Day 5...

This was a day at sea for us. I thought it was going to be the longest day ever, however it really was a lot of fun. I actually found myself having a hard time fitting in everything we wanted to do. Instead of going through the whole day, this post will be dedicated to pictures of the ship in general. For those of you that have never been on a cruise ship, the pictures don't do it justice. It was so weird to be walking around this huge structure realizing that we were floating along in the ocean.

theatre where we would watch a stage show every night....they had magicians, dancers, singers, etc.

never knew what type of critters were going to end up in room when we got back after supper

our ship...Royal Carribean's Navigator of the Sea...hold 3500 passengers and 2000 crew...it was beautiful

everything was always done just right...check out the carved watermelon

trivia became a daily ritual...for the most part we sucked...we never won but came close once thanks to Dee and Jason's useless knowledge of 50's-60's music :)

formal night...poor Dee was sick...if we go on a cruise again, which I'm sure we will, we will be skipping formal night....too much extra packing for this night and it wasn't anything special

this was our assistant waiter (can't remember his name) from Turkey and I LOVED him... he was so sweet...from the first time we were there he remembered what everyone drank and would automatically bring it to us every time



food food everywhere and I LOVED this as well...I was never hungry but learned how to eat more and more...it's been a bit of a problem since I got home and feel like I need to eat all the time now..you could go to the buffet, the dining room for a sit down meal, or the 24 hour cafe that had sandwiches, pizzas, and desserts. We switched it up a bit...but we usually ate supper in the dining room because it was so good, and who wouldn't want a 3 course meal every night for supper. We started realizing that you could order multiple appetizers, entrees, and desserts....so here is Dad and Dee with their 5 desserts...so funny! I'm not going to lie...I participated in ordering extra things as well...and it's all included!!!




the 3 story dining room... that reminded a bit too much of the Titanic movie for my liking

rock wall that Dad and Matt were brave enough to try...my dad rocked this sucker...quite impressive!

the royal promenade...basically felt like you were in a mall on a ship...weird

two hot folks on the cruise :)

yup it even had an ice skating rink...I was a little rusty but managed...

ice show that was awesome...I miss the icecapades

oh I almost forgot...room service was included as well...we did this on mornings were we had early excursions...it was yummy and fun to sit out on our deck and eat breakfast while we pulled into port

poolside fun

we had three rooms in a row....our balconies weren't joined, but all we had to do was stick our head around the corner and we'd see each other

view from glass elevator that transported us to whichever of the 14 floors we wanted

adult and children's pool area that had 2 pools and 2 hot tubs...there was an adult section as well that had another pool and hot tub

ha ha ha not so much...but he did enjoy himself in the casino

Sooooo much fun....makes me want to go back after going through all of these...some day...

Sorry it's taking me so long to post these...blogger takes forever to download pictures so I'm trying to get to it when I can...the next few days will be coming up...stay tuned for Turkey, Athens, Crete, and more Rome!

Day 4...

Found us in the largest island in the Mediterranean: Sicily, Italy (where the Godfather movies were filmed AND where the mafia originated). We docked at the island's largest city, Messina, and took an excursion to the largest active volcano in Europe. It was an exciting day that started as soon as the wake up call came. Our routine was I would answer the wake up call, get in the shower, and Jason would stumble out onto the patio and have a cigarette. I wasn't in the shower for longer than two minutes until I heard him saying "baby baby you've got to see this". I will never forget this moment he was like a kid on Christmas morning. We were fascinated many times on the cruise since we had never been on one before. Awakening to this sight and knowing we were about to go explore it was like Christmas morning.

This is Mount Etna. I still can't believe I saw a real, active volcano. The last time it erupted was just a couple of years ago. We drove a long, winding road up the mountain through beautiful villages. It looked how I pictured Italy to look in my mind; lots of terra cotta, shutters, flowers, wineries, I don't know hard to explain. In the picture below those aren't clouds, it's smoke from the lava....cool eh?

The closer we got to the top the more we were seeing remnants of past eruptions. There was lava rock everywhere. Thinking of what this must have looked like at some point glowing red from an eruption scared me. I couldn't imagine the horror that people face when a volcano is erupting and they need to evacuate. Made me wonder why on earth this people would live so close to this constant threat.

By the time we got to the top it was raining and cold. The bus took us to a local cafe where we had cannolis (hard to explain, but it's a yummy Italian dessert with a crisp outer shell stuffed with cream and pistachios), some type of juice, and almond wine (smelled awesome, tasted horrible). Then we went to a crater that formed from an eruption; basically the pressure from the lava was so intense that it busted up through the ground in this spot behind dad, Lindsay, and I.

We then got back on the bus and drove through some beautiful spots. We were back at another point in the ocean (probably about a 45 minutes drive from the volcano), because they wanted to show us how far the lava has travelled in past eruptions. Yup, that's lava rock from lava hardening due to cooling from the ocean. It was all so fascinating. I feel like I'm not doing it justice by typing it here, you'll just have to go :)

After our 7 hour adventure we found ourselves tired, and back on the ship for a night of adventures. It always began with stuffing ourselves, participating in the nightly trivia, heading to the live show in the theatre, and then some late night dessert and possible gambling at the casino before we hit the sack.

Next stop...Our FAVORITE spot: Turkey!

Day 3....

...involved exploring around the hotel with Matt and Lindsay - since I had gone to bed so early the night before - and relaxing at the hotel pool while we waited for the bus to come get us to take us to the cruise ship (Civitavecchia is Rome's port and it's about an hour away).

Boy do I look like a tourist or what?? I actually had slipped on some nasty, green unknown gunk on the side of the road and it was all over my foot and sandal. I sanitized it as soon as I got back to the hotel in the pool thought so no worries :)By the time we got on the boat (more pics of the boat another day), after going through security (quite the impressive system they have there I must say, Lindsay took a picture but they made her erase it), we went to our rooms, hit the buffet (a definite necessity, I was wayyyy too excited about this), and then got up to the top deck by 5:00 pm in order to see the boat pull away. Crap I just realized I typing boat. It's SHIP not boat - a worker corrected me on this one day - my bad!

Day 2...

Ah the Rome airport, no air conditioning, old, and sketchy customs (by sketchy I mean we stood in line, handed a grumpy guy our passport through a glass window, he stamped it, and gave it back to us without asking one question - guess they aren't worried about homeland security threats, I'm so used to the US airports now...sheesh). We then found the driver holding the sign that said "Wilson", and we were on our way to the hotel. Our driver was going about 150 km (not exaggerating either), knew very little English, and thankfully didn't notice the glances we were all giving each other as we weaved through narrow streets feeling like we were cheating death we each turn that we survived. We checked into our rooms, freshened up, and then went on a mission to get something to eat because we were starving. Above: Hotel Jolly Villa Carpegna

Below: Both hotels that we stayed at in Rome had showers like this; no curtains just a glass door that didn't move. It was weird and Jason and I kept getting water on the floor, but weren't sure how not to. Also our bathrooms were equipped with badays. Everything in me wanted to try this, but I didn't. In fact I'm sad to report that neither one of us worked up the guts to do it, as I type this I'm wishing I would have went with the whole "when in Rome" theory :)

This is Piazza Navona. Rome is filled with squares or courtyards that are beautiful! I think we all said "wow" when we turned the corner and entered the Piazza. The worker at the hotel told us that this would be a good place to grab a cab to to find something to eat, and she was right. We HAD to get some pizza, since were in the place were pizza was started. My father was not impressed, he wanted the American thick crust that he was used to, and made it his mission to find this before he left Rome; he failed. We tried to get some funky ones. Prosciutto (dry cured ham that you see on top of these pizzas) was everyone in Rome, and we loved it. Yes that's boiled eggs that you see on the second pizza, who would have thought!

After being out for a couple of hours everyone was tired, so we headed back to the hotel. Some, okay everyone but the Constables, went out exploring shops and stores by the hotel. Jason and I went to bed. That's right we went to bed at 7:00 pm and didn't wake up until 7:00 am the next morning when we got the wake up call. Ha ha ha the wake up calls. I can still hear the recordings of this chippy woman saying "Bueno..." and then a bunch of other stuff I didn't understand so I'd just hang up and grumpily stumble to the shower. Off to the boat tomorrow.....

Italy, Greece, and Turkey: Day 1

There were so many things that we got to experience on this trip. Jason and I were blessed beyond by my father who provided us with this once in a lifetime opportunity. We will forever be grateful for the fond memories that we have. I'm going to try to recount as much as possible over the next few days of our adventure.

Day 1:

After only being home for 36 hours from Virginia, I had both Jason and I packed, and we were on our way to the Moncton airport with my dad and his girlfriend Dee. We met my sister Lindsay and her boyfriend Matt there, and in a short time we were on our way to Toronto. Jason and I were excited, but I don't think it had fully set in yet. At this point I was still going over everything in my mind, worried that I had forgot something. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I checked my bag to make sure I had our passports and Euros in hand; anything else I forgot would have to be purchased somewhere at this point.

Landing in Toronto it was Jason's mission to figure out how he could have a cigarette before we got on our 9 hour flight to Rome. This was one of those times - you can be sure I told him this a few times in not so nice ways - that his smoking was stressing me out. He had to leave the secured area we were in and then go back through another security checkpoint. The rest of us in the meantime, had to walk to the international departure area a different way. I just pictured it time to get on the plane and Jason was stuck at security or something. Paranoid much or what? Anyways, all was good and he made it in time. (waiting for the airplane below... little did Dee and I know that it would be a long time before we had a "real" - if you can call Tim Horton's coffee this - coffee again)

I was getting more excited as we waited to get on the plane. It still seemed surreal that I was going to Europe. As I sat in a terminal I had never been in before at Toronto Pearson, I wondered if I'd ever be there again. I also had this constant nagging nervousness about flying for 9 hours straight over the Atlantic ocean. I'm not a big fan of flying. I have to do it a lot now it seems and I swear it takes a couple of years off of my life every time I do it. I was thinking of my trip a few years before that to Vancouver, BC. It was only a 6 hour flight, and I wanted to get off it after about 4. Having Jason with me, and knowing that I was going to have a trip of a lifetime certainly helped. We got on the plane - Jason and I were the only couple lucky enough to have a window seat - and it was 9:30 pm Toronto time (same as Virginia and 10:30 NB time). The captain came on and told everyone to adjust their watches to Rome time, meaning it was now 3:30 am. That was a transition that took as a few days to recover from. One would think flying over night would be the way to do this trip, I certianly did. However, I think if I did it again I wouldn't choose this option. It's really hard to sleep comfortably on an airplane. A nap on a day time flight I can do, but a full night's sleep not so much. We were all feeling it when we landed the next day at 11:30 am Roma time (ha ha ha Roma...so this is what the flight attendants kept saying instead of Rome and I was thinking "duh it's Rome"...duh Erin it's Rome in English and Roma in Italian...good reminder that I wasn't in Kansas anymore).

Flight= uneventful for the most part, some turbulence, 2 meals (impressive because it's been a long time since I got anything more than a small bag of pretzels on a place) one was supper and one breakfast (which was a crappy banana muffin that I made Jason gag down as he whined that it tasted like banana popsicles, we didn't know how long it would be until we ate again though at this point), and had 7 seats across (again something I hadn't seen in a while, Linz and I used to take these big planes all the time when we went to see my dad in Florida, but not anymore, they're all small).

HOLY CRAP WE'RE IN ITALY!!!!

Quick update...

Hey everyone....we're alive and back from an amazing trip to Italy, Greece, and Turkey. More stories and photos to come soon. I'm waiting on my sister's boyfriend for pictures before I can begin telling you all about the trip. So stay tuned..... Moncton folks I'm looking forward to seeing you all!!!!

PS- like the new design?? blogger has some really neat ones now...this one seemed fitting with my life right now...

Update....

Sorry all....we still don't have internet (I'm at school)...I think Comcast has worse service than Rogers if you can believe that :)

Erica and I are all moved in. A word to the wise...I don't recommend moving in the middle on an intense summer semester for those of you who may be considering this! I'm not sure what we were thinking, but we're almost all unpacked and out little place is so cute. I'll post pictures at some point. It may not be until the fall though because I'm a busy girl these days.

Oh and the best thing about having a place where I feel comfortable and can do what I want?? I not only can have people over but look what I've made these past 2 days:

1. Cookies and cream pie....still in the fridge...Zac (my buddy who graduated and moved back to SC) is coming to stay with us tonight (I'm excited), so we're (Erica, Zac, Trev, and I) are going to dive into this bad boy.
2. One of my friends had her 50th birthday this week and she really wanted me to make her a homemade cheesecake, so I did. I didn't get to try it and I haven't chatted with her to see how it was, but it looked so freaking good! I even made my own brownies for the top instead of skimping and buying some two bite ones...oh so I made a pan of brownies too....(prego we need to make one of these this summer)
3. Pineapple coffee cake for an open house that my expressives class is doing tomorrow. We're displaying our artwork from the semester.
4. Dad's YUMMY beans...I've been craving these so it was so good to eat them for lunch today! I think I'm going to go home and have another bowl here in a minute.

So it's RIDICULOUS how happy it makes me to make all of this stuff and feed people. I love it! I think Erica's liking it too; she never knows what to expect when she gets home :) Yes honey I'll continue this streak when I get home. I've missed it so much!