One of my sisters just got a new kitten. I’m a bit jealous, because her cat is smaller than mine and probably doesn’t take up the whole bed when sleeping (yet). It’s very cute, and I thought I’d post a few pictures I “took” from her facebook page.
I see Leslie was smart and got a fishing pole toy!
This shows you a more realistic "scale" of the kitty.
I look forward to meeting “Albergo” –evidently means Hotel in Italian and is based on a slight misunderstanding while she was booking a vacation in Italy last summer (yes, Leslie has a rough life 😉 ). Anyway, turns out Albergo was not actually the hotel owner’s name, but the name of the hotel–Albergo Barbara. In any case, an excellent name for a kitty.
I just love getting presents in the mail. However, I’m pretty terrible about MAILING presents. In fact, I have a small pile of gifts from my cruise (yes…almost two months ago) that I keep meaning to mail. Or maybe I’ll just wait and deliver them in person. In any case…not the point.
The point: Today I received a small package in the mail from my sister Leslie. Now, she could have waited to give me this in person, but lucky for me she didn’t! She was in Luzerne, Switzerland for a few weeks over the summer.
It's a cowbell and a luggage (violin case) tag!
The package was ringing when I got it, so I knew it was a bell of sorts, but WOW! It’s a fantastic bell.
Just an update post–the last 🙁 from our cruise vacation in August. I got the waterproof camera photos back so I wanted to post a few here.
The first few are from our jet ski tour in the Cayman Islands. We went to Stingray City, which is not a real city–it’s a place where the water is very shallow and tons of stingrays hang around. With the help of the guide, we were able to pick them up, hold them, and “kiss” them, which is supposed to be seven years of good luck!
On the jetski. Our guide had found some starfish for us to hold. Not the most flattering photo ever, but the best we had.Holding a stingray! My turn to "kiss' the stingray. I felt very silly!Chris's turn. That was our guide on the right hand side. He was great!
The next few pictures are from our day in Cozumel, Mexico. We went parasailing and spent the day at Nachi Cocum beach club. I still dream about this day! It was so beautiful, and the parasailing was fun UNTIL I started to get really nauseous. Oops.
On the boat, getting ready to go up in the air!Leaving the boat behind...We took this ourselves from in the air. Our view...the camera doesn't nearly do it justiceSafely back on the boat!Relaxing in the pool after lunch.
There you go. That’s the last of the photos I wanted to show off from our Excellent Cruise Vacation of 2010. If you just happened upon this post I encourage you to look for my other posts of the cruise (Carnival Legend) from August. If you’ve been following along the whole time, I hope you enjoyed it!
I have now taught over 20 new students in the past week. I used to get nervous about new students. Not anymore! I guess experience is the key 😉
I ran three miles today–still not all in a row (meaning I take walk breaks) but it was easy. I could have gone longer. Which is good…as my half marathon is looming. Due to various things (vacation, illness) I am behind on my training. My goal is to finish, that is all. I’ve only been running since May or June, so this will be an awesome accomplishment.
Sometimes my cat is so cute she makes me cry!
I got our waterproof camera photos back today (from the cruise). Some of the pictures are great! I will be posting them soon, just not tonight. Too tired to deal with it.
I found out one of my students and his family are going on a cruise in November. It’s a NCL cruise with a very similar itinerary to mine. SO JEALOUS! I know they will have a fantastic time.
Well, finally our cruise was nearing its conclusion (sad!). I slept it quite a bit, ordered room service, and read outside on the balcony for awhile. I had still managed to finish about 7 paperbacks during my week! There were a few interesting activities happening through the day, but we didn’t really make it to any of them! We went to the gym and then decided to try lunch in the Dining Room (never done before!).
Just fyi: when you go to the dining room they ask you if you want to sit with others. We were confused by the question, but quickly learned this meant they seat you at a table with other random people. It was fine, but in the future I would probably say “no.” Lunch was fine–I had antipasto and a tuna sandwich. Chris had a burger that he didn’t think was very good.
After lunch I did a little souvenir shopping and then we wanted to go to the sun deck. We relaxed in the sun for an hour or so, and then went back inside. I insisted that we do some packing (our suitcases needed to be outside the room by midnight, and I knew we wouldn’t want to pack it all later) and Chris wanted to smoke one of his cigars.
After that, we didn’t really do much at all. It was great!
The FunTimes (daily paper) said there would be live music with the Legend showband before dinner, so we got ready early and headed down to listen. They played some jazz, and it was very nice. We went to dinner for the last time 🙁
At dinnerWith our tablemates and waiterGrand Marnier souffle
After dinner the whole table went to the Casino to try blackjack again. I am not much of a gambler, so I just hung out. Chris didn’t do very well, so then we all played some other games, including the penny slots, where I turned $20 into $80. So that was fun!
We stayed up pretty late, but finally did need to get to bed. The next day would be early and long.
Day 8: Disembarkation
We were in zone 14. This meant we had to put our bags out in the hall the night before except what we needed. We needed to vacate our stateroom by 8:30 and when our zone was called, we could leave the ship. We actually had a late afternoon flight so we were in no rush. We decided to eat breakfast in the Dining Room (eggs benedict!) which was again something we hadn’t done. Then it was only a little time until our zone was called. It went very smoothly, and soon we were on dry land…
We got home safely later that night.
Okay, so wrap-up: I currently have a bad cold, I wonder if I got it on the ship? I don’t remember anyone being sick, but who knows. We had a fantastic time overall, and definitely want to cruise again, but we might want to try another line. We would have preferred more classical music or jazz and perhaps more “upscale” activities like the wine tasting. However it was overall a fantastic vacation, and we enjoyed the wide variety of activities. Chris was happy with all the excursions I planned, and I was happy they all turned out to be as good as I’d hoped while planning them!
I wrote a brief review for the website that helped me so much, cruisecritic.com. Here’s the link to that if you want.
Thanks for reading! I hope to go on another cruise next summer. If I do more teaching during the year, I should be able to better afford it 🙂
Today we scheduled our only “through Carnival” excursion. Those of you new to cruising: excursions are little trips you can take during the port days. The ship sells a lot of tours, and also independent operators on the islands will offer trips, either through the internet, or when you get off the ship in port. Why go with Carnival (or whatever your ship carrier)? They are guaranteed to get you back to the ship because they can hold the ship for you. You are also guaranteed of a certain level of quality. Why go with another group? Probably cheaper, first thing. You could have a smaller group of people/more personal guidance. And generally getting back to the ship on time isn’t an issue, because most tours are only for a few hours anyway. We chose Carnival for this tour because it was going to be a long one: we were going to visit the Mayan Ruins at Xunantunich. The whole tour was seven hours long, plus Belize is a tender port, and not an easy tender like Grand Cayman–the tender takes about 15 to 20 minutes to get to shore from the ship.
We had to get up very early to meet by 8:00 am in the Follies Lounge. They had people sit in various places to wait for the tenders to get ready. We heard the ship drop anchor just a few minutes before 8 (maybe more than one?) and eventually were able to line up to get on the tender. We rode the tender boat to the port at Belize and then were herded into an air conditioned bus (complete with bathroom!).
Leaving the ship on our tender boat
Our guides introduced themselves and we were on our way. We had a two hour bus ride ahead of us. The guides made it very interesting though, by pointing our various landmarks and telling us about the culture and history of Belize (formerly British Honduras). One thing I found particularly interesting due to my family background was that there is a large Amish and Mennonite population in Belize. The guide said you could get a fair price on well made furniture or used cars from them!
Mennonite Church we drove by
Finally we arrived at the site. We had to get off the bus and get onto a ferry to cross the river. This was a hand cranked ferry.
The crank/handle to turn itWorking hard!
Next we got into vans to be shuttled another mile or so. Finally we were at the visitor’s center!
Xunantunich means “Stone Lady” and is thought to have been from around 200 to 900 BC. I linked to the wikipedia article if you want to know a little more history. In any case, our guide told us tons of information at the time, but as it was super hot and I was nervous about the climbing, I didn’t remember much of it.
There are several buildings (huge ones!) but we were to climb up the largest, called “El Castillo”. From the top we would be able to see for miles, including to Guatemala, only a few miles away.
El CastilloChris listening to the guide (in yellow)Some of the climbing we didMore to go! Up those stairs, then around a little ledge, then up MORE stairs.Got a little freaked out so I thought I'd sit for awhile.Made it to the top! The roof: right there.Looking down from the topExhausted but happy
After the whole group got to the top…we did have to go back down. We took a different route down that was perhaps steeper but easier in a way. I was pretty pleased to be on the ground as well. One other note: during the tour two men with large rifles followed our group. Our guide said they were border patrol to protect us from the Guatemalan border. They did give us our distance, but I couldn’t help but think of all the stories you hear of groups of rich tourists getting kidnapped. (Rich simply in that we are from the US–we are all wealthy in comparison).
In any case, the ruins were fantastic! I want to see more 🙂
We did the opposite travel on the way back and were soon back on the bus, on our way to a lunch stop. Here we were given an authentic Belizean dish of chicken, rice and beans (made with coconut milk…so good!), plantain, and cole slaw.
It was good, but I might rather have had lizard!
On the way back, we mainly slept. We were at the pier just a few minutes after the official time for the last tender, and we were on the very last tender back to the ship. What a day!!
That was the last port of the trip, just to let you know. The rest of time would be just on the ship.
There was an adult dodgeball game at 5:30 that Chris wanted to do so we headed up to the sports deck (top deck of the ship). When we got there, we ran into our tablemates. They had been playing the free throw competition. I did not want to play dodgeball so I just watched Chris play. He did very well and won a medal. He did not want the medal, but I did, since our tablemates already had one from the free throw comp.
Chris's teamDodgeball court
Wearing our medals! Me, Jen (the cruise director), and Michelle
After the excitement of dodgeball we relaxed in the lobby for awhile and then had to get ready for our last “elegant evening.” After the week of eating, drinking, and excursions, Chris and I were not as thrilled to get dressed up. We didn’t bother with taking pictures, and simply did our best to squeeze into our clothing.
At dinnerSunset from the balcony
After dinner, we hung out with our tablemates for a bit and then turned in for the night. Tomorrow would be a relaxing day at sea only, no big plans, no plans at all!
