Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 4

 Tuesday, 10/19 - Sardinia

Lots of wine and cookies

The next day was another shore excursion on another island. The island was Sardinia, part of Italy. We got up and had breakfast, and went to the theater to wait for them to send us out to the bus. We drove through the port city on narrow streets, looking at various buildings and ‘points of interest’. At one point, we drove up a hill and stopped to take pictures. On one side of the bus was the ocean and some salt ponds. We were told that these salt ponds were no longer used to produce salt, that was all done on the other side of the island, but these were maintained for the benefit of the flamingoes and 230 other bird species that use them.

After a few minutes, we were back on the bus, and headed out of the city. A farmer in a local village would welcome us into his house for some folklore, traditional clothing, music and refreshments. We arrived at the farmer’s house, in the middle of the village, at about 1. We were joined by a 2^nd tour group, so quite a large gathering in the courtyard.

There was a small group of performers. One man played the accordion. Others played an ancient instrument consisting of 3 pipes of different lengths. The longest one had the deepest sound, and needed to have air blown through it consistently. We were told that, starting as a child, they were taught to practice that constant blowing by blowing into a straw into water while breathing normally. One of the men did a short demonstration with a mouth harp. Most all the performers sang the songs, and at least 6 performers participated in the dancing.

Generally, we got a short history lesson of the song or dance about to be performed, and then they performed a song and a dance. Then they would tell us about the cookies they were handing out, and the wine being poured. Then another song and a dance, then another type of cookie and wine. There were, I think, at least 6 different cookies and wines served. By the time we were getting ready to leave, at 3, everything above my ears felt slightly fuzzy, but I made it back to the bus and thus to the ship.

We had a reservation to see one of the stage shows at 7:30. It was an interesting and entertaining show, but had its confusing moments, too. A dress made of flip flops? I guess I don’t hang out in the LGBT world enough to understand. Or maybe that was pertaining to ‘high fashion’? Certainly I think some aspects of high fashion are hideous and not functional.

Afterwards, we went to supper, I’m not sure where. Possibly we tried to go to the Manhattan, but we didn’t meet their dress code, so we went down one deck to the Taste. Unfortunately, we were seated in the chandelier area, which was quite noisy, so talking was next to impossible.

We knew the next day would be a long excursion (10 hours), so we went to our cabin and went to bed.

Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 3

Monday, 10/18

Shore Excursion on Palma

Having gone to bed so early, we were a bit surprised to wake up still tired, but we shuffled our way to the buffet and had some breakfast. I thought the scrambled eggs looked good, but as usual with buffet scrambled eggs, they were still a little runny. Not enjoyable. I don’t like food that isn’t well done. I got some other stuff, too, from potatoes to fruit, and some orange juice. What I really wanted was a cola, for my morning batch of caffeine, but I didn’t get any.

We went to the auditorium and waited for them to call our excursion. We got there about half an hour early, so it took them a while, but eventually, it happened. They sent us down a long black corridor and at the end of it, crew members put a sticker on our shirts that had a number on it, and we were sent down to the gangplank, where crew members scanned our room keys to note that we were leaving the ship.

Outside, there was a long line of buses waiting. A crew member took a final look at our tickets and said, “30. Your bus is at the end of the line. So we trotted off, taking him at his word, headed for the last bus. We had almost reached it when one of the tour guides stopped us. “Wait, wait, you just went past your bus,” and pointed to the sign sitting on the dashboard, instead of the sign at the top of the bus. Sure enough, the dashboard sign of the 4^th bus from the end said ‘30’, and the title of our excursion. So color me pink with embarrassment as we went back and presented our tickets. Then we climbed aboard and found seats. Before long, we were on our way.

I don’t remember the name of the port city, but the island was Palma. It’s part of Spain. While the tour guide pointed out some buildings for us to look at, and told us some of the city’s history, the bus driver weaved his way through narrow streets and up a hill to the castle at the top. After the bus was parked, we were given about 20 minutes to walk back to the front of the castle and take pictures. There was a long staircase to get from the road to the castle. I opted not to tax myself by climbing all of them, but John went up and took pictures. I started to get worried as the minutes ticked by, wondering if I would have to race up the stairs to find him and drag him back to the bus. But he showed up, and we got back more or less on time.

Then the drive back down the hill, and through some more narrow streets, past more homes and churches. Then the bus stopped at the corner of modern thoroughfare, and we all got off. We walked about a block and then crossed the busy street, paused to hear some history of the building in front of us. Then we walked for about 2 days, uphill, on cobblestone sidewalks to get to the center of town. Or if not the center, then a downtown section of the city. Many important government buildings were pointed out to us, which John dutifully took pictures of.

At one point, the tour guide pointed out an old olive tree in the square that was purported to be 800 years old. It had a very interesting shape, which I would have loved having pictures of, in case I ever felt inclined to paint a portrait of a strangely shaped tree. But John never thought of taking pictures of it, and by the time I thought of suggesting it, we were off and walking elsewhere.

A block or 2 later, we paused to compare architectural details of 2 buildings. One of them was under renovation, and we had to stand about the base of the scaffolding. When we started off again, one of our group stepped forward to go through the scaffolding, only to trip over a bracing bar. He got back up, and those of us around him wondered if he was okay, but he wasn’t bleeding. So we hurried on, sometimes sharing the half-lane street with vehicles or delivery trucks.

Eventually, we came to a building which the guide called a market. Think of a mall, only instead of store fronts, it was full of booths of all sizes, selling all sorts of things, including meat and produce. We were given half an hour to roam among the booths before we gathered back together. In that time, the man who had fallen and his wife had found a pharmacy and bought some antiseptic ointment and a couple bandages for his banged-up shins, so he was a little more inclined to shake off the experience.

Once we had all rejoined the group, the guide took us inside, up the escalator to the 2^nd floor, and to a special event restaurant, where they served us a traditional meal of Palma, complete with wine. It was very good, though the wine was a little too dry for my taste. (I like soda-pop wine.)

After a filling meal, I wasn’t looking forward to walking any great distance, but it turned out we only had to walk about 3 blocks to get to our bus, which had changed location and was waiting for us. A quick trip back to the pier, and we were boarding the ship.

John went to the hot tub. I laid down on the bed and rested. In years past, I would have fallen asleep, but not this time. I’m proud of myself. I may not have made it to the hot tub, but at least I didn’t fall asleep.

We had a reservation at the Japanese specialty restaurant that evening. The type of place where they cook the food on a big grill right in front of you. This place included making the fried garlic rice on that grill, which was a fun addition. They used about a pound of garlic butter making the fried rice. Our drinks package allowed us to get mixed drinks that were $15 or less, and this restaurant had 2 cocktails on their menu, so we each got one, and then tasted each others.

Anyway, I opted for the filet mignon, well done. I usually tell them to ‘burn it, stomp on it, and burn it again’, because I’ve had ‘well done’ meat that was still mooing. But John begged me not to add those instructions, for fear the chef might actually climb on the grill to stomp on it. So I quietly asked for it to be cooked well done, and wasn’t the only one to ask for that, so there!

When he got around to cooking the filet mignon, especially the well done portions, the chef added butter and soy sauce to the meat. So when I got to eat it, it was soft and tasty, not hard and cardboardy. I’ll have to remember that trick if I ever decide to cook meat at home.

After we ate, we went back to our room, took our evening pills, checked our tickets for the next day’s excursion, set our alarms, and went to bed.

Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 2

Sunday, 10/17

During our flight to Barcelona, I got woke up rather rudely as the lights were turned on and the flight attendants handed out breakfast. The yogurt was okay, but not a kind I would have picked. Much thicker than I’m used to, but at least it was fruit flavored. After breakfast, they turned the lights back out.

By now, John had opted to use the empty seat next to us, and I was sitting next to the window. Despite having only gotten about half an hour of sleep, I couldn’t go back to it. As the sky lightened as dawn approached (or were we approaching it?) I watched the Spanish landscape pass by under us. There were entire valley systems that were full of fog, which lent the view an eerie look. Some were so large, they looked like seas.

Then we flew out over water, which surprised me. I thought Barcelona was land-locked. Apparently not.

The Barcelona airport is big, with long halls to walk and many hoops to jump through. There was a bottle-neck as our passports were checked. More walking. More walking. Another bottle-neck as our Spanish health forms were checked. John’s sailed through. I don’t know what the problem was with mine, but I must have stood there for 2 full minutes before they sent me on.

Find our luggage. This was at least an hour after the plane landed. Somebody was collecting suitcases from the carousel as ‘unclaimed’. Eventually, John found our 2 suitcases, and we put on the luggage tags for our cruise. More walking.

Finally, we saw somebody holding up a sign for a cruise line. Not the one we were looking for, but ours was standing not too far away. That person directed us to another cruise employee, who was taking luggage and sending it to the ship. After standing around for a few minutes, they took us upstairs and outside to ‘go to the bus’. We walked a couple blocks. The breeze felt nice. Then into a building and down 2 floors to get tested for covid. We were told about this, but thought it would happen at the dock.

Half an hour later, we got on the bus to the ship.

We didn’t have our boarding documents that had supposedly been sent to us, but they were ready for that. They took our passports, found us in their system, gave us our cabin keys (and gave our passports back), and sent us on our way.

At last, we walked onto the ship. Our first chore was to find our muster station, in case of emergency, but that muster station was, for us, right inside the entrance. So while we were there, we booked reservations for a couple shows. Then we went to The Taste, one of the main dining rooms, to get some lunch. John got a pork chop, and I had a philly cheesesteak sandwich. Both came with fries. John finished his meal, but I was so sleep-deprived, I could only eat half of mine. My body didn’t want food, it wanted sleep. And fluid. I did manage to drink 4 glasses of cola and 1.5 glasses of water. John drank about the same. We felt semi-revived after lunch, so went and found our cabin.

Our cabin was so small, it was lilliputtin-ish. The bathroom had been split up, with the toilet in a tiny closet on one side of the entrance, and the shower on the other. There was a curtain that could be closed to separate that piece of the room from the rest of the room. Beyond that, a curved closet resided on the right, the sink, a counter and cupboards on the left. A double bed presided over the rest of the cabin, with–I’m guessing–less than a foot of clearance on either side of it. So, not a lot of room to move around in.

Our luggage had not yet shown up. John unpacked the carry-on suitcase and we took our morning pills. We hadn’t managed to take our evening pills the night before, but it was far too late to worry about that.

John went out to explore the ship, and I lay down and stared at the ceiling. After a while, I got up and unpacked my carry-on bag–mostly–and then I got on the phone and checked on our specialty dining reservations. We had forgotten when they were at, and didn’t want to miss them. Then I glanced through the shore excursion tickets, just to do something. Uh oh. According to my count, we were missing one ticket for one excursion, and both tickets for another. So I shoved them back into the envelope and trotted down to the shore excursion desk to check into it.

The shore excursion desk was busy. I expected that, so I got into line, as requested. Others apparently didn’t realize there was a line, and got help before me, but eventually I got up there, and took all the tickets out of the envelope to explain the problem. Turned out 2 of the tickets had been stapled together and I hadn’t noticed. So that missing ticket was solved. Then as I sorted through the rest of the tickets, I realized I had pairs of tickets for every port we would hit. All was well with shore excursions. Obviously, my brain wasn’t functioning well. More laying on our bed, not sleeping but resting as best we could, and still no luggage.

Eventually, we went back to The Taste for supper. John had Atlantic salmon, and I had baked zita. I was so tired, I only wanted comfort foot. We admired the 3-deck tall chandelier in the middle of the restaurant and went up to the buffet on deck 15 to have a 2^nd dessert.

Then it was back to our cabin. Our luggage had shown up. We quickly unpacked–mostly–and then gave in to our fatigue. After checking our tickets for our shore excursion the next day, we set an alarm to wake us up. With an inside cabin, there would no chance of sunlight seeping in to wake up. And especially at 6:30 am, so we set an alarm or 2 and thankfully sank into some much-needed sleep.

Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 1

 Okay, we were ready. Or thought we were.

Our suitcases were packed. The dog was at the kennel. We got up at 7:30 on Saturday, Oct 16, to make sure we got to the airport for a 2:56 pm departure for Miami. We left the house about 10:30, got the car parked, and got on the shuttle. It was about noon. There was, of course, a line at the airline counter, but otherwise, things were going as expected.

Until we got to the ticket booth. I handed her our passports, our vaccination cards and our print-out regarding our flights. Then; “Have you got your health form for the Spanish government?”

My jaw dropped. “I know nothing about such a form. I was never told I needed any kind of form for Spain.”

Well, such a form was necessary. Such a form was mandatory. The clerk wrote down the website on my flight information and asked me to step aside and go to that website on my phone and fill out the forms, and come back when I had the QR codes we would receive by email.

My phone! Use the internet? Check my email? I don’t use the internet on my phone; I use it for phone calls. And text messaging.

No choice. So for an hour, I stood in the middle of a busy airline ticket center, trying to fill out a form to get permission to land in Spain. First, I filled it out for a family, thinking that would be simpler (I was wrong). I filled it in for John, then went on to give it my information, skipped through the sections for 5 children, and… it wouldn’t let me go on until I filled in those sections! So I went back to fill out individual forms. Fill in the information for John, and… It told me a form for him already existed, and I should click on ‘Continue with Forms’, a button that I could not find. Tears streamed down my face as I started tearing out my hair.

Okay, not quite that bad, but I was getting pretty frazzled. It was going on 2. The crowd had dissipated. Finally, the ticket clerk came over to help and filled out the forms on her smart phone, then printed them out so I would have them when we got to Spain. She got us our boarding tickets, took the luggage we were checking in, and sent us on our way. I never even got her name. She was my hero, that day.

Next, the security line, which was long. We took out our electronics and put them in a bin. Emptied our pockets and put our extra glasses in a bin. Took off our shoes to put in a bin, was told not to use a bin. I had to take off my belly bag, and couldn’t put it in a bin, either. I told the guard I had artificial knees, and he waved me over to the big, 360 degree x-ray machine, which I expected. Then I got patted down. What was the purpose of the x-ray machine? John doesn’t have any artificial parts, but he got waved over to the x-ray machine, and got patted down as well. Apparently, what was good for the goose was good for the gander.

It was approaching 3, and they were hollering at us to get our stuff and get out of the way. John told me to grab my stuff, and run for the gate, he’d catch up. The overnight case fell open, and he had to shove stuff back into it. I shoved the computer and 2 kindles into my bag (only the computer had come out of it), shoved my phone in my pocket, grabbed my phone and ran for the tram to the concourse I needed. It was crowded, and I didn’t get a chance to get my shoes back on. As I hurried down the long hallway towards Gate 58, I heard them calling our names to report to the gate, the plane was about to leave. I got there and shoved our tickets at them, had to remind them to give back the attached tickets to get us to Barcelona (Spain). Then I turned around to see where John was.

He was coming. He handed me the glasses I had forgotten to pick up. He didn’t have his shoes. They couldn’t let us on the plane without shoes. I sat down and put on my shoes, but all his other pairs of shoes were in his checked luggage, not his carry-on. We had a plane to catch in Miami in order to get to Barcelona. What were we to do?

A man said he could give John a pair of sandals, size 12. John told him they would be a little small, but he’d take them. After looking through all his family’s carry-on pieces, the man didn’t have his size 12 sandals and apologized. At that time, a younger man approached with a pair of flip flops, which he offered John, who accepted gratefully, and we got on the plane. I have the impression we were not the last ones to get on that plane, but I can’t swear to that.

We found our seats, sat down, buckled up, sighed in relief and hoped the worst was behind us. John had lost his shoes to the conveyor belt at security. We could hope to reclaim them when we returned to Orlando. At some point, John realized I wasn’t wearing my belly bag. Another item lost to the security check point. Another thing to hope to reclaim when we returned to Orlando.

The items in my belly bag included my flash drive and my driver’s license. Luckily, our passports were in my carry-on bag, so I still had a form of ID.

We arrived at Miami without further incident. While John made use of the rest room across the hall from our arrival gate (D20), I discovered that we had 2 hours to reach our departure gate, D4.

We had had an early breakfast, but no chance to grab anything to eat or drink in the Orlando airport, and nothing had been served us during the ½ hour flight to Miami. We had 2 hours. Surely we could find something to eat in the Miami airport, couldn’t we?

Luck smiled on us. Directly across from our departure gate was a tiny Cuban restaurant, so we got something to eat. We had no clue if anything would be served to us during the 9 hour flight to Barcelona, so we ate while we had the chance, and it was good. I rather wished I had gotten 2 empanadas. I opted to munch on pretzels I had packed as a snack. Between the relief of finally being on our way and the introduction into our systems of much needed food and drink, we were feeling pretty decent.

John likes an aisle seat in a plane, but we were assigned seats A and B, which were the window seat and the middle seat, so he took the window seat. Surprisingly, nobody showed up to claim the aisle seat, but we were in the air before I realized it was going to remain empty.

After about an hour of flying, the flight attendants served drinks. And then supper. I opted for the vegetarian pasta, John had the chicken and rice. There were a lot of other things included; a bottle of water, a small salad, 2 large crackers, a wedge of cheese, a roll and a dessert bar. We ate it thankfully and finished our sodas, keeping the bottles of water for later.

After dinner, the cabin lights went off, as it was presumed everybody would sleep through the flight. There is 6 hours time difference between Florida and Barcelona, and it is an 8-hour flight. We left between 6 and 7, and would arrive in Spain between 8 and 9 (both local times.) But according to my watch, we would arrive at about 2 am. Anticipating a long, busy day the next day, I tried to sleep. I really did. John ‘rested’, but probably didn’t get much sleep. It wasn’t until my watch said it was 12:33 that my body decided, ‘Okay, it’s time to sleep.’

We would arrive in Barcelona in approximately 2 more hours, but I got a few minutes of sleep.