10/7/13 (Monday) Home!

 

 

What a loooong day!  We woke up in Barcelona at 6:00 a.m. (that’s 11:00 p.m. Sunday evening CDT).  After checking out we grabbed a taxi and were at the airport by 7:15 a.m.  For some reason the taxi ride to the airport was 35 Euros and the ride from the airport to the hotel was 25 Euros.  I think we got ripped off.

 

The flight from Barcelona to JFK was smooth, but long.  Processing through customs and security at JFK was also relatively painless.  Then after we had lunch at an airport deli, we started noticing flights being delayed due to thunderstorms along the east coast.  And yes, ours ended up being delayed about 2.5 hours.  There were only about 20 folks on our flight to Nashville.  It was very bumpy (and uncomfortable) at times, but rather uneventful.  Once on the ground, it didn’t take long at all to grab our checked bag and take the shuttle to our car.  We stopped by BK on the way home and pulled into our garage at 10:45 p.m.  Ben was up with Grandmother, but Katie Lin was asleep.  We didn’t spend much time unpacking.  It was good to be home at last.  What a trip!  Now some sleep and then back to the real world…

 

10/6/13 (Sunday) Back to Spain

 

 

 

Neither of us slept very well last night.  There were a lot of people opening and closing doors as they were packing and placing their luggage in the hall.  Also, Auburn played Ole Miss from 1:00 a.m. till 4:40 a.m. and I was up checking the score from time to time online.  It was hard to sleep knowing the Tigers were in the middle of a football game seven time zones away.  They won, so I rested a little better after that.  I was still up by 6:00 a.m. and headed upstairs for a bite to eat.

 

We were off the ship by 8:45 a.m.  We grabbed a taxi and were checked into our room by 9:30 a.m.  No waiting for the room to be ready this time.  It was great!  We spent a couple of hours reading emails, posting pictures and reading articles about the Auburn game then headed to La Ramblas to find a place for lunch.

 

We found a nice outdoor café near Placa Reial, ate pizza and people-watched.  Afterwards we strolled several blocks up Paseo de Gracia to the Luis Vuitton store.  Unfortunately (or I should say fortunately) it was closed on Sundays.  We took a few pics anyway then headed back to hotel - just a few subway stops away.  It was time to rest up a bit before meeting our friends, Richard, Lauren, her parents, Joe and Dana, for dinner at Taverna Basca Irati.

 

Everyone showed up for dinner and we had a great time!  The food was delicious, although there was a different guy behind the counter tonight who reminded me of the Soup Nazi, made famous by Seinfeld.  We loved spending time with our new friends.  They are a lot of fun.  I hope we stay in touch.  We found out we would be on the same flight as Richard, Lauren and her parents in the morning.  I’m not sure who’s creeping on who here.  We parted ways after a couple of hours together and headed back to the hotel for a good night’s rest before traveling back to sweet home Alabama tomorrow morning.  Good night                          
 

      

 

 

10/5/13 (Saturday) Day at Sea

 

 

Day at sea…  We woke up this morning as the ship was passing between the islands of Corsica (France) and Sardina (Italy).  I ate breakfast upstairs in the Windjammer at 9:00 a.m. and brought Sonya’s back to the room.  An hour later I went for a run while Sonya reserved two seats at the pool.  She was able to grab four chairs so our friends, Richard and Lauren, could join us.  We spent most of the afternoon laying out by the pool, watching the belly flop contest, Bingo and salsa dancing.  Then for the first time during our trip it got cloudy around 3:00 p.m. so we headed back to the room for some rest and to get ready for our last evening on the ship.

 

We had one of the best dinners of the trip tonight.  Sonya enjoyed scallops for an appetizer and battered cod (English style) for her main course.  I had a Spanish tapas sampler to start off with followed by turkey and dressing (as strange as that sounds).  I decided to have the same dessert I started the trip with - crème Brule.  Tiffany and Fango and took a picture of the four of us.  We hope to stay in contact with both of them.  Tiffany’s best friend is in school at Auburn, so she plans on visiting Alabama soon.  We will definitely find a way to get together with her.

 

After dinner we headed back to the room to pack and then to the theater to meet Richard and Lauren at 9:15 p.m. for a show that featured a balancing act.  It was another very impressive performance.  Royal Caribbean always seems to do their shows right!

 

I’m not feeling quite right tonight.  The ship has been rocking a lot today.  I’m anxious to get back on shore tomorrow.  This trip has been unbelievable.  We will carry the memories we made on the Liberty of the Seas with us forever.  Now it’s time to get back to our family and friends who we love so much.  I can’t wait to squeeze Katie Lin in a couple of days and kiss her sweet little face and catch up with Ben and Drew to see what God has been doing in their lives.  And now a special shout out to the absolute best mom in the entire world.  This trip would not have been possible without her unselfishness, patience and hard work.  Thank you God for blessing us!  Ciao!

10/4/13 (Friday) Pompeii, Amalfi Coast and Sorrento

 

 

Wow!  What a day!  This was by far the best day of our vacation! After another routine breakfast in the Windjammer Café, we disembarked the ship around 7:45 a.m. to meet our private guide from SeeAmalfiCoast.com.  He was there at the terminal with our name on a sign just like he promised, but it was still a little disconcerting jumping into a car with a stranger for the day.  Our lives were in his hands.

 

Our guide’s name was Gio and our car was a Mercedes.  Not a bad start!  He was very pleasant, early fifties and very Italian.  He was a native of Naples, but spent about 15 years living in England where he still has a 22-year-old son about to finish his degree in mechanical engineering.  Interestingly, Gio’s current wife of about a year is an evangelical Christian.  He asked if we were evangelicals which started the first of several good conversations of the day.  I doubt that Gio is a believer from what we discussed, but maybe he’s in store for something amazing.  We will pray for him!  I can say now at the end of the day that we could not have had a better driver.  He was very knowledgeable about the area, always polite and took the time to make sure we saw everything we wanted to see and still had time to get back to the ship.

 

Our first stop was Pompeii, where we spent about two hours touring the ancient city that was covered by Ash from a volcano somewhere around 60 or 70 A.D. I believe.  It turns out that two-thirds of the city is still unexcavated.  It’s hard to describe in this brief blog what all we saw in Pompeii, but it was almost life-changing.  I’m anxious to get back home and study some more history around this amazing city.  I wish we had more time to spend there.  It would take at least a whole day to take it all in. 

 

After we left Pompeii, it was on to the Amalfi Coast area.  The drive and views were simply too amazing to put into words.  Even the pictures don’t do it justice, but we tried to take enough photos for our friends and family to catch a glimpse of what our drive around the coastline was like - go check them out if you can.

 

Gio then took us to a place that would end up being the best one-hour of our trip so far - La Tagliata Restaurant perched on the side of a mountain high above Positano.  They are family-owned.  The brothers run the restaurant and their mom does all the cooking, using fresh ingredients - mostly grown in their own garden.  The view was breathtaking and the food was absolutely, without question some of the best I’ve ever tasted in my entire life - and I’ve eaten at a lot of fine restaurants.  For 25 Euros each, we ate and drank anything and everything we could possibly want.

 

For lunch, we started with Antipasti (appetizers) that were enough food for the entire meal.  Bruschetta, tomatoes, prosciutto wrapped around parmesan cheese, beans, broccoli, olives, eggplant pasta, cheese filled rolls and cheesecake!  Wow!  We tried to pace ourselves, but it was difficult.  For the main course we were served several kinds of pasta - I don’t even remember what all they were - but they were without a doubt the best I’ve ever tasted.  After lunch we were brought several light pastries and cakes.  I ate every bit of the dessert - haha.

 

This family knew how to cook and entertain.  I’ve got to figure out a way to get back to that restaurant someday.  It was worth the cost of the private tour.  It’s a day I’ll never forget as long as I live.  We are so blessed to be able to go on a trip like this and see things that most people never see and taste things that most people never taste.  We are so grateful to the Lord for this amazing opportunity and most of all for 25 blissful years of marriage.

 

OK, back to the trip…  After lunch, Gio took us down to the town of Positano for some shopping.  We found a few nice items to purchase and took some great pics near the coast then jumped back in the car for a 30 minute trip up the other side of the mountain to Sorrento.  Sorrento was very nice - a little more on the pricy side.  We shopped for about thirty minutes and then Gio took us by a friend of his to enjoy some homemade gelato - lemon and strawberry of course.

 

It only took another hour to get back to the ship from Sorrento.  We were back by 5:00 p.m.  We stopped by a café in the port to get caught up on emails and social media before boarding the ship again at 5:30 p.m.

 

Tonight’s dinner was formal again.  It was great, but Tiffany and Fango didn’t show up.  We were disappointed.  Maybe we’ll see them tomorrow.  On the way past the elevators near the restaurant, we ran into Joe and Dana again.  We asked if they spent all their time hanging out at elevators with wine glasses in their hands.  Haha.  They told us they were staying in Barcelona another night after getting off the ship on Sunday, so we decided to meet them for tapas at Taverna Basca Irati for dinner that night at 6:00 p.m.  As we were discussing our plans, Richard and Lauren walked up the stairs, so we invited them to join us Sunday night as well.  Sounds like a great time!   But first, Karaoke at 9:30 tonight.  That’s where we are headed right now.  More to come…

 

Well I really stepped out of my box tonight.  We joined Richard and Lauren for Karaoke (Joe and Dana didn’t show).  I introduced the crowd to a little country music - Alan Jackson’s “Chatahoochee”.  It was a rip-roaring good time with a lot of “yee-haws”.  Then the four of us went up to the White Party on the pool deck and danced to some really high-energy songs like we were 20 years younger.  I’m not a night owl, so now it’s time for some sleep.  See y’all in the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                  

 

 

 

 

10/3/13 (Thursday) Rome

 

 

Wow, I’m really tired as I write this.  Today was a great day, but long.  We started with breakfast upstairs in the Windjammer.  There is definitely more variety there, but it’s very challenging avoiding all the sharp elbows.  This might be a good time to mention how traveling internationally always reminds me of the total depravity of man.  Take away a little “southern etiquette” and you’re usually left with total rudeness and every man for himself.  It doesn’t matter if you’re at the buffet, cuing up in line or trying to get off the bus, train or airplane, it’s best to go on the offensive or you’ll be bruised, battered and angry in no time.  Hmmm, now that I think about it, it kind of reminds me of eating at Ryan’s on Senior Night.

 

We had another early morning departure, this time to Rome.  Our tour guide’s name was Roberta.  She did a great job, but much like Daniel, she definitely had the gift of gab.  It must be an Italian thing!  The trip to Rome should’ve been around an hour-and-a-half, but for some reason Roberta decided we needed to stop at a rest area 30 minutes into our trip so everyone could take a potty break.  Something tells me that Roberta had to go - bad.  That delayed us another 20 minutes.  Traffic was very heavy as we entered the city, but we still made it to the Vatican area in just under two hours.

 

I was really looking forward to seeing the inside of St. Peter’s church, especially since it is the largest church in the world, be since we only had three hours in the Vatican area we decided to take some pictures of the exterior and then move on the Piazza Navona, a huge plaza with three gorgeous water fountains and lots of local artists displaying their work.  After a brief visit at the Piazza we moved on to the Pantheon.  It’s mind-boggling how old these buildings are and all the history that has been recorded in these places.  We snapped a few pics of the inside and outside of the Pantheon and then headed back to Piazza Navona to enjoy more local Italian cuisine, this time splitting a calzone.  After lunch as we were walking through the Piazza, someone yelled “Roll Tide!”  I just can’t get away from the bammers - haha.  As it turned out, the guy went to Grissom High School with my brother-in-law, John Sowell.  His name was Chris Rainey and turned out to be a nice guy.  He now lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

 

We met back up with our guide at the planned meeting point at around 1:15 p.m. and then she led us on a guided tour of the Vatican area before taking us on a brief bus tour of the city on the way to the Coliseum (Colosseo).  We spent a few minutes with her as she walked around the exterior of the Coliseum and then we bolted off on our own and ended up at a small café back near the bus area where we boarded with the rest of the folks at 4:00 p.m. for our two-hour journey back to the ship.

 

I forgot to mention that we met two fun African-American couples on the bus who were from Atlanta.  Turns out they were both celebrating their 25th wedding anniversaries as well.  Small world.  Also, we ran into Tiffany and Fango, our two new Chinese friends, at the Coliseum and snapped a few pictures of each other. 

 

After we arrived back at the ship, we struggled with whether or not we should go to dinner.  We were both so tired and not very hungry, but we are so glad we did.  Tiffany and Fango showed up and told us about their adventures in Rome (besides seeing us at the Coliseum).

 

Oh yeah, dinner was pretty good.  We just didn’t have much of an appetite and decided to head back to the room to catch up on some much-needed sleep.  On the way, we ran into the couple from San Jose who we met on the beach in Nice a couple of days earlier.  Their names are Joe and Dana.  We swapped stories about our day and had a very nice conversation.  They seem like a great couple.

 

We are really looking forward to our private tour of the Amalfi coast tomorrow.  The weather is supposed to be beautiful again with a high of 76 degF and mostly sunny skies.  We have been so blessed with perfect weather of this trip.  Praise the Lord!