Currently in PIreas Greece

At sea before Athens


That sun is BRIGHT! It’s impossible to ignore it blaring around the curtains. I was up first about 7:30 and Ed woke up pretty soon after I came back to bed. I did my usual with the internet in the library.
Today’s purchase
They are having outlet sales on board and I got a congrats card for Kathy and Chuck as they will be getting married soon after they get home. And I got a jogging suit I had been interested in earlier in the cruise but it wasn’t present in my size at that time. I had a little pang about getting anything additional at this point but Ed didn’t bat an eye.
He had asked me earlier to put out the hanging clothes that I didn’t need between now and Rome. So I drug out all but a few things, put them into two piles (those that should stay on hangers and those that could be folded. Well somehow we got our wires crossed and so I had to put much of it back. Since Ed just redoes it if I pack, I simply put things out and get out of his way as a rule. Since Sorrento is our port before we disembark at the port of Civitivecchia a few miles from Rome, that last day will be nuts. Perhaps we can get some packing done during the day at sea between Athens and Sorrento.
And speaking of Athens, we got another letter from the Captain today keeping us up to date about the unrest in Athens where a protest has been planned for the foot of the Acropolis tomorrow. So they are playing it by ear. This will be interesting.
Port Talk: Sorrento
We have been to Capri, Naples, and the Amalfi Coast on earlier trips so I’m not quite sure what we’ll do in this tender port, but we will enjoy doing nothing but walking around if that’s what we decide. What an interesting part of the world and how colorful.
Trivia
We are getting to the end and so we took a photo of our “team” since Susan and Hazel do not often show up in the afternoon. We had our usual fun and WE WON! We scored 19 missing the question about the nationality of the first woman to top Mt. Everest (Japanese just in case). So now we have to deal with these 60+ tokens and collecting our gifts. This afternoon we lost fair and square. Even had we gotten the question for which we selected the wrong answer among us, we would not have beaten the top team this afternoon.
Lunch
Since we have a BIG dinner tonite, I stayed in and enjoyed an orange while Ed went for a snack upstairs.
In the Shadow of Mt. Etna: Volcanoes & Tectonic Plates
This was done by the professional Journalist and he did a very nice job of describing the top 10 volcanos in the world and why they made that list. Along the way, he talked a little about Pompei near Sorrento which is our port in two days.
The Pacific Princess Choir Farewell Concert
David Crathorne has done a magnificient job of pulling together between 40 and 50 passengers into a very credible choir. The concert had a great theme of friends and the selections of pieces from various genres were perfect. A very unusual thing to expect on a cruise.
Red Hat Society Social Tea
I went down for this get together but not with much enthusiasm. One of the ladies just turns me off so badly; the others are pleasant and I enjoyed the visit but left after 30 min for trivia. That time was long enough for me. But I was able to show everyone the photo of the wedding dress I dyed as many of them want to try it too.
Cocktail Party for World Cruise passengers
There are a lot of folks who have been on here for the whole cruise and this was a get together for us. We were introduced to all of the staff who oversee things. A few we had heard of but never seen at least where we knew who they were.
Choosing photos
This was a chore I didn’t look forward to completing but I also didn’t want to put it off any longer because the lines will be fierce after tomorrow. We have been saving the best of the photos along the way and so today we winnowed out and whittled down until we had a manageable stack of photos from which to choose. One of the cutest is from the formal night where we wore somewhat matching Chinese outfits and Carlos had us bow to the camera. It’s probably our favorite from this cruise.
Chef’s dinner
Ed wanted to do this again and while I enjoyed it, it is waayyy too much food at one time for me. It is impressive how they put all these multiple courses together. The service is impeccable. The food unbelievable. I most enjoyed visiting with a fellow who worked most of his career with the Public Health Service including a few years in Gallup, NM. He is an engineer, born in Kansas, and he and his wife are now retired at a Del Webb site in Arizona. You can see his humble beginnings in his personality and I just simply enjoyed how genuine he is. There was a young couple present as well. They do trading on-line so they are working on this cruise. They have four laptops with them and have to keep track of the time in the US and work those hours no matter where we are in the world. I have seen them on some of the cruises but had wondered why we didn’t see them very often while on ship. I actually thought they were ship’s staff in some fashion and simply lived somewhere in the bowels of the ship laboring away at some menial task.