Me

We got up early and had breakfast. The hotel where we were staying provides breakfast as part of the price of renting a room. They had a European style buffet with plenty of ham, fish, cheese, fruit, and some baked goods. They also served omelets to order. This place made the fluffiest ham, cheese and onion omelets I’ve ever had. Once breakfast was done, we headed out to see the sights.

Whenever I visit a town I’ve never been to before, I try to find the double decker busses. They usually charge you a fee for the day, which allows you ride those open topped, double decker busses without restriction. They usually have a circular route around the tourist areas, where they play a narration in several languages, and are a cost effective way to see the sights.

As you can see, the weather wasn’t great for sightseeing.

There were at least two squads of troops patrolling the immediate vicinity of the Eiffel Tower. Note that they have magazines inserted, but also have chamber flags in place. You can see the chamber flags if you zoom into the picture. We would periodically see armed patrols throughout the city, mostly centered around tourist areas. These aren’t parade troops- they appear to be (to my non-soldier Navy eye) regular troops- rifles with the bluing worn off in places, that sort of thing. The beret colors varied- we saw black, dark green, maroon, blue, and black.

These guys were just standing on the banks of the river Seine.

There was a giant shopping mall, two buildings- one for the women that was five stories tall, then you cross a pedestrian bridge over the street to the men’s building, and it was three stories tall. Even the building looked like artwork:

I really like the little cafes that are everywhere. Less of the franchise slop that you find in the US, more of little privately owned places.

The buildings and architecture make me realize just how talented craftsmen used to be. Even in the US, we don’t make stuff like this anymore.

Despite the fact that we rode a bus most of the way, we still managed to walk nearly ten miles, according to my smart watch. After a day like that, it was time to get some dinner and head back to the hotel.

We woke up at our hotel in Barcelona and headed to the train station. Because we didn’t know what to expect, we arrived at the train station 45 minutes early. There wasn’t much of a waiting area, I guess Spaniards don’t arrive early very often. Still, the train station was clean and there was no graffiti. You did have to pass through airport style security, complete with X-rayed luggage. Then they had all of the passengers for the entire train line up cattle style, then pushed all of us into the train at once.

We soon boarded the train and it headed off to France. The train was nice, and since we paid for first class tickets, we got comfortable seats and were seated on the upper deck, surrounded by large windows.

It was a beautiful ride, and the GPS in my phone said we were moving along at 120 miles per hour for most of the trip. It seems like there was a castle about every half a mile or so.

We soon arrived in Paris and took a cab to the hotel. It was rather chilly outside, 46 degrees. There were low clouds that looked a lot like it was about to snow, but I know it was too warm for that. What this did mean for us, was that it would rain every single day we were there.

When we arrived at the hotel, my wife’s true genius at this sort of thing finally made sense. Some of you asked how we managed to turn time share presentations into a free stay, and this is how she did it. We always stay at Hilton hotels. Whenever you do that, you are always approached by someone who offers you 100,000 honors points (Hilton Honors is the company’s loyalty program) or more for listening to their pitch. My wife would say yes, and we would be roped in to a 3 hour time share pitch. Once, she even booked a stay at Myrtle Beach, for which she got even more points. Again, another time share spiel. All told, she earned (we earned) over 2 million points in less than two years.

When she was planning this trip, she found a nice hotel in Paris that was part of the Hilton system and cashed in half a million points for a 5 night stay. When I say this was a nice hotel, I mean when you walk into the lobby, they offer you canapes and champaign while you wait for them to check you in and get your bags to your room. The place was really nice. She was determined to make this trip memorable, because we have been together for twelve years and married for ten.

Once we were in our room, we went to dinner.

Looking at the wine list, I wanted a Riesling, and they wouldn’t only sell non-French wines by the bottle. The wine was 54 Euros for the bottle, and (French) Onion Soup was 15 Euros.

That price was a bit of a shock, but everything, and I do mean everything, in Europe was expensive. Gasoline was 2 Euro per liter, which works out to $8 per gallon. Still, a crock of onion soup costing $20 explains how they afford “free” healthcare, and also explains how Europeans stay so thin.

Dinner was duck confit, followed by a shared crepe for dessert.

In all, dinner was about 180 Euros- yeah. That’s $220 American dollars for dinner, even if you don’t count the wine, the dinner was more than $150.

We walked a block back to the hotel and arrived to find the bed had been turned down, and cans of spring water were left on each bedside table and some jazz was playing in the room. Oddly enough, the song was c’est si bon. Nice touch.

At this point, we are 16 days into our 21 day vacation, but this is debarkation day from the cruise. As we go through customs, there is a new twist. I’ve been to Europe before, but this time, they both take a picture for facial ID and take everyone’s fingerprints. As we traveled about Spain, I noticed African “migrants” in each town, blatantly breaking the law by their mere presence, and selling black market goods by laying them out on the sidewalk.

It seems the world is full of police powers and restrictions for everyone except illegal immigrants, happening everywhere and in every country, almost as if it were an international conspiracy. It’s shit like this that make me understand where the “one world government” theories come from.

We were spending the night here in Barcelona, so we checked in to the hotel then proceeded to walk around and do some sightseeing. This was a charming little book and stationery store near our hotel.

I love writing letters on parchment paper using fountain pens, but that is something almost no one does any more, and I wanted to go in to see what they had. What did they have? Four stories of fine paper, expensive, high-quality pens, and interesting paper goods like these book sized models:

This pen was on sale for more than $2000 Euros- that’s about $2500. I like fine pens, but not this much. A pen costing this much should come with a membership to the blowjob of the month club. If you’re getting screwed, might as well get some foreplay.

We weren’t especially hungry, so we decided for a light dinner. This is what we had:

Along with a few glasses of Sangria:

Off to bed, so we can take the train to Paris in the morning.

The last day of our cruise has arrived. We arrived at Palma, a city on the island of Mallorca, just off the Spanish coast for our last port visit. I have been here ten times from my time with the US Navy, and my wife and I have been here before, back in 2017. This time, we decided not to go ashore, and weather was poor- temperatures in the 40’s (Fahrenheit), winds of 40 miles per hour, and rain were making conditions outside miserable. Combined with the fact that out pier was a long walk to anything we would want to visit, we made the decision to stay on the ship.

It was a good choice. The ship has a glass enclosed pool deck called the solarium, and we spend the majority of the day lounging next to an indoor pool and hot tub. Once the ship got underway, we went to dinner before heading to the sports bar to watch some sports and have a few cocktails. We also enjoyed some jazz musicians before heading back to our cabin to pack our things for an early morning departure.

The next morning, our plan was to begin the land based portion of the vacation, and I knew I would not want to risk connecting to this blog through the Internet, as I am well aware of the European idea of free speech- or lack thereof. More on that tomorrow.

As a side note, I don’t usually post a lot of self-information like this, but to be quite honest, all of the disaster porn of the fall of the US, although my most popular posts, is getting difficult to write. It’s a challenge finding fresh content, and it’s a bit depressing as well. So these posts are a way of escaping the ever expanding list of bad news, reminds me that there are still plenty of upbeat topics out there, and disproves the leftist trope of those on the right being uneducated and untraveled morons.

The last of our room charge was wiped out by this little guy.

We arrived in Cartagena the next morning. That city is the main Mediterranean navy base for Spain. Just down the street from our dock was the main gate for the base.

This was the port where fatigue finally set in. We didn’t take a tour in this town. We decided to just walk around the area for a bit before returning to the ship. The architecture was the same as the other ports, the weather was nice, but we were just a bit tired of all of the walking. We had been walking ten miles or so a day, and this day we just walked out, got some lunch, and returned to the ship. To be honest, we have been eating so much gourmet food and good wine that I was ready for just a regular hamburger and a coke at this point.

I’m not faulting the lunch we had. I love the little restaurants and shops, but sometimes you miss the food from home, and at this point we have been on the move for over two weeks. I did see a cigarette machine in a store. I haven’t seen one of those in years.

There were some Roman ruins that I briefly looked at:

We went back to the ship and took a nap. We were tired and needed it. Dinner was amazing as always. We hit the casino and won big. When you play in the casino, you earn slot machine comps. I decided to use up all of them, as this was the second to last night. I picked a random machine, and the damned thing hit for $1200. My wife then hit on her machine for another $1400. So we walked out of the casino that night with more than $2600. Combined with our winnings from previous nights, we decided to pay our onboard expense account. That way, when we left the ship at the end of the cruise, we wouldn’t be traveling around with so much cash. After 2 weeks on the cruise our tab came to over $4000, so we paid it and still had some cash left over.

The morning after we were in Gibraltar, we stopped in Malaga, Spain. This city has been in existence for over 2800 years. It always amazes me just how old European cities are. I really think that’s one of the reasons why Americans are not so aware of history- to us, it exists only as words in a book, but to Europeans, they are surrounded by it. You can walk around towns like this and see old Roman columns and Moorish castles scatter about neighborhoods. In the US, we don’t really get that. To Europeans, buildings that are hundreds of years old are commonplace.

For example, this cathedral in the town has in it’s basement a relic that is simply unbelievable- a piece of the true cross. Catholics claim this is a piece of the cross whereupon Jesus was crucified. Even if that isn’t something you believe in, the fact that this relic has been within this church for over 1400 years old is simply incredible.

I absolutely love to see the extreme amount of craftsmanship and work that went into these old cathedrals. The art in here is preciously valuable. There are objects in this cathedral that weigh hundreds of pounds, are made of solid gold and silver. The melt value is in the millions, and they are priceless works of art.

Moving on, there is also a large bullfighting ring in the city.

The streets here are simply beautiful. They paved these older cities with marble tile.

Then it was back to the ship for a lovely dinner. First was the butter poached lobster salad.

Then some filet mignon.

Finished by a delicious piece of strawberry cheesecake.

We went to a brief concert from the house band before winning a bit of money in the casino. Still down about $3000 at this point, but slowly winning some of it back.

After leaving Cadiz, our next stop was Gibraltar. It’s an outpost of Britain, the currency is the pound, the language English, and people born here of Gibraltar parents are considered to be British citizens. Note that, like every country except the USA, being born in Britain doesn’t automatically confer citizenship. There are 34,000 people living here, and another 100,000 or so come into the city from Spain to work in the city’s shipyards and shops. For this reason, most of the people here also speak Spanish. This isn’t uncommon in Europe, with many people speaking 2, 3, or as many as 5 different languages due to the close proximity of so many different peoples.

We paid a cab driver to drive us around and show us the sights. We went to St. Michael’s cave, and even interacted with the monkeys who live there.

There are a couple of legends about the cave: one being that the cave has no bottom, and the other that it is attached to a cave system that stretches across the straits to Africa and is how the monkeys got to the European side. Military officers attempted to see how far the caves went and were never seen again. The cave has since been extensively explored, and no remains or recent cave ins were found, so the men remain missing to this day.

During World War 2, the caves were used as a bomb shelter and hospital. Today, it’s used as a concert hall for musical performances and as a tourist attraction. There are some spots where you can look down and it appears as though the cave stretches down to the center of the planet. It DOES look quite deep.

As I was walking down a trail near the top of the mountain, one of them reached out and grabbed my shoulder. My wife was attempting to take a picture, and the little guy jumped on to my back and began grooming my hair. We continued to walk, and he stayed on my shoulders for a good bit. People walking by were taking my picture and also giving me advice on how to get rid of him. He wasn’t hurting me or anything, so I let him stay there until he decided we had walked far enough.

From the top of the Rock, I was above the clouds and got this picture of a mountain on the African side

After that, we went to a cliff overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar, where we could get a good look at Africa.

Back to the ship for dinner, and as the rock sailed out of sight, we also saw a US destroyer. It was the USS Roosevelt, heading westward to the Atlantic, and I presume to her homeport in Rota, Spain.

We went to a concert. The singer was Nicola Ward, a well known British woman, and she sang an absolutely beautiful rendition of Con te partirò.

After that, we spent some time in the casino, and I walked out of there up $1000 for the night, thanks to some great shooters at the craps table.

After Lisbon, we had our last sea day. My luck in the casino turned, and I won over $400. Well, I actually was up about $800, but one of the things I need to learn is quitting when I am ahead. By the time I realized the table had gone cold, I was lucky to leave the table up by $400.

The next day, we docked in Cadiz, Spain. We actually got on a bus and went to Seville. This city is absolutely stunning, and I learned on this tour the reason why streets in so many towns in that era are narrow and winding. I had always assumed that it was because they were designed for foot traffic and didn’t want to bother with wide, straight streets. That isn’t the case- they did it because it was more difficult for raiders on horseback to ride down the street. The absence of 90 degree intersections was because winding streets also facilitated the ocean breeze blowing through the town. Another factoid was poor people didn’t live near the beach because pirates and other ships would raid the waterfront. Add to that the fact that no one really swam in the ocean until after 1800, and no one with money wanted to be near the ocean.

Seville, like many towns on the Iberian peninsula, was heavily influenced by the Moors, who weren’t kicked out of the area until the time of Columbus. The Moors brought a lot of advanced mathematics, archeology, science, and education to Europe, which along with the Renaissance begun in Italy, helped in ending the “dark ages” of Medieval Europe. Check out some of the sights of Seville.

The following pictures are from the Palace:

One thing that annoyed me was when some of our fellow American tourists saw the brotherhoods for Holy Week, the first comment was “OOOh, the Klan.” By the end of this trip, I gained an understanding of why so many in Europe think that Americans are uneducated swine.

Seville was an absolutely beautiful city, and there were many examples of both Moorish and Renaissance art and architecture. I really enjoyed this tour, even though I didn’t see a single barber.

After leaving the Azores, we had a day at sea. We rode some bumper cars then played some games in the sports bar over a few cocktails.

The day after that, we spent the day in Lisbon, Portugal. No, the people who live here aren’t called Lisbians, but they probably should be. We had a good day touring the city, the people who lived here were friendly and gracious. The city was beautiful:

The cathedrals in Europe are filled with superior art and craftsmanship. The amount of skilled labor it took to build them simply amazes me. This one is over 300 years old:

Before returning to the ship, we stopped at a large shopping mall, and while we were in there, we got some lunch. That’s where a bit of trouble kicked in. Google translate allows you to point your camera at something that’s printed in a different language, and the software alters the image so it appears in English.

While translating the menu, there was an item called lagartas, which Google dutifully translated to lizards. We weren’t feeling all that adventurous, so we ordered the pork and pineapples.

It turns out that Google is a bit literal. Lagartas is a dish made from thinly sliced Iberain ham, and has nothing to do with reptiles. The hazards of dealing with other languages.

On the way out of the mall, we stopped at a small bakery and got a traditional Portuguese egg custard tarts, Pastel de Nata. These things are incredible. I’m glad we only got a few of these, because I could easily gain some weight with these things.

With our stomachs full, it was time to leave Lisbon, but I would not mind returning at all. As we left port, I snapped this picture:

More ports, more travelling- tune in tomorrow as we enter Spain.

The Seventh Day of the crossing, and we arrived in the Azores at Ponta Delgada. We spent the day on a bus tour of the island. The Azores, being volcanic islands, are rocky islands. Still, there was a fairly large amount of farmland.

On our tour, we wound up at the top of the caldera of a large volcano. From there, you can see the city at the bottom, Sete Cidades. It’s breathtaking. The city is next to the lake that is located at the bottom of a large caldera, 3 miles across at its widest, and 1300 feet from the rim to the bottom. The views from the rim are amazing. This picture doesn’t do the view justice. Those homes you see in this picture are more than 1000 feet below, and a mile away. The wind blowing up from the bottom of the caldera is fairly strong, I would estimate around 30 miles per hour or so.

After spending the day here, the ship left port, headed to our next stop. More on that later.