Update ... On our way to France!!!

Our flight to Rome was not to memorable … since we both slept! Dawn carried her bouquet all the way to Remo’s Bed and Breakfast!!! I surprised her with another bunch of flowers when the driver picked us up at the airport in Rome. Daniele (Daniel) was our driver, he is the son of Remo and Angela. Remo owns a limo and tour company … www.driverinrome.com … all I have to say is that if you EVER make it to Rome, you have to take a tour with Remo or Daniele. Dawn and I saw in 3 hours more than we would have seen in 3 days!!! The line outside of the Vatican was over a mile long. People were waiting outside for over 3 hours to get in and Daniele drove us to the front of the line … hopped out of the car … yelled something in Italian to some guy in line and told us to “Get in here!!!” We were inside of the Vatican within 5 minutes, we saw the Museum, rooms painted by Raphel (some fancy artist guy who did frescos), we walked through the Sistine Chapel and saw the famous finger touching painting … then we went form there into the Basilica. It took my breath away when I walked in there … amazing. Daniele gave us his cell phone to call him when we were finished. It took us about 90 minutes in the Vatican. From there we headed to the forums.

The forums were breathtaking also … HUGE granite and marble columns! I had no clue what I was in for from reading about the places we were going to visit and actually being there. So, Rome was GREAT! Off to the cruise … We got on board around 5pm on Tuesday and when we were checking in we were told “Its so nice to see young people on board!” Dawn and I did not know what to think … ha ha ha … I was thinking it couldn’t be that bad and its not. The average age here on the ship is about 55, but these “older” folks … boy, they know how to let loose. There are about 5 other couples around Dawn’s and my age, but we certainly are the youngest ones here. The ship is GORGEOUS!!! They take care of you like royalty here … like anytime you eat at the buffet, when you finish loading up your plate a waiter jumps out of nowhere and takes your plate to your seat, while he follows you. The first time that happened to me I said “Hey, that’s mine!” Yea, I am classy like that … ha ha ha. So, the people we have met here … most of them are wonderful. There are a couple people here that would rather not be bothered so we just ignore them. The ones we hang out with are just hilarious. There are 3 couples from Nassau (Bahamas) … Then there is a couple from Wisconsin, another couple from Southern California and one couple from San Francisco. The couple from San Francisco are the CUTEST in the world … he is 98 years old and a kick in the pants. He is very funny and very sweet and his wife is the most adorable woman, and the best part about them is when they look at eachother they just shine. I hope Dawn and I have that when we reach that age! I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

So the places we have seen, First stop was in Naples … we did an excursion to Pompeii for half the day. It was so incredible there. I could actually envision the people of that day milling around the streets, going to the market, living, working ... the excavation that has been done is incredible. There are still walls with paintings on them. There are shops that still have the milling wheels to mill the flour and on the other side of the shop there is the oven that they would bake the bread. If you have not read or seen anything on Pompeii … please, check it out. It is unreal. Naples was a very busy and noisy city. It reminded me of the financial district in San Francisco on a Friday at around 5pm … WALL TO WALL People. We drove around in the bus on the way back from Pompeii and they showed us downtown. Dawn and I both agreed that what we saw from the bus was PLENTY!!! Plus, we only had about 3 hours so we didn’t want to get to far from the ship. Our second stop was Palermo Sicily. That city was VERY crowded, VERY dirty, VERY loud … We walked around for about 4 hours. Walked up through town, down through a side street market area (SMELLY) … they had fish just laying out and they would chop off a piece, wrap it in newspaper and sell it. There were a bunch of people buying the fish, so I guess it couldn’t be to bad. Ha ha … We checked out a museum, a church a fountain or 2. We were about 2 blocks from the boat, our feet hurt, the back pack was heavy from a camera, 2 bottles of wine, a few nick nacks we bought at the market and a sweater … and it starts to rain!!! We hoped from building to building and when we got about 100 yards from the boat entrance … it stops raining. We laughed our way up to the cabin, showered, and took a nap!!! AHHHHHH, The Life!!!

Today we are at sea … we are heading up to Bastia France which is on an island (Corsica) up near the French Riviera. Today we woke up … a little sore from our formal night last night. Since this is an all inclusive ship you can not finish a drink before someone is putting another one in your hand. Its horrible … Last night was the “formal” night. Dawn and I got all fancied up and looked GOOOOD!!! We ate yummy food, danced, the boat was rocking back and forth from the waves since we were in a small storm so the funniest part of the evening was to watch the people on the dance floor go from one side of it to the other, the whole while NOT trying to lose step in their dancing! Ha ha ha

It has been an amazing day at sea … relaxing, calm, sunny. I think we have taken 2 naps today and Dawn just laid down to take her 3rd nap. I am going to log on to upload this post and get to work on the next post. I’ll try to get Dawn to type something out to you all soon. Hope everyone is well and I will post again soon I hope!!!