Barcelona Day 4

It is nearly time to go home, and we have to say, we are ready. Today was not particularly eventful; we rode the HOHO bus around to all the sights, did not see a thing that we missed earlier or wanted to spend more time visiting. The two highlights of the day for us were the Miró Museum and the cafeteria lunch at the 9th floor of the Corté Ingles department store. It has an incredible 240 degree view above the city and they also have a full bar and gelato along with all their food options. Enough said.

I do have a couple of pictures from the Miró...

And one from the HOHO bus, a store that appears to have been named after me.

And that about wraps it up for us. We have a car scheduled to pick us up at 7 am, then it is one of those 21 hour airport-flight marathons and we should arrive home Friday night. When our body clocks will think it is 5 am and time to get up instead of almost time for bed.

See you all next time!

Barcelona Day Three

After a much-needed night of hard sleep, we arose a little later, had a quick continental breakfast and headed off to the Palau Musica Catalan. This is an active music venue, built in the early 1900s, and in the ornate style known as modernisme. This is the same style used by Gaudi. Words cannot really describe it like the pictures can:

Next, we headed to the Picasso museum, where my favorite part was the 37 paintings of the Las Meniñas series. Picasso studied the Diego Velazquez original painting, re-imagined it in his own colorful style, then took each element of the painting and using color to define each element, drilled down the paintings u til he was left with only the face of the central figure with the other elements used as lines delineating her face. Fascinating to look at all these paintings side by side and seeing what elements are retained and what are discarded in this progression.

And after that busy morning, we stopped for tapas, then headed home (hotel) for siesta, then out for a light dinner. Tomorrow we will go on the HOHO bus and see what we have missed so far!

Barcelona Day 2

Oh my sore feet...but at least it is not my knees! We walked a lot for me today, probably four miles, which Tom does every morning, but even his feet are sore. And we are both hot, sweaty and tired. As are most of the rest of the group, LOL.

Despite our best attempts to keep from getting ripped off by a taxi driver, we fell victim to a real doozy of a schmoozy rip-off artist. Only 15€, and it will make for a good story next month, but aggravating nonetheless. But we got to our hotel, walked over to La Sagrada, saw the church (could not go up into the roof as the elevator was broken😢 and now we have to apply for a refund...). Pictures of the light and bright interior don’t do justice to the color and variety found inside. It was lovely.

The spiral staircase we would have had to climb down, if we HAD been able to go up to the top...look up high:

And lastly, this was dinner tonight. It was delicious.

Barcelona Day 1.5

OK, have no idea why the words posted twice and none of the pictures did...so will try and add the pictures to the first post now.

And we had a lovely second day in Barcelona, but am too pooped to write tonight....so will add that to orrow sometime and I will leave you with just one picture of the interior of La Sagrada Familia

Barcelona

We have arrived at the port of Barcelona, Spain. It is a huge working port as well as a popular cruise destination and turnaround port.

There are four large cruise ships here today. I’ve got to say, watching the ship pilots parallel park these things is quite amazing.

Today we decided to go out of town to the monastery of Monserrat. It was (naturally) a little rainy, but only light showers and we were able to spend a lot of time inside. This is perched high on the side of a rocky cliff.

The basilica is home to a shrine, that of the Black Madonna. It also was a locale used in the newest Dan Brown book, Origins.

That’s her, way up high in the niche above the altar. We also heard the boys choir sing. The boys range in age from 9-14, and live at the monastery Sunday noon through Friday noon and attend school in the mornings, and study music in the afternoons. By the time they leave they have learned piano and one other instrument in addition to their singing and regular studies. We are told it is very competitive to get into the choir.

We returned to the ship for dinner and packing up. The luggage is out in the hall and we are just finishing up a few final thanks and goodbys before disembarking in the morning and checking in to a hotel for three nights.

Tomorrow we intend to visit La Sagrada Familia, and weather permitting one or two other Gaudi sights.

Palma De Mallorca

Majorca (or Mallorca, depending on what language you are spelling with) is a vacation destination island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Today is Sunday, so many of the local businesses are only open for a very few hours. Most of what is open are tourist related shops. However, the famous cathedral, La Seu, is open for services, 😊.

They have beautiful stained glass, gothic styling, with a Gaudi-Modernisme altar and a pipe organ that is used during services.

This afternoon we took a tour to the Caves of Drach, which translates to Cave of the Dragon. No photos allowed inside, so....

...I took a photo from a postcard, lol.

Musical concerts are held inside because of the amazing acoustics. And the musicians arrive by small boats across the lake. (If you recall the boat scene from Phantom of the Opera...yes, it was just like that).

Speaking of small boats, several flotillas of teeny-tiny my-first-sailboats have passed by the back patio today on their way out of the harbor. The instructors are in inflatable dinghys, which are huge compared to these sailboats. They all look like mother ducks followed by ducklings.

Cartagena

We spent Saturday in Cartagena, Spain, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The entire city! That’s because the Romans built their city of New Carthage right here on the shores of the Mediterranean in the third century B.C. Good location before the straits of Gibralter and all. And then the Moors built their city and then the Spaniards built their city... one right on top of the others. So we went walking through them all.

Fortunately, the weather was also a lot more comfortable —>Sunny. 🌞👍

We pulled into our dock right in the center of town, which made it very easy to get to the sights.

This is the view from the back patio:

There is a wide pedestrian street on the left. See that red and yellow Spanish flag?....that’s the start of the street. Filled with shops, restaurants, and beautiful architecture.

All along the route we found a variety of ruins; the 7000 seat amphitheater:

Which you may have noticed is/was built right in the middle of the city. When they first started to restore it in 1991, they had to remove several apartment buildings that were on top. It is now fully exposed, and the acoustics are amazing. One can hear quiet conversation all the way from the top to the bottom. As Tom demonstrated for us.

We also visited the Forum, which is still on
ly partly excavated, although there are some lovely colored murals and mosaics in a few buildings. Also, this was the site of the public baths, with both hot and cold water.

Lastly, we ventured to the top of the hill for a panoramic view over the city, before returning to our ship.

Tomorrow we visit the island of Mallorca.

Gibraltar

Well, it was not the day we had hoped for. Yes, we
made it inside the rock. Where it was raining, just like everywhere else today. Gigi, you can stop laughing now.

I am sure this is a much more interesting visit in sunny weather. We tried to imagine what it was like during the Great Siege, when people had to live here as well as defend their tip of the continent. With all the puddles and dripping water through the limestone, accompanied by rousing English marching music and speaking dioramas (“Halt! Who goes there?!”), we figure we got our full-effect visit.

Here is a picture through one of the cannon embrasures, aimed right at the airport for Gibraltar. Notice the highway on the left that crosses the runways.

The Gibraltar apes (really Barbary Macaques) are all over this three mile by one mile rock. And fearless, jumping all over the tour vans and tourists.

This one stayed in the tree.

We also saw the southernmost point of the European continent.

That’s Tangiers, Morrocco behind us, sort of visible through the clouds.

We were supposed to take a cable car up the mountainside, but it was too windy, so we had to drive up. We could not go to the top, as only the cable car can reach that viewpoint. Frankly with the wind driven rain, I doubt if we could have seen a thing this morning.

And then some confusion happened. The rain began to pour in buckets. Tom and Denny stopped by the bathrooms, while Kathi and I continued on down 25 yards to the turn off for the overflow parking, where our bus #19 was. Denny and Tom got lost, missed the turn off, and continued walking down the hill. Spmewhere far below, they eventually flagged down another bus, #18, boarded and went on ahead. While we waited for them back at the parking area, looked in the bathrooms, made international phone calls, etc etc.

Everyone has blamed everyone else (the driver for not moving the bus to where the guide told us, the guide for telling us he would, the guys for not paying attention to where they got off the bus, the phone company because the texts and phone messages took 30 minutes to be delivered).

We made it back to the ship right about the time the rain let up. We can see blue skies now, although it is still windy.

So yeah, the whole day was about right for a Friday the 13th.

Sea Days

I haven’t written much over the course of our sea days...as they are truly not all that exciting or interesting to read about. Now, to us, they are very relaxing, but exciting still is not part of the description. I wake up whenever, mosey down to the International Cafe for our Skinny Latte, maybe have breakfast, or skip it altogether if lunch is getting close. Tom usually gets up around 7 and heads out for his hour+ four mile walk, then a steam or sauna, then a hot tub soak, then he showers at the spa and returns around 9:30 or 10. By which time I am deciding whether it is a skip or eat breakfast day.

On these sea days, as I mentioned earlier, we change time at 11 -> 12 noon. So skipping breakfast is no big deal, as it becomes noon soon, and we can have lunch. Today, for example, was a skip breakfast day, and it is now just after 1 and I am beginning to think about a lunch. Then we do something onboard in the afternoon (watch a movie, play bingo or trivia, go to a lecture, meet with our friends, or just sit on the back patio and watch the ocean float by) and then it is time to get ready for dinner and the show after. Then we go to bed and pretty much repeat again the next day. Today we went to the ‘cooking’ demonstration, which ends up being a bit more of a comedy show than a real lecture, but we did come away with some great recipes, if not technique.

Today’s adventures were not much different than any other day, with the slight difference that it was not really a sit on the back patio kind of day. Last night we were warned it would be rather rocky overnight, extending into the morning. It has been cool temperatures also, with off and on rain showers. A few minutes ago we had one of those rain showers along with a big gust of wind that shoved us off course a little bit....I even got a picture of our wobbly trail...

And...today is the last of our eight sea days on this trip. Tomorrow we begin the first of five port days in a row. We will arrive in Gibraltar where we will be traveling into and to the top of the Rock. Fingers crossed for less rain.

Funchal

Bet you thought that was a cuss word, huh? Well, it’s not. It is Portugese for ‘fennel’ and the name of the largest city on the island of Madeira where we spent our first day on land since Fort Lauderdale a week ago. It is 300 miles due west of Marrakesh, Morrocco, which makes it half as close to Africa as it is to it’s home country of Portugal.

Madeira is Portugese for ‘woods’, because the island was, and is, covered with trees. And because of its mild climate, it is not only a popular vacation spot for most of Europe, but is a gardener’s paradise with abundant fruits, flowers and vegetables in addition to many eucalyptus. It is a volcanic island, and reminded both of us as a sort of cross between Kauai and La Jolla.

Our weather was a bit cloudy, but very comfortable at 65 degrees. We took a drive up and over, and then through, the series of ragged volcanic ridges and cliffs. Let me tell you, driving a huge bus on narrow one-and-a-half lane roads which twist and wind up and down the sides of the mountains is no little feat and a definite E Ticket ride for those of us (me) on the window side of the sheer drop off cliffs and vertical rock faces. There are no white stripes on the side of the road, much less any shoulder. Just me, the bus window and about four inches of space. Sometimes less, as when the trees slap against the window and sometimes more, as when the cliff drops away a thousand feet or so.

I did take a few more pictures, but only one on this device, so until I can get real wifi, this picture will have to do.

Clocks

Been a little remiss in my blogging the last few days, so time to catch up. Couple of sunny days, couple of cloudy days, lots of water, no other ships. For those who read the blog last October, you know that along about now, the sixth sea day in a row, we have had our fill of the daily activities and are ready for a port. That does not come until day after tomorrow, as we still have today and Tuesday at sea.

We’re happy to report that the passengers offloaded onto the pilot boats off the coast of Bermuda are reported to be doing well. Tom has spent each morning doing his walking or elliptical and then taking a hot steam and jacuzzi. Cheryl has been attending port lectures. And we both have been doing a lot of reading and we have both been just sitting on the back patio watching the water. But we do both think this is likely our last cruise with a lot of sea days. Either it is the rest of the clientele that goes a little stir crazy, or it is us. But whichever, we notice a little craziness that seeps in around about the fourth day...as in the lady up in the Skywalkers who yelled at me for moving a chair in order to get out from the table. Actually told me the exit was on the other side and I should not be moving the empty chair across from her...!??

Beause of the time change and our direction of travel, we set the clocks forward each day for FIVE days in a row. Since the passengers apparently grumble about ‘losing all that sleep’ when one does that at 2 am, on this ship we do it at 11 am. Yes, as in an announcement comes on the speaker something like this: “the time is 11am, the clocks are being set forward one hour, the time is now 12 noon.” Since we are a contained group, it seems to work pretty well. No events are scheduled between 11 and 12 and the passengers are happy because it means less time between breakfast and lunch.

On Wednesday we arrive in Madeira, and I hope to have something a little more interesting to twll you by then.

Slight Detour

We’re going to Bermuda!

But not for long, as in we won’t even get off the ship. Early this morning about 6 a.m. a Holland America ship came quite close and offloaded an ill passenger to our ship. Turns out we also have an ill passenger, so both of them will be transferred to a hospital in Bermuda about 7 pm tonight. 😳

The captain has said that both patients are stable, so our thoughts are with them and their families with the hope that they both recover.

And off we go...really!

We are now at sea, enjoying our first full day of seven days crossing the Atlantic. Weather today is beautiful and warm, and we are feeling very virtuous with our restraint on food choices and our (well, make that Tom’s) determination to stay on track with the exercise program. He is out right now doing his four miles on deck. I am sitting out on the ‘back porch’ watching the ocean.

To continue with yesterday’s saga—The ship had been in drydock last week, and only left the shipyard yesterday morning, arriving in Fort Lauderdale around 7:30. Then came the government inspections; the ship having had some minor changes made meant the entire ship had to undergo a health department inspection. People had been notified by email that boarding would be delayed by a couple of hours, and we were asked not to arrive until 2:00, when they would start boarding. When we arrived at 1:30, there were 1500 people ahead of us in the terminal, which was packed full.

So they put all the newly arriving on-time people into a different terminal across the parking lot, and we all got to wait two hours while they emptied the first terminal before bringing the second terminal occupants back over to the first terminal and actually checking in. This made a lot of people grumpy, particularly since they had not yet eaten and thought they would have been aboard and fed three or four hours earlier. And even the delayed boarding plan ended up being further delayed, with people still coming onboard while they were running the muster drill, and that ran late, so first seating dining was started late, which made everyone else run late.

From what we have seen and from what the staff has told us, most of the changes were related to the implementaion plan for the Ocean Medallion, the new electronic wristband system that Princess (will- eventually-be) using on all its ships. The plan and the implementation are...umm...not matching. All ships were originally supposed to have this up and running in 2018. This trip on the Crown was planned to be using it. But so far, the first ship is still in the testing phase, with only a couple hundred rooms operational, and the ship-wide implementation is now something like six months in the making.

That did not stop them from rewiring much of this ship, however. We have new touch pads outside the doors, there are digital (eventually interactive) screens where the old ship maps used to be in the elevator lobbies, we even have three, count’em three!, little near field infrared gadgets in each stateroom. One in the bathroom (really? 😳!), one in the bedroom and one out on the balcony. I am beginning to understand why some people fear this new technology and want to keep the old-fashioned key cards.

We also got huge new TV’s in each room, 42” or so. It appears these will also someday also be interactive, but as of now it is still the same old system with a bigger display. There is new carpet in the hallways, but they still have a little design detail to distinguish the port and starboard sides. We’ve also seen new atrium decor, carpet and lighting.

The crew from the captain on down has bent over backwards apologizing for the ship being not-quite-ready or up to usual standards, but in reality, what’s missing is minor, correctable stuff; pools not filled until today, hot water was just warm, new carpet fuzz and contruction dust and bits and blobs here and there...all madly being tidied up by regular staff as well as a slew of contractors working on the Ocean Medallion program.

The Good News Is....

...it’s all gonna work out fine.

Bad News: Our travel companion Jackie was at the airport waiting to board her plane when it had mechanical trouble and had to turn back.

Good News: Delta re-booked her in First Class on a flight arriving only a few hours later.

Bad News: They aren’t sure where her luggage is.

Good News: Ever since her bags were misdirected during Superstorm Sandy in 2012, she travels with ‘emergency spare clothing’ in the carryon in case the luggage does not show up until, oh, Dubrovnik.

Bad News: Dubrovnik in this case is Funchal, our first port, in Seven days. The emergency clothing will be stretched thin by then.

Good News: The ship doesn’t leave until 6pm Tuesday. It’s only Monday.

Stay tuned for the Tuesday update.....

Tuesday Update.....

Bad News: The bag did not arrive in FLL with Jackie. It did go on her same plane to Atlanta, but then it got misdirected and spent a few extra hours wandering around the Atlanta airport.

Good News: They found the bag and delivered it overnight to our hotel; Jackie picked it up just before breakfast. See? I told you it was all gonna work out. 😁

Further News: Jackie discovered her brand new bag has a torn off bumper corner with exposed screws poking through. We’ll see what the ship repair staff can do about it, but until then.... duct tape.

Fort Lauderdale and More

Yesterday we did spring, winter and summer all in one day. Left Albuquerque where the fruit trees were doing their showy pink and white blossoms thing while the cottonwoods were all leafing out in the pale first green of spring. Landed in Kansas City where it was 27 and snowing. De-iced the plane and we took off for Fort Lauderdale, where it is 75, sunny and warm.

It was a long day, but we gathered our luggage, called an Uber and made it to the hotel without incident. About midnight local time we were tucked in bed and ready for a long sleep.

Today we did not have much pre-planned, so we called another Uber and went to the Museum of Science and Discovery downtown. There we experienced a hurricane, road an airboat through the Everglades, rode on a Mars Rover and fought the bad guys in a 7D flight, all in about 30 minutes through the magic of virtual reality rides. Then we went outside and played in their new physics exhibit. Used pulleys to lift ourselves seceral feet in the air, turned a flywheel to operate a fan and mister cooling system, used pressure to lauch balls through hoops ala quidditch, made sound waves into music qnd played dueling water rockets. There were a few kids out there, but the adults were having all the fun.

They have a 4K Laser 3D IMAX here at the museum, the only one in Florida. It has an 80 foot screen, 114 speakers and so we decided it would be the Ideal Venue in which to watch Ready Player One.

Oh. My. Was it ever. If you are going to see this movie, you really should see it on a giant 3D screen. Makes all the Virtual Reality scenes seem like, well, watching through VR glasses. Kind of blurs the lines between the reality and the virtual. The movie premise was a typical young adult book plot (boy meets girl, together with their friends they take on the big bad corporate villains and after multiple battles, difficult obstacles and tests of honor and humanity, the kids finally win in the end). I thought it was very enjoyable, and there were loads of early tech references that only senior-agers will fully appreciate. The original Batmobile, Back To The Future Deloreans, Atari game cartridges. And with the growing eSports business, the movie virtual world is growing closer to the Real World. Check out our nephew Matt’s company, Ghost Gaming on Twitch. (Twitch is a whole separate portal of the interet used by people who want to watch streaming broadcasts, such as esports games)

https://cybersport.com/post/ghost-win-pgl-pubg-invitational

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-twitch-4143337

And we’re off!

Almost. Bags are packed, diet compliant lunches and dinner packed, all we have left to do is await Peter, our airport driver, and turn on the alarms....and wait two hours. We finished up a little early, LOL. That, and we usually take a morning flight, but the best option for both price and connection this time leaves in the early afternoon. We don’t arrive in FLL until late tonight (temp. 75 and probably a similar humidity factor) after passing through Kansas City (temp. 28 with snow showers, 1-2” expected). Rather a wide range of weather today.

Because we have this extra time to kill, I have already checked our inbound flight information...our plane is on its way from Oklahoma City to Las Vegas. Then it goes from Las Vegas to Albuquerque where we join it, on to Kansas City, then Fort Lauderdale where we depart and then it goes on to Baltimore, arriving at some oh-dark-thirty time after midnight. And there were two legs before all the above, STL to HOU to OKC, making for quite a long day and definitely at least two crew changes. Yep, I am definitely finding myself with too much waiting time on my hands. Tom, not so much...

First let me say, Happy Easter to all of you, and second, I won’t be playing any April Fool’s jokes on any of you, so please don’t anyone play them on us. I’m already a Nervous Nelly what with Tom already yelling ‘Holy Shit, I forgot to pack my...cpap, passport, charger cords’. It would be funny if he was just trying to play a joke, but this is even funnier than that. He really did forget the Cpap, and the passport is still sitting on top of the dresser. Good thing he still has two hours left to remember anything else. Yes, we have a packing list, yes, all that stuff is on it. Tom just uses such lists as ‘yeah yeah, I’ll remember that’ reminders instead of actually checking things off as they go in the bag. 😳🙏🏻