Happy 2008!

We are in Calle Mayor -- right in the middle of the New Year's action -- waiting for 2008!

Wishing everyone a wonderful New Year and all the best for 2008!

Happy Holidays!

We want to wish all of our friends and family a wonderful Holiday Season. We are lucky to spend this Christmas and New Year's with family overseas and that is a big blessing!
We wish you all the very best this world has to offer.

Off to Galicia!

Love,

Ian and Valentina

Hanging in Marbella

We've been enjoying a relaxing week at Marriott's Marbella Beach Resort. The compound of villas is huge and we were lucky to get a villa so close the Mediterranean. As for the inside, we're feeling really spoiled again! The bed alone is nearly the size of the entire apartment we had in Florence. I may be exaggerating a tad but I swear a few nights ago I had to roll over like 4 times before I found Valentina tucked deep under the down comforter on the other side of the bed.

My Spanish classes have been GREAT. I was easily functional here in broken Spanish before the lessons but now I feel a lot more confident because I'm learning to actually use the language properly. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. I will translate this blog for those who speak only Spanish: HOLA-ESTAMOS BIEN. ESTAMOS EN MARBELLA. LA CAMA ES TREMENDO. PERDIO VALENTINA EN LA CAMA. MIS CLASES SON BIEN.

Pretty good huh? (BIEN JUJ?)

Videos: Dubrovnik - Malaga - Sevilla

Dubrovnik

Malaga

Sevilla - (oh yeah, we've gone wide screen on my new camera-unfortunately the upload kills the quality).

Anecdotes of a deranged germaphobe

It's not your fault Valentina. I guess when both your parents are medical doctors, you can't help but be aware of the many microscopic dangers of an escalator's hand rail. It's probably perfectly normal to hold your breath just after a stranger sneezes until you're far clear of any unsightly DNA they've sprayed into your sanitary world. And finally, where this impacts me... I'm sure it's perfectly sane to keep tabs on MY 'sanitary status' to make sure I continue to win the endless war against the unseen attackers. The industrial sized hand sanitizer that you gave me for work was really useful. The people at work just figured there was a 'hand sanitizer by the gallon' sale at Costco.

Anyway, I bring this up in this blog because this trip has been a pretty big challenge for you and I think you're finally overcoming your fears. The other night you happily drank straight from your glass whereas even dying of thirst you used to wait patiently at PF Changs to finally ask the waiter for a straw. I knew this trip would make us change for the better in many many ways. :)

Sure, last night you berated me slightly after we ate dinner when I rubbed my eye... "You've been all over the city touching 'god-knows-what' and you touch your eye? Your EYE? You must just really want pink eye don't you!?"

Anyway... small steps....

This one is for my mom...

Maria Teresa.....
How much you pay? How much you pay? Vera Pelle, how much you pay?

Now that we are in Portugal, what's next?

Our flight from Lisbon to Sevilla was cancelled right before we got on the ship and with minimal internet access we were unable to make alternate arrangements. We were able to secure one additional night in the hotel after my parent’s departure, however, later found out that Dec. 8 is a religious holiday in Portugal and many of the hotels were fully booked for the remainder of the week. We stayed our third night in a basic but central hotel and decided to head South by bus today.

Lisbon has unique sights that add flair to a city. For example, the 25^th of April Bridge which looks much like the Golden Gate Bridge and is lit up at night over the Tejo river and the Torre de Belem which blends Moorish and Gothic architectural styles. We would have had more time for sightseeing but I felt a bit homesick on the day that my parents left and we decided to check out a movie instead. The cinema was inside the Colombo shopping mall – one of the largest in Europe. That was a pretty incredible mall – by far, the largest I had been to (and Ian thinks it is as big as the Mall of the Americas in Minnesota). This place was so pretty and had an amazing food selection with tons of restaurants – I know these things seem petty, but it’s quite unusual to find this type of shopping set up in Europe. We even found what is, by far, the largest store I have ever seen. The store (called Continente) was a mix between a Walmart, Target, and Publix – I thought Americans were known for building big, but this was really big!

We hadn’t really planned to visit Portugal for this length of time, but it’s been nice to get a taste for this country and language, which is in many ways similar to both Spanish and Italian. In a couple of days we’ll leave for Sevilla and settle into a nice little apartment for a week before moving on to Marbella.

Pics from the last few weeks...

Dubrovnik's main street

A panaromic view of Dubrovnik

The ship from the Santorini caldera

The beautiful little town of Oia, Santorini

Donkeys in Santorini are still very popular!

Mom and dad at the Roman Bath ruins, Carthage

Camel in Tunisia

A view of Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia

My mom finds the main street in Malaga!

By the Cadiz coastline

Our cruising days are over...

Now that we are in the South of Portugal (Faro), we’ll post some pictures of our port calls during the cruise. The ship was great and all decked out for Christmas. It would be difficult to retell stories from the last two weeks, but we’ll post some pictures from each of the stops: Dubrovnik, Santorini, Tunis, Malaga, Cadiz, and Lisbon.

By far the best part of the cruise was spending time with my parents. Unlike the past couple of months, the cruise days seem to have gone by faster than usual and the day of their departure back to the States came around too quickly.

A couple more pics...

The reflection of the water in St. Mark's Square

The Dolomites faintly appearing in the background

After Verona, there was....

Bolzano
This partly Austrian town is the gateway to the Italian Dolomites and it's also the home of Otzi the Iceman -- our main reason for visiting. Otzi was found about 15 years ago high in the mountain ridge by a couple on a hike. At first sight, it was thought that this was a body of a modern day hiker which had decomposed with time. However, it was soon discovered that Otzi was actually the body of a 5000 year old man! He was found complete with a copper axe, shoe, bag, stockings, and other articles of clothing. We actually saw Otzi's body in an ice room where he is exhibited to those who visit the Museum of Archeology. This was a really neat experience -- if you were unfamiliar with this story, I would highly recommend reading about it on the web.

Venice
On our last visit to Venice, Ian had seen a picture of Julia Roberts walking through a couple of feet of water on St. Mark's Square. We had heard that Venice floods in November and were hoping to experience this for ourselves. It turns out to be true! During the evening and early morning the tide rises and the water overflows some of the streets. I didn't really detect any foul smell, although I did see a rat (again) walking the empty streets at night. Wooden planks are placed to create a catwalk on which people can move around the city without having to get their pants went. St. Mark's Square gets covered in water and tourists (locals have water boots) crowd on wooden platforms as they move around. Having experienced this makes the fact that Venice is sinking actually real.

Verona Pics... tons of pics!

Ok, the actual words of Shakespeare (we were pretty close!).

Having fun at Castel Vecchio.

Yeah, a shot of home life at our studio apt in Verona.

Adige River-

Juliet's balcony and bronze statue.

She's cute as a button.

Money night shot of the Adige River and Verona

Ok, before Africa, there was Verona...

What better way to describe Verona than by the words of William Shakespeare himself... recited from memory no less!




Pics to follow... I have to try to get this blog back in order.

Where was Haitham when we needed him?

Two days ago we docked in Tunis, Tunisia in the Northern part of Africa. We visited the ancient city of Carthage and Sidi Bou Said on a guided tour and decided to venture into the Medina (historical center of Tunis) by ourselves -- what a mistake! Royal Caribbean had designated shuttles that could transport you to a main drop off point in the Medina and we felt they should be a safe way to reach our destination. There was a ´guide´in the bus who seemed quite knowledgeable at first. Then, he became a bit controlling telling us that he would get us back to the ship on time but we would first stop in some place for tea --what? All we wanted was to be dropped off in the Medina -- this was not part of the shuttle service.
The ´guide´ stopped the bus in a place where no other bus was parked and asked us all to get off. Several of us asked repeatedly where the pick up point was and he insisted we follow him and he would show us. Next thing we know we are standing outside of an Arabic Mosque where he proceeded to make pretty inappropriate religious comments about the different Muslim groups (he was Muslim himself). No American laughed. Somehow we end up in a carpet shop where they ´trapped´about 40 of us in a room for a carpet demonstration. They offered free drinks and despite the fact that you can sense the discomfort among this group of tourist (us included) a few people agreed to some mint tea and sodas (people do some strange things when they are tourists). It´s hard to capture the feeling of danger that was brewing in the room, but imagine being dropped off in the middle of a maze of eager (for a lack of a better word) merchants where you don´t speak the language under a time crunch because you have to get back on the ship and no one is telling you where the buses are.
My dad decided he wasn´t having any more of this crap and interrupted the ´carpet demonstration´ saying he hadn´t paid for this show and he just wanted to know where the bus stop was. The Tunisian giving the demonstration said we were ´free´to go but our ´guide´had disappeard so as to not tell us how to get back. Once we got up, the rest of the room followed us out through a maze of stairs and rooms. We found ourselves in a room surrounded by about 10 Tunisian men who would not tell us how to leave this ´store´and the exit was nowhere to be found. It was a crazy situation...40 tourists forming a circle around a room, 10 Tunisian men forming an outer circle around us and suddenly no one spoke English (how convenient!). When the ´guide´found himself confronted by several agitated people, he finally agreed to walk us to the bus stop.
He led us through a maze of shops, stopped at the end of a street, and pointed down a suspicious looking alley suggesting we take that to the end, turn left, and another left. We had two choices: 1. continue following this crazy dude who was forcing us into places where they would lock us up until we shopped or 2. take our chances in finding the bus. We took the second option and dipped it with about 5 other people. We finally found the bus back and left Tunis for good.
TIA:THIS IS AFRICA.

P.S. We later found out the shuttle buses were not supposed to have any ´guide´on board beyond the driver...great...this dude wasn´t even part of the bus company.