France and the Azores.

Nov 1-5,

Paris

We went to Paris today!  Rode the bus from the ship for a couple hours, which I slept through both ways.  I’m not sure why, but it felt really good.  They dropped us off at the Tower and we went right over and stood in line for the elevator tickets.  We couldn’t go to the top because of “congestion.”  Don’t know what that means, but the second deck about half way up still afford a spectacular view of the city.  We hiked the stairs back down, which was fun and also gave good angles for pictures. 

These seemed to be large pneumatic cylinders or possibly just counterweights.  They went up and down when the elevator went up and down.

Next we looked for  a nice place to eat lunch, which we found ten blocks or so away.  Probably still close enough to the tower that a lot of tourists go there, but there were locals too.  A couple people got steak and fries, but I ordered the mixed cheese and meat appetizer which was totally the way to go.  The cheeses were great and the meats were also very delicious.  With a glass of wine and a baguette, it was exactly what I wanted to be eating in Paris.  After lunch we headed back toward the tower.  The other guys wanted to see the Louvre, but I’ve been there and there would be no time to look around at this point, so I just went down and walked along the Seine for a little way and then back.  It was amazing how desolate the walkway right by the river is.  The sidewalk about 15 feet above and along the street was crowded with people, but if you went down the steps to the river, you could walk in near isolation.

Josh, Me, Matt, Josh, and Kyle lunching.

I ordered the right thing.

Recognize that?

After this I headed back to the tower and met  everyone at the bus.  There was one straggler who there was some worry she wouldn’t catch the bus.  (Serious business)  But she came running up about 5 minutes after the appointed time, so all was well.  A really nice day, although we of course only barely scratched the surface of even the touristy things to do in the city.

Getting pictures with the heavily armed security.

Woah.  Did I get on the bus to Redmond?

Cherbourg

This was a nice smaller French town.  Not that small of course.  It did have a port big enough to host a huge cruise ship.  But it also had some really old buildings made of stone that you look at and think, “yes that is definitely French.  I wandered around not really looking for anything most of the time I was here.  For a while I did sit in a café/restaurant and drink some cider, which was exceptional, (this region is also known for its calvados, an apple based liquor, maker of the Norman Hole, so I thought I should try the cider) and use their internet.  After that I wandered more and then tried to find art supplies, which I found with time running out and then hopped on the bus back to the ship.  Success!

Sea Day

It was good to do a couple shows again today.  The weather was lousy though.  Annette said that earlier it looked like someone had been to the shop with a salt shaker and shook a fine layer of salt onto everything, but by the time we were cleaning up, it was wet enough that everything dissolved, so we just hosed everything off and hoped for the best.  The ship was also rocking as much as it has this whole trip, which is quite a lot.  The furnace door was opening and closing by itself and you had to keep control of the yoke in front of the glory hole lest it roll backward or forward without your bidding.

Vigo

I really like Vigo.  There is a very touristy shopping district, but also some really amazing fish markets.  I found one off the beaten path that seemed really exceptional.  It was a big market with lots of stalls, but the whole place smelled incredibly clean.  I’m sure there was not a scrap of unaccounted for fish or crab or lobster in the whole place. 

The town has lots of really narrow steep streets and stone buildings with great iron railings on all the little balconies.  Eventually I made it to the top of the hill where an old fort looks over the whole city.  There was no one else there for a while until a couple other tourists showed up.  It was a great spot.  Almost totally deserted and with great views over the whole town.

Vigo seemed almost totally under construction.  I loved the brightly colored tubes at all the work sites.

Many buildings in Spain and Portugal had fantastic tilework at street level.

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.

Island Hopping, Madeira and the Canary Islands

Oct 21-27

So I’m writing this in retrospect.  These days were a bit of a blur.  I was trying to get things settled and or fixed and trying to learn how to get from here to there and also trying to get off the ship as often as possible to see things.

Madeira, Portugal was our first stop and it was pretty fantastic.  We started in Southampton, England where the weather is about like Seattle in the fall.  Grey, drizzly and cool, bordering on chilly.  Madeira is a small island owned by Portugal and it was sunny and warm and had dazzling flowers and lizards that were sunning themselves on the walls.  It was amazing.  Here and in many of the places since, many of the sidewalks were “tiled” with white and black rocks arranged to make decorative patterns.   Which are beautiful and probably last forever.

I think my favorite part of this island was how quickly you felt that you’d found local places when you’d turn off the main tourist drag.  Wherever a cruise ship docks, you will find people catering to the ship guests and generally whatever it is, it holds very little interest for me.  So I took a left turn off the strip as soon as I could and within a block the pace of life seemed to come to a crawl.  People were drinking drinks at an outdoor café next to a plaza of an old building and adjacent was an incredible, shady park with water features and locals playing soccer with their friends and so I hung out in this area for the hour or so that I had off the ship that day.

Love the graffiti and the stonework.

Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Tenerife, like Madeira before it is built between the mountains and the sea, with the town starting at the water and pushing its way up the hill.  This town was a bit bigger, with a light rail system and just the feel of a bigger city.  It had a beautiful plaza near the water and many shops around, but still had lots of narrow roads to wander around and explore.  I was very impressed by all the public art here.  Particularly some rather large scale bronze sculptures.  It just seemed that there was a lot of respect and value of handmade accents on buildings and the feel that you wouldn’t have to look far to find some one of a kind object.

Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain

Gran Canaria had the beach town feel.  There was a mall right by the dock where I and the guys I was hanging out with that day went bowling.  That’s right.  I’ve bowled on a tropical Spanish island.

Beyond the mall there is a downtown with lots of beach and tourist oriented stores as well as shopping for locals.  It is a reasonable sized city, but once you walk through about 5 blocks of buildings you’re on the real beach which stretches for a couple miles.  We walked down the boardwalk and then I walked back up the beach by myself.  When I retraced my steps back toward the dock I started to second guess myself.  I had plenty of time, but when I came out to where I could see the ship I wasn’t exactly where I thought I was going to be and it took a bit longer to get back than I was planning, but I’ve been giving myself at least an hour of buffer time to learn about these sorts of things.

Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain

This is the only port I didn’t get off the ship at.  I had a couple trainings this day.  There are lots of trainings when you start life on a ship.  They were about daily up to this point.  Lanzarote was pretty industrial looking right around the ship, but there were a few volcanoes on the horizon that looked like they might be fun to explore, but alas, no time.