1600 Pictures

Well we made it home safe and sound, and tired. I've finally loaded all our pictures (all 1600+ of them), and its quite daunting to go through them all. Here are some of our favorite photographs and memories

Well I could keep adding pictures forever. I think we both had a fantastic time. Thanks for popping in along the way. Ciao!

Takeaways, 'alf-past, and Revisions

Wow it is nice to be back in the land of the english-speakers again! AND we even have a functioning keyboard today, so this shouldn't be such a headache! We got a little lost looking for dinner after our last post, but finally found the Hard Rock Cafe, where we had delicious bugers and free hot fudge sundaes! We still had more sights to see in Paris that night, so we hopped on the metro and went to Montparnasse, a big office building that has their 56th floor set up as a tourist observation building with views of the Eiffel tower. it was pretty neat, nice to have it in the background of the pictures so you actually know what city we're in! We took the metro back up north (I'm an expert on navigating these subway systems - we haven't gotten on the wrong train once) then to the Moulin Rouge for some pictures. Apparently it's much easier to take pictures there now then when Briana was there last, so she enjoyed it quite a bit.
Wednesday was another long day, with a bit of rain and a tour bus that never showed up. We shopped on the Champs-Elysees and made our way over to Notre Dame, before buying some delicious cake to eat in Luxembourg Gardens, which is apparently where Marie Antionette lived when she said "Let them eat cake!", so we figured it was fitting to enjoy some cakes in the gardens. It didn't stop raining, and we trudged around through a few more shops (including fabric row - Briana was in heaven but it was pretty pricey) before heading to the Eurostar and off to London.
After a lovely foot bath and sleep in our hotel last night, we dashed across London this morning to catch our tour bus to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Oxford. We didn't go inside Windsor Castle, just enjoyed the town around it and had some lunch. Stonehenge was pretty neat, apparently it will be crazy next week during the summer solstice so i guess we picked a good time. Our tour guide led us around Oxford, showing us the different colleges (there are 39) and some of the sights where Harry Potter was filmed. It was a long day on the bus, but overall we had lots of fun. We also really enjoyed all the new englilsh phrases we learned, including our favorite "'alf-past". 
Time to head back to our hotel and repack our bags one last time! We're going to the wax museum and then Phantom of the Opera tomorrow night. Oh, and we've leared it's the Queen's birthday on Saturday, so Happy 84 b-day to her in advance! (Yes, she reads this too, we're quite popular) We'll post pictures when we're home on Saturday, but this will be our last official post. Thanks for tagging along with us on another excellent adventure!
Oh yes - Congratulations to Hossa, finally won a stanley cup!

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paris keyboard mentally breaks us

Bonjour. We are writing from Paris tonight and the keyboards are completely mixed up , so this is really painful to type. we are exhausted and on our way to dinner right now, so bear with us. The last few days of our cruise we found a book on greek mythology so Kristin was teaching me all about the greek gods. We had a day at sea which was lovely and relaxing. there was a bit of rain in the morning but the afternoon was gorgous. kristin served me ice cream up on deck and it was a lovely day. we ordered room service to our cabin and watched a movie

• loved dubrovnik - old town - beautiful beach - planning our next vacation there already - our favorite cruise port*
• yesterday we disembarked cruise and spent the day exploring venice - was hot - ate gelato - beautiful artsy fun and creative city, like me
• sleeper train to paris - arrived this am - walked for miles - took k to the second level of eifel tower - rode a sightseeing bus - on our way to dinner than moulin rouge - tomorrow another busy day in paris and late afternoon we head to london

 
this post has made me hate keyboards; computers; as everything is just in the wrong spot: we are going to quit now and find food: will email from london: xooxox  miss you
ps - mom did you ever mqke ,y qppoutn,ent zith jenn§
- translation; did you ever make my appointment with Jenn
 

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Cable car or Donkey?

Hello again! Briana just awakened from her siesta with a bit of a headache, so the blogging responisbilities are back to me! We forgot to talk about our great "participation in cruise activities" on our very first day! They had an adults-only paper flower making class, that we knew we had to try! Our cabin now has some lovely pink and blue flowers as decoration. This afternoon - Painting ceramics!
We made it to our first greek port on Wednesday afternoon. Katakolon is near the ruins of Olympia, but we decided not to pay the big bucks for a hot tour bus to the ruins, and went shopping instead! The whole town is only 2 streets along the waterfront, but it kept us occupied for much longer than expected. I made Briana climb another hill then, to the overlook behind the town. That night we splurged on the 2 euro service fee for room service and had an early night before our big day in Santorini and Mykonos.
Briana had neglected to mention that the port in Santorini is basically at the bottom of a cliff, and the only way up is by cable car or donkey. She didn't speak too highly of the donkeys after Egypt so I sucked it up and got in the cable car. There was definitly some handle gripping, and I warned her that the way down was going to be much worse for me! (We ended up walking down the donkey trail, which I think she enjoyed a lot less). We just wandered through the twisty streets looking for things for my little photographer to take pictures of, and we found a bead store that made us miss our momma!
We spent the afternoon back on the ship while it headed for Mykonos, getting there around 6pm. We did more wandering (and more shopping) and the super-navigator managed to get us to the famous windmills for pictures at sunset. This was definitly our latest night yet, it was almost 10pm before we were back in our cabin!
We were up early again this morning to go into Rhodes, which is the top european destination (according to the sign in the port!). The main attraction is the old walled city, and we made our way through more twisty streets. We both decided it reminded us a bit of Disneyland, the fantasyland part i think. Our Destination this morning - The Palace of the Grand Master. We'd seen it mentioned in a book and thought it sounded too good to pass up, and reminded us of somewhere our dad would like to go! It was pretty impressive, and we were able to walk through a lot of it, i think it was a castle belonging to some of the Knights Templar but I'm not sure on that point. Another afternoon of shopping (don't worry, we mostly just look at things....), they seem to specialize in designer knockoffs, especially perfumes (only 3 euro for lots of nice ones!).
Our expensive internet time is winding down, so it's off to our painting and some cards before dinner. I'm hoping to keep Briana awake long enough to go to the show on the ship tonight, but my odds aren't looking good!
Ciao for now!

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Ahh the smell of pure alcohol in the morning

Hello everybody! Its Briana posting today (so please excuse the bad grammar and spelling). Since you last heard from us we had an early train trip from Naples to Rome on Sunday morning, we arrived into Rome around 8am. Made the trek from the train station to our hotel, dropped off our bags for the day and headed out to see the Colisseum. We splurged on the entrance fee and Kristin did an "audio tour", while I took pictures. She shared some of her new knowledge with me, so it was a pretty good way for us to see it. It was already pretty hot and we headed over to the Forum and Palentine Hill and wanted through the ruins. Thankfully there are fountains of cool drinker water inside the Forum, it was already pretty brutally hot. From there we wandered through Rome for a while, then took a break with 1Euro milkshakes  (Kris had tiramisu flavored milkshake) at Mcdonalds. I found a store that sold pretty envelopes, which was very exciting for me. We strolled through some more piazza's and then on to the Trevi Fountain, which was a favorite spot in Rome for both of us. We through our coins in over our shoulders, and then we were on our way to the Spanish Steps. We were hot, and our feet were aching at this point, so we hopped on the metro to take us back to our hotel. We had a quick power nap at the hotel (siesta), then walked around the corner from our hotel to a little italian restaurant for an early dinner. We both had pasta which was delicious, and Kristin had tiramisu for dessert. Then we headed back to our hotel for an early night.
Monday morning when we got up they seemed to be cleaning the hotel lobby (which was literally 4 steps from our room) with pure alcohol, so we had to hold our breath during the check out process. We had a yummy breakfast at the hotel, then trekked back to the train station. We boarded our train to Venice (about 3 hours). We arrived in Venice about 12:30pm, and right outside of the train station in Venice is the Grand Canal, which was really neat. Pretty short walk from there to the cruise port, and then a bit of waiting to get checked in and onboard. We are sailing on the Costa Fortuna. We explored the ship for a while, then it was time for dinner, and an early bedtime.
Tuesday we ported in Bari about 12:30, and we went out and did some wandering and some shopping. It was much different than the ports in the Caribbean, where the port becomes overcrowded with cruise guests. We had some amazing (and HUGE) gelato late in the afternoon, and then came back on board.
Today we are porting in Katakolon this afternoon. We are going to do some exploring and shopping. We just bought some cards from the gift shop, so we can play some pounce later on.
Tomorrow is Santorini and Mykonos, then the day after is Rhodes. We will try to do a post after Rhodes.
The internet onboard is pretty expensive (dad - we will send you the bill), so we have to keep them short and sweet.
Well I feel like I should do some hockey cheering now, so I guess "Go Chicago"....
I suppose thats it for now. Love you all lots, miss ya, wish you were here!! XOXOX
 

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