Elwood's Clan: 2008

Dean & Maria's

Seven Day Mediterranean Cruise

aboard the

Norwegian Gem

09 November to 16 November 2008

(Only $199 per person...just so you know.)

THE NORWEGIAN GEM

We had a great time on the cruise but missed those of you who normally cruise with us; however, had a great time with all of our "private time" as Mom would say. This cruise was such a great deal...for $199 how could we pass it up. The ports were fantastic, the food the best ever and the ship is the newest in Norwegian's fleet....so all good. This was the last sailing of this ship to these ports for the season because the winter is beginning to set in. And we did experience all kinds of weather during the sailing.

We had a great trip over...got first class all the way which made for a comfortable flight as it was a "red-eye" flight from New York to Barcelona Spain. We arrived around 7am and couldn't get on the ship til around noon. We took the train from the airport to the city to run around and explore a bit to kill time tell we could embark the ship....and thought we would walk to the port. After aimlessly walking in circles, unable to find the port, we hailed a cab and had him take us to the ship. But it was cool exploring Barcelona...dragging our junk through the city. When we got on the ship, our stateroom wasn't ready yet, so we went up on the 14th deck and found this nice comfy round bed-type lounger with a great view of Barcelona. We kicked back and took a nice long nap laying in the sun.

This is a photo of our "inside" stateroom (what do you expect for $199) that as cruise ship staterooms go, was nice. It did help that the boat was brand new and best of all, the shower had been upgraded...big enough for 2 fat Americans and no shower curtain--but a sliding glass door.

First day was a sailing day. We slept in late to help adjust to the new 6 hour difference in time zones and then ate and ran around the boat exploring and eating again to begin our new two-hour feeding regiment.

This cool photo/mural was on the top deck of the ship next to the rock climbing wall (which as you can imagine was never used my either of us non-jock types), but this mural of the arches of Bryce Canyon Utah...gave us pangs of longing and missing of Utah (Yeah right!).

Our first port was in Valletta, Malta. This is the neatest and most interesting place I have ever seen and was one of our favorite ports of call. It is amazing how really old this city is...since it was established around 1565. This photo above I took as we were pulling into port the morning of our arrival. It appears like the city was built inside the rock of the island itself...and of course, this picture doesn't do it justice to the actual beauty of actually being there.

Getting off the ship in Malta.

Running around exploring Valletta. You can see how incredibly old and rustic the entire city is. It was so very clean and quiet. It reminded us a lot of Venice, Italy but with cars and a little more noise because of cars.

This is the bell tower that hovers over the port at the tip of the island you will notice in the photo above. We climbed our way up and marveled at the view of everthing to everywhere from that point. The view was awesome.

Having a little breakfast buffet before hitting the cooblestone streets of Naples, Italy. How about that mansion on the hill?

We really liked Naples...huge contrast from Malta, although very old, but a lot more cosmopolitan and busy-crazy. Maria said she would never want to drive in this place. Driving laws may exisit, but it appears they are optional. We crossed streets with great caution. We also noticed a ton of graffiti all over...especially on this long concrete wall we are standing next to in this photo...this wall ran about 1/4 mile down this avenue and there wasn't an inch of it that wasn't covered in graffiti...either the locals like it and maybe consider it art, or have given up trying to stop or remove it to simply have it replaced with new graffiti?

Just other cool photos of our stops and stares of Naples.

Our next stop was Civitavecchia, Italy. This is the port that is about 40 miles from Rome. When we woke up that morning and crawled up on deck we witnessed one of the wildest rainstorms we have ever seen....and that is saying a lot from living in Florida. As we sat at the buffet, fine dining, we watched the funnel clouds whipping up the water in this mini-type tornados and listened to the gum-ball sized hailstones bombard the boat for hours. Needless to say, we never left the ship on that day. As it turned out, the timing couldn't be better as me and Maria have been to Rome and "been there done that." Others not so fortunate, left the boat and came back soaked, cold and looking like wet, drowned rats.

Pocket full of sunshine....or hand full of hailstones....whatever.

Laying around the boat, reading, "napping", and counting down til our next two-hour feeding.

Although the Norwegian Gem was a brand new boat and was neat in many ways...it did have its problems. You had to be a lab rat trained to manuveur mazes to find anything on the ship. On cruise ship in the past, buy the time day two or three rolled around, you pretty much had your bearings. On this ship...on day seven I was still confused where everything was located...Each floor didn't run the entire length of the ship...so you had to figure out which stairwell lead to which deck...maybe it is me...getting old and loosing my bearings...I would like to think it was the boat designer. But this photo above of "Herman" as Maria so affectionatley called him, became my guiding landmark of the stairwell to my stateroom....If I saw Herman, I knew I could find my room.

The food on this cruise was probably the best I have ever had cruising. Dad would have absolutely hated it! There was not a taco to be had...not even ever a thing that resembled Mexican anywhere. Perhaps due to the European location of the cruise, most of the menu was very exotic (at least for an American). But we loved the food especially the night with watermelon salad with fried fetta cheese and balsamic mint vinegarette. (which I had as a salad and then again for dessert) along with my creme brule with dark chocolate ganache....pure heavenly divine (licked that ramakin clean).

And then there was Pisa, Italy. Oh my gosh, was this the coolest little city. We got off the ship and jumped a bus which was about a 40 minute ride from the port city of Livorno. On the ride to Pisa, I was shockingly amazed and how the countryside looked and felt like I was driving throught Utah County on my way to Springville. The horizon, the mountains, the folliage, the landscape...it was wild...and those of you who may or may not every make it to Pisa, but have been to Springville...well, there you have it (less the neat leaning tower of course).

We saw this cute little house while exploring Pisa. I just loved the look of the exposed brick, the age of the place and the national flag hanging from the window. I would love to live in this place...and the veiw of the leaning tower out the front door wouldn't be bad either.

This is us on the bus back to Livorno, Italy so I could be back on the ship because I was hungry due to the slight diversion from our newly established two-hour feeding schedule. I did find and was gorging myself with licorice I can only find in Italy...but while doing so, I started feeling like I was getting sick....like the flu kind of sick. Sure enough, during that quick 40 minute ride back to the ship I knew I was sick...achy, dizzy, gurgling stomach and rumbling lower intestines....you know the feeling? Great cruise shot to hell from then on.....UGH.

We have become very savvy travelers....it becomes a necessity when you travel with a wife with a gumball size bladder (refer to photo above of gumball sized hailstones to see a facimile of dimensions). With such a limited size bladder, frequency to restrooms use and search for acceptable toilets become paramount during our journeys and adventures around the world. What we discoverd in Europe; however, is that people there must not have bladders or if they do, they are the size of watermelons which allows them to use them at home with no need to use public restrooms until they return home again at night...because a public bathrom does not exist. So we just pop into nice hotels along the way, act like we are valued hotel guests, walk through the lobby and find relief. This is a photo of Maria with great relief after using a nice hotel toilet. Thank you.

The was Villefrache, France the last port before returning to Barcelona and the port city about 4 miles east of Nice. It is a beautiful city and although I was sick, whining, moaning in bed, Maria left me and explored the city solo. I caught this "Where's Waldo" photo of her when she got back to the boat. I also had to drag myself up on deck to at least admire it from afar. We will have to fly back and just spend time in Nice since I missed this opportunity.

I also missed (cuz still sick in bed) the very famous NCL Mid-night chocolate buffet. As it turns out, I really didn't miss anything. Maria said that firstly, it wasn't held in the grand dining room like on past crusies. It was in the buffet hall....which kinda loses it pizzaz when you display it in the "cafeteria." And Secondly, it was no longer held at midnight (which usually was convientley prohibitive for snot-nosed-brats to attend as they would be nussled cozy in there beds to tired to attend) but rather at 1030pm. Then there is the problem with the sugar....or should we say...the lack thereof. The pastry chef must be Italian....and what we have learned is that to look at an Italian dessert is beautiful, to eat it a gag (sorry Darli) ....Where is the sugar? I ask? And no candy, not covered pretels, no covered gummy bears, no truffles...just chocolate pastry and cheesecake with NO SUGAR. But picutred above is the Norwegian Gem in chocolate....but for all we know it could have been play-do because it was "display only" and not for nibbling....probably no sugar anyway...so there.

The cruise is all over and although it had come to an end and it was so very neat all the place we saw, seven days on a boat is really all we can handle. So here we are sitting in the Barcelona Airport at 9am waiting to be assigned our first class tickets back to New York. (notice we are still smiling in photo....this soon changes). Just then over the loud speaker, to our horror and dismay we hear that the flight is full and that no stand-by passengers will be accommodated. WHAT THE FUDGE? I am always acccommodated? What happened to my first class seat I was so confident I was going to get? Of course being on a boat in the middle of the sea (euphoric bubble) sheilds you from the real world of current events of the day...such as Air France and Alitalia going on strike 2 days before the cruise ended....which percipitated the scavaging of any available airline seat out of Europe to New York. And with only ONE...yes I said ONE flight to New York each day....we were stuck. I ran over to an internet kisok and started my reserarch. I soon discovered that out of London Heathrow tonight was 115 open seats to New York...I grabbed Maria's had and said lets go...let the "Amazing Race" begin. Bought a cheap ticket (love being in the airline industry...a lot of cheap tickets available) on Spain's flagship airline, Iberia which amazingly enough had available seats to London and would get us there about 1.5 hours before our connection on Delta to New York would depart. Unfortuately, Iberia ran into a snag (shocking), we were delayed a little (still shocked), got to Heathrow late and missed our flight to New York(not shocked at all)....now we were stuck in London. Me, who is always, and without fail, bright and cheerful and full of optimisim in situations such as this said, "Maria, you have never been to London, so lets make the best of it." We jumped on the subway (called Underground) grabbed a cute little hotel and I ran her ragged throught the city of London so she could see some cool sights before we had to leave at 8am in the morning.

Maria posing in a famous London phone booth....she is saying, "Please hurry with the picture, because it smells like the local Brits have been using this phone booth as an port-o-potty."

In front of Harrod's Department Store. Programing note that Maria would like me to mention: Please ignore the hair style. This is the result or should we say byproduct of actually having "No-product"...that is salon quality hair washing, conditioning, or styling products that is, to make it look its usually chic style. With the restricition of TSA liquid travel requirements...she was at the mercy of complimentary and available shampoo (and due to recent cutbacks and fuel prices, NCL regrets that no hair conditioner is available onboard)rd....so you can notice her hair progressively flopping day by day as the trip came to an end.

Here we are in front of Buckingham Palace (the big house where the Queen hangs) and this big old statue (not sure who it is or what it means, but felt our touristy duty to be photographed here.) To really see the Palace, Westminister Abbey, Kennsington Palace (the late Lady Di former crib), Big Ben not to mention everything else we saw on our walk to and from these places were incredible and we wished we had better photo's but I am a camera-retard and don't know how to take photos in the dark that actually work. These few here are simply miracles.

Maria and Big Ben

We had a great time in London and after it was all said and done we think it was cool how it all worked out. We visited five different countries in eight days with tons of memories. The next morning we jumped back on the Underground, back to Heathrow...got our first class tickets to New York...smooth connection to Orlando and finally home, sweet home by four o'clock.

HI Family

Its been a while since you have heard from us, and its been one heck of a ride. Since my last post in July we have been it seems like everywhere finishing up the wedding circuit for 2008! I have a feeling this is going to be a long blog, sorry, had a lot going on in the past 3 months!

AUGUST
First we had a wedding up in Newcastle, northern England, John flew back to Geneva, I supervised the movers packing up our flat and putting our stuff into storage, flew to California, had a friends bridal shower at my parents house, 1st anniversary dinner at the Montage, we also went there for 6 month anniversary. Then John surprised me with an anniversary present – a weeks holiday in Hawaii, a few days in Santa Barbara and a night in LA. I knew about Santa Barbara and LA, but had no idea about Hawaii, so that was the real treat. We stayed at the Halekulani on Oahu, it was Johns first time to Hawaii and I have a couple friends that live there so was the perfect spot. The weather was beautiful – of course, and we just relaxed by the beach or pool, read, ate lots and lots, and hung out with friends which we don’t get to see that often, so a great week, then went to SB and stayed at Bacara which was even more relaxing since there wasn’t a million tourists there, and then off to LA for the night to try out a new restaurant of one of our favorite chefs – Gordon Ramsay. Sure you have heard of him from Hells Kitchen, but he is massively popular in the UK and has the only 2 Michelin Star restaurant in London. We also went up to Westlake Village to visit with Johns cousin and his wife, it was nice to finally spend some time with them, they were at the wedding, but the kids didn’t attend, so was nice to meet them as well.

SEPTEMBER
Once we were back at my parents house we had one of my closest friends weddings – Michelle, she was one of my bridesmaids. I had the privilege to be her MATRON (makes me sound so old) of Honour and the wedding was super fun. Then we had an offer accepted on a house, we are officially homeowners, closed a few weeks ago! The house is in San Juan Capistrano and we love it, 4 bedroom, 3 bath, pool, the works. I have been busy looking up furniture and thinking about colors and themes, etc.

Now to backtrack a bit, after returning back from CA to Geneva, a couple days later, my friend Erin (another bridesmaid) came out to visit, couple days in Geneva, then we drove to Munich for Oktoberfest, it was fun, but def don’t have to run back again next year, from Munich we drove to Zurich to see Coldplay concert which was super fun, my first Coldplay concert! Then back to Geneva and Erin went back home to CA. September finally ends!

OCTOBER
Now October, a few days later another friend Meredith was in town. I actually took the train and met her in Aix en Provence,France, stayed there a couple days, walked around, explored. We rented a car one day, booked the cheapest automatic we could get and ended up with a Mercedes SLK convertible, how lucky is that, so we toured the French countryside with the top down enjoying the sights. We drove to Chateauneuf de Pape, which is a very famous wine region. CDP is super cute and beautiful, we had lunch, walked around, bought wine for a present for John. We drove back to our hotel to quick change and then drove to Cannes, where the big film festival is for dinner along the sea, we were def all over France that day! Then took the train back to Geneva and she stayed with us for a little under a week. She went on to Paris and John and I flew back to the UK for yet, another wedding. That was a lot of fun to see friends again and then we had lunch with friends who just had a baby the week prior, I had never seen a baby so young before, lots of our friends are now starting on the babies, 3 due this year and at least 4 next year that I can remember!

I flew out to California and John stayed in the UK. We stay with our friends George and Nicky whenever we are down in London, they are so generous for letting us stay there as much as we do, but I know they enjoy the company, hehehe. In CA I kinda did some house stuff, at this point we hadn’t closed yet and had a friend Heather’s wedding, technically our last of the year, we are not attending one in Dubai this weekend. After the wedding, I flew back to London and we went to the NFL New Orleans Saints vs San Diego Charger game, it was really fun and exciting, so thankful it didn’t rain on us like it did the year before. We had awesome seats, 40 yard line, 16 rows back, but really there was like 5 rows in front of us. We stayed in London until Halloween, went to another partner in Johns companys house, it’s a converted gothic chapel, the perfect location for a Halloween party, was a blast. They had a Dj and live band and lots of decoration, good lighting, and yummy food. Outside before you entered into the house they had a 7’3” guy with a scary villain (Halloween movie) type mask on and he had this crazy voice and he opened the door for us, to which we entered into pitch black and you heard this cackling and someone grabbing your arms, and then you see this midget with scary makeup on, it was a nice entrance to get you into the Halloween spirit. I went as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz and John went as a crazy bloody surgeon, he was def more comfy.

And now, we are finally back home in Geneva, its so nice to not have lots going on, but we are just gearing up for the winter ski season. Geneva is preparing for the winter, all of the fountains have lil dog houses over the faucets and all of the outdoor dining areas have been packed up and stored away, and Christmas stuff is everywhere, but that means skiing! Friends are already booking up weekends, so just relaxing for now and getting ready for the holidays!

Hope this finds everyone well! Lots of Love, Dana and John