End of First Cruise.

Oct 28

Today I got up early and watched the ship cruise into the port of Lisbon, Portugal.  The ship went right under one of the world’s largest suspension bridges just as the sun was starting to color the eastern sky.  There is also a colossal tower with Jesus with his arms outstretched sort of like the one in Rio.  I was wrongly told that we were to lose an hour this morning so I was up plenty early for the disembark off the ship.

I took the shuttle into the city, about a 10 minute ride, and walked in one direction for a while then took the subway back.  At the subway station there was a woman who spoke English and was helping tourists get their subway passes.  It wasn’t so complicated, but she was very helpful.  Pretty nice.  Guess they get a lot of tourists here.

Bought some roasted chestnuts from a street vendor, because I love street food.  They were pretty good.  Kind of bready for a nut.  Then I bought a journal and went in a few shops looking for glue sticks.  I didn’t think I communicated what I wanted exactly to one woman, but I found later that she was saying glue.  Sadly we won’t be in non-English speaking ports for too much longer so I’ll not get much chance to bone up on my Spanish or Portuguese for that matter.   We are in Spain tomorrow though.  I’ve heard there’s good seafood.  Hopefully I’ll hook up with some other people for lunch somewhere.  Oh and I found glue sticks at a hardware store.   Now I can glue things into my journal.  That’s exciting to me.  I like to have something tactile rather than just a virtual journal.  I’m not sure how this will all shake down journaling-wise, but I may be on the right track now.

Lisbon has some very beautiful old sections and apparently a large forest park, but I didn’t get to that.  The one thing I wanted to see but didn’t get there was the castle of St. George.  It’s on a high hill near downtown.   I should have gone there first, but I didn’t know any better.

Oct 29

Rough seas today.  Started up around 5pm and we’ve been rocking and rolling since then.  We had a pretty windy and chilly show tonight.  I’m feeling good though.  I don’t think the rough seas are going to bother me, but the real test will be the transatlantic.  That’s coming right up.

Had lunch in Vigo today, but didn't have any time to explore.

Lunch.

 

Woah!  Double Rainbow!

Annette made this awesome ant costume for the Halloween party from available materials.  Amazing.

Oct 30

We’re pretty much done with the first cruise mentally.  We just had our last show and we auctioned off 3 pieces for the Corning Scholarship Fund and now we have 2 days off.  Awesome.  What to do.  Tomorrow we’ll be in Southampton, England and the day after we’ll be in La Harve, France.  There, you can catch a bus to Paris, which I plan to do.  I’ve heard rumors that there may be training of some sort scheduled that day.  That would be lame. 

Art Auction.

There are several people that were at almost all of the glassblowing shows who were bidding for the piece that I put in the auction.  It eventually went for $170 to a woman and man who I knew quite well from their being at many of the shows.  We got lots of nice feedback from people saying they enjoyed the shows.  It’s pretty cool to see lots of familiar faces in the audience by the end of the cruise.

 

Oct 31

Today is the last day of the first cruise and the first of the second.  This will be the transatlantic crossing.  We also go to Paris!  I have to get my training schedule fixed though so I can get into the city. 

There are a few people I know that are leaving the ship today which is sort of a bummer because I need all the friends I can get at this point still.  I’m getting to know a few people, but sometimes it’s still hard to find someone I know.  Training is still good for that.  You meet a lot of people you wouldn’t meet otherwise.

Right now I’m considering getting out of my room because they are playing the worst possible music on the intercoms in the hallway.  Bon Jovi, Dead or Alive; Journey, Don’t Stop Believing, and on, and on.  Really?  It’s on the intercom.  You can’t get away.

So I’ll go ashore today.  Not sure to do what exactly.  I’d like to see London.  I’ll see if there’s a shuttle to downtown or something.  One of my friends is going to the health food store and the “crystal shop.”  Hmm.   I don’t think we’re talking glass.  Not high on my list.

So I forgot we’re not that close to London, but I did get into Southampton.  Tried to find a good British pub, but we were in the shopping district which is like an outdoor mall.  All the stores are very close together and it’s almost all pedestrian only.  Oh so we went to a pub, but it was sort of a mall version of a pub, but it had pretty good beer and fish and chips and the fish and chips came with mushy peas, which apparently is a Brit thing because our server was surprised when I said that we didn’t have them.  They’re peas but a bit mushed up, as you might expect.  Pretty good.  In all a successful outing.

This is where I embarked onto the ship at the beginning of this cruise.

Southampton.

Now just thinking about what I’ll do this evening.  Maybe I’ll get to the gym.