If you can't tell by now, I'm no longer giving a live play by play. The wifi on board the ship was more expensive than I was willing to pay. And I really didn't want to update my blog when I could sit on my balcony listening to the waves hit against the ship. We slept with the door open to the balcony, because it was so nice to fall asleep to the sounds of the sea.
Speaking of the sounds of the sea, here are a few videos to show a little bit of the fun we had at sea.
The first is Charlie at dinner. After an hour and a half in the restaurant in the evening, a few nights they wait staff entertained us. Charlie really liked the rhythm of the music and started dancing on his own.
Jannica also had the final round of "The Voice of the Sea." Notice the live band and the backup singer. Pretty cool. Ultimately she did not win. An Italian guy won.
And then very strange to American families, the kids club activities really started picking up around 9pm. We thought that the kids should be going to bed around then, but the culture for Italian and Spanish kids is that they stay up much later. Remember though that they take the siesta. This is one of the kids clubs activities at 10pm as we were about to put out kids to bed.
Today was the day that everyone was looking forward to. Everyone was excited to see the city that was destroyed and preserved by lava. The city did not disappoint.
One of the most exciting parts was seeing the exquisite designs on the walls and floor from almost 2000 years ago.
And of course we all wanted to see the plaster molds of the people that died. To a 6 year old boy, this kind of morbidity is the best.
It was a short day at port, so we really didn't have as much time as we could have taken. A quick 2 hours in this place was not enough, at least when you have a 3 year old that walks a lot slower if he is even walking in the right direction. We brought a stroller along to help with that, but if you notice in the first picture, the roads were not exactly made stroller friendly in 67 A.D.
Palermo, Italy may be one of the most depressing and disgusting cities in all of Western Europe, and maybe even all of Europe. Although I haven't seen a lot of the rest of Southern Italy, so maybe there are cities that rival it.
We had another kid puke so that makes three total for the cruise, and one complaining about his stomach for several days. All that to say, Jannica, Beverly, Charlie, and I were the ones to trek into Palermo for the day.
This is the market. It is supposedly the best of the three main markets. I though I was in the middle of India or Africa with how depressing it was. There was broken glass all over the street, graffiti all over the walls, and rotting fish in the stalls. Overall not what I think of when I think of the great cities of Europe.
We did find this "beautiful" little square in front of a church. The first thing that we spotted was the fencing around all the monuments. I'm not sure what that is really all about. Probably to keep the graffiti artists away. But it sure ruins the setting as a place that you can sit and relax.
There is one site that I thought was very interesting in Palermo and it really supports the creepy vibe of the city. In the catacombs, there are the mummified remains of people here.
Apparently, families used to come by and redress the mummies for special ocassions.
Many were dressed up in what would have been nicely dressed 100-150 years ago.
We were not supposed to take pictures but I just couldn't resist taking a couple. Shame on me. This guy reminded Jannica of the guy from the plate from the Corpse Bride.
After the catacomb, we tried to get back to the ship, but with unclear bus times and stops, it took a lot of time to get back. It was everything you might expect from a third world public transportation system. Nothing like the beauty and reliability of public transportation in Amsterdam, or even Spain.
We did find a nice area around the Palermo Cathedral. It appeared that all the fixing up done in the city was in about this three block area around the cathedral.
We did find some of our entertainment along the way. Jannica thought it would be a good idea to put Charlie in the backpack. So we did. I have to admit that it turned out to be pretty cute.
And finally when we made it on the bus, Charlie thought it would be a good idea to do Beverly's hair. She enjoyed it even if he did pull on her hair a bit.
We made it back to the ship thoroughly disappointed in our first port of call in Italy. This absolutely is one of those places where you should book an excursion.
Last night we were thoroughly entertained my a magician. Cameron's face was precious during each trick. He really thought they were going to kill the guy with the sword going through his neck. He was also very amused by the flaming swords being stuck into the assistant. And Jaimee and I were entertained by the skimpy outfits the assistants were wearing. At least that was my understanding when she stated that they had less and less clothing on as the night went on. It was a lot of fun.
Today we began our trip by hiking up a mountain to a circular castle. Cameron started counting steps but stopped when he got to around 250. We had to take a rest here where everyone was able to get their own resting spot.
The view from the top was pretty amazing. The city view looked good too.
And this was another impromptu break where the kids just got together to stop. This was at the top of the castle. It was pretty cool as it had an open circle area below.
This was Cameron's favorite part. In his words, "Did you see that naked statue on the bed? I want to spank it. I like to spank naked statutes."
We then took a bus into the city to explore. After spending more for lunch than I have in a really long time for food that was not really that good, we went by the cathedral and royal palace.
The cathedral was amazing in how it dwarfed the rest of the city. It was so much taller and quite amazing looking.
This was an amazing moment. We were able to get almost a third of Cameron's face in the picture without tricking him. This is overlooking one of the palace's outer walls.
And no good exploration of a new city is complete without finding some of the coolest playgrounds around. This beauty is just outside the city wall on the way back to the bus back to the ship. We of course had to spend another 30 minutes exploring this.
Jannica is at her practice for the Voice of the Sea competition. She is still very excited. Last night we basically didn't see her after her practice at 5pm until after midnight. She seems to be having a blast and is having a great time in the teens club.
This all sounds amazing, but I feel that is my obligation to let you know that it is not all unicorns and rainbows. To count, we have had two kids throw up on the boat. Not because of sea sickness, but because I think they picked something up somewhere. I'll make sure to let you know as the body count increases. Unfortunately, this has slowed us down some on the fun activities that we can all do together.
Late last night, Jannica entered the karaoke contest on board the ship, called "The Voice of the Sea," complete with swivel chairs and X's. Jannica chose to sing "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera. The top 7 contenders will move on to the final round in the main theater on the sea day. Jannica made it into the top 7.
She has two rehearsals before the big show with a mentor, and she will be singing with a live band. As can be expected, she is very excited.
Today, Jannica and I took off to explore the city of Valencia, Spain. We stopped off at a store to pick up toys and other supplies. In the costume section right next to the kids toys, this is what we found. And of course, instead of ignoring it and pretending that we didn't see this, we stopped to take a picture, because we wanted to share with you.
Because there were only two of us, it was easy to rent bikes, and so we did. After almost getting killed by a bus or two, we made it to the old river turned park area. Biking here is nothing like the ease of biking in the Netherlands.
We did some exploring.
And we did some more shopping.
And we returned the bikes to the rental shop with only one small accident. But that was because I thought it would be fun to take my bike down a steep grassy hill. It didn't work out.
When we returned the bikes, the let you sign the wall to say whatever you want. Here is Jannica's knowledge to spread to the world.
I had forgotten one thing about Spain. We walked around the corner to this outdoor market and every stall was being cleaned up and put away. I had forgotten about the siesta. I had always thought that markets were crazy because they had to set up and take down everyday. This is even crazier as they set up and take down twice a day.
And then perhaps the best part of my day. Since we have been living in Amsterdam, there is very little Mexican food that is good. I wasn't even hungry when we found this local restaurant. Turns out it is pretty good.
We started off on the day as happy as can be. We immediately questioned why we were wearing jackets and coats. And they came off fast. We were off on our merry way to explore the city of Barcelona.
First stop, La Sagrada Familia. After a 20 minute wait in line for ticket, we then headed off to the park next door to await our admission time an hour later. Ryan then took 1001 and pictures, of which I will only show a couple.
We then headed off to the Barri Gotic to explore the small roads and exciting street entertainment.
There were really cute roads with archways. It was pretty idealic.
This is the Barcelona Cathedral and our beautiful daughter in the main square.
And we could have spent hours upon hours following this guy. He got a lot of our spare change.
After a great day in Barcelona, we arrived at the cruise ship terminal an boarded out ship. We are too cheap to pay for wifi on board, so we may be putting the phones away for 7 days. The updates will come later.
Aaaaand we're off! 7 night cruise in the Mediterranean. Babysitting included. No cooking. Just gotta make it thru the flight there.
We arrived in Barcelona late at night. We checked into the hotel. And then had the task of finding food. Jannica and I ventured off a few blocks from this hotel. I had heard of this guy Antoni Gaudí before and we have seen some of his works before, but I didn't realize that he had done so many odd buildings. We were walking down the road and saw this building. It was literally surrounded by normal looking buildings so it stood out so much more. Casa Battló is the name of this one.
Casa Batlló is the result of a total restoration in 1904 of an old conventional house built in 1877. Gaudí used for it the typical constructive elements of the Modernisme(Catalan Art Nouveau) that include ceramics, stone, and forged iron. Even though it was highly criticized by the city during construction due to its radical design that broke all the bylaws of the city, in 1906 the Barcelona City Council awarded it the recognition of being one of the three best buildings of the year.
Depending on how the time works today and how fast and a straight line we can get Chatlie to walk, we plan on visiting two of Gaudís other works, La Sagrada Familia and Park Güell.
My little girl is now 10. And this post is two weeks later than it should. I came back from the store two weeks ago and found 12 extra kids in my house, mostly 9 and 10 year old girls. I thought this picture showed the chaos some that we "enjoyed." That is less than half of them.
It was a fun international crowd. We had girls from all over like Portugal, Italy, Japan, and Kentucky. Here is a picture of a tower that they built. I'm not really sure why the face on Ryan. I think she was just trying to look cool. And she pulls it off well here.
The theme of the party was "Minute to Win It." There were 10 different minute long activities and a competition to see who can complete the most activities. The had a donut eating contest, a ballon bouncing contest, and my favorite in film below. There were 5 gummy bears hidden in the whipped cream. Their challenge was to find the 5 gummy bears with only their mouths and spit them to the side. I thought it was quite enjoyable, to watch.
I was riding home for lunch today and I saw one of these "vehicles". I've seen them before but I've never been able to take a picture of them. They are basically small school busses that use the bike paths. It is essentially a Segway with a big bucket on the front. I usually see them full of kids, probably 5-6 kids each. It must be some sort of service that picks up your kids for you. Pretty cool and fits in with the biking culture.
On the other side of practical is Disney High. Their school busses consist of a fleet of Mercedes minivans that all look brand new. They probably load those with 5-6 students also but with a lot more space.
These are three parakeets that we found on our road. Jaimee has been telling me for months about how she has seen these green birds in the trees around her house and I have mocked her about seeing things. Finally, one day, the truth came out to mock me. There was one of these green birds up in our tree. I took a picture and started to go back inside to admit I was wrong. Two more birds flew into the tree as I was leaving just to make sure that I was absolutely wrong.
I was doing a little research to be able to share why we have green birds in our trees. Instead of doing my own writing, I thought it would be easier to just steal this persons writing and pass it off as my own. So I did.
Among the first strange things I noticed when moving to Amsterdam (yes, there were a few) was a green parrot, nesting in the large tree which stood in the backyard. Bear in mind it was the middle of winter, so I was really surprised about how that small exotic bird could live outside during such weather; but the bird itself appeared to be quite happy. Over the next few days, I noticed that it also had some… family and friends — there were actually five parrots living in that tree! Then I recalled an article that I had read in the newspaper about the increasing number of wild parakeets living in the UK, and I thought that it could be the same situation in the Netherlands as they were quite close after all (not surprisingly, the story turned up indeed to be the same). After a while, I got used to seeing green parakeets (this seems to be the right name, and not “parrots”) in trees all over the city. Once I even saw two or maybe three large flocks flying over the canals and fighting about something — maybe nesting spots, who knows?
I did a bit of an investigation and found out that the first group of parakeets living in Amsterdam was observed in 1976, and it is thought they were the descendants of pets set free by their owners. Since then, these birds which have their origins in India and Sub-Saharan Africa have grown in number — over 3,000 in Amsterdam and 10,000 in all of the Netherlands — flourishing throughout the country. They are very adaptable and don’t have any trouble finding food and shelter in the (not so) cold Dutch winter, and actually thrive all over western Europe, especially in Belgium and the UK. Specialists there are even afraid that the parakeets could pose an ecological threat to local bird species, because of their competition for food and nesting locations.
I will let them worry about the ecological issues while I continue to admire the beautiful, noisy green birds whenever I get the chance — as I did with this guy who was eating acacia flowers right in front of my window. And I will wait for the day when they will speak something to me, as both male and female of this species are known to have the ability to mimic human speech
