Saturday, Dec. 25th

Doesnt feel much like Christmas although the boat and crew certainly tried to make it festive.


We found a Cat just about every where we went. And of course someone took pictures of them all.







Ruins of Carthage, Tunis in Africa












Shopping in Medina in Tunis, Africa

Friday Dec. 24th Palermo, Sicily

Another beautiful day.







Catacombs were interesting but not as spooky as I had hoped. As usual no cameras so had to buy the book.










Scandalous statues around fountain.

Thur. Dec 23, 2010 Amazing day in Rome

Although it was supposed to rain all day, and the cruise ship handed us rain ponchos as we left the ship, it turned out to be perfect weather. Sunny and 60ish. Lots of walking, lots of stairs and lots of sights.

The Coliseum.


The Vatican was amazing......

Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010

Will we stay or will we go.

Weather is not good and flights are being cancelled all around us. Virgin has called to let us know that we are scheduled to leave at this point and that they will call us if our flight is cancelled or rescheduled.

I spoke with our neighbor Daniel earlier today and he is scheduled to leave for Korea on Thursday to teach for three weeks. Prayers for his safe travels and that he will indeed get a flight out.

Once Jim hands over his Blackberry tonight I will be able to get my hands on the pictures he took during the Live Nativity and upload what I find.

And so we went.....

And so it begins again......

We are at the end of 2010 and packing for another cruise to celebrate Christmas as we embrace the reality that time in England will be over some day. Weather permitting we leave Wednesday morning 22 Dec for Italy. By saying "weather permitting" I mean that London was snowed in yesterday and flights cancelled causing Gwenne and Alan Henricks to miss their own Christmas party.

Our only commitment before leaving is the village Live Nativity where Jim is reading Luke 2:4-8 while we travel from scene to scene singing appropriate Christmas carols.
Afterwards everyone will gather in the church for food, fellowship and warmth. And hopefully a chance to hold baby Jesus (aka 7 week old Gus)

It’s Monday in Cairo”
Another early morning for us as the alarm went off at 6 a.m. Up, showered, breakfast, off the boat and on the bus for a two hour drive to Cairo. Jim clicked pictures of the scenery as we rode. He was constantly trying to catch a shot of Caterpillar machinery every time we saw some. It changed a bit from Jordan. More sand and more haze. The pollution is Cairo was really bad. Everything was covered so our pictures were not very bright or colourful. Riding on the bus we were able to take in the view and found a car passing us interesting as they had all of their worldly belongings affixed to the top,

First on our agenda was a trip to the Citadel Mosque. Our guide was Moslem so she was very informative on rituals, customs, and explanations of what we saw and the reasons for what they did. All the vendors said “Obama” as soon as we spoke and they recognized us as Americans. When the British spoke they said “Tony Blair” which was a bit behind the times as it is now Gordon Brown.


At the Citadel we had to remove our shoes and carry them in a plastic bag. We had been warned ahead of time to make sure our shoulders and knees were covered so Jim and I dressed accordingly. Of course there are always those who do not listen (or read) so the Citadel provided green silk bags to put over their clothes before entering. The British seemed to have a lot of history here by giving presents of pillars, clock towers and receiving gifts back as well. The Egyptian Obelisk by the Thames River is one example.
After leaving the Citadel we went to lunch on the Nile River. As we ate and cruised we were entertained by something called singing, then belly dancing and finally by a “man in a skirt” who was actually pretty good.
Reaching shore we boarded our buses and headed for the Pyramids. Amazingly we could them from the interstate road that went through the city. Also amazingly alongside the interstate was such poverty, filth and despair it was unbelievable. Loose garbage was piled up on streets and overflowing into streams.
Our bus took us first to the panoramic view of the pyramids for Kodak moments. Then it was down to the bottom of the pyramids for more photographic action. One of our fellow travellers was lightened of his money and boarding card to get back on the ship. They tried to find the villain but after a while the gentleman could not recognize for sure which one he suspected. Our bus tried to leave but the vendors were in an uproar at being accused and did not want us to leave without talking to the police which would have taken hours. We had been assigned our own security police who rode on the bus with us so we were well protected and felt quite safe with the Uzzi he had stuffed in the back of his pants.
Once again we are on the bus for another descent down to the Sphinx. Many photo ops here and then back on the bus to go to the Papyrus factory and jewellery store. On the bus earlier this morning I had ordered a kartouche (I know spell-check wants it spelled with a “c” but the jewellery card says “k”) which was to be ready for pickup after the papyrus institute. A kartouche is your name written in Egyptian symbols.
Sunsets at 5:15ish so we rode back to the boat in darkness. Arriving was similar to earlier this week where we were met with hot wash cloths, hot tea, and a band playing and singing for us. Grabbed dinner and settled back into our cabin for the “Star Trek” Movie which I didn’t make it through, luckily I had seen it before.

Christmas Eve - to Egypt

Christmas Eve Day
Our day started at 2:30 a.m. with a phone call from the taxi service making sure we really did want a taxi at 3:30 a.m. and if we did could they come earlier as the roads were ice covered snow that had melted off and on. The taxi arrived and got us to the train station on time.
An hour and a half later we pulled into London Kings Cross and walked across the street to St. Pancreas to catch a First Capital Connect train to Gatwick Airport. Once we arrived at Gatwick we needed to catch a bus from the South Terminal to the North Terminal. At the North Terminal there was a Thomson representative who gave us a luggage tag with our cabin number. Next we got in line along with the other million people who were going with us to Egypt. While in line we were instructed by the heavily armed men in black uniform to stand to the right and place all luggage and bags on the ground so they could have their adorable black lab puppy sniff our bags. Always on alert with their hands on their machine guns this group of men patrolled our area.
Arriving at the check in desk we were told we did not have our “tickets” and must go to customer service and come back. Jim did this and finally we were checked in and able to go through security. It is 8:30 a.m. now and we are starving so we grab a sandwich to eat only to have our plane called for boarding before we could take a bite.
At last we are on the plane and literally crammed into our seats. Even my knees were banged up against the seat in front of me so you can imagine poor Jim’s. We ran into a bit of turbulence and I thought of Jessica. She would not have fared well with it. Jim said it was the worst he had ever been on. We arrived around 5 p.m. Egypt time. Once down the stairs of the plane we were shuttled by bus to the main building were, guess what, we stood in line. Once inside we looked for our Thomson person who pointed to the next person we were to go to. He pointed to the line at immigration we were to go through and have our passports stamped. Besides the one million people on our plane there were 5 other planes that had disembarked at the same time. We made it through and now to wait for our luggage. Jim’s came out first so we waited, and waited, and waited for mine. My battered pink suitcase with the corner punched in eventually showed up and we found yet another Thomson person to show us where to find out bus. The bus was a nice 46 passenger tour bus which was to take us to the ship.
The sun sets around 5 p.m. so we had a beautiful night ride full of bright lights and Christmas decorations everywhere. Arriving at the port we were checked in at a small building and of course the traditional boarding picture was taken. Mind you we have been up for 14 hours and been on 2 trains and an airplane. We looked marvellous. They asked us to walk across this huge empty parking lot to our boat. At the ramp to get on the boat a young man was waiting with a bottle of something in his hand wanting to squirt it into your hands. He kept waiting for us to put out our hands and kept repeating hydrene and looking at me like I was dim-witted or something. Finally I clued in that he was saying hygiene. I don’t think he would have let us pass if we had not used the disinfectant anyway.
We are in cabin 230 which is on the 6th floor. We do not have a private balcony but outside our window is a sun deck with lounge chairs lined up. Our cabin is the first one in the area so we are close to the elevator and stairs so easy access to everywhere.
After unpacking we decided to find a place to eat and had a wonderful dinner where we ate outside by the railing, overlooking Sharm el Sheik. Real mashed potatoes so Jim went back for seconds. After listening to a live band play some Beatle tunes we decided to turn our reservations in for what we wanted to do this week.
Exhausted we turned in for the night.