It’s 7:30 in the morning and I may have to push some relatives overboard. I had a crummy night’s “sleep” and now my head hurts and I’m coughing – that deep painful kind. I was going to shower, but I don’t have the energy. I think I’ll get dressed and go find some tea and bread.
Had breakfast and then went out to the bow to watch the ship dock in Kusadashi. It was very smooth. It is 9:30, but our guide doesn’t show up until 11 so I have some time to just sit & look.
I was seated in the lounge on Deck 3 about 10:15 waiting when Pat came by. They had decided to get off earlier because they could and Joe was now saying that the guide was coming at 10:30. This whole trip has been an experience in letting go and not controlling things. As soon as something is set, it changes without warning.
Our guide showed up on time (the new time) with a small tourist van and off we went. He wanted to go to the house of Mary first to get in before the rush. He was very personable and well informed. The price of tickets and of parking was not included in the tour, but he had them already & we could pay him the total at the end. It only came to 28 Euros for parking and 3 admissions & we didn’t have to wait in line. There were a lot of people around, but it is apparently magnitudes worse in the summer.
The home of Mary is a tiny place that is now a shrine. According to the bible, Jesus gave Mary to St. John to be his mother & John came to live & preach in this part of the world. They were holding a Sunday mass next to the house when we got there.
Next was Ephesus. You just kind of run through that. It is very big with a lot of slopes to go up & down. The ways are paved in marble which can be slippery. We did take the extra $ side trip to the terrace houses. It is a complex of wealthy homes that were excavated in recent times. They are trying to fit together all the pieces of marble and plaster paintings that fell off the walls. It is a mammoth job.
We stopped for lunch at a carpet factory. It had a beautiful outdoor sheltered area for dining. We had kabobs and several vegetable & cheese starters and fresh fruit for dessert. I hope to get pictures from the boys. My stupid cameras ran out of battery halfway through Ephesus.
Afterwards we went to the rug factory for a tour. Joe had looked up rug places and decided that he wanted to shop here. I tried to be good, but the mean man showed me this beautiful rug. It should arrive in Wichita in 6 weeks. Next we went to a leather jacket outlet. Joe & Linda wanted to shop there. They had already bought 2 rugs and a runner. Finally we headed back to Kusadashi. The other 4 wanted to look at shops, so I went along. They went into a store and I sat down to wait. 30 minutes later, I went in to find them. Joe & Linda were looking at jackets. Pat & Daria had left, so I took off for the ship. I was done for the day. My throat isn’t any better & I still feel achy.
It is now 6:15. I have taken a shower, caught up with this and emptied my purse. We are supposed to meet at 7 for dinner at one of the “specialty” restaurants. I’d better get dressed.
It’s 9:40 and I am in bed finishing up. I really feel crappy. Joe gave me some of his decongestant to try. I ache, my throat hurts, I’m coughing, my nose is running and my head hurts.
Yuck!!!!!!
Dinner was really weird. I’ll write more when I feel better. Here is the short version – when we arrived they gave us iPads with the menu, then after about 5-10 minutes the waiter came by and explained that we could not order individual meals; we were to discuss the items and one person would order what we agreed upon. The selections were served in small portions and you were encouraged to pick 5-6 items. Everyone had to eat the same food. We picked 10 because we couldn’t agree. It was still way too much food and while some was good tasting, some was just odd. I don’t think it was just my cold that made it so dumb.
The ship left Kusadasi at 7 pm; we are now headed for Mykanos; temp 65F, wind 15 kts E, pressure 29.819 inHg, speed 14 kts, heading 273 deg. We should arrive at 7 am. I may just sleep all day.
It is 2 pm and we have left Istanbul and are working our way through the Sea of Marmara and down the Turkish coast to Kusadashi/Ephesus. Temp is 73F, winds are 14kts from the NE, pressure is 29.787 inHg, we are on a heading of 258 deg at 20 kts. The schedule is to arrive in Kusadashi at 10 am tomorrow. You wouldn’t believe how crowded the port was when we left. I took some pictures, but they will probably come out as blobs and blurs on the horizion.
This morning we had a cruise sponsored tour. We met in the ship’s theater at 8, got our little ID stickers so that we wouldn’t get lost and boarded the bus about 8:15. The first stop was at another dock on the Golden Horn to get on our ferry for the Bosporus cruise. We didn’t go all the way to the Black Sea, just 45 -60 minutes up the straits. I think we were still in Istanbul. According to the different guides there are 12 million people in Istanbul or 16 million or 20 million. Take your pick. All the buildings come right down to the water. Apparently there is no tide in the Bosporus.
After we returned to the dock we boarded the bus to make a ‘short’ stop at a jewelry store. The guide made it very clear that this was included by the cruise line, not him. This was one of the stores that gives kickbacks to the cruise line. By the time we finished with that, we had only 45 min in the spice market; not nearly enough time. I bought some spices and tea and a big box of Turkish Delights. We need to have a party when I get back. We made it back to the ship about 12:10, so no one was left behind. Precisely at 1 pm the captain cast off and we started out of the harbor.
About 12:30 the captain had made a special announcement that at about midnight last night (Thursday) that the security forces has tear-gassed a protest up by the government center. As a result, the outside areas of the ship were closed off due to the tear gas drifting down our way. However, that was all over and we could safely enjoy the exterior spaces today. We had heard a little about protests, but no one seems to know who is protesting what. Pat said he was out about 10 pm last night and the sky was full of helicopters shining searchlights down into the city.
After lunch, I went back to my room and straightened things. I took about a 2 hour nap. Joe & Linda came onboard with a cold and I think they gave it to me. I have been taking stuff but I still feel achy. Went up to the café for a cup of tea about 4 pm; and sweets, too. Dinner was the same as always. I am getting a little blasé about the dining room, although it is always nice to have someone cook for you. I may stop eating dinner there. I can get lighter fare on the buffet line.
It is only 9:30, but I am hitting the sheets. We get into port at 10 am; maybe I’ll sleep in.
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Wow, what a busy day. I am just starting this at 7:15 pm as I wait for the rest to show up for supper. Our tour (not from the cruise company) was scheduled to pick us up at 9 am. I had to get up about 7:15 (poor little me) in order to shower, get ready and eat breakfast in time. Every time you get off the ship they scan you SeaPass/room card. On the dock we had to show our pass and id to the Turkish security types and have our bags scanned. We are docked on what might be called the NW side of Istanbul; on the western (or European) side of the Bosporus and north of the Golden Horn River that bisects the city.
We were on a small van with people from Canada & Brazil; a total of 12 plus the guide & driver. Our guide looked about 25. He is a professional guide and a college student majoring in history. He was very knowledgeable, but walked way too fast; especially for an old lady.
We saw Topkapi Palace, Haiga Sofia, The Hippodrome, had lunch, then went into the Blue Mosque. The rotten battery on my new camera quit at the Topkapi. It is some dumb specialty size that Nikon makes. It’s good that I can copy the other’s pictures. Lunch was good, salad, chicken kabobs that had been cooked out on a grill, & baklava. After the mosque our guide said, “This way” and we all blindly followed! We thought we were of for a few blocks to another sight. Instead it was a 15 minute walk up steep narrow streets and around and about until we arrived at the Grand Bazaar. He gave us an hour to shop. That was like showing you Smaug’s treasure and saying, “Pick one thing.”
We barely saw the tip of it. It wasn’t at all like I expected. It was inside with stone floors and a jumble of shops. Like everything else in Istanbul, it ran up and down the hill.
We started back to the ship about 5:20 and hit a huge traffic jam and finally arrived about 7:15. We had to reverse our trip through security – on the dock, baggage and Seapass scanned, up the gangway into the ship where your Seapass is scanned first and then your baggage.
We met at 7:15 for dinner and then all went our separate ways. I’m pooped!
As I finish, I am sitting on the stern looking out at the night lights of Istanbul. It’s beautiful. All the mosques are lit up and there are lots of lights along the shore. It is a clear night with some high clouds and all the city lights just glow. The temperature is 73F with winds at 9 kts out of the SW; barometer is 29.725 inHg.
It’s 10:30 pm and tomorrow is another early day….lights out.
Another full day at sea. Got up at 8:30, don’t know if I am just that tired or it is the complete lack of light. Walked 3 complete turns around Deck 15. It is easier today. Am I getting up to speed or is it that the ship is making just 12 kts and the sea is calmer? Had breakfast at the Ocean View café on 14 (buffet) and sat in the open area at stern of the ship. Linda & Joe found me there, so we had a leisurely breakfast and then went down to the Theater (4&5) to hear the destination talk on Mykonos, Athens and Naples. At 10 every morning the Captain gives us an update on the day & weather. We should begin passing through the Dardanelles about 4 pm.
Just got a call from Pat & Daria. They invited me to have lunch with them on the aft deck (14). Pat was worried that I was being neglected. That was nice of him. We had a leisurely (the only kind of meal on this boat) lunch and then went down to the shopping decks. I bought a bag that was just the right size for my Kindle. Daria bought a sparkly top. About 2 pm the cruise director announced that Istanbul had requested the captain to speed up due to traffic, so we would enter the Dardanelles Strait about 3 pm.
Up we went with our cameras and watched the land close in for 2 hours. There is a nice sitting area and bar at the stern of the ship. I started playing with my new smaller camera. It fits in the bag with my Kindle. I hope that helps me to hang onto it.
A pilot came onboard about 3 pm. About 4 pm , as we approached the narrowest part, a couple tug boats came out to escort us. The sides of the boats said “maritime security” in English. I will have to Google when I get home to see if English is the official language of the sea as well as the air.
I miss not having Google to answer all those pesky little questions that come up.
Dinner is in about 1:30. Too much eating on this boat!!! I may wash my hair. I want to be on the deck in the next 30 -45 minutes when we will be passing Gallipoli. Went up and looked, probably saw it but detail was lost in the haze & there was no obvious marker.
We five were sitting at our usual table for 6 when the waiter brought over a gentleman to fill the last seat. His name was Bob & he was a retired psychiatric nurse from Liverpool; a very nice man and good conversationalist.
After dinner we went to the theater show. It had been postponed from Tuesday because of rough seas. Lots of fun with singing, dancing, a guy balancing on a ladder & in a large hoop, along with trapeze artists and people on those long sashes.
Tomorrow is Istanbul. We dock at 7 am; our tour picks us up at 9 am for 8 hours.
I actually got up at 7:30 this morning; staggered up to Deck 15 and did 2.5 laps around the ship. The sun has come out and it is about 70 deg F. After I cleaned up, I went to breakfast in the dining room. They seat you with others. I met 2 ladies from East Tennessee, a couple and their daughter from Canada and a couple from Scotland. At 10 I lined up for tender tickets. If you are not on a ship excursion, you need a ticket for a seat on a tender. The little boats take 120 people and the ship needs to know how many they need.
Right now I am sitting at the stern on deck 15, the top complete deck. There is another deck above us, but it is broken into a bow part and a stern part with the smokestacks in between. There are no clouds, but a lot of haze on the sea. It is very pleasant. Joe & Linda just came by. They are walking off breakfast. I am just going to sit in the shade and read. What a tough life!
Getting ready to meet at 1 for lunch. We are to arrive in Santorini at 2, so we can watch the view as we come in. Then we wait for our tender ticket number to be called. Once we are out of that line, we get to wait in line for the cable car to take us up the sheer cliff. Each car takes 6 people. We will be on the dock for a while. Now it’s off to sun, white houses, blue church domes and finding Allie’s picture.
RATS RATS RATS RATS!!$%&?#&!!
I left my camera on a bus on the island. I’ll never see it again. It was the one Cliff surprised me with before I went to Puerto Rico. It had all my pictures for this trip.
RATS!!!!!
Back to the good stuff. The tender ride was a little bouncy. We had tickets on #10 so we got over about 3 – 3:30. They took all the people who booked a tour with the cruise line off first. Then there was the cable car ride up the sheer cliff to the town; not my favorite thing. Give me an airplane any day. Of course as soon as you reach the top you are inundated with shopping. We did see the Greek Orthodox cathedral and the small blue domed church that is the classic view…..except they had painted the dome white. There were a lot of other blue domes around. We then took the bus to Oia (EE-AH) on the north end of the island. Usually there are great views back to Fira, but it was pretty hazy today. This is when I lost my camera. We did some shopping, I bought a beautiful aquamarine ring. We caught the bus back to Fira and I asked at the bus “station”, but no one had turned in my camera. The line for the cable car was very long, but we made it back to the boat by 6:30. We changed, had dinner (I took pictures of dessert on my cell phone) and then I want down to the photo store and bought a new camera.
We left Santorini at 10 pm and now at 11 pm we are moving at 12 kts on a heading of 039 deg; the temperature is 67 F, winds are 22 kts from the SW and the barometer is 29.748 inHg.
Tomorrow is another day at sea. It should be nice and relaxing.
The town of Fira at the top of Santorini Island
We went up by cable car but you can take a donkey.
The pilot boat coming to pick up the pilot after traversing the Straits of Messina.
Straits of Messina. It was hazy, but the two tall towers are on either side of the channel.
Day 3 Tuesday May 28
Our first day at sea.
It is 1 pm & I just got out of the shower. Last night I was too tired. I planned to get up early, take a walk, then shower and go to breakfast. You can really get behind fast on a boat. There is no real sense of time.
So I slept in until 9 am (but it was really 10 because we had changed time zones) – there are no morning noises to wake you – took my walk, grabbed breakfast at the buffet. They had shut everything down to one line and had started to set up for lunch. By then it was 11:15 and there was a talk at 11:30 on our first 3 destinations –Santorini, Istanbul & Kusadasi.
My walk was well timed. We were passing through the straits of Messina between Sicily and the toe of Italy. I could see Mount Etna even though it had thin clouds around it. Very typical scenery, tall volcanic island with houses clustered along the narrow belt of shore.
Better get dressed for lunch. Pat, Daria & I have a World Wines tasting at 2 pm.
Turned out to be a quiet afternoon. We are out of sight of land. I tried an “alternate lifestyle” lunch at the small café on the pool deck (14). It wasn’t sit-down service. You went through a line and picked out what you wanted. It was vegetarian, not bad. The nice thing is that they assume people will want one of everything so they serve small portions.
The wine tasting was ok (Deck 3). Pat & Daria bailed on me. We did 6 whites and 6 reds. Nothing really wowed me.
Afterwards I went back up to 14 and sat on a deck chair to read. Deck 15 was closed due to high winds. It was very pleasant out of the wind; cloudy with a little sun and mild temperatures. The big buffet café is the aft portion of deck 14. They have tea and snacks at 4. I went, of course. Forgot to take my camera; will next time to get pictures of the food. Next is a little more light reading on deck, then dinner at 6:30. It is formal tonight; for me that means slacks instead of capris.
I booked a ship’s tour for the next whole day at sea, between Athens and Naples (Day 11, June 5). We get to see the engine compartment and the bridge. Yea!!!
Dinner was very nice. I took pictures of dessert {still have to download off my phone] – Yum!
Next was the Captain’s Toast in the theater. He introduced his senior officers and made a toast to a good cruise. We stayed on for the show. They had to cancel the circus due to rough seas. The act was a Brit named Dave who played jazz piano, various brass instruments of the trumpet/horn variety and finished with a Jerry Lee Lewis impersonation.
As I sit writing this there is more movement by the ship. I feel it best in my butt. It is like someone keeps working the rudder pedals. Re the Navigational Channel on the ship’s TV, we are moving at 18 kts on a heading of 108 deg. The temp is 69F, wind is SE at 34 kts, barometer is 29.385 inHg and it is 11:45 pm.
Ok, it is Monday. We arrived at the Rome airport about 15 minutes late. We were on final when the pilot suddenly added power and started to climb. We could watch the flight path on the flight tracker screen. The pilot came on and said that the aircraft ahead of us hit a bird on landing and they were checking the runway for debris. We made an oval to the north – almost to what looked like a huge extinct volcano crater lake – and came back on in. I need a map, without the internet, I can’t Google for that lake. We went through passport control very quickly. The guy never said a word, not even to ask the purpose of our visit.
There was a group of men from North Africa in the line next to us. It wasn’t moving at all!
We had nothing to declare, so we went through the magic door and bypassed customs altogether. Joe had organized a ride to the port at 11 am. We waited about 45 minutes for a nice man who had no English, just Joe’s name on a sign. The trip was supposed to take 45 -60 minutes. We made it in 30. Linda said that I was lucky to be sitting in a rear-facing seat. I didn’t see him going through stop signs and going around traffic. Joe said later that he was doing 150 kmh.
There are about 5 -6 ships docked at the port, including one from the infamous Costos line.
Once at the dock they have you drop off your bags in one area and then send you over to another to check in and go through security. It is like a big cattle chute. They run you through the chute, clipping your ears, giving you shots and then branding you.
Once on the ship, they sent us up to deck 14 to eat; all the rooms were not ready. Huge buffet, but in stations not a single line, so it was classier. Afterwards, I looked around for a bit and then went down to my cabin. It is very nice, but only 1 bed.
I got separated from the rest of the family in the cattle chute, so after eating, I wandered the decks a bit. Bad news is that I can’t write my diary out on the deck – TOO much glare. Good news is that my new Kindle Paperwhite works fine. I am in a quiet nook in the library right now (2:30 PM Rome time) writing this.
Daria just caught me. Apparently the four of them were up on the stern deck eating and got to wondering what happened to me. I made it to the food first. Anyone surprised? We went back up top and rendezvoused with the others & took a short tour of the top decks.
We have a general alarm coming up in ten minutes, got to go.
Well that was pretty casual. We all showed up, had our names checked off the list and then watched a 4 minute video. They also showed us which doors we would go out to the lifeboats; it all assumes that the crew is available to help and is on top of things. I hope we don’t have to see.
At 5 pm a tug came up to us, hitched a big rope to us and then swung the bow away from the dock. We are on our way. As I sit here at 9:15 pm, I keep shaking side-to-side. There is a slight lateral mode that is noticeable when you are not busy. It isn’t a problem; it just looks like I have the shakes.
We went to dinner at 6:30. It was very relaxed and tasty. At least it was relaxed after Joe had a chance to vent. They seem to have lost his suitcase. He and Linda handed them over at the dock staging area together. Hers showed up, his didn’t. I had the seared salmon and Dulce con Leche for dessert. It was a lot like Crème Brule but a caramel flavor. Yum! I was good and had only one.
Joe and Linda went to the theater to see the “Taste of Reflection” show. Pat, Daria and I decided to crash – in our own rooms, of course.
Where: Old Chicago East (7700 E Kellogg Drive)
RSVP: To Cassie (wichitaswecounselor@gmail.com) by Tuesday (5/7) at 5pm
What: Come join us for a pizza party to celebrate the end of the school year with WSU SWE! This is great chance to mentee if you volunteer as a mentor!
Cost: Professionals $10, Students FREE for Old Chicago Pizza!
The next SAMPE meeting is Tuesday, March 3, 2013 (5:30 PM) at the National Center for Aviation Training (NCAT), Wichita, KS. Chris Fish, Chief Technology Officer of DYNA-TEK, LLC will be presenting “Innovations in Composite Manufacturing: Mold Release, High Temperature Resin, High Temperature Chromate-free Coatings”. More information and an RSVP link can be found here, http://www.sampewichita.org/index.html
2012 Society of Women Engineers Wichita Area Section I05 PO Box 1096 Wichita, KS 67201 E-mail: Wichita@swe.org
This non-profit organization is tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code
