The Whirlwind Tour

What would a cruise be without the shore excursions? There were a lot of them. I’m going to try to go through them all as best I can, in point form, because it more or less all sticks in my mind as bullet points. You’ll probably see why by the time I’m through with it.

Any day I don’t make mention of was a sea day, and therefore we were on the boat. (It’s worth mentioning that we spent all of Christmas at sea, and on Christmas morning we convened in mom and dad’s room to open presents under the vaguely-tree-shaped-green-Christmas-shirt.)

Also, because we are cheap-asses, we didn’t buy shore excursions anywhere except Egypt (where it’s more or less a necessity) and even when we did, we didn’t get the super expensive packages from the cruise. So most shore days we spent doing our own thing, wherever we ended up.

December 22nd: Civitavecchia, Italy

Civitavecchia, aside from being incredibly annoying to spell right, is the port city at the mouth of the Tiber River, and is therefore the gateway to Rome. It was about an hour drive into Rome, so we elected to wander the city we hadn’t been to yet.

It was rainy. That kind of put a damper on things.

Shona seems to be very good at talking Tristan into giving her a piggyback. Occasionally this combines with the rain in undesirable ways (i.e.: he slips on a metal grate and crashes down to one knee, leaving an impressive bruise).

My family really likes markets. “Wandering around in a market for an hour or two” quickly seems to be becoming a theme.

Also, Italians really like their churches.

“Church of the Japanese Martyrs” is perhaps the best name for anything ever. Even if the church itself is just a regular church with some Japanese-style paintings of religious figures.

We didn’t really spend too much time in Civitavecchia. It wasn’t really a great day, and there wasn’t too much we wanted to see (or much to see, to be honest). We wandered around and looked at stuff for a couple hours, then wandered back to the boat.

December 23rd: Naples, Italy

We’ve been here already! It’s almost like coming home. It was even comparable weather to when we were there back in October. Sunny, beautiful, and in the mid teens.

Italians apparently aren’t used to these temperatures, because they keep asking me if I’m cold while I wander around in my sleeveless shirt.

I have discovered the eleventh commandment: “And the LORD said, in Naples, to ensure thy survival, thou shalt form a pack of pedestrians, for together, thou art mighty, and the tide of cars shall part before thee.” We have got this pedestrian-in-Naples business down.

Those guys with the knockoff bags are still everywhere. They’re still ridiculously flirtatious, too. Even with my hair buzzed to an inch long. “Ciao, bella!” starts to lose its impact after the fifth time.

We wandered up through some of the shopping areas to get to this street where they sell nativity scenes and the supplies to make them. These are seriously detailed things, too. Like dollhouse miniatures. They make whole scenes for it.

We visited the castle, too, the one we hadn’t got to last time we were in Naples. Chapel, statues, stateroom, art museum upstairs, fairly standard – except for the Roman crypts that were discovered underneath the castle. Seriously cool stuff. They had glass floors installed and you could look down to see the bones underneath you.

Paintings of pretty girls are made infinitely more awesome when the top layer of paint has peeled off and they seem to have a smooth layer of skin where one of their eyes used to be.

Mom and dad wandered through a bit more of the art museum than I did. I went back to the boat to watch Up. Because Up is awesome.

December 26th and 27th: At port in Alexandria, Egypt. Visiting Cairo.

Egypt is probably the dirtiest, noisiest, smelliest, and most exciting place I’ve ever been to. Also, the most dangerous. Because of Egypt’s history of political terrorism, some of which has been directed against tourists, all tour groups are required by law to have an armed guard with them. Dad said ours had a fully automatic gun. I didn’t see, and wouldn’t have been able to identify it anyway.

So there was us, a couple, and another family with two younger girls, our tour leader, a guide, avery stoic armed guard, and a driver who didn’t speak English, all hangin’ out in this little van-bus for a couple of days. It was hella fun.

Tour got off to a slow start because it was insanely foggy that morning – too dangerous to drive. We were supposed to leave at 8:30, ended up on the road by 11:30. But hey, at least I was awake by then.

There do not seem to be many traffic laws in Egypt. See: family in the flatbed of a pickup on the highway; three men on one motorcycle; camels apparently count as vehicles and can walk around on the roads; ditto for donkeys loaded down with clover; ditto also for horse or donkey pulled buggies. Also, there are guys biking around delivering giant platters of bread, which they get from place to place by tying them to their heads and balancing them there.

Egypt was the first country I’ve ever been to where the majority of women had their hair, and often their whole bodies, covered in the Muslim style. Different, but interesting.

Most of Cairo has this odd look, like it’s starting to crumble before they’ve even finished the buildings. We discovered that this is because, if a house remains “under construction,” you don’t have to pay tax on it – so Egyptians never seem to both putting roofs on their houses.

If the apocalypse hit now and everything was destroyed, Cairo would be the city and culture that would spring up from the ruins. Amazing, and very lovely, in its own way.

The pyramids are huge. End of discussion. They don’t look that big in photos, and when you compare them to all the taller buildings we’ve made now, they don’t seem so impressive – then you get out of the bus and go stand beside them. Those blocks of stone that look like bricks in the picture? Yeah, they’re the size of a car. These things are massive, solid, enormous piles of stone.

The Sphinx, too, is massive and impressive. There’s a lot of romanticism and mystique attached to it. All those hokey ideas don’t really do it justice. People always try to paint it as the almighty guardian, most trusted of the Pharaohs, the watcher who will remain long after civilization has crumbled – and I guess it is, or was, at least, at one point, but the Pharaohs are gone, there’s nothing left for it to guard anymore, and its civilization has already fallen. It looks more lonely to me.

Camels are ridiculous. Also, I no more trust them than I trust llamas. They’re great to take photos of, though. As long as you avoid stepping in the camel dung.

Guided tours are more or less giant tourist traps, but there isn’t much of another way to get around Egypt (see: laws regarding tourists and armed guards). I did buy a couple of things, but not nearly as much as they tried to foist off on me. And what I did get was entirely worth the money I spent.

The Sound and Light show is not nearly as impressive as it’s billed as. I also didn’t get much out of it, since I pretty much knew every bit of historical and mythological information they supplied. Ditto for what the guide said – but she was more interesting than the show. Her name was Rehab (REH-hab), and she was an absolute sweetheart.

Nile dinner cruise would be more impressive if we could have seen anything outside the windows. The shows were pretty cool, though, even if the bellydancer did have some weird non-authentic moves (according to my mother) and wore a bra top that made her chest look freakishly large. The whirling dervish dancer was amazing, though.

Mom and dad told us it was probably a bad idea to eat anything uncooked while in Egypt, due to the risk of contamination and the fact that the germs there are different. This made buffets difficult. I wanted salad and fruit, but had to content myself with potatoes and cooked carrots.

No pork anything at any of the buffets. Most noticeable at breakfast. Tristan missed the bacon. I, however, was pleased enough with the hibiscus juice that the loss didn’t bother me.

Our hotel was super ritzy, what the heck. Unfortunately we were too tired and out of there too fast to really enjoy it. It was seriously nice, though. Beautiful construction, and a gorgeous courtyard. Also, I think the floors were marble.

Morning arrives! It is extremely misty, for the second day in a row. Rehab apologized – she said it was really abnormal weather for Egypt, and she was sorry we had to come on bad days.

By the time we got to the Citadel of Saladin, it was mostly burned off, though. We went inside the Citadel to visit the Alabaster Mosque, which is very pretty – a lot more decorated than is typical for mosques. We took our shoes off. This is the rule in mosques.

There were guys standing outside selling these little plastic bags people could put over their shoes if they didn’t want to take them off. They also had these big draping robes for people (mostly women) not covered up well enough. I saw a woman in high heels, with the shoe-bags on, putting one of the robes over her short, sleeveless sundress. I wanted to laugh at her. Give it up, lady. Stop trying to look glamorous while you’re a tourist, in a Muslim country, no less.

After this we went to the Egyptian Archeological Museum. I wasn’t allowed to bring my camera in, but we ran around looking at things. We saw the mask of King Tutankhamon, and most of the other things that were found in his tomb – beautiful stuff. The room with the mask and the other important artifacts was so crowded. We literally spent five minutes jammed shoulder to shoulder with people trying to inch our way out of the room. Shona didn’t come in, because she was sick. She spent the museum time sleeping on the bus. In the Tutankhamon room, I was grateful. She would have been miserable.

The most amazing moment in the museum, for me, was when I spotted a statue of three gods – Horus, a Pharaoh being crowned, and Set. Set. He’s my favourite of the Egyptian gods, as well as being my star sign and associated god in Egyptian astrology. Because he was painted as the aggressor and the villain in some of the most well-known Egyptian myths, there isn’t much art of him around. But I saw a statue of him. I stood right in front of it. I think this is a moment I will carry in my heart for the rest of my life.

After the museum, we went out to Memphis. We saw the giant statue of King Ramses II, the famous one, and we saw the Step Pyramid, which I’ve always loved – more so even than the Great Pyramid and the associated pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure. Picked up a package of postcards, too – I’ll probably save a few to give to people.

I really, really like Egyptian flatbread. It is delicious. We had a bunch of it with our lunch, which we picked up at a restaurant and ate in the bus on the way back to Alexandria. There were musicians playing outside, and mom danced with them for a bit. Also, women at these big stone and clay ovens, cooking the bread for the restaurant. I took a few pictures.

All in all, Egypt was amazing and exciting, and I would love to go back to visit again – but I very much doubt I would ever want to live there.

December 28th: Rhodes, Greece

We were supposed to stop in Rhodes, but it was too windy and the port was closed. We were at sea instead, heading to Izmir. Shona was sick; I don’t remember what I did specifically.

December 29th: Izmir, Turkey

Where do I even start? Izmir is beautiful. Especially after the dirty brokenness of Cairo. The streets are clean, the buildings and architecture are amazing, the port is beautiful, and there’s lots and lots of green. The weather was amazing, too. Not a cloud in the sky.

Remember what I said about markets? Yeah, pretty much the whole time in Izmir was spent in a market. In our defence, the market is enormous and historic. Also, full of shiny things.

We got lost for a while. It was actually ridiculously entertaining. We ended up getting led to the caravanserai, the oldest part of the bazaar, and showed into a shop, which we left almost immediately. We found our own way back to the bit of the market we were interested in.

The Turks (and the Greeks, as well, but especially the Turks), sell all kinds of things with the symbol of the evil eye on it – it’s supposed to protect you from malicious things. It’s normally a round thing, often done in glass. The main body of it is dark blue, with a ring of white, then a smaller ring of light blue, and a dot of black at the centre. Sometimes it has yellow in it, too. They also sell it in loads of other colours, but blue is the most traditional.

I was going crazy for a pomegranate all day. We got one just before getting a taxi back to the port (taxi, in Turkish, is apparently spelled “taksi,” by the way). I ate the whole thing. My hands and my face were absolutely covered in juice. GLORIOUS.

The Turks are apparently very big on rings. Shiny, shiny rings. There were a lot of shiny things there. Pretty much anything you could imagine in a bazaar was there, and many things you couldn’t. I would love to go back to visit again – five hours is not enough.

December 30th: Athens, Greece

Athens is not as pretty as Izmir, but it is quite nice, and is much cleaner than Cairo. Not to mention safer. So, bonus all around. Even though apparently the taxi drivers are brats. We tried to get a taxi from the port to the train station (five minute drive, half-hour walk), and the taxi driver decided he’d rather keep his place at the port and get a bigger fare – so he told us it was only ten minutes away. We believed him, until we’d been walking twenty minutes and weren’t there yet.

Metro in Athens is crowded! Dad got pickpocketed – bye bye iTouch. Luckily he had his data backed up, along with several spares. Still, not a cool way to start the day. At least it wasn’t his wallet.

We got off downtown and went wandering up towards the Acropolis. It was not very well signed, but we figured it out eventually. They gave us this big long string of tickets to get into a bunch of different things. Ultimately I think we only used two or three.

Fresh-squeezed orange juice is amazing. There is absolutely no contest about this. I don’t much like the stuff from concentrate (i.e.: anything you can buy in a store) but give it to me fresh and I just can’t get enough of it. My. God.

There seems to be a trend of us visiting monuments while things are being restored. The Parthenon is much less impressive when half of it is covered in scaffolding. That’s okay though! It was still really cool. And the view from the Acropolis is astounding.

They say of the Acropolis where the Parthenon is… is still the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on Youtube.

After we wandered around a bunch of ruins and saw lots of ancient Greek buildings, we headed up into downtown to do some shopping. Lots of tacky tourist shops but lots of cool things, too. Also, a shirt that says “Oedipus: the ORIGINAL motherfucker.” No way you can lose with this.

Encountered a street vendor selling chocolate and vanilla coconut sticks, coconut juice, and fresh coconut. Fresh coconut is yummy. Om nom nom nom.

Biggest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen: in the square in front of one of the metro stations in Athens, Greece. Who’d have guessed?

Metro still crowded on the way back. Most taxi drivers still jerks. One of them heard where we wanted to go and just drove off with no explanation. We managed to flag down another one and it turned out he was fluent in English – lived in North America for a while. Made it back to the port safely – even though dad decided he was going to walk, while the rest of us drove. Silly man.

December 31st: Iraklion, Crete, Greece

It just figures that New Year’s Eve would be the sunniest and most beautiful day on the whole trip. Visiting Iraklion was absolutely lovely that day.

Cheap bus tickets out to historical sites are a win. We went to visit the Palace of Knossos, the ancient palace of Crete, where the legend of the Minotaur supposedly took place. We didn’t get to go into the labyrinth, though. There’s still some debate over whether it even actually exists. Palace was pretty cool, though. A lot of it was reconstructed – apparently the archeologist who worked on it was big on that.

Nice little cafe outside the palace. Delicious baklava and fresh orange juice is a brilliant lunch. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.

Saw a cat just wandering around the grounds. There pretty much always seem to be strays at every major historical site we’ve been to. I can’t remember one where I didn’t see at least a stray dog.

Went back into the city via the same bus, but got off before the port to go wandering around downtown and – you guessed it – into a market area. I bought an excellent new messenger bag to replace my somewhat too large one that’s kind of dying anyway. The woman who sold it to me was very careful to stress that it was “original, made in Greece, no imitation.” I guess they have a problem with a lot of people doing knockoffs of big brands.

Our map was written with Anglicized Greek names on it. The street signs are all in Greek letters. Lucky for us, dad spent some time in Greece before I was born, and knows how to read most Greek letters. Otherwise we would have been hopelessly lost.

The city is nice. Similar atmosphere to Athens, but a bit calmer, less touristy, and smaller. Also, less likely to pick your pockets. It was almost depressing to leave. Our last shore excursion of an amazing trip. Still if things had to end, it was a good way to end them.