12 hours ahead (Day 5 at sea)

We started this journey in Barcelona, where the time difference between Portland and Barcelona was 9 hours - not super awesome, but we managed to get ourselves somewhat acclimated, although I fully attribute the car sleepytime in Egypt (which was usually 10am-noon) fully to jetleg.

After we left Safaga on our way to Jordan, we needed to go one hour forward to catch up timewise - not the funnest thing ever when you have to get up early and do something, but it was fine - at the same time, the US went off daylight savings, so the time difference magically went from 9 to 11 hours.  Made figuring out what time it was simpler, that's for sure!  Last night, we picked up our final hour to align with Dubai time, which is 12 hours ahead of PST.....makes the time change SUPER simple, but DANG, I am not looking forward to trying to get back to "normal" time.   The changes we usually deal with are 3-9 hours, and those are usually managable.  We've also dealt with the 18-20 hours ahead, which wasn't too bad either.  But 12 hours?  This is going to suck going home I think.   We are due to arrive in Portland about noon on Tuesday, but our bodyclocks will think its midnight and we will have been traveling for 24 hours.  So this should be very interesting........

As for what is happening today - pretty much the same as yesterday, except today I took the ipad out to the pool to get caught up on things.  Also made an interesting discovery...if you are wearing polarized sunglasses, you can't see the ipad screen.  There's a fun fact for you!

Here's our current location, taken when I left the room a few hours back.

Sun and sea...and more sun (or Day 4 at Sea)

I could totally get used to this lifestyle I think - get up, get dressed and stop by the cafe to get some breakfast (that I don't have to cook!) and then head out to the pool deck, where there are clean towels, padded deck chairs and many wandering bartenders to bring me drinks.  And a pool to cool off in.  And a nice breeze to keep it from getting too hot.  And while I'm relaxing by the pool, someone has cleaned our room and made the bed.  This is our fantasy world for the next few days, then back to reality.....

Today was pretty low key, just sat by the pool and enjoyed the weather, attempted to stay cool and ignore the party band, who range from ok to terrible, depending on the song.   They just sang "Killing me softly" (ok) followed by a Pitbull song (terrible.)  and now we're into reggae....also in the terrible category.  They only play for an hour, and then it switches to something else, like a guitar player, so at least they aren't playing all day.  The ipod can come in handy......!

We had dinner in the Tuscan Grille, which is the ship's steakhouse, italian style.  We tried this place on our last trip and weren't terribly impressed with either the food or service, but since 2 specialty restaurants were included in our suite package, we decided to try it again.  Glad we did, as it was much better than last time.

I could spend the whole time just eating the appetizer platter which includes fresh proscuto, olives, parmesan cheese (the good kind!) mini tomatoes, mozarella balls and melon.  Let alone the bread basket....always my downfall.

We ordered a braised ravioli and caprese salad to start, then a small portion of the spaghetti and Chris had the caprese.  The salads were good, but both pasta dishes were beyond excellent.  Then onto the main dishes - a ribeye for Chris, and the filet for me.  Both were very good, but the filet was slightly more cooked than I prefer, although only in parts.  Dessert was a chocolate fondue (awesome!) and a gelato assortment (mango, raspberry and hazelnut) which was also good.

I think next time (unless I felt like a steak) I'd stick with the pasta dishes and the proscuitto platter....and the bread of course!

Have to love these signs, they are posted all over the ship after dark.  

A bit more time at our favorite bar, then off to bed, for tomorrow is another day by the pool......!

Post election at Sea

Well, the Presidential election is over for another 4 years.  One of the few things I try not to have lengthy discussions about are politics (the other thing is religion) because the are so many viewpoints and everyone wants to argue them to death, but this was the first time I have been outside of the US for an election, and it was really interesting how many people, both from the ship and the countries we visited, were completely interested in what was going on, and really wanted to ask questions, so I thought it was important to mention.

A few of the most popular...

-Who are you/did you vote for? (I declined to answer, although I did say I had voted)

-Will you be back in time for the election? (nope, I voted prior to leaving)

-You can vote in advance, even if you aren't there? (yes, it's called an absentee ballot)

The people on the ship (mostly Brits, Australians and Scots) were curious about the election, who we thought would win, asked questions about the electoral college, that kind of thing.

When we were in Egypt and Jordan, the questions were more about who we thought would win and questions about the process itself, with the biggest surprise being on the ability to prevote AND the confidence it would count even though we were not there.  

So, when we woke up this morning and flipped on the tv, every single news channel (cnbc,fox news,CNN, bbc,sky news) that we got on the ship were all focused on the election results that were coming in, and showing the same highlights (with completely different commentators of course!) and I was completely amazed. These are international news channels, and all they could talk about for the next 12 hours was the US presidential elections!

All of this made me realize how really lucky we are to have such confidence in our voting, and the ability to make a choice.  I'm not saying its a perfect system, but you know your vote is counted and you helped make the decision.  We may not like the choices we are presented with, but we can at least make them.

Day 3 at Sea

Not much to discuss today, ate, had some drinks, hung out by the pool and generally had a nice time.  The weather was quite good (it pretty much has been the whole trip) and we are trying to take advantage! Here's a photo of our current location 

Pretty enjoyable trip, weatherwise, it's been in the low-mid 80's and sunny.  We've picked up more of a breeze since we've turned northeast, so that has been pretty refreshing.  My next post will be some post election commentary about being out of the US for the election, it's been an interesting experience.

Day 2 at Sea, Part 2

So, where were we....ah, yes, Pirate Precautions and the pool! I successfully made it to my spa appointment (good thing, as my schedule was just PACKED....) and it was a very nice hour.  I've had a hot stone massage before, and this lady did a much better job.  The hot stones are nice because they store the heat (duh, hot stones!) and can be more comfortable than a regular massage.  Then I went back to the room and ordered some lunch - have to love room service when it shows up in about 15 minutes, delivered cheerily by your butler, who sets it up (with a tablecloth no less!) on your in room dining table.  I had some chicken noodle soup (awesome) and some pizza (not awesome) and an assortment of asian appetizers (egg roll and potsticker) which were pretty good.  Then it was time to get ready for dinner - after a long day of doing very little!!!

I did manage to take a few photos of our room, and here they are.  I'll try for some ship ones tomorrow, if I can fit it into my busy schedule.....

These are some pictures of our sitting and dining area

Balcony - with tub and lounger!

Bedroom

Master bath

We had chosen to have dinner at 6pm at one of the specialty restaurants known as Silk Harvest - they serve an assortment of asian(ish) dishes, but I wasn't sure if they were going to be favorite or not.  I shouldn't have worried, they were excellent.  Here's the menu -

Funniest part of the evening- we decided to have a glass of wine, and ended up with an Erath Pinot Blanc.  Why yes, I am 9000 miles from home and have a wine that was produced right around the corner......LOL. We started off with some appetizers, chicken egg rolls, some chicken lettuce wraps and my personal fave, cream cheese filled wontons.  I actually ate about 6 of them. We also sampled the "vegetarian" sushi roll (it had cucumber and carrot it it) and I can't say that I will be eating many sushi rolls in the future, as I didn't care for it.....

For the main dishes, everything is served family style, and we had some beef chow mein, pepper beef stir fry, orange chicken and chicken fried rice.  All were very excellent, although we didn't end up eating more than half of any dish.  I tried the cheesecake for dessert, but only could eat about half.  We then stumbled out about 745 and made our way back downstairs to the Martini bar to hang out with some of our friends.  We were going to go in at 930pm and grab some coffee and dessert (maybe!) with our waiter Joey, who had taken a few minutes around 630 to swing up to Silk Harvest to make sure we were being taken care of appropriately.   I thought that was very nice, so we returned the favor.  Then back out to the Martini bar and the Grand Foyer for the 60's Groovy party (somewhat lame, but good peoplewatching!) and then up to bed!  What a day, and another sea day tomorrow.

Day 2 at Sea

This morning, I was attempting to upload all the blog posts I've been working on and figured out that once I get past about 10 pictures in a post, it starts crashing the program and running really slowly....so I am going to have to redo the Luxor posts in a couple of sections, so I'm sorry, you'll just have to be patient.

So you'll see those updated more in a bit.

We got up and headed for the Oceanview cafe to grab a bite to eat - waffles, sausage, yogurt and some OJ for me.  I then decided that since I had gotten QUITE a bit of sun yesterday that I'd take it a little easy today and wandered over to the spa to make an appointment for their special of the day, a hot stone back massage with pressure point foot, leg and scalp massage. They had an opening at 1pm, so I would head back there then.

I went out to the pool deck (see photos from yesterday, it looks exactly the same today) Clear, sunny and about 87 degrees and found a nice chair in the shade to spend some time updating my blog posts (where I discovered the photo issue....) and had quite a bit of excitement going on....there was a call over the PA for the "crew only" with a code and to report to deck 12, in front of the stage on the pool deck.  Which was about 30 feet from where I was sitting, so this could be interesting - about 5 minutes later, a bunch of staff members come rushing by with a gurney and a wheelchair.  So I got up to check it out - appears some poor man slipped and had hurt his foot/ankle (they were bandaging it with a splint) out by the pool deck.  Didn't see them take him out, so they must have exited the other way.  Hope he's ok!

About noon or so, Chris notices there are a LOT of people on the other side of the pool deck looking out the windows down at the water, so he goes over to check it out.  About 10 minutes later, the ship's horn sounds.  When Chris came back, he said there were 2 small boats out there with nondescript looking white guys on them, 1 tied up, the other running parallel to us and they appeared to be unloading large cases onto our ship - he said they blew the horn once both ships had pulled away from us.  About 15 minutes later, the Captain came on and said that they were "unloading supplies for our military personal already on board"  Ahhhhh.  Pirate Precautions for sure.  Here's a current location....

Let's hope we don't need the "supplies".........

Day 1 at Sea

I don't have much to write about today, as we basically layed around by the pool and ordered drinks.  The weather was absolutely perfect - very level seas (so no movement on the ship) and then about 85 degrees.  I did manage to take a few photos to make everyone jealous...

The pool deck

looking out from the pool deck to the Red Sea - calm and clear!

Tonight was also formal night, so Chris and I got all dressed up and went to dinner.  We also saw our cabin butler, Jonathan, down there, so we all got a picture together.

I know, all so fancy!!!

We skipped the show this evening, as we had seen it last time we were on board and it wasn't that awesome then.  A couple of hours doing some people watching (always a good time!) and having some drinks, and then we were off to bed.

Petra, and the Jordanian Port of Aqaba

So, today we docked in Aqaba, Jordan.  This is a very interesting port - as it's the only port city that Jordan has.  Apparently, they traded 10 km of coastline with Saudia Arabia for 10 km of desert in the 60's, and I think they came out with the better end of the deal.  We could see Saudi Arabia from our dock, as well as Eliat, a port in Israel.  Stuff is really close together over here I think.  Here's a visual -

Anyway, we met our driver for our Petra tour this morning at 8am - his name was Tarer, I think.  His English was very limited, but he had written instructions to get us to Petra, so that's what was importat.  The drive to Petra from Aquaba is about 2 hours, some on the very modern highway (especially compared to Egypt!) and the balance on the curvy (but modern, and paved!) road through the hills.  Here's a few shots from this morning. The first is looking over at a desert area known as Wadi Rum, which is where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed.  The clouds cleared once we got up towards Petra

This one is higher up in the hills, looking out at the lower valley

Once we arrived in Petra, we got out and were escorted to the main gate, where we picked up our English speaking guide, named Ahmed.  The total distance to the end of the Petra gorge was about 2 km (1.2 miles) each way.  The first part of our journey, from the visitor center to the entrance to the Siq was done on horseback.  Here's a nice couple of shots, and Chris just LOVES riding horses  (this was #2 in his life)

Once we reached the Siq (Arabic for canyon) we started our walk to the main part of Petra.  

This was actually a very nice journey, as the private guide allowed us the ability to get their earlier than all the ship tour buses (44 in all!) and we only had Chris and myself to contend with, so the guide was only delayed when we were taking pictures, or otherwise lagging.  The walk was actually very amazing, some of you may recall that part of the 3rd Indiana Jones movie was shot here (the part at the end) so of course we had to take some photos of where Indy rides his horse at top speed through the Siq.

The most amazing part is really when you get to the end of the Siq, and see what is known as the Treasury through the narrow Siq opening.

It opens into quite an area, with many opportunities (that I did not utilize!) to ride a donkey or camel to the other end of Petra.  It's fairly busy, but NOTHING like it would be later, when all the tour buses arrived!)

We then walked though another canyon, which opened up into the main area of Petra.  For those that are not familiar, a brief history.  Petra is the Greek name of a Nabatean city, that was located at a crossroads for trade during 200BC-300AD.  There were approx 35,000 permanent inhabitants, and they served as a stopping point for caravans all over the area.  They also taxed everything that came thru as well, making it a very rich city.  The city was destroyed in an earthquake, and lost to the shifting sands untiil the early 19th century, when it was rediscovered.   Very minimal parts of the city (maybe 10-15%) have been uncovered and restored, so it is still an archeological work in progress, to be sure.

Back to the tour - we then walked down into an open valley where the majority of the people lived, with quite some stunning views.  Again, not much has been restored, but it's really incredible.  The coloration in the rock walls is absolutely unbelieveable.  

We then eneded our tour, said goodbye to our guide, and had some lunch and prepared for the 2km+ walk back to our tour car.  We made a slight detour to check out the Urn Cavern, up on a hill behind one of the impressive stone facades.  Wow, it had suddenly gotten very warm, and I'm pretty sure my climbing abilities suck.  We did make it to the top, and here is a a cavern picture (inside and the facade)

 

and then the valley view from that height.

We then started our trek back to the Siq and the visitor center.  I have to say, the temperature had jumped, and now there were a bazillion cruise ship tourists who had caught up with us, so it was a very different walk back.  We had the opportunity to ride a donkey, horse or camel most or all of the way back, but decided to just hike it, since it was pretty scenic.   Fun fact of the day - Camels are one of the few (if only) animals to walk on 4 legs, and move the legs together on the same side of the body when walking, which gives them a really weird gait.  I pointed this out to Chris (since I remember these fun facts!) and he was very impressed (as should you all be)  Watch your cat/dog/horse next time, they move front left with back right, and front right with back left.  Camels, right side, left side.  It's really weird.

Anyway, the walk was hot and long, but we made it out alive and met our driver for the return drive.  He wouldn't let us buy anything at the entrance (like water or soda) and we stopped at a grocery on our way out of town to grab something cold- Pepsi and a water each.  Wayyyyyyyyy cheaper.

The drive back was uneventful, we got back around 4pm, and got onboard pretty quickly.  The ship was due to depart at 730pm, so we took a quick shower, and then hung out our on balcony to watch all the port activity, which included the return of the 44 buses (!!!!) and also some transport of what appear to be military tanks - not sure where or for what, but there were at least 20 truckloads we saw leave.

Then down for a quck dinner with our favorite waiter Joey, a few drinks with some friends in the Martini Bar (we've made friends with most of the English, Scottish and Australians onboard, with a few Americans scattered in for good measure) and have quite a group that hangs out most of the evening chatting.

Time for some shuteye, since we have gotten pretty caught up so far.  Next 6 days are at sea, with the full Pirate Precautions in place begining Tuesday evening.  More on that as it happens!!!

Luxor, part 2

Port of Safaga and our 3 hour car adventure to the Valley of the Kings

Arrived this AM in Safaga, where we will go into Luxor today and spend the night.  The port is much more industrial than I expected, and the ship towers over the town.  There are a few local ferries that have also been unloading passengers, but very different from Solstice I think.  They are local pilgrims returning from performing the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca required by Islam.  They all had piles of luggage, which was slowly being loaded onto some of the local vans that operate as buses, and once they were fully loaded, I was suprised they could move, there was so much luggage piled on top, and so many people inside as well.

We met our guide Mohammad, and our driver, who we'll call Super Mario (his name was also Mohammad, but he drove like Super Mario, so there we go)

Egyptian roads, once you are outside of major cities, are definately a work in progress.  We'd cruise along at 100km/hr, and then encounter a completely unpaved area, where we'd slow down to 20km/hr for a mile or so, and then the paving would start up again and off we'd go again.  It was the craziest thing ever.  You also have to go over a small mountain range to get from Safaga, so it's not just a straight shot.  The craziest part were the checkpoints - apparently, you have to have a pass to drive around out in the hinterlands, so we stopped and showed ours to the bored guards who waved us thru.

Once we got to the other side of the mountains, we passed thru a few towns that were way cleaner than Cairo and Alexandria.  Qena was one of them, it's a very pretty town right on the Nile.  We passed over the Nile river, for we were headed for the Valley of the Kings, which being the "dead" city in Ancient Egypt, would be on the west bank of the NIle (they believed life followed the sun, so the living was on the east side where the sun rose, and the dead were on the west side, where the sun set)

The drive up to the valley was fairly uneventful, we drove by Howard Carter's home, which has recently reopened as a museum (he's the one who found King Tut's tomb) and turned up into the hills.

I don't have many pictures for the Valley, as they don't allow you to take you camera into the valley at all, so ours were left in the car, so I'll just write up what I can remember.

To get into almost any Egyptian attraction, one must walk thru a marketplace of people wanted to sell you assorted souveniers, water, soda and other crap.  They are very agressive, especially since the revolution, tourism has REALLY dropped off, especially in the south.  It's below 50% of what it was prior, and hasn't been helped by the recent unrest in the middle east.

Anyway, after you run the gauntlet, you end up in the visitor center, where Mohammad proceeded to explain that most of the tombs in the valley were built by the New Kingdom Pharoahs, aka the "sissy boys" who were more interested in the appearance and looks then actually running the country, and were the decline of the empire.  The art was significantly different than the earlier eras, more idolized versions of them vs actual images of the people they represented.

Anyway, after our explanation, we went out to get on the little tram up to the valley entrance.  Here's where things got interesting - we had only a very small amount of Egyptian pounds (maybe 100) and our entrance tickets were prepaid as a part of the tour - which allowed us access to 3 tombs, but did not include Ramses VI or Tutankamen, as they were an extra fee.  Well, the ticket office only took Egyptian pounds, so we got the world's worst exchange rate with one of the postcard sellers ($50 for 250 pounds, the normal rate would have been 300-305) but combined with what we had, it was enough for the extra tickets)  So, if you ever go to Egypt, and you have to buy entrance tickets, they only take pounds, no $ or euro.   Make sure to get some!!!

The first tomb we visited was Ramses IV, this tomb had been open since ancient times and was used as a church by the Coptic Christians and also a camp for valley explorers in the past.  Everyone talks about how degraded the wall and celing paintings are and don't expect much.  Maybe my expectations were too low, but this was AMAZING.  They were not in perfect condition of course, but as you got towards the back of the tomb the frescos were incredible - unbelievable really - the colors were so clear, and the drawings were everywhere - from the floor right up and over the ceiling. I've got some postards of the interiors, I will try to take some pictures of them so I can post, but they really don't do it justice.

It was also HOTTER THAN I'VE EVER EXPERIENCED in my life.  After we got back to the ship, someone mentioned that it was 46 degrees C that day, which seems a bit high, but I haven't had a chance to check the internet, so we'll see.   I'd believe it was over 100 for sure though.  Maybe 110.....Anyway, I was pretty sure I was going to die (but I didn't) so I just drank some water and trouped on to the next tomb - Ramses I.  

Suez Canal, among other things

So, as I said, we had to leave Alexandria 3 hours early because we had gotten an earlier transit time thru the Suez - apparently at 1am we are starting the transit.  I was not up, so missed that part.....but we did get up in time to see us anchored in the Great Bitter Lake, waiting for our transit to the Gulf of Suez.

This is a great shot, because the ship speed is 0 knots.....

About 30 minutes later, we were given permission to start the convey south.  If you remember from my earlier post, the canal is only 1 way at a time, so we had probably been anchored for a while before I took this photo, since we had entered the ship channel around 1 am.   I have to say, the change in our passage time is probably the most disappointing part of our cruise so far, as it meant we weren't able to watch the whole transit, and we had to leave Alexandria early.  So far, my only complaint.

Here's a photo of us just getting started in the Great Bitter Lake

And this is a shot backwards as we are entering the lower Suez.  We were #1 in the convoy (can't imagine what we must have paid for that privilege!) so I really never got to see another ship in the canal with us, other than in the Great Bitter Lake.  While traveling thru the Suez Canal, our speed was limited to 8 knots, to prevent damage to the canal.

We exited the canal about 1pm, and entered the Gulf of Suez, and our speed has picked up to about 17 knots, on our way to dock at Safaga tomorrow morning for our 2 day outing to Luxor and the valley of the Kings.

What did I spend most of the day doing?  Well, getting caught up on my blog posts, as you'll notice I had a large # posted to the internet today - and also laying around doing nothing, which is always super awesome.  It's warmed up quite a bit - we started in the 60's and cloudy in Barcelona, and had 70's and breezy on our way to Alexandria.  The Suez was about 80 and sunny most of the day, and tomorrow is predicted at high 80's or 90's at Safaga, and who knows for Luxor, since it's in the interior.

I'm planning on doing some posts about the ship and our room on our sea days after we get back from Luxor and Petra, so don't fear that I won't give you an update on our fabulous room on the fabulous ship.