I am sitting on the balcony of our cabin, watching the coast of Civitavecchia recede. By a pretty amazing co-incidence, the waiter who served us our gins and tonic just before we set sail was from Kochi, Kerala, where young Jim is currently situated for his second-to-last retreat at the house of Thomas John. What a very small world it is, after all!
Our taxi ride from Rome to its port was interesting. Roman drivers, including ours, are crazy. The first 15-30 minutes of our ride (through heavy and noisy morning rush-hour Rome in the black Mercedes, was with all four windows down (well three windows down actually, because as soon as the driver put them down, I put mine immediately back up). It was like riding in a noisy, polluted wind tunnel! I huffed and puffed enough for him eventual to put up all windows and explain how the AC would work. WE then wove in and out of traffic, in itself not too scary, but made terrifying by the constant reading of texts and emails on his smart phone, and the number of calls he took, details of which he wrote down in his calendar while still driving, sometimes with no hands on the wheel.
Despite all of this, we got to the boat safely, and were fast-track wheel-chair assisted through check in right to a prime table for luncheon. We even had all of our luggage delivered to our state-room 4 hours before we set sail!! No more Carnival Cruises for me J
Our fellow cruisers are multi-national, but with a British (mostly English) contingent. We shall see how that works out. Our dinner–table companions are a family from LA: mom is a 4th grade gifted and talented teacher; 10 year old daughter is a little precocious, but she does keep the conversation going at dinner; dad who is extremely knowledgeable about art, and has previously been all over Europe multiple times: and son, rising 9th grader, who was quiet during the meal, but had a mischievous smile.
Tomorrow we’ll be picked up at 9am by a driver who’ll take us to Pompeii, followed by a drive up the Amalfi coast
PS I am trying to post this from Haifa, Israel, hence the strange lay out. All instructions are in Hebrew too so I am not going to attempt to upload photos for now. I'll work on it tomorrow., and on uploading the other "missing " blogs.
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