Europe Round 2: 1 Cruise, 2 people, 3 Continents

June 18

Friday morning we needed to be at the dock between 8 and 11 and based on our current track record, odds were good that it would be a late dash to the port to just sneak in. Luckily we had learned our lesson and got up with enough time and got on comfortably. First impressions of the cruise were grand, there were people waiting at the door to show us to our cabin and it was at this time I knew it was going to be a good week. We went to lunch and were shown to our table and were given a menu without prices. Generally speaking this means you're in a classy restaraunt and in any other circumstances I would have run scared knowing the prices would send me broke. Thankfully it was all included in the very reasonable price we paid for the cruise: all 4 courses. We had to make a reservation for dinner, and when it came time we were shown to or very own private table, table 49 where we enjoyed most of our dinners.

Istanbul: Apple Tea

Saturday morning we landed in Istanbul. As I had already been and knew all the sites Emily and I skipped the €97 shore excursion and I gave her my very own tour. It started at the blue mosque and the Aya Sofia just like the paid tours did. I then took her to the Grand Bazaar and she immediately fell in love. Wihin minutes she had already learned how to haggle and had bought a little shisha. After the sale the shop-owner invited us to stay for a cup of apple tea (a Turkish specialty). We obliged after he mentioned the word free and it was really nice just sitting there in his shop having a tea with the world passing by. We also totally ignored the fact that he was a bit of a creep and Emily is a very pretty, young, white girl, who he insisted on getting a photo with. We moved

through the bazaar for a few hours, I bought this awesome chess set which will be a pain to lug around but will be totally worth it, and Emily also bought a silk scarf. It was funny, the scarf guy wouldn't sell a scarf to a local for 60 lira (opening price was 80) but would to Emily. I didn't understand. Generally speaking I assumed that they see white people and try and rip off the tourists. Maybe he just gave her the 'Emily is pretty' discount. We found a place for lunch outside (kebabs, obviously) and walked to the spice bazaar. Of course being white we were getting the usual amount of attention, but not as much as last time I was there wearing the Galatasaray jersey. We wandered around some backstreet markets just near he bazaar and slowly started our walk back to the ship, spending my last 4 lira on some very weird street vendor ice cream that the locals seemed to be loving. For dinner we returned to table 49 by he mirror and were again given the choice of many gourmet courses: appetizers, soup, main, dessert and then cheese and coffees if we wanted it. The waiters were all amazing, we had the same waiter and drinks guy every night and your glass of water is never empty.

On returning to our room we found a lovely surprise. sitting on emily's bed was a piece of towel art, yes, a swan made out of a towel. Em named him Roger and we could only just bear to use the towel. (We then proceeded to open the bottle of jager we snuck on board. We had half of it each mixed with red bull we bought in Istanbul and needless to say we were a bit happy. This was first time we had really drank together and it was really fun.) At about 11:30 we went up to the Rendezvous Lounge looking for food since midnight snacks were available. We found a waiter who was hilarious. He kept offering us slices and when we had had one he'd be like 'please, take more, no take more, please'. (We then went up to the sun deck out the front of the boat and climbed over the railing and just sat there as the ship surged forward into the darkness of the night, 'playing Titanic'. Then we walked around the ship for a bit until we came to the Caruso bar at the back of the boat on level 6, where we played some more before retiring to our chambers.

The following morning was spent on the ship not doing a whole lot, we probably just the day eating as there always seemed to be food available. We always had a late breakfast, and lunch was between 12 and 2. We got to

Mykonos at around 3 and again didn't do the tour. We saved our €47 and explored the town on our own, we sat on the beach, swam at the beach them had a snack at a cafe as an excuse to utilize their wifi, not too big though because we knew a buffet dinner was waiting for us back on the ship. There isn't a whole lot to do in Mykonos but it is a very cute little island town, seemingly very cut off from the world yet very welcoming toward tourists. Of course it was very picturesque as well with all the white and blue houses covering the rugged coastline. You could spend days here just relaxing, and eating their great food, but alas, our luxury cruise ship beckoned.

On the way back to the ship I bought some cheap Greek beers ('Mythos') and Em bought some cheap wine. We snuck it through security (really not difficult at all) and sat in the room for most of the evening drinking our respective alcohols, sharing the drinking of the wine from the bottle (well I guess not everything about the ship was classy). About midnight we went exploring the ship again, sat outside on the front top deck again. We sat outside for a bit and just enjoyed the cool air and each other's company before heading back to bed. We stayed up pretty late talking as you can imagine we slept the morning away, but it didn't matter too much as this was our day at sea.

Since our room was on the inside and had no windows, there was no light to wake us up or tell us what time it was. As a result, we pretty much got up in time for lunch... And only just. This soon led on into afternoon tea and then dinner which was meant to be elegant dress. So I put on my coat that I had brought from Summer Ball, put with it a nice shirt and I was still severely overdressed. I was so disappointed in everyone else.

Tuesday mornng (22nd) we arrived in Port Ashdod, Israel. This was the thing I reckon I'd been looking forward to most about this trip. It was an hour and a bit trip to Bethlehem, which I had no idea was in Palestine. The main

Jerusalem: The Wailing Wall

attraction here as you would expect is the church of the Nativity, the loctaion of Christ's birth. We lined up for an hour and walked down into the shrine, it's pretty amazing to know what happened here 2000 years ago. After this they took us to a souvenir shop where I bought a hand carved wooden nativity set, probably the best thing I've bought over here. And then it was lunchtime next door. By the time lunch was over it was already 2:00 and it didn't seem like we had seen all that much.

Jerusalem was a short drive away and after getting off the bus Emily, myself, and another American family that we met at dinner thr night before lost our tour group on the way to the first sight, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Yep that's right, only we would get lost in Israel wouldn't we. We did find them again just in time to see the place of Jesus' tomb, which now has a mausoleum built over the top of it. This was also really amazing, our tour guide also showed us a similar tomb to that which Jesus would have been buried in and how the stone was rolled across.

The next stop was the Wailing Wall. Also known as the Western Wall of the city of Jerusalem. This is where a lot of Jews come to pray and read from the Torah. Also, you're meant to write prayer requests and wishes on slips of paper and stick them in the wall and thy are meant to come true. But personally I might just stick with direct prayer, seems to be working so far. After this we had to wait for the bus for a little bit for our next stop, the Garden of Gethsemane. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting with this but it was very small. It's full of olive trees and they said that it's quite likely that these are the same ones that Jesus would have seen that last night before His crucifixion. Within the grounds of the garden is the Church of all Nations, inside which is the rock that Jesus prayed next to that same night. For me, I think I got the most out of seeing the garden. Not that the others weren't significant but it seemed like the site that is most like it would have been all those years ago. Before heading back to the ship we had a photo stop of Jerusalem Old City from the Mount of Olives, now a massive cemetery. It gave us an incredible view of the city. 

Jerusalem: Garden of Gethsemene 

That night after dinner Em and I had a really good conversation, it went for ages and we talked about everything. Mainly religious beliefs and what life is like back home and past experiences. It was also one of the most challenging for me, I didn't have a lot of answers for the questions she asked about my beliefs. It didn't help that she pretty well knows everything about evolution, but I did my best, and if nothing else is spurred me on to go and learn more about both sides of the argument.

Wednesday was meant to be Egypt but as we were the only 2 who wanted to do the tour that wasn't the pyramids it wasn't running. There were 2 tours offered and since we knew we'd be seeing the Pyramids in a week or so, we chose to save our money. This meant we could either get off and find our own way to Alexandria (3 hours to Cairo then 3 to Alex) or just stay on the boat. Yeah we stayed on. Was still a relaxing day though. Slept in, lunch, sunbaking on the deck were all highlights. We docked in Alexandria to pick up all the tour groups and we had about an hour or so look around. The first thing you notice is how dirty it is. The second and probably more prominent is everyone waiting at the port for naive tourists to scam money from. At least 3 people wanted us to get into their taxis for a 'quick tour' and they are so persistent. They followed us for far more than was necessary. It was kinda funny but at the same time very uncomfotable. Walking through the town we both felt very out of place, it seemed that everyones attenion was on us, though pretty sure Emily felt this more than me. Being a girl wearing wearing a skirt and singlet on top she was getting an alarming amount of stares from all the men there. After not long some random started walking with us. At first it seemed like he was trying to get us into his shop but when we didn't I think he changed tactics by just giving us a tour hoping for a tip at the end. And true to my word when he began, he didn't get one. 

That night was the Captain's Cocktail party and formal dinner. I dressed up in my summer ball suit that I had held on to specifically for this night.

We had a professional photo taken on the way in (which was really nice but wasn't paying €12 for it!), 2 complimentary champagnes and then the captain introduced us to all of his heads of staff. This led straight into dinner and for the first time Emily and I got drinks. Maybe it was the champagne talking but we shared a bottle of wine. It was actually really nice and although it cost €20 I'm glad we did it. It just seemed fitting for the night.

The next day also seemed like a day at sea. We sailed for most of the day to Agios Nicolaos, Crete. More of the usual, but with a few happy hours thrown in. Didn't seem like there was a lot to do there but that said, we were only given an hour and a half to look around. Not near enough if we wanted to find a nice beach to relax on like in Mykonos, which I'm sure was there somewhere. We did acually have a paddle at one small beach which was quite nice. Then found a cafe and had a coffee (and of course utilised their wi-fi).

Thursday night was a sad night. Dinner of course was magnificent, and we sat with the same couple from Broome again, but after that we started packing and had our bags picked up at midnight, ready for our disembarkation the next morning. Friday morning we disembarked for the final time. We had to walk to the other side of the port (probably about half an hour) to get to the metro, and on the way the wheels of the suitcase gave way so inwas effectively dragging it (again). This is the very same bag I bought in Milan. It was such hard work but it didn't end there. After about 30 mins on the metro we then had to walk what seemed like an age, but was probably another 30 mins because my bag was so hard to bring.

Because of the luggage debarkle we then went looking for a bag and had to shell out another €30 for one. After this we had lunch at a place near the hostel, we chose it because they gave us free wine. After lunch it was time for the one famous thing in Athens: the Acropolis.

Athens: The Pantheon

I still don't know much about the acropolis but it was pretty cool. Some pretty old things, a theatre I think. We followed the guidebook to Zeus' Temple to Olympian which was another ancient ruin. But after that was done we kinda didn't know what else to do.  We walked down what we thought would be a cool bazaar that Deon and Robin had told us about, but this just turned out to be a street of markets, but were more like shops. We then had a drink to decide what to do tonight, after a few not great suggestions Emily just goes 'we could just get drunk'. I said 'that could work'. So we went back to the hostel to get done what we needed to, then tried to find a park to drink some wine but there was nothing. So we went to a place right near the hostel who also promised free wine. Over the next few hours we ordered 2 half litres plus our free glass each and ordered some breads and a crepe which turned out to be dinner. It turned out to be cheaper than I expected. Then we went back to the hostel and had 2 glasses of €1 wine each and set off to find some food. We found a place and shared a pizza and guess what, more free wine! We walked back home and no one else was in our room. 

It was kind if weird, this last week, especially on the cruise it actually felt like we were in a relationship. We weren't, and I'm fairly sure neither of wanted to be, we just enjoyed being friends and traveling together. We pretty much never left each other's sides because that's all we knew, we had dinner together in a nice restaraunt which felt like a date, and then we'd do coupley things at night. I also felt protective when we were in Alexandria and carried her bag up and down stairs. Not to mention everone just assumes that we aretogether anyway. We were pretty much the opposite to friends with benefts: a relationship without benefits, but we were fine with that.