European cruise

Irene and I have been to Europe, Australia and Thailand many times and mostly for teaching martial arts.   Because of my problem with walking without a cane and the prognosis of the problem getting worse, Irene and I decided to take a trip just for the pleasure of it, while I can still walk..  The trip lasted for three weeks and we started in Seattle and visited Amsterdam,  Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Malta and back to Spain.  Some of the pictures are at the end of the Blog.

Flying long trips has always been boring and although you are sitting on your butt for many hours you always seem to arrive tired.  Of course jet lag is part of the problem.  As I got older the jet lag required a couple off days to recover, yet I always had to teach the next day, a real bummer since I just got more tired.  It was a pleasure not to have to be concerned with teaching.

Actually the flight was better than in the past.  When Irene and I drove up from Rogue River Oregon to Seattle, an 8 hour trip, we listened to talking books, which made the trip seem much shorter.  Imagine our surprise to find that on international flights each seat has its own movie setup with at least a dozen different films to watch.  We both watched 4 movies which made the flight seem fairly short.  We had to set our watches back 9 hours when we landed in Amsterdam, Holland.  We had a six hour layover so decided to take a tour of Amsterdam.  I had been through Amsterdam at least six times before and never left the airport.

Holland is quite unique in so much it is always threatened by flooding.  Much of the country is below sea level and they have huge dikes to keep the water out.  The tour emphasized the canals running all through Amsterdam as well the building Anne Frank and her family were hidden in during World War II.  The city must have had a billion bikes.  There was one parking lot with three levels that was jammed with thousands of bikes.  It seems that since Amsterdam is so flat and it cost a lot to own, drive and park a car that most people leave their cars outside the city and ride a bike in town.  You would see college students next to bankers and lawyers all pedaling along.  They had bikes with cradles in the front for mothers taking the kid around town or bikes with extended seats for taking the kids to school.  The buildings are mostly prewar construction and were amazingly thin for people to live in.  One of the narrowest buildings in the world that is lived in and has three stories is only five feet wide, really. Would have really like to see inside it.  In the old days the buildings were taxed on how wide they were, hence skinny buildings. We also went to a seven hundred year old dairy farm that made specialized cheese, which Irene bought, and they also made wooden shoes.  They showed us how they made the cheese and then we went into a room that looked seven hundred years old where they made the famous Holland wooden shoes.  They put a block of wood on a spindle and used a long rod with a cutter on the end.  As the wood spun they pushed the cutter against the wood, similar to a wood lathe.  First they did the outside and then poked  the cutter into the middle and bored out the inside.  It was interesting to see an actual shoe being created as if a sculpture was chiseling a statue and it only took about two minutes.   We went on to see one of the oldest windmills in Holland and were surprised to see that people were living in it.  On the way back to the airport we went through the center of town and through the district that houses a lot of "coffee houses" that sell funny cigarettes.  Smoking dope is legal in Holland.  You can grow it, but cannot sell it, unless authorized.  Prostitution is also legal and we went down the street where the prostitutes sit behind a large street window and display themselves in various stages of dress or undress.  Most of them looked like tired plump barbie dolls.  A very interesting city and we were sorry we could not visit some of the rural towns, but back to the airport and on to Barcelona.

The trip to Barcelona was a little over two hours and we arrived in the dark, so we could not see much, which was disappointing since the city is on the coast and has a beautiful bay blending into surrounding hills.  The airport was very modern and it was like walking through a fancy mall with stores of every description.  We had four pieces of luggage as well as my walker and cane.  I have trouble walking any distance and therefore opted to take my walker with my cane in a side holster.  We decided to catch a cab into town since we did not have any idea where our hotel was.  We decided to arrive in Barcelona a day before boarding the cruise ship.   This would give us a little time for sightseeing and getting an overview of the city for when we returned from the cruise.  We were going to spend an extra day before flying home so we could investigate the more popular spots we saw.  The cab cost 42 Euro's ( 1 Euro was about $1.30) and took us to our hotel which was one block from Cataluna square, one of the most popular areas in Barcelona, a central point for most night life.   The hotel was a pleasant surprise.  It had a veranda overlooking the street and you could see the gushing waterfalls in Cataluna square.  The highlight of the room was the bathroom.  It was as big as the rest of the room and had a shower that could blast a hole through you if going full blast.  They had complimentary bathrobes, slippers, toothbrushs and a razor .  We are used to motel six so this was rather fancy for us.   They had a fruit plate for us as well as some complimentary cava ( sparkling Catalan wine) , which I don't like, but Irene slurped up.  I would rather have had a Dr. Pepper (which doesn't seem to exist in Spain).  They threw in a great buffet breakfast that catered to different European styles of eating.  Some of the food I could not recognize, but was very pleased with the large assortments of pastries.  We did not have to be to the ship till 5pm so we caught the metro (underground subway) to the waterfront.  One thing about traveling in a foreign country is trying to figure out the transportation system.  How much it cost to go from point A to point B and where do you go to go from A to B if you cannot understand the language and read directions.  We must have stood in front of the metro ticket machine for ten minutes before we decided to go to the ticket window.  Irene tried to explain where we were going to the man who just smiled and nodded his head.  He sold Irene two tickets and we went into a metro entrance.  Wrong move.  We knew something was wrong, but not sure of what.  Finally Irene spoke to a man who spoke some English and he said we had the wrong tickets and where in the wrong place if we wanted to go to the waterfront.  We went back to the ticket window and finally worked it out.  We were pointed in the right direction and continued our adventure. What a beautiful area of Barcelona.  We emerged to huge very old buildings that lined the waterfront with a tall column in an open square.  Atop the column was an impressive statue of Columbus looking out over the bay, pointing toward America.  Jutting out into the bay were walkways that led to the new aquarium, the largest in Europe.  To the right was an overhead tram that went out into the bay to a small island and looking back it went up into the hills overlooking Barcelona.  Made a mental note to ride it, but never did.  We went over to the aquarium and spent a couple hours wandering through a maze of swarming fish from all over the world.  There was a walkway that was covered with plexiglass so the fish could swim over and around you.  It was like standing inside a fishtank.  Very impressive.   On the way back from the aquarium we passed through a shopping mall on the pier and ran across an interesting nativity display.  I thought it was odd Spanish humor,

but found out later it was a common part of the nativity scene in Cataluna, Spain. I don't quite understand its meaning but the display is (what I thought) of a giant elf , but turned out to be one of the shepards called a "caganer" or pooper, who stops on his way to visit Baby Jesus to poop.  This particular shepard was about 10 feet tall and squatting, with a three foot high pile of poop.  Very unusual.  It was a long time for me to be on my feet so I had to put my arm around Irene's shoulder as we walked.  People thought we were a romantic couple, and we were!  The metro trip back was easier.  We packed up and caught a cab to the ship.
A little blurb about the ship.   It is the Norwegian Jade and is 965ft long.  It carries 2402 passengers with a crew of 1,075.  It was formally known as the Pride of Hawaii and only plied the Hawaiian waters doing a once a week circuit visiting different island ports.  It originally was crewed by foreign nationals from many third world countries who found it difficult to support their families on the low wages they could earn there.  We met a doctor from India who earned more on the ship than she could doing her doctoring in India.  It is maritime law that a ship that is registered in America must have Americans as crew.  So, most ships are registered in other countries, since by American standards the pay is very low and therefore the emphasis on hiring foreign workers.  However, Norwegian decided that it was time to register a ship in America and hire only an American crew and focus just floating around in Hawaiian waters.  They did just that.  They named the ship Pride of Hawaii and hired only young energetic Americans.  The first cruise was a disaster.  The passengers were complaining that they were getting little or no service from the crew and that the crew was more focused on having fun than serving the passengers.  It only took a couple of cruises to learn that the American crew had no interest or real need to work.  They only signed on for the chance to party at Norwegian's expense. Goodbye Pride of Hawaii and hello Norwegian Jade and welcome back all foreign workers and on to other ports.
This is the third Norwegian ship we have been on.  Twice on the Norwegian Star ( Hawaii and Alaska), once on the Sun ( Panama Canal) and now the Jade, through the Mediterranean.  We like the Norwegian line since they have free style dining, which means you can eat dinner at anytime and alone if you like.  Other cruise lines require you to eat at specific times and with the same people throughout the trip.  Since we don't drink(much) and are not into dancing and partying, we just hang around the ship reading, using the jacuzzi and eating whenever we like.  The evening entertainment is usually good so we try to attend each show.  It is a mixture of the leisure time and visiting different ports that makes cruising interesting.  Before we reach a port the cruise director gives a talk on that port.  It was quite interesting.  Spain is a socialist country and always seems to be in a state of conflict.  There are different localities throughout Spain and they all seem to want their independence.  The most vocal are the Catalan people who make up the Barcelona district. They are very independent and have their own Spanish language.  It is the birth place of Picasso and Salvador Dali as well as other famous names.  There is a lot of history for those who would like to goggle Spain for more detailed info.  Let's set sail..
Our room is quite small, but the bathroom and shower area is large.  We are on level 10.  We usually like being on level 4 since you are close to the bottom and feel very little boat rocking.  Irene tends to get seasick if there is too much motion,,,,so do I.   We thought being in the Mediterranean would be more calm than out in the ocean, so 10 was ok.   Level 12 was where the library and main cafe were.  The cafe was open most of the time and you could make every fat cell in your body very happy with the wide assortment  of foods and desserts.  The high point in all our trips was having dinner in the main dining rooms.  The food and service was equal to any major 5star restaurant and we always took at least two hours to eat. I guess that is the good and bad of any cruise.  Lounging around and  gourmet eating are not key elements of any diet plan.  We leave Barcelona at 7pm, spend a day at sea, sailing by Monaco,(Monte Carlo) which we visited in the 70's, Elba, where Napoleon was imprisoned and arrive at Civitavecchia, Italy 7am the next day.

Citvitavecchia is a port city about 90 minutes from Rome.  The ship promotes it as a Rome stopover, but if you leave on tour at 8am and have to be back on the ship by 6pm that only leaves 10 hours for travel and sightseeing.  You cannot see much of Rome in 7 hours, especially if you want to see the Sistine Chapel and St. Peters square.  You can spend five hours there alone.  Many of the tourists are not Christians, but enjoy the beautiful architecture and statues done by DaVinci and Michelangelo.  The tapestries and paintings are huge and amazing in their detail and St. Peters really makes you feel religious regardless of your belief.  In past visits I was always awed by the carving of the Pieta by Michelangelo in St Peters.

Irene and I had been to Rome a number of times and decided to spend the time now wandering through the local town of Civitavecchia.  Most of the tourists were off to Rome, so we enjoyed seeing the local folks that ignored the tourists and just went about their daily life.  It is interesting to see how different cultures interact with each other.    The Italians are very demonstrative in how they speak.  They seem to be excited about anything they say, with their arms all over the place to emphasize what they are saying.  The town is very old and you feel as if you have stepped back in time.  The vegetable market is like a bee hive with the women doing their daily shopping and loudly voicing their choices.  The men stand on corners in small groups and are immersed in some sort of verbal battle with arms flailing and everyone talking at once.  What a difference from Rogue River, Oregon.

We both really like Italy.  Once we did a house exchange with some professors from Bologna.  We lived in Hawaii at the time and exchanged for one month.  They used our car; we  used theirs.  Bologna is midway between Florence and Venice so we could easily visit either city, which we did a lot as well as go further south to Rome.  We have many good memories of that trip, not only from the bigger cities, but from the small villages.  We even visited visited San Marino which is a separate country within Italy, similar to the Vatican.

Back to the ship and on to Athens, Greece, we thought.  Out at sea the captain announced that there were some big student demonstrations in Athens and the port was closed so we were diverting to Crete.
We arrived in Iraklion, Crete at 7am.  Since we had studied up on Athens we were completely lost on what was on the island of Crete.  We almost stayed on the ship, but decided to wander into town and mail some postcards, which Irene liked to do from each port.  It was like stepping into an old Anthony Quinn movie in Zorba the Greek .  The manner of dress, the old boats in the bay and the local people sitting at the local cafe watching the tourist go by.  You wonder who was watching who??   Very quiet compared to Italy.  A lot of old ruins throughout the town.  We bought some t-shirts and headed back to the ship and on to Izmir, Turkey.
Izmir is the first city we did a scheduled tour in since we hadn't visited there before.  It was old, and laid out around a bay.  Like Crete, it was strangely quiet as the locals hurried about as if lost in thoughts.  Irene went to a rug market and listened to the history of rugmaking in Turkey.  The variety and quality of the rugs were amazing.  All were handmade, and some contained 600 stitches per square inch and took years to make.  Since these rugs last 100s of years, you would will them to your children, and they to theirs!  Of course, the prices reflected this and, although there was a lot of interest in buying, only a couple of the smaller rugs were purchased.  Back to the ship and on to Alexandrea and Cairo Egypt.

Alexandrea has 8 million and Cairo has 22 million people.  We are staying in Egypt for two days. Day one we are doing a 13 hour tour to go to Cairo and see the pyramids and Sphinx.  Driving through Alexandrea was like traveling through a garbage dump.  Everywhere you looked there was garbage.  On the street and along the canals were stacks of plastic bottles, paper of every description and many undefinable objects.  People just threw out whatever they were finished with, regardless of where they were.  The streets were filled with cars honking all the time, carts pulled by donkeys and an occasional herd of goats standing in the street.  This was all downtown.  The woman were dressed all in black and moved down the street like they were floating.  Men in groups watched our bus go by as if we were prisoners going out to the desert to be buried.  Not one smile in any group.  I was sure glad when we left the edge of town and moved into the open desert.  The road and small villages we passed through were just an extension of the big city.  The garbage was just spread out more.  An interesting note was there were a lot of tall beehive-like structures that had a lot of holes in them.  The guide told us this was where the pigeons nested and whenever the people needed meat they would trap some of the pigeons for the evening's dinner.  Cairo was a couple of hundred miles from Alexandrea, so it took three or four hours to get there.  There was a toilet on the bus and by the time we got to Cairo it smelled like an overused outhouse.  We went immediately to see the pyramids.

Unbelieveable...  Pictures cannot even begin to grasp the enormity of the pyramids.  Big and huge are small words when talking about a few million blocks of sandstone stacked to reach the heavens.  Immensely huge as you stand at the foot of this wonder.  You try and imagine what it took in time and effort to build each one.  Primitive tools.  No heavy machinery.  Just hammers, chisels and a lot of manpower.

 I was moved by the statue of David in Florance, the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel and the ruins in Rome, but this had no description.  The mind could only grasp it as an impossible feat by earthly man.  The stones were huge and carved to a fine edge so each one fit together as a vast puzzle.  Some of them had to be 20 or 30 tons.  Not only carved to fit, but moved high into the sky by muscle and sweat to blend with a million other stones.  It almost makes you believe it was built

 by aliens.   The edges were jagged because of the outer layer being stolen by the locals to build their homes.  I am really motivated to study  more about the total known history of the pyramids.   The three pyramids stood in a line and were separated from Cairo by the Sphinx. The city of Cairo is a stones throw from the sphinx.  Pictures hide the fact of the city being close, but many of Cairo's finer hotels have rooms with verandas that you can sit out at night and watch the light show at the Sphinx.   A negative side  of the tour was being attacked by trinket sellers.  Some of them rode camels, others horses and the rest were like flies swarming over camel dung.  The guide had warned us not to look at, speak or in any way recognize their existence or they would be like a bad smell we could not get rid of.  I felt like smacking them with my cane, when they almost stuck a trinket up my nose.

We left the pyramids and went to a 5star hotel for lunch.  Our guide had warned us not to eat or drink anything while in Egypt, but it was OK here since it mainly catered to foreigners.  The food was good, but we ate with caution, since it was strange looking food. We went from there to the Cairo museum which has a lot of the most precious archaeological discoveries.  King Tut and all his golden trappings as well as many mummies and statues from over 3000 years ago.  I was touching each statue and finally Irene poked me and pointed to a sign that said, do not touch the statues. I looked around hoping that if any of the guards saw me, since I had a cane, they would think that I was mentally disabled and didn't know better.  There are so many treasures in the museum that if you spent one minute at each it would take seven months to see everything.  I was doing real well in my walking, but as we left the museum did not see a small step and fell down flat in front of a 1000 tourists.  Irene and a tourist helped me up.  I was OK, but banged up my knee.  Since I have no feelings in my legs I was not sure if anything was broken so I was real careful for the next 30 minutes of movement.  We got back on the bus and headed out of Cairo for the ship.  Cairo was as dirty as Alexandrea. Cairo had the standard Starbucks, Burger Kings and McDonalds, but the guide told us the KFC stores meant Kentucky Fried Camel.  The thought of crispy fried camel hump didn't sound so yummy.  It was getting dark and I was amazed at noticing a few things about Cairo drivers.  The streets were wide enough for four lanes of traffic, yet there was not one painted strip or anyway to separate the different lanes.  The road was all black.  The cars, scooters, trucks and buses were all over the place each trying to pass the other. Now remember, it is dark, yet 50% of the vehicles did not have any lights on.  There were scooters with three people on it slipping in and out like a snake.  While all this insanity is going on there are people crossing the street without looking right or left.  They just decide to cross and go for it.  In the middle of this zoo of vehicles there is a donkey pulling a cart.  Added to that, as I looked out the window, two camels came wandering by.   Surreal to say the least.  As we were leaving we noticed a lot of unfinished three and four story buildings, yet there were people living in them since they hung their laundry out the window to dry.  The guide said there are a few reasons for this.  After a recent earthquake some of the building had to stop because of damage to the building, also if the builder finished the building the owner would have to pay taxes and then there were owners who could not afford to finish the building.  You were looking out at hundreds of brick buildings that had rebar sticking up all over the place.   Like Turkey, no one seemed to smile.  I felt no joy or pleasure, only people moving silently through life.   I was glad to leave Egypt.  Unfortunately Egypt was not in a hurry to leave some of the passengers.  A number of passengers came down with stomach problems from eating or drinking the local fare.  The ship was afraid a virus was aboard so they tripled their efforts to decontaminate the ship.  For the rest of the trip we could not serve ourselves in the cafe or anywhere else.  The crew were the only ones allowed to touch any food.  Bummer, since with 2500 passengers it slowed down the eating process.  The good thing was Irene and I were OK, so on to Malta.

Malta was a strategic island between Africa and Europe.  Germany bombed it for months, but could not capture it.  It is a beautiful island that has much of the old traditions still alive.  We had cancelled the ships tour for a hundred Euro's and opted to do a local tour for 30.  It was great.  There is not a lot to see but the mixture of farms, towns and curved bays .  The farms were like in Ireland with the plots surrounded by a rock wall.  The local ruins were older than the pyramids and elephant remains suggest it was once linked to the mainland.  The past history was filled with pirate lore since it was a great stopover from either continent.

The main attraction was a huge church that looked very plain from the outside but had more paintings, frescoes and inlaid marble floors than any other church.  Many knights from the crusades were buried there.  They had large fancy designed marble slabs on the floor to indicate who they were and their burial spot.

We were starting to get tired of travel and looking forward to the trip home. One more day at sea and then Barcelona.  We were going to spend one more night and fly out at 8pm the next evening.  Hooray.....

We arrived at 7am, checked in at the same hotel and decided to take a tour of the city.  The red and white tour split the city into two and you could get on and off all day.  But first we wanted to see a local flea market that was off the tour grid.  We caught the underground that got us close and walked to the market.  It was a big disappointment.  It was mainly junk or food.  We left and walked to Sacra Familia, a famous cathedral that they have been building for a hundred years and expect it to take another hundred to finish it.  It is really a weird design.  Gaudi, the main architect wanted to get away from the traditional religious design and focused on nature and its influence on man.  The columns are like giant tree trunks that spread out at the top.  The windows are all clear to allow for natural lighting.   There are floral designs, animal outlines and gargoyles.  Even the statues have a squareness to them, yet look like Christ or the saints. or whoever.  Odd yet beautiful.  At this point we got on the Blue tour bus. We went by the area for the 1992 Olympic summer games as well as much of older Barcelona.  The red tour bus took us through a more modern Barcelona that included the zoo and much of the waterfront where part of the Olympic games were held.  We were fairly worn out by the end of the tour and went back and crashed for the evening.  Since we were going home the next day we packed up everything so we could laze about in the morning and go to the airport early to confirm our seats.   In the morning we wandered around a little and about noon decided to head to the airport.  Irene wanted to check her Email once more to confirm Michelle picking us up.  We were going to stay overnight in a hotel at the Amsterdam airport since we had an 11 hour layover.   While Irene was checking her Email I checked out from the hotel and collected our bags to catch a cab.  Disaster.................................................

Michelle asked if the air controller's strike in Spain affected us.   WHAT STRIKE.?????

It seems that the strike had been going on for two days and all flights were cancelled.  It suddenly struck me that that was what was being shown on the front page of the local newspaper. I had seen a large picture of a lot of people with suitcases and glaring headlines.  When I asked the desk clerk about it he laughed.  It said thousands stranded in Madrid and Barcelona.   We tried to contact the airlines, no luck.  So Irene Emailed Michelle and asked her to keep track of what was going on and try and reschedule our flight from there.  The government said if the controllers did not go right back to work they would go to jail.  Being a Socialist country the government won.  Michelle got us on the same flight two days later.  We cancelled our room at the Amsterdam airport.  Since no rooms were available the night we would be there, we ended up having to sleep in some lounge chairs in the meditation area of the airport.   Meanwhile we had two more days in Barcelona.  We thought we would take a train ride out into the countryside, maybe to Madrid and back.  We re-registered at the hotel and they suggested visiting the 1000 year old monastery in the mountains of Montserrat.  Sounded good so in the morning we were off to the mountains to see some 1000 year old monks.  Once we confirmed our flight we took off for the hour long trip to Montserrat.  We got off the train and were directed to another train that would climb the mountain.  At first it was level, but soon it started to angle up and soon we were as steep as a ski slope.  I couldn't believe the train was going up at such an extreme angle.  It took about 20 minutes to reach the monastery and when I got off I went to look at the tracks and saw that there was some sort of chain device that hooked to the train and pulled us up.  We were quite high and I could see a gondola moving towards us on a wire rail.  The wires disappeared into the valley.  This was the way up if they were blocked in by snow or storms.   With our ticket we could take another tram higher up the mountain, have lunch and go to the museum and visit part of the monastery.  We first went up to the top of the mountain and I took a picture of the monastery from there as well as a few others.  Why anyone would build in such a remote place is a mystery.  We went back down, had lunch and went to the museum.  The monastery was interesting. Very stark and simple.  The monks were from the Benedictine order and mainly prayed and taught.  The most interesting thing for me was the choir.  The monastery had a world class boys choir that actually traveled through the world.  As we were leaving the museum some kids came by and went through an open door.  Suddenly I heard singing as if they were practicing.  I went to the door and looked in and saw a number of kids getting ready to practice.  A monk came by with a few other kids and closed the door as they entered.  Outside, when we were going to catch the train back we heard the choir above us.  With the monastery setting it was like listening to angels sing.

Gondola from the lower valley to monastery

Super steep angle of climb to top of mountain

Looking down on the Monastery

                                                  Sacra Familia, Gaudi-designed church in Barcelona.....

We decided that we liked Barcelona best from all the cities we visited.  The people lived like they enjoyed life.  Both the men and women dressed really cool and were very demonstrative in how they spoke and moved.  Somewhat similar to Italians, but with more flair and cosmopolitan dress.  The city was a good mixture of old and new and very clean.  The people were friendly and helpful and seemed to like you even though you were a tourist.

I found a brochure in the hotel that promoted a bus to the airport for only 8 Euro's and it was only a block away and left every 15 minutes.  A great deal.  We stacked the luggage on my walker and were off.

The return home was long, but we have many good memories to last us until our next trip

Hope you enjoyed sharing some of our moments.

Bikes in Amsterdam