It was just after midnight when I awoke, very much awake, and rose and spent about three hours writing the blog from our first full day in the Holy Land. I had slept quite soundly, and after finishing the blog, continued with some sound sleep, anticipating another 6 AM wakeup call that had been placed for our group. We’d missed the excitement of one of our fellow travelers who had managed to get locked in the bathroom late during the night and needed to summon help by pounding on the wall. I’m thinking that this being a pilgrim is pretty rough stuff. At about a quarter to six I awoke again from a sound sleep and asked myself, is that really a jack ass braying at dawn? They have a wakeup donkey here in the Holy ... read more

We received our courtesy wake-up call promptly at 6 AM by the diligent front desk; but, only after my courtesy wake-up alarm for 5 AM racquetball awoke both of us much before we were ready. It might have seemed odd for my phone to be chiming in so early; except, Sharon had suggested that I set a backup in case we didn’t get our courtesy wake-up. I’m way ahead of you, I've already disabled my MWF alarm for the remainder of the trip. I mumbled something to Sharon about “Are we supposed to have our bags out in the hall by six?” knowing full well that we had just an hour to do so. She replied “seven” just as she was turning on the water to the shower. I at least realized what happened before she ... read more

01 – Preparing to Pilgrimage It's time to pack up the suitcases and head out to explore another part of the world. This time we're going on a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land with the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. We're also being joined on this trip by my sister Erin and her husband Dennis. I (Sharon) am writing this introduction but we've all agreed that John will be responsible for writing the blog entries though he'll now have 3 people to help with editing it. So time to turn it over to John for the first entry. Hope you’ll follow along with us. On Monday morning we'll attend a mass with the group before boarding a bus and heading to Chicago for our flight to Istanbul and on to Tel Aviv. Erin and Dennis are flying over ... read more

Our large suitcases had been spirited away in the middle of the night by those magical HAL luggage fairies. Our bags had been marked as BLUE-1 and we were due to disembark at 8:30 AM. We made our way to the Rotterdam Dining Room for one last meal aboard the Maasdam. We were seated by the window and could overlook the dockside activities. Already people were departing, many to catch flights home. We looked up to see a couple being seated with us, and it was déjà vu all over again. As we had joined our Trivia Teammates for breakfast quite by accident just one week earlier, with them departing and we happily continuing back to Montreal, this Saturday morning it would be our turn to depart; while, Edie and Fred had the leisure of taking ... read more

With our clocks set back one hour to Eastern Daylight Savings time, we awoke to begin our first and only sea day of this leg of our Collector’s Voyage. My day started in the gym looking out at the expanse of water in front of us. I could see the shoreline in the far distance and can only imagine the enormity of the task for early explorers seeking to find that elusive Northwest Passage. This being Thursday, I concentrated my anaerobic workout on the legs after thirty minutes on the treadmill. The Maasdam has three machines for the legs, so I also spent some time on their crunch machine and one for the arms. Sharon was about to leave for mass when I returned to the cabin. The plan was for me to work on the ... read more