Feb. 5, 2015. At sea

We are at sea all day today so a great opportunity to discover what makes our beautiful Jade ship and this area unique. To start with the weather….it was much the same as Vancouver despite the Italian landscape which included tropical plants and even cacti. I believe it was 9º Celsius in Vancouver and in Rome and pouring rain in both.

We walked around maybe a quarter of the ship, shopped a little, played awhile in the casino and then it was time to eat again! We had lunch in the Garden Café and then walked to the bow of the ship to watch a dance class and then played Bingo. The room is called Spinnakers Lounge and it's similar to the Crowsnest on the HAL ships I’ve been on but larger with lots of floor to ceiling windows. The Bingo prizes were cash with t shirts and souvenirs which we didn’t win. Later we went back to play for the special prize of an upgrade to a suite…..that was worth quite a bit more than what we paid for our balcony room so a very, very lucrative prize. The gal who won it was alone, her hubby was napping in their room. What a nice surprise he got when she phoned to tell him to start packing again! (a suite comes with 2 bedrooms, walk in closet, huge rain shower, separate living room, wrap around corner windows, a butler, hot tub etc.) and a few more perks including room stewards to help them move….nice eh! But just as well cuz we wouldn’t even know what to do with the butler, lol!

Ah well, enjoying the Tyrrhenian Sea on our sail by Sicily on the way past the Ionian Sea on our way to Katakolon, Greece. Life is good!

Art in the gallery

 Sushi and Jasmine Garden restaurant

 nice soft benches to rest on going down the straight stretch

 to the casino

 didn't see anyone playing these monstrosities

 ohhh, there's my machines, yippee yippee

 played some but got nothing but a headache, the area wreeks of smoke

 ahh, now this is healthier

 Dance class in progress

 and then BINGO!

 back to casino, oops

 The Ionian Sea

Good night

Buon Giorno

 Buon Giorno,
My friend and travelling companion Pat and I boarded the Norweigan Jade in Civitavecchia, Italy this morning. Jade is a beautiful midsize ship that once did duty as the Pride of Hawaii in Honolulu, has cruised the Mediterranean for a few years and will next year be cruising the Caribbean.

Jade is the smallest ship in the Norwegians fleet carrying 2400 passengers and 1200 crew members. The Hawaiian décor with lots of teak, colourful blown glass hibiscus, carpets, artworks and even a life sized statue of King Kamehameha overlooking one of the dining rooms looked and felt right and didn’t seem terribly out of place in the Mediterranean. I rather like all things Hawaiian so it suited me just fine. Arrivedercii, buon giorno, mahalo and aloha!

Ciao - hi and bye

Buon giorno - hello, good morning

Arrivedercii - goodbye

Grazie - thank you

My home away from home for 21 nights

 

A raft of 4 elevators and my cabin is just a step around the corner, so very handy yet didn't hear any elevator or traffic sounds at all

Plain and simple is all one needs

 If you take the wrong elevator........

Pool deck. Dig the art deco palms

A map of our next few days journey

 You can always see what lies ahead of the ship on the tv

 The social heart of the ship with hibiscus ceiling

 Grand Pacific dining room

 King Kamehameha

Aloha, Mediterranean style

Still enroute

Feb. 3, still enroute with a 4 hour airport wait time at YVR to get the 9 hour plus flight to the U.K. and then a 3 hour wait to change planes to get on a 3 hour flight to Rome. Then we had to hurry up and wait for our hotel transfer to arrive which didn’t so then a “5 minute” walk on a moving sidewalk which turned out to have portions that weren’t functional and so it took us at least 30 minutes to walk with all our luggage then finally we were able to crash out for a few hours.

We then enjoyed their complimentary breakfast buffet with eyeopening strange/new to me breakfast foods like melon juices, smoked and pickled herring, olives, baked beans and seafoods and unusual looking orange eggs.

Soon the ships transfer bus came to drive us another 90 minutes to the Civitavecchia cruiseship terminal 80 miles away from Rome where we could finally begin to cruising like a Norwegian. Can you tell….I am beat; travel day starts off exciting but soon fades to not much fun especially when it begins at 10p.m. after being up all day and then travelling into a time zone that’s 9 hours ahead of us. I could never sleep on a plane.

 

Did you know that Norwegians say "aloha"? I didn't either but i'll explain........... stay tuned.

Mediterranean cruise

Feb. 2, 2015

I’m off to Rome! Flying the friendly skies of British Airways to London and then on to the Eternal City. Spending a night at an airport hotel before boarding the bus for Civitavecchia, Italy to board the Norwegian Jade for 21 nights.

A reminder:

Euros Canadian

10 =    14.07

20 =    28.14

30 =    42.00

40 =    56.27

50 =    70.34

60 =    84.41

70 =    98.48

80 =  112.54

90 =  126.61

100 =140.68

Turkish Lire will be easy; just half it to get aprox. Canadian $ equivalent.

The only other currency I’ll need is U.S. and that’s pretty easy, used to that one. Oh, and perhaps British pounds. Geeze, so many monies to learn but have to know what I’m spending.

The story of last night

The video played on the jumbotron and the crowd rose, roaring for the goalie who stood alone in his crease, wearing the armour of his position, but looking so vulnerable and alone.

Then slowly he raised his mask and the emotion of the moment was there for everyone to see. He raised his stick. He tapped his heart with his glove. Then he bent and reassumed his position in the crease.
It was beautiful. It was moving. And the whole thing took about a minute. We see so much that is manufactured in our games; so much that is contrived and false that we become suspicious about times such as these. But this one was real and heartfelt and afterwards Roberto Luongo said "I just wanted to give my thanks, my appreciation, not only for the welcome, but for the eight years. There were a lot of memories in those eight years. It was just my way to thank the fans."

The Luongo homecoming was held Wednesday and it was a memorable evening all the way around for the guest of honor. On the ice Luongo stopped 32 of 33 shots in a first star performance as his Florida Panthers recorded a 3-1 win over the Canucks, the only NHL team he hadn't beaten.
Luongo was good early, holding the Panthers in the game as the Canucks dominated the first period; really good in the second period, making three five-alarm saves as the Panthers built up a 3-1 lead and clinical in the third, stopping all nine shots as his teammates did a masterful job of killing 5:20 in power play time.

But the real story of this night was those 60 seconds in the first period when the faithful saluted their man and he responded. For most of his career here in Vancouver Luongo was seen as a polarizing figure, someone who divided this city into pro and anti Lu camps. But on this night the town was his in a way it's never been before.

After the game he came out as the first star as he'd done so many times before and gave his stick to a kid, as he had so many times before. But this was the last time it would be like this for Luongo and this city; the last time they'd share this bond. And that's why they'll always remember this night.

Lu was and is a class act who I loved for eight years, what the heck, still do! I'll always remember you Lu, my all time favourite goalie, thanks for almost getting us the Stanley Cup, thanks for winning us the gold medal in the Olympics, thanks for many enjoyable games, thanks for the memories and thanks for being you.

Bob and our big achievement: The Puzzle

It's been many years since we put together a jigsaw puzzle but we got this one for Christmas and have worked on it off and on until tonight and ....ta-dum! here it is fini! I know I shouldn't be bragful but it was actually a pretty hard puzzle due to the fact that we forgot to work on something white or at least light coloured and the romantic lighting of our dining room isn't really appropriate for putting together puzzles. All those colours everywhere and the dark colours in the background against our dark wooden table made it difficult but we persevered, me with the use of eye drops, he with a nap or two,  lol, yeah, we are getting old and feeble but we did it! It's with great pride I show you my hubby and our completed 750 piece jigsaw puzzle.