Mediterranean Cruise, Day 4 (July 15)

On our way to Naples, can you see Mt. Etna in Sicily smoking in the sunset?

When we arrived in Naples, a driver was waiting to tote us around all day. After discussing the best plan for the day with our personal tour guide, K, our adventure began.
Our first area to explore would be the Amalfi Coast, which is absolutely stunning - the views of the ocean, the cascading flowers, the mountainous terrain, abodes seeming to pop out of nowhere - it was beautiful. I'm so thankful a local from the area was driving and not us. The back and forth motions of the roads, climbing up and down the land, would have been more than nerve racking for us to navigate.
Can you see the rock formation that looks like a picture? I'll let you guess what it is.

In the city of Amalfi, we stopped for a shopping break and a taste of the world famous gelati. It's actually a tad bit different than ice cream, but I can't pinpoint how. K thinks it's the best in the world...I'd have to agree!

No, I'm not eating 2 cones. I'm holding one for my sweet husband taking the picture.

R had his sprinkled with Fruit Loops.

Here's the stand we bought it from (above).

How cute are little girls putting their tiny arms around their daddies?

Freshly made lemonade was a treat (we thought, but it ended up being shockingly sour). We had to dump way too much sugar in!

This was the view from the restaurant where the servers were waiting when we arrived thanks to our driver who called ahead. The views were breathtaking, but for some reason the camera didn't quite capture the beauty as I thought it would.

Driving along the Amalfi Coast.

In many of the views, I thought vineyards were all around, but later learned many areas contained olives, lemons, oranges, and grapefruit instead. These huge fruits behind R were lemons instead of grapefruit according to our driver.

The volcano, Mt. Vesuvius, destroyed the city of Pompeii in 79 AD, burying the ancient city with ashes and rocks. Impressive is how advanced the city actually was during the time - complete with baths, mosaics, paintings, a produce market, a bakery, theatres, even a snack joint. Parts are still being excavated today.

Meandering through the streets, we found this forum with the volcano in the background.

The crazy part to this story is that people were just having a normal day when the volcano erupted. People were literally stopped in their tracks.

This is the point where R started becoming REALLY intrigued by the whole story! This is a plaster cast of one of the victims with actual artifacts found by excavators.
This is just a street in the city. All of the brick pillars marked individual houses.

Here are more housing areas along the small street with stones in the middle. These entertained my kids by allowing them to hop across to the other sidewalk - especially since it was one HOT day! This is right as we were leaving, looking at the city walls.

I'm so thankful the kids could see this miraculous archaeological find.

Mediterranean Cruise, Day 3 (July 14)

These are the views we had coming into the port of Valletta, Malta. The ship staff bragged on the beauty of this port, saying they never tire of cruising into Valletta!

Today was very laid back as we took a tour of the island which included stopping to shop a little of course.

With all the limestone quarries I felt like I was back home in Indiana!
We asked about the draped boats and our tour guide said probably someone from the area had died so this was a gesture of mourning.

The Blue Grotto below is a beautifully peaceful area that you can actually take a boat ride through.

Look at how blue that water is! Amazing!

Overall, the size of the island surprised me. From our tour, it seemed like the people had simply run out of room here.

We needed a picture of us in front of our ship...and here it is!

Mediterranean Cruise, Days 1 & 2 (July 12 & 13)

Embarking the cruise in Barcelona, we had a full day on Sunday (anchored until about 7 p.m.) to PLAY! The slide and pool remained favorites all day since the weather was hot. J's getting ready here with Daddy.

Like polar opposites, the slide water was as warm as the pool water was cold!

R is a little advanced in his slide technique as you can see below. He's learned how to get the ultimate fast experience by leaning back.

While eating outside on the ship, my son's food was pestered by a fly which he ended up catching by the wing. Do you think that could make David Letterman's "Stupid Human Tricks"?

"My Mom Told Me" is a song R started to write while we were on the ship. The title is as far as the song went even though I kept asking him all week what it was that I told him??? I'd love to know...maybe someday I'll find out.

Sidenote: R loves to sing...especially when he's in the restroom washing his hands for some reason. I remember one day last year at school when he was in my classroom waiting for me to get off work and he needed to go to the restroom. I sent him down, and then a student of mine needed to go as well, so I sent him down too. My student, Dustin, came back to inform me, "I didn't know R liked to sing in the restroom." I thought it was a family secret and maybe he chose not to display his talent in public, but I guessed wrong and I have to admit I was a little embarrassed.

Barcelona, Spain (July 11th)

After dropping my aunts off at the airport early Saturday morning, K proceeded to come home and get the remaining family (my parents, his parents, and the kids) to fly to Barcelona. We only had a short visit as we embarked on the Mediterranean cruise the very next day.

Antoni Gaudi worked on the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) from 1883 to 1926, and it remains unfinished today. According to the handout, the inside is to be completed in 2010, and the exterior by 2030. I hate to be a pessimist, but I personally don't see the end in sight. If by chance it does happen by then, I thought it would be neat for my children to return as adults and compare these pictures with the finished product. The inside of the Sagrada Familia (below).
The picture below is the more recent additions to the church by other artists since Gaudi's death.

Right in front of the Columbus Monument is where the kids posed for these pictures, which is the end of the Ramblas (the entertaining walkway).

We strolled down it visiting the markets set up around the area looking to find some dinner and start our people watching when we witnessed something that bugged our eyes out. This is when we saw the Naked Barcelona Man. Not only him, but the front of him, which stops people in their tracks. Supposedly he's famous and well known around town. I described him earlier in another post, but I'll fill you in again (just a little) in case you didn't see it. He is completely decked out in only his birthday suit except for some underwear tattooed onto his body with other various tattoos as well. I'm not sure if it's by nature or not, but he's well endowed - like halfway to his knees. (I have to watch my language in case any former 4th graders are reading this.) Even though I didn't point him out, my children had to witness this, which I do regret, but it's diversity for you! He came up later in a conversation and my son reminded us by saying, "Oh yeah, when we saw that guy's wiener?" Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. We decided the people watching could become pretty fascinating that evening! Fortunately we didn't witness anything else quite up to that standard.

Here's a picture of our meal of paella - rice with chicken and veggies.

Our group eating dinner while people watching.

Is this in the Guinness Book somewhere as being the world's largest vending machine? I couldn't believe the size of this thing! I guess lots of things are just bigger in Barcelona.

Just Being a Belgian Tour Guide (July 4th-10th)

I have never been a tour guide, but definitely felt the stress of taking everyone around and being responsible for them having a good time. I desperately wanted my aunts and parents to believe they had experienced the trip of a lifetime, particularly because my aunts were only here for a week and were new to the whole traveling abroad thing. Where to go? What to do? They didn't care, but mentioned seeing Paris.

Despite getting into a hit and run accident in the parking lot of the Neuhaus Chocolate Outlet Store (if you come here, you have to get chocolates to take back, right?) on Monday of our big week, I believe the trip was perfect. (Sunday we had visited Brugge, a city in Belgium.) My car was hit by Anonymous causing my parents, the kids, and one aunt to head home with the TomTom. I needed to find the police station and report it for insurance purposes. I thought it'd be pretty simple since I had a sweet chocolate outlet lady helping me, but I did have the not always reliable GPS in my car.

After asking for directions from about 5-6 people, some of whom spoke perfect English, Aunt Susie and I never found the police station in that commune even after driving around for 2 hours. It had supposedly been moved recently to a different location, but after calling K at work and telling him I was just going to have to wake up early the next morning and go to our local station, he said, "Well, I guess that's what happens when we're living in a foreign country, not really speaking the language." (Neither one of us has been great at learning French.) I'm so thankful to have an understanding husband. He didn't raise his voice or act like I was a complete idiot, but agreed with my decision and realized I had tried my best to make the situation right. Luckily, I never did break down and cry during that "dent" in the day...I came pretty close though!

After reporting the crime at the police station on Tuesday (very nice people I might add), we were in the car for a 3 hour ride to Paris. We spent Tuesday through Thursday there, mastering the metro system and visiting many tourist sights you just have to do while you're in Paris. Friday was spent running around getting ready for the cruise, visiting the Butte de Lion where the Battle of Waterloo occurred, and making a quick trip to the Beersel Castle (You have to see a castle when you're in Europe!).
I realized I've adjusted to some European ways that my aunts got a kick out of seeing such as men peeing on the side of the road, the not so apparent toilet flushing systems (sometimes you have to stare at the toilet for a few minutes to figure out where the flusher is), always carrying spare change just in case you need to go to the restroom in public, screenless windows, and much more. My Aunt Susie took great notes to report back to Grandma.

Below are pictures of Brussels on the Grande Place with the kids, my aunts and dad before heading to the Neuhaus Outlet.


Eating Belgian waffles with powdered sugar for dessert. What was my son doing??
The evidence:

I will never forget it raining when we ascended the Eiffel Tower producing a rainbow my children are so blessed to have witnessed (even though they don't realize it).

At the top of the tower, you can see how far away other tourist sites are located. See how far away from home we are?

The left side of the rainbow was much more visible.

If you click on this picture and look really closely, you can see the rainbow on the right near the buildings. Priceless!

Metro Masters!

This is what my children thought of the whole sightseeing thing...one is fake smiling and the other is exhausted from all the walking. They're such troopers!

Aunts Sally and Susie were people watching and eating lunch at my favorite restaurant that has a killer Greek salad, Cafe di Roma, on the Avenue Des Champs-elysees in Paris. It doesn't get any better than this!