Malta!

Everyone kept saying, “Why don’t we come to Malta every cruise!”  We only have Malta on our itinerary one time, and many of the crew who have been working on the ships for years hadn’t been to Malta either.  I read a history of wars in the Mediterranean in the 1500’s in which Malta plays a very important role.  The players are the Ottoman empire and Christendom consisting of a loose alliance Spain, Rome, and Venice.  Malta is attacked and holds off the full force of the Ottomans for an entire spring, summer, and fall.  One of their forts fell, and casualties are exceedingly heavy on both sides.  It sounded unimaginably brutal.  In the end reinforcements are finally sent from Sicily to end the battle.

 

Sadly I hadn’t finished my reading by the time we got to Malta, so I didn’t know all the historical importance of a lot of what I was seeing, and we were mostly in the city of Valetta (named for the leader during the siege) the is newer than that battle.

 

In any case, Valetta was fantastic.  Many amazing churches, and the town was plenty old to give a feeling of antiquity and deep history.  It didn’t hurt that it was a beautiful day as well.  I’d love to go back.

 

They had a fleet of old busses that ran tours around Valetta.  Sadly we didn’t get to jump on one.

Everything was fortified facing the sea.

Jazz is big everywhere in Europe.

The interior of one of the churches.  I can’t remember if this was the one, but there is a church where there are around 400 people buried under the floor of the church.  Marble mosaics mark the graves.

Marzipan Fruit.

Nut soda?

Um.  Go Obama?

The City of Valetta is on a peninsula surrounded by two defensible harbors, so all along the shores are mighty fortifications against sea warfare.

THIS is a unicorn.  Yes it is built onto the side of a church.  Amazing.

Note the man reading the paper?!  Really?

This is the door of the headquarters of the Knights of St. John.  They were basically Christian pirates and built the forts that were sieged in the battle for Malta.

Lots of cool ironwork around the city.

Our ship is registered in Malta.  I’m assuming some beneficial laws concerning maritime travel and employment practices.

Ports: Messina

In two days I’ll be back in Messina, Sicily for the last time.  It’s a nice Italian town with a terrifying road crossing right off of the ship.  I’m surprised that people aren’t injured or killed every time we dock.  There’s a busy road where cars don’t stop and then instead of there being a sidewalk on the other side there are two light rail tracks with a shin high median between them that you have to step over.  It’s like Frogger.

 

Probably the main attraction in the town is the bell tower.  It’s huge and mechanical.  At noon a lion roars, a cock crows, you see saints in procession, also the passage of youth to old age is depicted, and so much more.  You can also climb the tower for a small fee and see amazing views from high above all the other town buildings.  Pretty awesome.

 

This is the tower that stands watch over the harbor.

Brian has had his fill of delicious pasta.  Note the beer.

Mmm.  Cheesy.

Yes.  Fizzy mineral water, but check this out.

Silice (SiO2).  That’s sand, or glass, however you want to say it.  Awesome.

Brian and I took an embarrassing bus tour.  Neptune is calling us out.  We were spared any quacking at least.  But yes, reminiscent of the ducks in Seattle.

Hey.  I can see my house from here.

Ooh.  There’s the clock tower.

But first inside the amazing church.

I believe this is the largest pipe organ in Italy?  Maybe just Sicily, but this is just one of several banks of pipes around the church.

Now on to the clockwork.  I believe this guy is the “old man.”  Also on this wheel is a young man and a really old man and maybe a boy.  In any case…

They parade by the grim reaper every day at noon.  Ominous, eh?

Here’s the lion that roars, taken from inside the tower.

A detail of one of the beautiful bells.  They don’t swing them to ring them anymore.  There’s a mechanical striker that hits them.

And finally the clock face.

And the view from the top.

And then there was this awesome deli.  Yesterday I got a “written warning” basically for having the ingredients for a sandwich in my room.  How do you say “worth it,” in Italian.

Only one Month to go.

In about 2 days I’ll be a month away from getting off the ship.  It always goes pretty fast, but at the same time I’m not sure whether I’m hitting my stride or I’m getting ready to be done. 

 

The travel is great.  We’re seeing new places on this cruise and I love all the ports in their own special ways.  But living on the ship will always be weird and unsettled.  There are too many people all jockeying for social and professional positions, too often scoring points by making someone else’s life harder.  So there is always this cloud of uncertainty about what is expected, and always people that can make your life better or worse depending on mood. 

 

Today we were on Crete, the largest of the Grecian isles.  There was a nice, old section of town in Hania, where we walked around and saw the harbor and the market and lots of little side streets.  A good day of seeing new things.  Hopefully we may get to a gorge the next time we’re here.  It’s a bit out of the way, but probably doable.

 

Tomorrow we’ll be in Athens again.  Probably Piraeus, the port town actually, I don’t know if I’ll go into Athens for anything tomorrow.  I’d like to do some mundane shopping for things like a thermos and a tea ball so I can make tea in my room.  That would be nice.  Soap and floss are on the list too.

 

Looking forward to Istanbul.  I’m going to see friend who went mountain biking with me and my sister and brother-in-law and his sister in North Dakota in 2001.  He’s  a good friend of my brother-in-law’s from college, but is now living on a small island near Istanbul.  I really haven’t been writing much, so I must say that I can barely express how awesome Turkey is.  Visit Turkey.  It’s markets are amazing.  It’s people are warm and friendly.  It’s landscape and history, amazing to behold.

 

So I’ll of course, post a bunch of pictures now.  Probably a bit random, since so much time has passed since I posted last, but do enjoy…

 

Best graphic design ever.  This is Turkish (well at least bought in Istanbul) shave soap.  I am genuinely getting my closest shaves ever with this stuff.  Smells like the stuff that Tomas, the Kusadasi barber, uses when I get a shave there.

The Kraken lives!

We did a special late show for the crew.  During that show we picked a couple designs that people had drawn to make out of glass.  The one I chose happens to be the Kraken devouring a guest. Guess someone was having a bad day.

Jazz band Friends, Dara and Greg, at our favorite pizza spot in Citivecchia, our home port.

That’s right.  We’re eating Mexican food in Santorini, Greece.  Not the best I’ve ever had, but for sure the best I’ve had in the Mediterranean.  The next few pics are the same evening on Santorini.

The view of the ship from the rim of the crater in Santorini.

 

To explain a bit more.  If you look at a map of Santorini, you will see that there are a few distinct islands.  They used to be one, until the largest volcanic eruption the world has ever know blew the island into the sky.  This picture is taken from the rim of what is left.  From there across to those tiny lights in the upper left in the picture; that used to be part of the same volcanic mountain.  Now (clearly) gone.  The island in the middle is the volcano building a new mountain.  The water is encircled by a crescent of land that was left after the eruption.  The landscape is stunning.

 

Here we are walking down the donkey path to the dock where we will catch a boat back to the ship. 

A view of the ship from the boat.  It’s pretty unusual for us to be in port this late in the evening.  It was pretty exciting.

Here we are on Crete, in the market in Chania.  I am impressed by the big cheese.

Woah.  Hello salty fishes.

A minaret in the old town.

Miranda looking stylish in my stylish hat.  Hi Annette!

Venetians ruled Crete for a period.  This harbor was developed under their influence.

 

Alright.  Let’s get this post up so all my friends can see how much fun I’m having.  As I write this I’m recovering from the coldest show we have ever put on.  More to come on that front.  I’m a bit concerned.  We’re still in the Mediterranean which has the well deserved reputation for mildness.  In a couple weeks at the beginning of December we’re headed for the open ocean.  Whee.

Three Cruises Down.

I’m already through a significant portion of my contract.  I just now looked at my schedule and realized that today is my one month anniversary of being on the ship.  It’s not quite as startling as when I realized the same thing on my first contract, though it still seems short.

 

I’m discovering great things about every port.  Today for instance, after visiting the Silhouette, the newest ship that is nearly identical to the ships I’ve been on, we went out for pizza in Naples, Italy.  It was pretty good.  They cooked it in a wood fired oven which gave it a smoky and even a bit charred flavor.  Very good.  Really very good, but I’d like to try some other places.  The crust could have been a bit crisper, for my taste, but the flavor was great.  But then we went out for gelato at a place near what used to be a theater, I’m told.  It was so amazing I forgot to take photos.  It was so amazing that it is now my favorite ice cream ever.  No small statement for me.  I may remember the coconut gelato I had there for the rest of my life.  The first time in Naples, I didn’t find much to love.  We looked for internet for hours and failed to find it in several different and frustrating ways.  Now I’m pretty excited about Naples.

The Theater in Naples

I guess the most important change on the Silhouette is that there is no Hot Glass Show.  The following are pictures from that ship. 

 Holy shiny floors!

 Nice pavers on the lawn leading to where our shop should be.

I am loving the huge Adirondack chairs.  They’re about 15 feet tall.

The Lawn Club Grill.  Booo.   This is where the glass shop would be.  I hear it’s really good food.

The floating tree gets a better planter in each subsequent ship.  If you can’t tell the tree hovers about 5 stories above the lobby floor.  In the background there’s a reading area called the hideaway, which is new.

Another change is that they have changed “Michael’s Club” from a piano bar into more of a sports bar hangout with a pretty good beer selection.  I’ve heard rumors that they’ll be retrofitting the rest of the ships like that too.  If I could get a good beer here on the ship, that would be awesome.

And really good photography!

It was a beautiful day in Naples.  Here’s a couple shots of sailaway and the Silhouette.  Thankfully I’ve never seen one of the Solstice class ships sail away from port.  It is kind of pretty though.