Greetings from the Mediterranean Sea! I’ve just left Barcelona for the second time and I should be in Cannes, France within the next 11 hours. The last 3 weeks have been…overwhelming. I have seen amazing places and worked harder than I have in the last year.
My last post was written from a Dunkin’ Donuts in Nassau, Bahamas. I had just gotten a new boss and a new colleague and was about to spend the next week sailing directly across the ocean. Sailing across the ocean is not new to me. Last year I sailed from Ireland, to Iceland, to Canada. It was great- amazing days spent exploring the ports and lazy days at sea spent not doing much of anything- reading, watching television, maybe a couple hours at work. Well, I’m not sure what changed, but some how I started to work 12 hours on each of our sea days. This was not at all what I had expected from my crossing! I had gotten lots of snacks and movies on my last day in the US to get ready for a lazy week to relax before I got busy exploring Europe. Instead I spent most of the week in my office or running around the ship and longing for a few spare hours to see my bed each day. It was crazy.
One of the extra events we did on the Crossing (That’s what we call it when a ship repositions to a new port by crossing an ocean. Clever, huh?) was Dancing with the Stripes. I’m certain you are all familiar with Dancing with the Stars. Onboard, we paired one of the Royal Caribbean Dancers from our production cast with an officer. The dancers taught our officers/stripes a dance routine over the course of a few weeks and we put it all together into a 45 minute show during the crossing. The preparation for this show began shortly after I joined the ship. My department was tasked with filming interviews with each of the couples. I was not involved in the filming or the initial editing of the interviews into 5 minute segments for television. However, I had to take the 8 segments we had and trim each of them down to one minute to be played during the live show. In addition I edited an introduction video for the entire show- like the opening credits- showing each couple in action. During the show, I had to record the entire event for onboard television and roll the videos at the proper times. I taught my new colleague how and when to roll the videos, but I ran the entire show. I loved it! It was busy, and stressful, and could not have gone better. Everyone was thrilled with how the event went and the Hotel Director threw us all a cocktail party in the theater after the show. I think I proved myself that night. I was still seen as the new kid by a lot of management onboard, but I met this challenge and produced a great show.
Okay, enough work talk- I’m sure you don’t read this to hear about video production although I am a wealth of information.
Our first port of call was Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The Canary Islands are technically part of Spain but are actually a lot closer to Africa. But, I did not go to Africa. I’ve still only been on 2 continents. Sad. I have a goal to be on all of them by the time I am 30- sounds like I better hurry up. Anyway, the Canary Islands gave me my first of many chances to continue working on my Spanish. I was able to order my lunch and kind of speak with my waiter- what a combination- my broken Spanish and his broken English. I ate traditional Canary Island soup and some meatballs. Turns out the Canaries are not big fans of flavor. Everything seemed very bland to me. After lunch I walked down the waterfront to the Opera house with it’s space-agey architecture. Then I walked back through town to the Botanical Gardens where I played on a playground. Fun fact of the Canary Islands: It’s not called Canary because of the birds, instead it is canary as in canine. That’s right, it is known for it’s large dog population.
Our next port was Cadiz on the mainland of Spain. Cadiz fun fact: It’s the oldest city in Europe. Bonus fun fact: Columbus set sail on 3 of his voyages from here. I had tapas in Cadiz. Tapas are like eating a bunch of side dishes for your meal. They are a lot cheaper than ordering a full meal, but they are not necessarily small. For example, I ordered a panini. After lunch we explored town and found a park next to the water. There are lots of cobblestone, picturesque, narrow streets. It is very beautiful. After wandering aimlessly for most of the day we found our way to the Cathedral. The Cathedral is decorated with gold brought back from the New World. It also has a crypt below that we visited. I’ve been in literally hundreds if not thousands of churches, but this was my first time in a crypt! After seeing the cathedral and the nearby museum we stopped for churros and hot chocolate before it was time to get back on board. Churros are kind of like a stick version of funnel cake. I covered mine in sugar and dunked it in my hot chocolate, but I’m not sure if that’s what you are supposed to do with it.
After Cadiz we moved on to Malaga. Malaga was probably my favorite port of the crossing, but it was also the one we had the shortest amount of time in. I visited the Alcazaba- a fort built by the Moors. Next door are the ruins of a Roman Theater. I felt like I was walking around in a history book. The Alcazaba is HUGE. It’s a fort with a palace inside of it. We were able to climb up the walls and enjoy spectacular views of the city. Everyone with me got a view of what I’m really like in port when I suggested we take the 25 minute hike uphill to the Gibralfalo castle. Our day started with 10 of us, but only 4 of us made it to the top! Again, the views were amazing. We could see into the bull ring that lay far below us. Malaga is a sprawling city- very different from Cadiz. Sorry, but I can’t think of any fun facts for Malaga.
Later that day at about 11:30 PM we began our approach to the Strait of Gibraltar. It was obviously quite dark as we were going through, but it was cool to be able to see the lights of Spain in the distance while you had the lights of Gibraltar (property of the UK) on the port side and lights of Morocco in Africa on the starboard side. I took lots of pictures that night, but they all look the same to me now. Dark sky with some lights. How do I know if they are African or European lights? It was difficult to see the Rock of Gibraltar as we were in the strait, but it was silhouetted by the lights from the town after we passed through. That night was one of my best on board this ship. I was watching us sail through on the helipad at the front of the ship with 4 other people from my division. It was completely dark up there and if one wandered away from the pack they had a hard time finding us again. There were a few guests up there too. While we were there, some of the crew members were concerned that the railing moved a bit. So I explained that it moves because it’s not a fixed railing- it lays flat whenever we need to get a helicopter in. In addition all of the benches up there can be removed and the front mast also lays flat. Then I told them about how the helicopter doesn’t actually land, but instead hovers. I’ve been on the bridge to film this before so I know quite a lot about it. Well, some guests must have overheard me because about ten minutes later my friends overheard them telling the exact same story with all of my random facts. At least have the courtesy to move away from me while you verbally plagiarize me!
The following day we were in Valencia, Spain. I was really excited to come here. They have an amazing complex known as the City of Arts and Sciences. The entire complex is laid out like the body of the whale- one building is the ribs, one the eye, the fountain near the front is the blowhole, etc. It was breathtaking. Sadly we didn’t have much time in this city either. But I did get a chance to go visit the local bullring and visit the bull fighting museum. I didn’t really know anything about bull fighting before. Now that I do, I don’t understand why people would volunteer for that. Oktoberfest was going on in the bullring (yes, I know it was April but apparently the Germans in Valencia did not) so it was open to the public and we got to go in for a look. It’s a lot smaller than I expected it to be. I was thinking it would be the size of an MLB stadium, but it felt much smaller. Not really any fun facts for here either, but I did have an interesting drink. We’re not sure what it was (and I was with people that spoke Spanish) but we think it was chestnut milk. I don’t know how you get milk from a chestnut but I suspect it’s similar to how you get milk from a soy bean.
The following day I was finally in Barcelona and my crossing had come to a close. Barcelona is now my home port until I leave in October. I was so tired that I contemplated not even going out in Barcelona, but some friends of mine convinced me to go to breakfast with them at an Irish pub- nothing like eating Irish pub food in Spain. After that I just walked around town for a bit and went into one of the churches Gaudi designed, but not the super famous one- I’m saving that for a day when I have more time.
Our next port was meant to be Cannes, France. I am very excited to get to Cannes. The film festival will be happening there in the next couple weeks and I can’t wait to check it all out. However, I have to wait because we couldn’t make it in last week. Cannes does not have a pier for us to dock so we are forced to take small boats from the ship to shore. However, the swell was a couple meters high and we could not safely get onto these boats so we left after a couple hours. We sailed up the coast past Nice, Monaco, and Villefranche- all places that I hope to visit this summer. We will typically sail past these places at night so it was great to actually be able to see them at least once.
The next day was Civitavecchia or the Port of Rome. Originally we were scheduled to have a drill in this port. No one told me that the drill was rescheduled for the next day so I was onboard waiting for it for a few hours. Had I known I didn’t have to be there I would have went on a tour of Rome. Instead I went back to bed for a few more hours and then went out and ate my first pizza in Italy!
I did have drill the following day, but went outside afterwards in Palma de Mallorca. I may visit Palma one more time this summer, but it is not one of our regular stops. I visited the huge and beautiful Cathedral (the Med has a lot of cathedrals). I wanted to visit the round Belver Castle, but we couldn’t find the right bus to take us there and we didn’t have much time. I will go there if we come back here.
I was back in Barcelona today, but we did not get shore leave until midmorning so I decided to just to stay on this time. I will be in Barcelona many more times and I know I have lots of exploring to do, but for today it was nice to just rest and relax.
Thanks for reading! Much, much more to come!
One thought on “The First Post From Europe!”
I LOOOOVE churros!!! But… dunking them in hot chocolate made me laugh! I've never done that, but hey, do what you want, right? Just like some people like to stick their french fries in their frosties. 🙂 Or like dunking biscotti in coffee.