The Journey Finally Continues

As I said, we all made it back to Venice in one piece. We made our way back to the hotel, and with shock and horror, watched as one after another other members of our "singles" cruise made their way into our hotel. Why the shock and horror? Well, we hadn't seen a person our age enter the hotel yet. People 20+ years older than us kept coming in. There was nothing to be done, we were there, they were old, but we could easily separate ourselves from them and still have a blast.

We once again decided to ventured out to find some dinner, and as we prepared to leave, we ran into one of the two people in charge of getting our cruise taken care of, and some other guy who was going on the cruise, one who was actually close to our age, so they accompanied us. We went to a little joint called Crazy Pizza, just around the corner from our hotel. Having tried the pizza in Rome, and not loving it, I went for a calzone. Sadly, the calzone was yet again, blah (as I was warned). I just have to say, while the Italians were for sure headed in the right direction on the food ideas, they fell short and missed the target a bit, so thank heaven the Americans had their way with it and made it what I've come to love today, yummy American Italian food. :)

Unfortunatly, there is a big problem in Italy whenever we ask to have the check split, so it all had to go on one card, and we each had to pay Kirsten back our part of the bill. In theory, this is fine, but things never work out that way. Somehow Kirsten was shorted a good deal of money, so we sat in the foyer of the hotel trying to figue out what happened. This lady in our group, who was considerably older than us, decides to come over and chat with us, which is fine, but we were all a little to preoccupied with what we were doing to really chat with her, and she got a bit offeneded, then when we got it worked out, we were ready for bed, so we started to leave, and one girl said she needed to go take a shower, so the lady was offended again, unintentionally... sorry lady, it was late, the kids needed to go to bed, go find some adults to play with.

The next monring, we went to eat breakfast in the restaurant, and the bus boy, Vincent, decided he would flirt with me. He was just silly, and when I was done I left, and he told my friend he thought I was pretty... silly boy. Then I returned later to the dining room to chat with some of my friends who ate after me, and our cruise pal from the night before came to chat, again, but by that point we were getting ready to leave and get ready to check out, and the same girl from the night before said she needed to go take a shower. "I thought you took one last night!?" Said this lady, a little put out. "I was going to, but I was too tired." Said my friend. A sour look crosses ladies face, as we bid her goodbye and leave the dining area. (Just a funny story I wanted to share, cause she was busy with the youngest kids on the cruise so far, and not people her own age.)




ANYWAY, so we get on the ship, and get settled, and then of course we have to go out and do our lovely muster drill before we can take off.





I decided, I'm going to tell you about life on the ship, and then I'll tell you about our ports. okay? okay! :)

First of all, we did end up having a large number of people our age in the group with us, so that was not so bad.

Well, We only had 2 days at sea, so we didn't sleep in much, because we usually had to be off the ship early for our excursions, and it was SO hard to wake up when your room is pitch black, prime for sleeping late.

Our first night on the ship, we all went and danced to night away... but we sure were tired in Croatia the next day. After that... pretty much, I went to bed soon after dinner (not that weird, dinner usually ended around 10:30 or later).

We ate a TON! We would wake up between 7 and 8 and eat breakfast, usually at the main buffet, then we would have lunch sometime, dinner at the buffet around 5, because we were STARVING, and then dinner again at 9 in the main dining room. :) Oh, and of course the main dinner was a three course meal, AND, there was a soft serve ice cream machine on the ship, and we had at least one cone a day... :) oink oink!


There was a mini golf course on the ship, and a rock wall, but we never did either, because they were on the top deck, at the back, and it was too windy to enjoy. I'm sad to report, I was in my swimming suit once the entire trip, for a short period of time, due to lack of swim time, and lack of desire to squeeze myself into a swimming suit that fit me 10 lbs earlier. But I still had fun. :)

9 pm dinner was probably the most fun on the ship. It may sound weird, but we were always laughing SO hard and just enjoying sitting at the table talking to each other and our waiters.





Viviana and her assistant george are in the picture with us above. LOVE THEM! Story time.

Viviana, so cute, so nice, loved her. The first night we went to dinner, we had all the wine glasses and such on out table, after that night, just water glasses. We found out the last night the Viviana was LDS too, and she was so excited to have us on the ship with her. Such a nice lady.

George, was super quiet! He spoke English pretty well, but he was self-conscious about it, and was embarrassed to talk too much in English. The, second night I believe it was, on the ship Heather asked for some hot cocoa at the end of our meal. We expected something like a cocoa mix poured into hot water, but no, it was warm milk and chocolate, made by hand by our dear George. The next night, Viviana asked Heather if she wanted cocoa again, and she said "yes please" and then she started to ask the rest of us, and we all kind of wanted to try it, so George just made a bunch and brought us all some. Well, after that, they never asked again... no, George would just disapear around the end of the meal, and return later with cocoa for us all. Super Awesome! We loved it. but then some people sarted to feel guilty that he was doing it, so one night Heather said we didn't need it, and his face just dropped. "Okay." he said, trying to hide his disappointment, but then we felt bad, and explained that we felt bad having him do it everynight. I turned to see the pitcher of cocoa sitting on the service cart, and passed the word that he had already made it. We told George we did want it, but we didn't want to put him out. George happily told us he didn't mind and poured us our cocoa with a smile. After that, we just got our cocoa like clock work every night, and never had to ask or be asked. Makes me smile. :)

When we left for our cruise the first day, I didn't have my camera up on the top deck with me, so I missed out on pictures, but swore I'd get them coming back into Venice when we returned. I almost forgot, but as I climbed out of bed that morning, I suddenly remembered, so I grabbed my camera and ran up to the pool deck. Much to my excitment, the sun was still rising, so I got some great shots. Here are a few, and I'll tell ya'll more later.