A Nurse and A Nerd

Didn't quite make it.

After La Palma we began our trans-Atlantic crossing in earnest with 6 full days at sea to make the crossing. Our first day at sea was quite rough with large swells tossing the ship back and forth. Upper outside decks were closed and sick bags were provided all over the place. Luckily the weather improved every day and towards the Bahamas it was mirror-like calm seas. We engaged in many activities including mini-golf, eating, shuffle board, eating, hot tub, eating, massages, eating, ice skating, eating and eating. We played “Name That Tune Trivia” every day and Courtney rocked it earning us many key chains and other Royal Caribbean crap.  We ended up teaming up with an older New Yorker couple who wore matching shirts, and a down to earth couple from Texas, but Courtney pulled most of the weight for the team.

We saw many different shows including Beatles and Elton John impersonators, a pick-pocket who stole David’s underwear on stage, ice dancing, Broadway and pop tributes from the Royal Caribbean singers and dancers, a disco parade, a violinist, the Love and Marriage game show and many more.



La Palmalicious

La Palma is a smaller island than Tenerife, and nicer too. We spent most of the day wondering around the city with its many shops. We gathered some final souvenirs from our trip. We attempted to get a city bus to take us up to the rain forests that we could see higher up in the hills where the clouds met the land, but unfortunately we were thwarted. By the time we had got the information, the bus had already left with an hour and a half sitting in between us and the next bus, which would only allow us 20 minutes in the rain forest before we needed to return to the cruise ship. By the time that second bus arrived we decided to just spend the rest of the time wondering around instead. We bought a little of almost all of their touristy goods which included jewelry made from volcanic rock and coral, salsas, hand rolled cigars (many Cubanos moved to the Canaries when Castro came into power,) and honey rum. We smuggled the honey rum on board and found it goes well into just about anything, but when combined with lemonade is particularly yummy. Given that this was our last European Union stop, we counted up our remaining Euros (all 9 of them) and struggled to find something at that price. Courtney succeeded with a pair of volcanic rock ear rings. Of course upon returning to the ship, Courtney found 8 Euro more in one of her bags.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife is the largest city in the Canaries.  As a city we were told it is kind of boring, so instead of doing the city thing we hopped on a city bus and headed 10 minutes away to Las Terecitas, a beach built with imported soft sand from the Saharan desert, which is supposed to be nicer than rougher black volcanic sands on the natural beaches on the island. We enjoyed ourselves and caught the slightest bit of color. David later found out where he missed spraying the sunscreen and a bright red and painful triangular shape showed up on the back of one of his knees, but what would a trip to the beach be without a weird sunburn? After spending the morning hours hanging out at the beach we did make it around to check out the city itself, but after an hour or so headed back to the boat to get our grub on. Tenerife had its own special beauty. It was nowhere near as lush as the banana covered Madeira. What we saw on the side of the island we were on was rather unvegitated volcanic mountains. There are, we are told, many distinct microclimates and even rain forests in the valleys and other parts of the island, but not having a vehicle to get there, nor purchasing an expensive cruise ship excursion they will have to be left to our imaginations.

Pretty and Junk

We decided to go with an excursion in Madeira. We took a scenic tour that took us all over the island, where we got to see the bananas and at a higher altitude, the grapes that make the wine Madeira is famous for. We went to Europe’s highest sea cliff (for some reason, I guess because it is a territory of Portugal, they consider Madeira part of Europe even though it is closer by far to Africa). We found the island beautiful. We ended our tour at a Madeira wine tasting room. We have cooked before with Madeira wine, but never drank it. After this it will remain that way. The “semi-dry” variety we tried was insufferably sweet. We dared not attempt the actual sweet or desert varieties. The dry variety we drank tasted like raisins instead of grapes. We went around the picturesque town on foot, shopping and seeing the sites. To cap it off we sat down at an ocean front café for Madeira’s other popular drink, Poncha. Poncha is a liquor that is lemon and honey rum served on ice.  This drink is dangerously good. After one tasty glass we enjoyed greatly, we found that it is a bit more alcoholic than one might thing. We smuggled a bottle on board the boat to drink at home.

We had a nice relaxed and low energy morning soaking in the hot tub and laying around on deck because Courtney spent the morning sick as a dog (note: sea-sickness, not morning sickness.) Not quite as bad as the last bout of sea sickness but a bit debilitating all the same. Luckily, they hand out meclizine on cruise ships like rum punch on a party boat so by lunch time she was feeling much better.  We spent the afternoon at the champagne art auction watching fine art fly off the auction block. We also got our Crown and Anchor club status updated (we are gold level, but only one more cruise and Courtney will be platinum.)

It was our first formal dinner of the cruise, so David donned a tie and the suit he picked up over the summer in a thrift store. Courtney never did find a suitable formal dress, so she rocked it man style with pants.

We woke up a bit early and walked along the coast, then hit up the shops one last along a pedestrian only commercial street. At 11 we had to check out of our hotel and get a taxi to the port. Turns out there are 2 ports, the Nuevo y Antigua. We were dropped off at the wrong one and has to take another taxi an extra mile and a half to get to the right place. We checked our bags in and got onto the ship, officially on our way home.

The first thing we had to do once we got on the ship of course is eat. This cruise will make sure that any weight we lost with better eating and more walking in England will come back to us with a vengeance. We ate and then had the drink of the day (some sweet Midori and vodka punch) as we watched the ship pull out to sea. After dark we went to the welcome aboard show where you get a sample of the performers you will see during the week, including a lame/funny magician/comedian and an amazing pair of acrobats. We’re talking super strong, crazy acrobatics. After, we had dinner in the formal dining room and met our English table-mates who are a chef and an analyst. To cap the night off we watched a parade put on by the staff on the promenade. The costumes excited Courtney, who was unable to make a costume for Halloween this year. After that very very long day we hit the sack.

It has taken me a while to get to the blog, and I have not uploaded photos, like I should. I am going to get as much up today as I can, for your Christmas viewing pleasure.

Today we woke up and made our way from Torremolenos, where our hotel is, into Malaga proper. We started out by walking down their “High Street” where of course everything was closed as it was Sunday. We were a bit peckish so we found a nice tea shop and had ourselves crepes con jamon y queso manchego. We checked out the magnificent cathedral, but were unable to explore too much as a Mass was in progress. From the cathedral we moved to the nearby Picasso museum.  Some of his works presented there were great, while others looked like the work of a talented of a 6 year old. Even the museum guide pamphlet that was provided called some of the artwork “child like”. It was interesting to the different ways he could view the same subjects in some of his series of paintings. Another interesting thing that we found at the museum was the archeological site beneath it containing 8^th century BC Phoenician ruins, to 3^rd century AD Roman Ruins and 16^th century Spanish ruins all right next to each other.

Despues de el museo, we went to the Roman amphitheater. (Trying out my rusty Spanish a bit, this being Spain. Donde esta el reloj de pescado? Mas rapido por favor, me boca es una cebolla.) From the amphitheater we went to the nearby birthplace of Picasso, and wandered around el centro. Eventually the hunger called again and we found ourselves a café for tapas and sangria, which were tasty. We got to play guess the meat. The chicken, lamb, and livers we figured out. One thing we failed to guess was the spongy meaty blocks that it turns out was chicken blood. (Not the greatest, but edible) Fully sated, we caught the bus back to Torremolenos and did some shopping on seaside looking for a dress for Courtney to wear on the cruise formal nights.  While she failed in that regard she did find something purdy to wear. David found a shirt with a sequin cheetah on it. He decided to take a pass this time, but Christmas is coming soon. ::hint hint::

One month later (to the day) here is the account of our cruise home.

Got up at o-dark-thirty in the morning and trudged up the hill with all of our worldly possessions to catch the bus  to the airport. Wouldn’t you know it, about 2 blocks before we got to the bus stop, there goes the bus down the road 7 minutes early. It decided not to wait for us either, as when we got to the stop it was long gone. Instead we got to wait outside in the butt-cold early morning air for an hour and a bit for the next bus. Luckily that bus did not stop at Heathrow Airport before going to Gatwick, so we got there a good deal earlier than expected, and even had time to catch one last English breakfast….even though we were delayed in security. In the security line Courtney forgot to remove a pair of scissors (which were small enough to be allowed anyway), but it was enough to get her bag hand searched. Due to Courtney’s packing skill, it took approximately forever for the screener to search the whole bag. I think the screener was actually kind of impressed. While she did not find any explosives or box cutters, she did in fact find 14 tubes of lip gloss or chapstick that counted as liquids and needed to be screened separately. When asked how many lips she has, Courtney answered “14.”

Flying over southern Spain brought out a home sickness in Dave as it looks like you are flying over Arizona with mountains and brown undeveloped land, as opposed to England where it is endless rolling hills covered in green fields bordered with hedge rows. We arrived at our hotel in Torremolinos, Spain mid afternoon. The warmth was a revelation. While it was only in the mid 70’s, it was as warm as it ever got in England this summer and it was also a completely cloud free day, the kind you take for granted in AZ,  but begin to miss after day after day of gray, drizzly skies. We decided  to make good use of it, and literally shed our jeans, sweaters and jackets that we had needed that morning and donned our swim suits. We relaxed on the beautiful beach until the sun set behind a large hotel. During the evening hours, we walked the seafront looking at shops and restaurants. We had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant (who also has a restaurant in Santa Barbara, CA and gave us a card in case we wanted to go there). We then removed our flippy floppies and walked barefoot on the beach back to our hotel. On the beach we found a naked dwarf who decided to join us on our journey home. Once back at the hotel we watched a BBC World Service debate on the Catholic Church and went to bed early.