Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Home at last!

Hello all!

Am home from my travels to Italy and Greece and had a wonderful time! The first 7 days were spent on the cruise and the second were in Rome and Venice. I'll try and post info on the excursions and also pictures with commentaries!

We left on Sunday, September 5th in the afternoon. The plane ride to Rome was a bit over 9 hours. My dh and I went with 2 of our neighbors and had such a blast. I slept on the plane, read a bit on my kindle, (great idea) and they served us 2 small meals. We got into Rome on Monday morning around 8 or so. The time difference is 7 hours so we were a bit dazed. Had some amazing cappuccino in the airport! Off to a great start! Sat and watched the people until we had to meet with our transport to the cruise ship. So many cars, noise and a mix of languages! Sensory overload! The ride was about 40 minutes to the port of Civitavecchia. We boarded the Costa Allegra Cruise Ship and found our cabin. Quickly unpacked so we could explore the ship. The Allegra is one of the smaller ships in the Costa line but worked well for me! Our dinner seating was at 7:00 p.m. Happy hour was from 10:00 a.m.-12:00 noon then again from 4:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. We managed to be around for most of those! We had a wonderful waitress by the name of Elvira. She is from the Philippines and has a 4 month old son. She sends her money back home. Her husband works a different cruise ship within the Costa line. At our dinner table we sat with 3 ladies from New York who were affiliated with NYPD and NYFD and also an Italian couple who spoke no english! We thought they might want to move to a different table but they told our waiter they liked sitting with us. It was fun learning to figure out what they were trying to tell us! The even invited us to their house which is an hour away from Naples! They would make us dinner and everything! If we had had more time that would have been a great experience. I was able to figure out some of the italian because if you break the word down they all come from Greek or Roman words just like English.

Such fun!


Wednesday, September 1, 2010

The Far Side

In only a few short days, though they feel kinda long- I will be heading to Italy and Greece! I cannot wait! The second honeymoon! After 25 years of marriage. Sometimes it doesn't feel that long and other times it feels much longer but that's the same way with anything. That's why we make our scrapbooks and journals and other ways of preserving our memories.

I was talking to somebody, can't remember who, the other day and asked what their grandmother's normal day was like. She said she really would like to know. You know what I'm getting at, right??? I challenged her to write down what her ordinary day was like to pass it on to HER grandchildren. She doesn't have any yet. (I remember who I was talking to) She said her days weren't interesting. But that's still something future generations would want to know about because their day-to-day life will be so different than ours. Just look back at your childhood. It was very different than our kids. In so many ways! So that should be reason enough to write it down. Even if you don't have pictures. Ali Edwards, a very famous scrapbook artist does this "A week in the life" album many times. I've even been one of her teaching assistants for one of these classes and she's right. Take some pictures of the things you see everyday- coffeepot, laptop, store you go to. Anything that is a part of your regular day, then write about it. The way these things are done 20 years from now may be so different it will bring back memories for us. Go ahead, I dare you!

I bought an 8g memory card for my camera so I am planning on taking lots of pictures. No promises on the quality! Oh, and I had to remind my husband that when we are in Greece not to be surprised when they call me goddess since that is what my name means!! So when we come back I will make him bow to me and address me as such!! tee hee I couldn't keep a straight face!

Caio!