Our Mediterranean Cruise

I guess I should begin with what gave us the idea to go on such a wild, long vacation. Back in January, at a New Year's Party, my Kentucky friends and I were talking about what Robert and I were going to do to celebrate him finishing up his forever training to become a doctor. My friend, Daphne, suggested a cruise and proceeded to show me some that were available on the internet. A couple of weeks went by and Robert and I decided to JUST DO IT! We knew it would be a long time (like retirement) before we would ever have a chance to do such a lengthy vacation. We researched and found the one we wanted. So... we called a few friends and my parents up to invite them to come with us and my parents accepted (amazingly.) So.... on June 24th we flew out of Dallas, TX.... to Boston, MA.... to Madrid, Spain.... to Barcelona, Spain and began our European Adventure.

**Let me insert this bit of info. here.... We booked this trip BEFORE we sold our house and BEFORE we found a house. So we put a lot of faith in God to help us to sell our house, move in to our new house, and for it to all happen either before or after our vacation. Well... the vacation happened after, but that's a diff. story for a diff. day. Ok.. back to the trip.

DAY 1 (June 25th): 20 hours later (flying and lay-overs) we made it to the Barcelona airport. When we got there we found out our luggage didn't make it. We waited 5 hrs and it finally arrived. We were exhausted, so we went straight to the port to check in to the ship... a Holland America Ship called the Zuiderdam. We went straight to the room, took a shower, and fell into bed. We woke up at 9pm (Spain time) and went to eat dinner on the ship and then went back to bed.

DAY 2: We didn't book any excursions for Spain, because we weren't sure how tired we would be in having to adjust to an 8hr difference in time zones. Which... turned out to be great since we met a nice man on the airplane who had lived in Barcelona in the past... and he gave us some great advice about what to do in Barcelona. SO... we boarded a shuttle bus from the ship to the Gothic Square. Then we bought tickets to ride a double-decker tour bus. (This is well worth the money if you ever decide to visit.) There were headphones to listen to while you toured Barcelona. We sat up on the top and had a wonderful view. We saw a statue of Christopher Columbus, the famous church... Catedral de la Sagrada Familia (begun in 1882 and still not completed), and the stadium where the 1992 Olympic games were held. The people there were friendly and it helped that Robert could speak spanish. We were amazed at the number of motorcycles and even more surprised at how they would zip between cars driving and whip in and out of lanes. We had to be back on the ship by 3:30pm. That evening was formal night, so we showered and dressed up for dinner and a show.