Traversing the Mediterranean

This is going to be a short blog today, as we did not have any excursions. Today was a travel day, as we traversed the Mediterranean Sea, making our way from Athens, Greece to Haifa, Israel. We had total sunshine all day, which made the sea sparkle and lended even more to the beauty of the view.

We spent a relaxing day on board, for the most part. We spent some time sitting on the balcony enjoying the beauty of the Mediterranean. 

I also located the fitness center and spent some time on the treadmill. The treadmills are set up so that you can look out the window and watch the Mediterranean Sea go by while walking off the gelato calories. 

I also took advantage of a lull in the excursion schedule to do some laundry, not that we needed to do laundry so soon, but just taking advantage of the scheduled day off. 

Viking offers guest lectures in the amphitheater, so I attended one called “Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land.” It was interesting to see pictures of places that we will be visiting in a few days and hear a few stories to go along with it. 

There was also a lecture on “Heart of the Heart of the Holy Land” (not a typo, that’s the name). Unfortunately, the lecture occurred while I was hanging out in the laundry room waiting on clothing, so I missed it. However, they post the talks on tv and you can watch them in the comfort of your room later. We will probably do that tonight. Also while in the laundry room I met a lot of people who came in and out while I was there. I met a couple from England who were excited about their new King and the gentleman told me about when he had attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth many years ago. I also met a lady from Australia who told me that Australian clothes were not made for dryers, and that they don’t have dryers in Australia, they just hang their clothes out on the line. I told her we had experienced that when we visited Joe’s brother and his wife in Australia a few years ago. After washing our clothes, we inquired as to where the dryer was, and they pointed to the clotheslines hanging outside. Very cool. Wow - I wrote much more about doing laundry than I had anticipated. 

The main restaurant on the ship is called the World Café, and it is a buffet with all kinds of foods to choose from. There are themes: yesterday was Flavors from the Sea, today was Flavors of Italy. The problem with the seafood yesterday is that most of it was served cold, but we like our boiled seafood hot – South Louisiana style. We’ve found that almost everywhere else, they eat boiled seafood iced. The Italian food was good. We tend to sit in the same area of the café every day, and so our waiters have gotten to know us and vice versa. The lady that we see most often is Kasar. She is from India and is very friendly. She has gotten to know our habits, and is always ready with a cup of coffee, a beer, or a glass of wine. Now if we can only get her to sneak the whole carton of gelato our way...

The next 3 days of our trip will be very busy. Tomorrow we have a 12-hour day for our trip into Jerusalem and Bethlehem. We leave the ship at 10 a.m. and return at 10 p.m. Then the following day, we leave at 7:15 a.m. and have a 10-hour day, with a 13 1/2 hour day after that. All this to say that it is possible that I may not post anything on the blog for the next few days. After day 3, we have a rest/sailing day before a 4th long day. I will try to catch up on the blogging then (if I’m not too exhausted). I just wanted to let you know so that if you don’t see any posts for a few days, you won’t think we’ve fallen overboard.