Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Bye Bye!

Well, Cameron has left on his year-long business trip and I've started packing up the apartment to move back to the good ole US of A. LT Cam took a bus from Vilseck to Ramstein AFB, where he then took a chartered Delta flight to Kyrzgstan (he said they had in flight meals and everything!). Apparently there's a pretty nice base in K where they hang out until taking an Army flight to Kandahar and from there a helicopter to his outpost. I will keep everyone updated on his whereabouts and any package requests he has. We have been told not to mail anything until our guys take over the mail service down there on July 7th, so I will send out his address when we get it.
I am going to stop receiving mail on July 2nd, after that it will be forwarded to my parents house. The first round of movers come on July 1st (I am NOT turning 25 this year, I've decided to put it off for another year until I'm ready) and the final round come on the 2nd. I'm looking forward to being home, closer to the ocean, Daniel, and English speaking people in general, but it is sad to think that Cameron and I won't be returning to our first "love nest" and that our European adventure is, for the most part, over.
See you all soon, stay tuned for updates on Cameron's whereabouts and address.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Heaven on Earth

My favorite of the cruise stops were Santorini and Mykonos. They were both very touristy, but that didn't take away from their charm. The area of Santorini that was formed by a volcano and the towns rest on the lip of the volcano. To get up to the towns you have three options- cable car, donkey (no guide so they walk wherever they want) or walking up the same path as the donkeys (potential to be squished by aforementioned uncontrolled donkeys and sidestepping their abundant droppings). We chose to the take the donkey route. It was fun, but an adventure for sure!
Here is one of the old Greek donkey- herder. They spoke no English, he yanked me off when the ride was over!
Beautiful Fira; we took a taxi to another town, Oia, to walk around and have a delicious Greek dinner. We also got authentic baklava to have for a late night snack. Mmmm!
Next stop, Mykonos! We rented some ATVs and drove them around the island eventually stopping at a beach to spend the rest of our time there. It was so fun to drive around the island and look down at the water and different little villages.
Here is the beach we stopped at. The water was a little warmer than Croatia and we rented a couple of beach chairs under thatched umbrellas. It was blissful!
This is the town of Mykonos that we wandered around before catching the last boat back to the ship. Every building was white with brightly colored shutters and doors in shades of blue.
One night on the ship they talked up a "Chocoholic Bar", so we got in line early and I ate a light dinner to save room. Between Cameron and I we tried everything, and I can't say they had anything spectacular. We all left feeling disappointed, unfortunately. Luckily, I had gotten more baklava in port that day so it wasn't a totally rotten day!
And... the chocolate Eiffel Tower.
This was Crete, we took a bus to the Palace of Knosos, and ancient Roman settlement and walked around. Crete was a lot more industrialized than the other places we had visited.
Towel Dog, he's such a stud!!

Split & Corfu

Here she is! Our floating resort, the Norwegian Gem. You can't tell from this angle but she had super tacky "gems" painted along the sides near the bow- so American. Our cabin was long the port side around the middle.
Our first stop was Split, Croatia. The ship uses their lifeboats as ferries to bring people back and forth from the docks, which I thought was pretty creative. Diocletian's Palace is the main attraction in Split, besides the beach. We walked into the old city and randomly found a tour guide that was about to begin, so we hopped into her walking tour to see the Palace and hear about its history. After the tour, we made our way over to a beach where we cooled off before heading back to the ship. Beaches in Croatia are supposed to be fabulous, and while the one we went to was nice, clean, and family friendly (other than an anorexic looking woman doing topless pushups...) , we would have liked to have enough time to venture to some out of the way beaches.
This is the view of Split from our cabin balcony. The main dock area of the port is off to the right, while the Palace area is behind the more modern looking buildings.
The next stop on our itinerary was Corfu. This was the one place that we chose to do an excursion through the cruise. We took a bus about 45 minutes to a farm to horseback ride through the countryside. It was great to get away from the main tourist areas and see what the more rural parts looked like. We rode through olive groves, along a rocky beach, and through more olive groves.
After sufficiently bruising our bums, we returned the horses and took the bus to a beach for some relaxing before returning to the ship. Above is Cameron swimming- the water was still pretty chilly and it was a windy afternoon so he was on his own.
Here is a jetty that formed a cove for some fishing/leisure boats, and below are the boats and the shore (the beach was on the other side of the jetty to the right).
Every single night we had a sunset better than the night before!