It has been a while...and I really have a lot to share...of course I won't be able to do my Mediterranean cruise all in one post since I took over 1200 pictures...it will take me several posts I am sure!! I don't know if I should do a quick overview of all that we did in this first post and then in coming posts I can add pictures to show what we did or if I should just go ahead and do each day as it comes along...hmmm...what to do...I guess I will do an overview...
So Wednesday January 4th 2012 we woke up very early and Tom was nice enough to take me and Alaina to to the airport. Our flight was at 8:30 so like the crazy fliers we are...we were at the airport around 6. I am not a morning person...so do not like airports...and when you have to hurry up and wait I go a little bit crazy!! We flew to Atlanta and then on to Rome, Italy. It was so weird to be in all of these different countries with so much history...our little old Utah that I love is only 164 years old...some of the buildings we saw are hundreds of years old...and some of the ruins we saw were from the time of Christ...so unreal to think of!! When we got to Rome we were taken to our hotel that we would be staying at for 2 nights and told that we had the rest of the day until we had a dinner at 6. Alaina needed a nap...I didn't want to waste the whole day, so after I let Alaina take a little nap we went down to the Vatican. We got lost going and coming, the lady at the hotel said that it was easy to get to, it may have been if you got on the right bus in the first place...and I am directionally challenged unless I have my mountains...we were only 2 hours late to dinner but it sounds like the 6 dinner didn't even really start til 7 so we were only about an hour late. The next day we had a tour of Rome. Saturday morning we drove to the port Civitavecchia (yep, we started our cruise at the same spot, AND we were on a Costa ship). Pretty crazy...I am just glad that we were on the Costa Serena and not the Costa Concordia!! I can't even imagine how awful that is for the people that were on that cruise! Our first stop was Savona and we actually drove to Monaco. 1/9 was a sea day and on our 4 sea days we got amazing lectures from Bruce Porter. He said that he wanted to do kind of a mini education week and it was a great part of the trip. 1/10 we went to Olympia, Greece. 1/11 was a sea day. 1/12 was our first day in Israel and we docked at Ashdod. 1/13 was our second day in Israel and we went to the port of Haifa and then off to the sea of Galilee and Capernaum. 1/14 another sea day. 1/15 we docked at Izmir and we went to Ephesus. 1/16 we docked at Piraeus and we got to go to Athens. 1/17 was our last sea day and then on 1/18 we were back at Civitevecchia. I don't know if we passed the Concordia or if it was north of where we were at, but if we did pass it I was blissfully asleep at that time and didn't see it, thank goodness, I don't think I would like to have seen it, that would have been pretty creepy floating passed it on another cruise ship!! When we walked onto the dock in Civitavecchia we all breathed a sigh of relief that we had made it back without any incidents...we drove back to Rome and had another day of sightseeing in Rome and back to the hotel for one more night of sleep before we got up around 6 to go back to the airport to come home. It was an amazing trip and I am so glad to be able to say that I did it...but on the 19th I was so ready to come home!!! I had a cold around Christmas time and I thought I was better but on the trip it came back and I was not a happy camper for several of the days. Many in our group also got sick and it was sad to be sick for the trip. On Friday and Saturday when we got back I had a little case of the flu, I am just glad that that waited til I got home, that would have beeen even worse to deal with on the trip!! I can't believe how long this post is...and it doesn't even have any pictures!!
