Sallad Refinnej

Just letting you all know that I finally posted pictures from Antarctica in that last entry. Guess who found free internet and two hours of spare time in Montevideo... ... read more

I haven't been posting lately because I really wanted to be able to add pictures to these entries, but i don't think I'm going to have that kind of internet access until I'm home, and you guys probably don't want to wait that long. So I'm going to start posting the entries I wrote months ago and saved for when I could post pictures. But I'm abandoning the pictures for now. This entry was written on my first visit to Antarctica toward the end of December. I’m skipping a couple of destinations, because I think Antarctica trumps every other port I’ve been to. I’ll go back and cover the rest of Europe, the Caribbean, and the Western side of South America, but for now Anarctica is on my mind. It seems appropriate so close to Christmas ... read more

Sorry for the multiple entries, but I wrote one like a month ago and I thought I owed you an update of the present day. I'm in Fort Lauderdale today. We finished Europe and crossed the Atlantic (with a Norwalk outbreak to keep us company), and now we're doing 10 day Caribbean runs. We stopped in Nassau after the crossing and I got to reminisce a little. It was weird going there every week for 11 months and then not having seen it for a year. And we were docked with the Fascination that day so it was even more surreal for me. Anyway, we've done one Caribbean run so far. It's not a great route. I like Aruba a Curacao and got a pretty decent sunburn from liking it so much, but Panama and Costa ... read more

I know I briefly made an entry about the day I spent in Venice, but since I’m typing on my own time instead of a 30 minute internet café timeframe, I thought I’d go more in depth and hopefully get some pictures up. I got up early to go into Venice. I think I had rehearsal that afternoon, so I wanted to have a few hours to get to know Venice. We’re still strangers, Venice and I. I set out from the cruise terminal and found the city okay, but where I went from there I couldn’t tell you. I walked down street after street, side street after side street, waterfront after waterfront. Every corner led to a street lined with shops and restaurants and every canal had a gondola in it. It definitely has to ... read more

I’m going to write a separate entry for each port city. Of course, I haven’t written these in the moment, but the only way I’m going to get any details out to you is if I do my best to recap my experiences in retrospect and then post them individually. Internet is way to scarce here in Europe for me to try and write this stuff on the fly. So to start, let’s go back to the beginning with Istanbul since I didn’t really give too much insight then. We had 24 hours in Istanbul, but we had some extra rehearsals to deal with, so the outings were sporadic and short. I took a lot of pictures of the city as we sailed in. It was the first big city I’d seen since I got on ... read more

Finally got to wander Venice today. I walked all along the amazing streets (yes they do have streets you can walk on and bridges you can cross, it's not all gondolas). It really is a beautiful city. Pictures are still to come because I need to find an internet connection for my laptop that's fast enough to let me upload pics. I also managed to get lost, a lot. Every street looks alike here and around every corner is a bridge to cross and another alley way to walk through. I ended up all the way on the other side of the city before I found the outside of it and walked all the way around the waterfront until I found the cruise terminal. I really wish I had remembered how to say "cruise ship" in ... read more

I made it to the ship. I spent 10 hours flying to Frankfurt, Germany and arrived only to find out that my connecting flight had been cancelled due to a ground crew strike at several Italian airports (including Venice). So, fortunately for me, I was rescheduled for another flight (some were not so lucky and had to wait on standby). Unfortunately for me I had to wait around for 7 hours in Frankfurt airport. My laptop battery was dead and there was no way for me to charge it on a European outlet, and after being awake already for 20 some odd hours, I didn't have to stamina to read, so I think I passed the time by starring blankly off into space. I honestly have no idea where the time went, but it seemed endless. ... read more