Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Two

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June 1 (Wednesday, Day 7, Regensburg, Germany) -

We woke up to rain and drizzle and mid-50 temps. We went on the 90-minute walking tour (tours are included in the cruise price). Pope Benedict XVI is from Regensburg and we saw the house that Oscar Schindler lived in for four years after World War II. We saw a bunch of other old stuff, too, including lots of towers since this town wasn’t hurt by World War II and a lot of it dates back to the 1100s.

More after the jump . . .

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part One

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May 26 (Thursday, Day 1, Flying to Nuremberg, Germany) -

Over the top of the world

Our 1:30 PM flight to Chicago was on time and gave us just enough time to get to the Lufthansa gate while the flight was boarding. It was a completely full flight so we didn’t have an empty seat between us in economy class. Oh well. Lufthansa was generous with its beverages and Filbert enjoyed red wine throughout the flight. Our dinner choices were either Indian vegetarian or chicken. We each chose the chicken. It wasn’t too bad for airplane food and consisted of chicken and rice, a cold vegetable salad, a roll and a small brownie. The movies were the “Green Hornet” and “The Tourist” and since Snookums had no interest in either of them she tried to sleep.

More after the jump . . .

Here are the individual posts, collected all in one handy location for your reading pleasure. As we travel, we'll be adding posts so you can follow our journeys.

(Click the Read More to see all the post links . . .)

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Nine

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November 22 (Monday, Day 28, At sea) -

Rainbow!

Snookums woke up and read in bed while Filbert showered and went to breakfast. Snookums fell back asleep and finally got up for good around 11:30 AM. Snookums loves sea days! While Snookums was being lazy, Filbert went to the “Christopher Columbus: A Man and His Dreams” lecture by historian Dave Levesque. He thought it was pretty good.

The ocean was pretty choppy and there were a lot of white caps and it was cloudy and in the high 60s.

At 5:30 Snookums went to the gym to teach Fran, one of her dinner tablemates, the machines. Snookums and Fran started with 20 minutes on the bike and then hit the weight machines and finished with floor work. Fran is a retired Ph.D. nurse and was a professor prior to retiring. Fran enjoyed it and said it was the first time she had ever sweated. She said that teaching and writing don’t work up a sweat. She wants to work out with Snookums every afternoon.

More after the jump . . .

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Eight

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November 20 (Saturday, Day 26, At sea) -

Filbert ate breakfast while Snookums read in bed. She ultimately decided to get up and went to the gym. After lunch outside on the back of the ship, Filbert read on the balcony, with his back to the sun, while Snookums read at various locations around the ship. At 5 PM Snookums attended the Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz movie, “Knight and Day”. She was glad she didn’t pay to see it. (But the ship’s popcorn was very good!)

We turned our clocks back an hour before going to sleep which left us with five more hours to gain before docking in Ft. Lauderdale. No jetlag for us!


November 21 (Sunday, Day 27, Funchal (Madeira), Portugal) -

We woke up and got ready for our shore excursion that Gary and Charlotte did the last time they were here and insisted that it was great and that they were going to do it again. Of course we had to do it, too! We took a bus for a short tour of Funchal, population 120,000, and got off at the cable car place. We boarded the cable car for the 10-minute, 2-mile scenic trip up to the town of Monte and had about 30 minutes to explore Monte.

Cable car

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Seven

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November 16 (Tuesday, Day 22, Barcelona, Spain) -

Mercats de Barcelona

We got off the ship at 9:30 AM and took the shuttle bus to the Monument Colom. The forecast was for a sunny day and around 55 degrees. We walked to the nearest metro station and paid €1.40 each for a metro ticket. We got on and rode for 15 minutes to Avda. Diagonal which is one of the main streets in Barcelona. We decided to just walk a lot today so we walked from Av. Diagonal to Placa de Catalunya and then down Las Ramblas to the shuttle. During our 4-hour walk we stopped at El Corte Ingles department store to use the bathroom. Its basement had a full grocery store so we looked there, too. Later on in the walk Snookums went in a bakery and bought a €0.80 cookie that was about 4 inches across and very flat and kind of looked like pie crust or a very thing sugar cookie. It had pine nuts sprinkled on it and was glazed with a clear glaze that tasted like citron. It was okay and like nothing she had seen before. Further on in our wanderings we found the “Mercats de Barcelona”. It looked like a temporary building (but it wasn’t) in the empty lot next to the hospital and it housed all sorts of independent food vendors. Lots of locals were buying the meats, fish, and produce and Spaniards certainly like tripe based on the number of butchers selling it. We bought a can of some kind of fish (salted cod?) for a Christmas present.

More after the jump . . .

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Six

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November 12 (Friday, Day 18, Livorno, Italy) -

Gary on a train

Gary, Snookums and Filbert were the first off the ship and took a cab to the train station with four other people on this misty, drizzly, windy day. The driver wanted €20 for the ride and Snookums tried to get it down to €15. He immediately responded, “Take the bus”. Needless to say, we paid the €20 and took the cab to the train station. (Snookums had done the Internet research and read that people paid €8-€10 for the trip to the station so she thought that we were being swindled, but the price must have gone up since the driver was adamant about it.) We got there around 8 AM and the train left at 8:10AM. We bought and validated our tickets and settled in for our 1:23 ride to Florence. We decided to take the $19 per person roundtrip train rather than the $99 Holland America bus transfer to Florence for the adventure of it.

More after the jump . . .

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Five

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November 7 (Sunday, Day 13, Athens, Greece) -

Guards--evzones--at the Greek Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

We met for breakfast at 7 AM and Charlotte’s knee was bothering her a lot so our plan of doing the “hop-on/hop-off” was a good one. (Charlotte will have her knee scoped in December to fix her problem so she should be as good as new for our 2011 cruise.) We took the Metro to the start of the bus tour and enjoyed sitting in the open top of the double-decker bus for the next 90 minutes while hearing about Athens. Most stores were closed since it was Sunday and the museums were closed due to the election so it was very quiet other than some of the street vendors selling shoes, socks and other assorted new items displayed on blankets laid on the sidewalks.

More after the jump . . .

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Four

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November 5 (Friday, Day 11, Flying to Athens, Greece) -

Athena, the statue

We woke up and Pat took us to the Stuttgart airport. We got to the gate in record time and our flight to Zurich boarded on time. We landed in Zurich for our 1-hour layover but had to go through security again since that was how the Swiss Airlines gates were laid out. We forgot that the free bottles of water that we stowed in our backpacks from the Stuttgart to Zurich flight were in there and, of course, they were confiscated. By the time we got to the gate we had about 25 minutes.

More after the jump . . .

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Three

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November 1 (Monday, Day 7, Stuttgart, Germany) -

We went to the gym with Pat and while she had her personal training session, we completed our own hard workouts. Pat had a 1:00 meeting that ended up lasting until 3:15. While she was gone Snookums made 7-layer bars for Jane’s health class (?!?), changed a light bulb in the wall sconce, did laundry and helped Filbert prep for his green curry stir-fry dinner. Both Jane and Grace had their end of season soccer parties at 5:00 but at different locations (naturally). Grace walked to hers but Pat had to drive Jane to hers. Everyone finally got home by 6:15 and loved Filbert’s dinner, especially Pat who didn’t have to cook.

Lenny came home from work around 7:30 and after he ate he broke out the various alcohol treats. Filbert, Pat and Lenny really liked the Edradour Cream Liqueur from Scotland’s smallest distillery that Pat and Lenny just visited. Then there was a drink made from black vodka and two fruit juices, one red and one yellow, that when poured in a shot glass looked like the German flag.

Did the two-day Stuttgart photo blackout end with pictures of Pat? Of Lenny? Of the very colorful and rapidly changing German fall foliage? Of any of their cute-as-a-button kids in mid-argument with each other? Heck no! It ended with a picture of alcohol, of course!

Deutschlandershot

More after the jump . . .