Nice & Florence

On the first day of our cruise, the Crew Welfare office organized a crew tour to Nice and Eze from Villefranche, and a big group from our cast decided to go. Overall, the tour was kind of a bust.. it was very rushed and uninformative.. But the places were beautiful! Nice was on the water, and then Eze up on the mountaintop.. they were both beautiful! Here's a photo of the French Riviera from the drive up to Eze.

Yesterday, however, I finally got to go into Florence for the first time!! It was BEAUTIFUL!! The highlight of the day was definitely just walking around.. It's such an awesome city. My favorite itinerary item, though, was the statue of David by Michelangelo. I can honestly say I was really shocked by how amazing it was! I'd always seen pictures of it and heard it was so amazing, but I didn't really get what the fascination was.. But in person, it really is awe-inspiring. First of all, it's huge!! I thought it was going to be life-size, but it's like 30 feet tall.. ha! I was so oblivious.. Overall, florence was beautiful! I did some really great wine tastings, saw the final resting tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli, and was dumbfounded by the Duomo.. It's just crazy to think that that's really where the whole Renaissance movement happened! They lived it there. It was so awesome to experience it.. I can't wait to go back and just get lost wandering the streets again.. Here's a few shots of my day. The first is an aerial shot from a lookout piazza over florence.. The second is in front of the Ponte Vecchio!

Today, we're in Civitavecchia outside Rome.. I've had enough of Rome for the time being, so I'm sitting in an internet cafe.. Tomorrow's a sea day and our Touch of Broadway show.. Then: Dubrovnik, Croatia and and overnight in Venice!

Hope everyone back home is doing well!

Miss you.

Saying Goodbyes

The back half of my cruise was more or less uninteresting.. After leaving Mykonos, I went on another tour from Kusadasi, Turkey. Because I had a very detailed tour of the Ephesus Archaeological Site when my parents were here, I opted to do a tour that didn't include the landmark. Instead, we visited two small country villages, did some wine tasting, and saw some local craft markets.. The tour was fine.. A good chance to relax mostly. there were only about 20 of us on the tour. Here's one of the farmers from the second village Kirazli:

Mostly, though, I've had some people that I know leave this cruise.. For one, the end of a contract, the other quit.. but it's weird. Not to quote anyone specific, but "People do come and go so quickly around here..." It's crazy! We're all on this ship for different lengths of time.. all the contracts are done on a rolling basis.. people come and go. So that kind of stunk for this cruise.. you just get used to a routine, familiar faces, etc. And then that gets taken away from you.. It's hard to make yourself a home when the surroundings are constantly changing.

Otherwise, we've officially hit the halfway mark!! I'm home in 3 months and 1 week. I'm having an amazing time exploring these amazing places, but I'm definitely ready to get back to the City and my friends..

Sorry for the lame update! who knows what will happen this next cruise..

Hope everyone is staying cool in the heatwave of the East coast these days! Missing you all..