to find it on the internet at some point. Maybe we’ll hear some background conversations like Maddee saying “Mom where can I put my pear core,” or Max saying “Are they checking for eruptions?” Those quotes will promptly be followed by several loud “SHHH”s from stern adults.

On to Pompeii

Mike- when asked to contribute to his paragraph about Pompeii, he looks up sleepily from his pillow and gives a thumbs-up. I guess that sums it up for him. (This will mark the second night that he has fallen asleep while we are working on our blog-or the third night or maybe even the fourth night).

Madison: After getting ice creams and pizzas we entered the gates to Pompeii. There were lots of trees and flowers some were bright pink, some were a great shade of purple. Archeologists actually figured out what plants they had in Pompeii before it was covered in volcanic ash. After finally walking in to the actual sight a big building that looked similar to the colosseum style (same building materials) loomed before my eyes. It was amazing you could actually go into one of the houses. Unlike the colosseum, which is supposed to have a bunch of cats living in it, we actually saw animals in Pompeii…

Max: When we entered the building of an important person, we walked about two feet in and looked to the left. We saw pretty much an empty room, if you took another step and looked to the left you saw a room that had mostly faded, chipped paintings on the wall and when you looked down to the corner you saw a dog! A cute dog that was used to people. He was in there to keep from the blazing sun. He never barked and was always nice. There was a room with bones in a case. There were plenty of skulls in it. We moved on and saw more dead, blech! They were completely covered in plaster so you couldn’t see their bones, which is better than just a couple of skeletons. Right beside one of them was another dog! Across the room there was another dog! Going right into the next room which was connected to that room there was… a bathhouse. There was a lot more than that in the house, but we didn’t go everywhere in the house because it was huge!

Aimee: Okay, let me fill in some of the details here. Pompeii was really awesome. The city, as you likely know was covered in ash, pumice and lava after a terrible eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. The city was not unearthed until sometime in the 1700s. Mike and I were expecting a small village with some ruins, but we were both impressed to find it was a rather large Roman city. Much of the city was still in tact including some frescos on the walls, some wood and unfortunately the skeleton remains of many of the residents of Pompeii. We all appreciated the tour, but it was definitely a hot, hot day in a city with very little shade. As Max said at one point when the sun was beaming down on us, “The only thing that would make this worse is if we were carrying torches.” For me the whole city with its houses, shops, amphitheaters and cobblestone streets was impressive. However, I was most impressed with the huge forum and the ruins in that particular area.

 

Our tour ended with some free samples of limoncello for the adults (candies for the kids) and a few minutes of free time. We took the opportunity to get a slush or another gelato (big surprise) and then headed to the bus. We were leaving the parking lot when we noticed that one of the members of our tour group didn’t make it back to the bus. We drove around until we found the poor guy who seemed utterly embarrassed. When he boarded the bus everyone clapped and cheered for him. I bet he will never forget his visit to Pompeii. I know we won’t forget ours.

Arrivederci Roma

Today was Rome! We docked in Civitavecchia on the coast and headed in to Rome by train. Because it is Sunday, the train schedule was limited. We weren’t in the world’s biggest hurry, so we ended up on the 9:35 train which made several stops (at least that’s what I have been told, I was sleeping for most of the trip)and finally we got to Rome around 11:00. We switched from the train to the subway and went straight to the Colosseo (Italian for Colisseum). Newsflash, when in Rome, everyone wants to go to the Colosseo, so there was a bit of a line (three hour wait). We took our chances with a shady fellow who promised us a tour and a quick entry. It turns out he was legit and we joined a tour group and headed in-no wait! Mike and the kids had the Colosseo at the top of their list. I was content to just see it from outside, but I changed my tune once I got in. It really is very impressive. I am happy we dropped the several Euros that we did to get in there.

When we left the Colisseum it was about 1:00 and we had to be back to the train around 3:45ish to catch the 4:10 back to the ship. Now if it were any day but Sunday we would have been able to take a later train, but the next train would have put us back to the ship around 6:30, which was too late. Anyway, it was 1:00 and we had so much more to see. We knew going into this trip that we would just be getting a taste of each city as we are in port for such a short time. However, it was still disappointing to realize that we would only have a few hours in the great city of Rome. We chose just two other things we really wanted to see (Fountain Trevi and Spanish Steps) and then took to the streets. We meandered our way through the city getting glimpses of amazing buildings, old and new as we headed to the Fountain. We spent only a few minutes admiring the fountain and then we were off to Harry’s café which was recommended by Daniella our tour guide in the Colosseum. Harry’s Café sits above an entire ancient neighborhood excavated only 14 or 15 years ago. Harry’s was closed, but you could get into that ancient town through a movie theater that sits above it as well. We were happy to go in for two reasons: one we all love ancient history and two it was far underground and much cooler than the 90 degree streets of Rome.

Our bellies were pretty empty about now, we of course had a gelato earlier in the afternoon, but gelatos do not a meal make (or do they?). We found a pizza place that wrapped their slices in a nice little paper pocket so you can eat and run (perhaps literally). This pizza loving girl thinks this to-go pocket might be the next best thing. Please America, let’s do this! Pizza pockets to eat on the run-yes please! Sorry, where was I? Oh right, Rome, vacation, trip of a lifetime back to it...

 Here’s the mental picture for you, four Allens scrambling through the streets of Rome, sweating, eating pizza, snapping pictures, glancing at a map and occasionally stopping to drink from one of the many fountains of fresh water found all over the city. Side note: I think this freaked our dinner companions out when we traded notes with them over our evening meal. The thought of drinking foreign water was a bit much for them, even though the water of Rome comes from the mountains through the aqueducts and is guaranteed fresh and clean. Side note two: I bet my mother is reading this and freaking out a little bit as well. But when in Rome…

We got to the Spanish Steps, took a nice walk up and down them and then the kids and Mike soaked their heads to cool off in the fountain below. We also refilled our water bottles there, sorry mom. I chose not to soak my hair, mainly because I was having a rare good hair day and didn't want to mess with it.  Soon enough we were back in the Metro station headed for the train. There are so many places I wish we saw, like St. Peter’s Basilica and the Roman forum. I heard the Pope came out to St. Peter’s square around noon and was blessing people. I wish we could have been there for that. Still, what a wonderful day, in a wonderful city. I have heard some people say they don’t like Rome, and I feel sorry for them. It’s too bad they didn’t see it through our eyes.

Of course, the fun didn’t end there; we had a nice long train ride back to the coast. Of all the things we could have included in this blog today, Maddee and Max both wanted to make sure I mentioned boarding the train back. First of all, Mike and I thought we were so city savvy at Roma Termini, the Roman equivalent of Grand Central Station. Apparently, we didn’t look as cosmopolitan as we felt, because a kind Italian woman approached us and asked if we needed help. Good thing she did, too, because our train was already at the station, but was at track 28, we were standing by track nine! We hustled over to 28 and boarded. We went through car after car after car with absolutely no place to sit. We finally found two seats, Mike and Madison took them and Max and I continued on. We happened upon a car toward the front of the train that was not only almost empty but was also ten degrees cooler than any we had been through. Jackpot! Mike and Maddee joined us and back to Civitavecchia we went. As soon as we boarded the train an all out rain/hail storm hit Rome. We watched the storm from the comforts of our train.

Tomorrow we hike Mt. Vesuvius and then go to Pompeii. It’s supposed to be about 90 degrees again and no shade. Still, I have a feeling it will be worth it! Arrivederci.

 

 

Firenze (Florence)

Bongiorno! Today we are in Italy! We spent the day in the beautiful city of Florence. It was hot and crowded, but it was worth it.

We started out in an air conditioned bus. Our ride took two hours, Max froze to death and then there were only three of us. Okay that’s too far. Max was still with us. We were all blissfully unaware of how much we would long for the cold bus.

But let’s not complain. We’re in Italy!! We had a partial guided tour complete with radio/earbuds to hear our guide amongst the many other tour groups out there. She was smart, informative and friendly. We have been really impressed with our tour guides so far. After our tour we were left to our own devices for a few hours. We’ve always heard how beautiful the Duomo is in Florence, but words can’t really describe it. It’s one of those places that you need to see to fully appreciate. It’s like when you see the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building for the first time, you are impressed, yet it doesn’t truly feel like the first time you’ve seen it, because of all the exposure those buildings get on TV and movies. The duomo however, wow, it’s so amazing. It’s all marble, it’s in the gothic style and there are not only religious figures carved into the building, but important Italians as well. And let’s not forget it is HUGE. Max and I are sitting here trying to think of appropriate adjectives, because big  & beautiful don’t even touch it.

Oh and that isn’t the only amazing sight in Florence, no sirree. There is the piazza della signoria, the statue/sculpture garden, the ponte vecchio and of course there is “The David.” There are more beautiful churches such as the church of St. Croce which houses the tombs of several great Italians, such as Michelangelo. Interestingly the Church of St. Croce, a catholic church, was designed and built by a Jewish Italian man who happened to include a prominent decorative six pointed star on the front of the church.

So, we saw the sights, which were impressive to say the least. The lines were too long and our time was too short to go inside any of these beautiful buildings, but the outside of each building was a work of art in and of itself. After the sightseeing, we, of course, went to find some authentic Italian eats. Okay, I realize our blogs always mention food, but hello, we are in Europe, so of course we are eating like kings and queens. Mike and Madison split a bistecca alla fiorentina, which was a huge, ridiculously thick piece of steak. It was incredibly delicious. I know, as I had a few nibbles. Max and I each had our own pizza. Let me give you some inside info here: the restaurant where we ate has two specific chefs from Naples whose sole job is to make pizza. They also have two chefs from Sicily whose sole job is to make the homemade gelato. Mmm. Anyway, the food was accompanied by  wine for the adults and sucre pesca for the kids (what a relief to find out it was peach juice, using my sharp Italian reading skills I originally translated it to fish juice.  Dessert was obviously gelato for everyone, except me, I spied a cannoli in the pastry case and couldn’t resist.

After lunch we rolled out of the restaurant and did some more walking around and souvenir shopping. I bought a Pinocchio puppet (Pinocchio was originally created in Florence) & a Rooster pitcher. I’ve been obsessed with getting a rooster pitcher ever since I read a story about the Medici family and the roosters.

When we got back to the ship, we actually went to dinner. I don’t know how we fit more food in our bodies, but we managed to do so. This was the first night we actually ate in the dining room. We sat with a family from Ottawa who are fairly experienced “cruisers” and definitely better planners than we are. We picked their brains a little bit. We ended our evening with some hot tub/pool time. And now here we are getting settled in for the night. Tomorrow is another big day-Rome here we come!

Voila. Bon Voyage. Tarte aux Pommes and other such things…

 

Bonjour! Today we anchored outside Cannes and took small boats into the French Riviera. We walked around the beach for a little while, put our toes in the warm Mediterranean Sea and then, of course, did some eating. Apple tart for Mike & me, homemade ice cream bars for the kids. The beach was crowded and there were all sorts of people enjoying their day.  From ping-pong playing topless grandmas to speedo clad grandpas, there was no body shame on the Riviera today!

After our beach time we boarded a bus for our shore excursion to the Villages of Provence. The ride was over an hour long, winding along the coast and then into the countryside. We stopped at Seillans first. A great village with steep hills and cobblestone roads. Every corner was like an old world photo, laundry hanging off of balconies, multi-colored doors and shutters and vines growing on all the buildings. We went into a little church and I was quite pleased to see that over 50% of the statues and paintings were of women saints and Virgin Mary. Yay girl power!  We loved our tour guide who was an absolute wealth of knowledge. I hope I can remember at least 1/10 of what she told us. Here are some cool facts we learned:

*Seillans was once a walled city- you can still see parts of the old wall all over the village

*Many of the houses were built up high with an archway forming above the roads, this way people would be able to live above the wet, filthy streets. Added bonus: it would be less likely that invaders would get into their houses.

*All the entrances to the houses were ladders, so they could just pull the ladder up and make it more challenging for those darned invaders again.

*The Greeks settled the French Riviera around 6 or 7 BCE. They weren’t warriors and they had a lot of problems with pirates. Eventually they asked the Romans (around 1 BCE) to help them out. Villages like Seillans were the perfect place for Romans to settle-just far enough away from their Greek allies, to well, stay allies. Much of the architecture is influenced by the Roman Empire.

*Another point of interest is that the butchers and bakers were extremely important village members. There was only one butcher and one baker per village and it was a five year stint guaranteed. For a long time the baker was the only person in the village with an oven. If you wanted to bake something you would have to pay the baker to use his oven. Sweet deal for the baker (cheesy pun semi-intended).

Seillans is one of those places that make you think” if I only had an extra few million dollars I would totally have a second house here in the French countryside.” I just loved it.

Okay moving on to gorgeous Fayence. Fayence is a bigger village with an upper and lower “city.” There is a beautiful church, bell tower and some really amazing lookout spots. We had (and I quote Caroline our tour guide) “less blah, blah, blah and more free time,” in Fayence. It had been a long day and we were hungry. So we set off to find food. We had a couple of distractions along the way-Mike almost bought a fancy shirt, but backed out, I tried to translate a French menu, but all I could decipher was that there was going to be a lot of ham and a lot of eggplant in every dish-and little things like that. We finally ended up at a little outdoor restaurant where I butchered just enough French to get us a table and a few menus.

That’s when I took a moment to look at the time and see that we had less than 20 minutes to get back to the bus. I don’t know much about France, but I feel pretty confident that you cannot order and eat a full meal in twenty minutes. Things got a little rough here, we ended up only ordering drinks, I couldn’t for the life of me string a couple of sentences together, couldn’t remember how to say we only have fifteen minutes, and so on. Time ticked on and our drinks didn’t come and I had to go in and tell them we had to leave. The waitress was lovely about the whole thing. Her English and my French were equally pathetic, but we both tried. The owner on the other hand was pretty angry. I had a terrible mood dive, forgetting that I am soooo lucky to be in FRANCE right now.  I was hungry and frustrated with myself, plus totally embarrassed that I retained next to nothing of my five plus years of school girl French. Try as I might I could not manage to get mon petit chou or zut alors! into a single conversation.  Ah well. Once we got back to the ship I got an attitude adjustment in the form of sugar, carbs, and a little protein to boot. I’m my old self again.

Tomorrow we hit Florence. I’m hoping one of these other lovely family members will take on tomorrow night’s blog. Stay tuned!  A biento!

 

 

 

Underway

Written on Thursday 7/18/13

What a busy and fantastic day! We got a late jet-lagged start, but who cares? We’re on vacation. I redeemed myself in the Spanish category by helping Mike order an iced coffee café frio & throwing around an exceptional amount of holas and mucho gracias(es). After bustling around Barcelona-beautiful buildings, nice people, yummy gelato-we caught a cab for the port. We boarded our ship “The Serenade of the Seas” early in the afternoon and got right to exploring!

Madison and I are curled up in bed trying to pick through the day’s excitement in order to make this blog “the-opposite-of-boring”, but when we get down to the dirty details our day really consisted of walking up and down many flights of stairs, checking out all the different places we might want to visit in the future, (such as the rock wall, waterslide, arcade, shops, fitness center, mini-golf course and pools). The rest of our time was spent well, eating. Eating and eating. And then eating some more.

Our ship set sail around 5:00. We went out on the deck to wave at the crowds gathered at the pier just like on the Love Boat. Well, there weren’t crowds per se, but there was a young boy clad in fluorescent green with his mom in a semi-abandoned parking lot. They had binoculars and were waving like crazy. I’m not sure who they were waving to, but I am guessing it was me.

Speaking of waving, our stateroom, on the 10^th floor, is in view of the Bridge. When we were out on our deck earlier Max waved at the captain and the Captain waved back. So, that was pretty exciting. At least to us. Maybe you landlubbers don’t think it’s a big deal, but umm, it is. So there.

Our stateroom is COZY with limited walking space. I am absolutely not complaining though, at least not today, maybe by day eleven of the cruise our close quarters and the unfortunate smell of sweaty feet will change my attitude, but for now it’s all good. Mike and I have a queen size bed, Madison had a sofa bed and Max is in a bunk above us, his bed actually comes out of the ceiling! Maddee wants to put in her two cents here and let you know that she and Max will actually be switching beds each night. They have a rotation worked out. I think they intend to put Mike and me in the rotation as well, but it’s not happening. That’s right cute girl leaning on my shoulder as I type, it’s not happening. J

Well it’s getting late and we are heading into the French countryside in the morning. I plan to make Mrs. Mahoney and my other high school French teachers proud tomorrow with my expert ability to parler Francais. (un peu).

Adios! I mean Au Revoir.

Let the Adventure Begin

Hola from Barcelona!
We left our house at 4:00 am Pacific time on Tuesday morning. We had three flights and they were almost completely smooth, aside from the EXTREMELY bumpy take-off in Seattle and some storms over southern France. We all loved the huge airbus from New York to Helsinki, Finland.After approximately 33 hours give or take an hour we arrived at our hotel in Barcelona at 9:30 in the evening on Wednesday. Because of all the time zone changes we only experienced 2 hours of night.

We had an eight hour layover in Helsinki so decided to go explore the downtown area. It's a great city. We were so tired and sleep deprived that we may not have had the best experience, especially since we all took a turn being too tired or too grumpy to function. We still were a mostly pleasant crew.  We are fortunate enough to have another layover there on the way back,  this time 24 hours, so we can see more of the city and hopefully be more attentive the next time around. Don't get me wrong, we were mostly happy though dazed for sure.
I am going to try to post some pix on here.


In Finland almost everyone speaks English and quite well. Here in Barcelona the experience has been different. Our taxi driver was a fantastic lady in her 50s or 60s who yelled, honked her horn and then dropped us off by an alley which turned out to be the closest she could get us to the hotel. She just couldn't communicate that with us, since all the Spanish I know I learned from Sesame Street in the late 70s. Agua, Caliente, mucho gracias amigos. We checked into our hotel and lugged our bags up four flight of stairs, totally worth it, though (well for me anyone the hotel manager carried my bags).We walked around the alley where our hotel is, where there are several restaurants. We settled on  La Taberna del Cobre where we struggled to try to get out a few Spanish words. The owner spoke no English (not that he should have to), our kids who have taken Spanish for a long time totally froze and we relied almost completely on body language to order. Dinner was delicious any way. Maddee and I tried calamari for the first time, which was extremely, extremely buttery. We didn't love it, but Mike did.

We finally got to bed around midnight and are now enjoying pastries chocolate for breakfast, which are beyond rich and delicious. I feel like if I were wearing jeans my button would have involuntarily popped open by now. Fortunately, I have a stretchy skirt on. Mike is drinking a shot of espresso, since once again I botched my communication skills. I ordered Café. She asked Café espresso?  I replied with a confident Si. Then I saw her pouring a shot into a to go container. Mike doesn't care, he's energetically packing our bags.

We check out of here in 40 minutes and then walk around for a bit. Our cruise starts this evening! Can't wait.

I have some pix on FB and will figure out how to get them on here as well. But not right now. The streets of Spain are calling us!

Adios.