Hello from the Mediterranean!

As I write this, I am sitting in my stateroom and the view outside is incredible.  The sunset is just beautiful.  We are somewhere between Italy and Greece.  We spent today in Sicily and will wake up in Corfu, Greece tomorrow morning.  I have tons and tons to share and more pictures than you guys will probably want to see but for today, I am just posting a sneak peek.  This cruise has been amazing and we have been to some wonderful places. One really nice thing about traveling on a cruise ship is that you can really settle in and unpack and yet still see all sorts of different places.  Our first stop was in Villefranche, France and while there we visited Nice, Monaco, and Monte Carlo.  Nice was our favorite, we walked the streets in the old town and then Joe played on a really nice playground for a little while before we boarded the bus for our next stop.  Monaco was also very beautiful but we didn't have much time there and it was incredibly crowded.  I won't go into great detail now about our days, I'll save that for when I get a chance to BLOG.IT.ALL.  Here are some highlights though--
Riding a bike on the 6th century (I think...) walls of Lucca, seeing the leaning tower of Pisa, the Colosseum, Pantheon, and Vatican in Rome, eating gelato almost daily, walking through the ruins of the city of Pompeii, afternoon naps on the bus aka the Napmobile, walking on the rim of a crater on Mount Etna, sitting in an ancient Greek theatre in Taormina, seeing the girls and Joe make new friends on the ship, characters in costumes matching the countries we are visiting, dinner!, and that's just the highlights!   My pictures are still loading so I'll keep talking.  For the first time on a Disney cruise, all of our children have enjoyed the kids' clubs.  Joe and Grace can go to Edge, the middle school club and Hannah can go to Vibe, the high school club.  Joe has especially enjoyed dodgeball and playing soccer on the XBox.  He goes there for at least a little while every day and has made some friends although he doesn't know anyone's names.  He is not as into the social aspect but does enjoy some of the activities that they offer.  The girls on the other hand....we've hardly seen them when we are on the ship.  Grace goes back and forth between Edge and hanging out with Audrey, the girl she met on our Pre-Cruise Adventure in Barcelona.  Audrey can go to Edge or Vibe (actually, Grace can go to Vibe but only b/c she has a sibling in Vibe but her sister isn't terribly keen to have her there so her time in Vibe is limited).  Hannah has been hanging out with Ashley (the girl she met in Barcelona) and a whole group of other kids including quite a few boys.  She is having a blast and has already had to break the heart of one boy who had a big crush on her.  My "unsocialized" homeschoolers are handling themselves very well and I am so glad they are having such a great time getting to know kids from the US as well as a few other countries.  I am thankful for our excursions in the ports so that I actually get to see the girls and spend time with them.  Ollie and I have watched a couple of World Cup soccer games down in the pub and seen a few shows.  We saw some incredible illusionists that we are still talking about.  The weather has been perfect, dry and not terribly hot.  It's been a very nice change from the broiling heat of Florida.  We have three more ports--Corfu, Greece, Dubrovnik, Croatia, and Venice, Italy.  I think that about covers it and my pictures are almost uploaded and then I'll add them to this post.  I'm headed to bed early tonight, we had to get up at 6 in order to be off the ship and on our way by 7 this morning.  Joe is trying to stay up until 11 in order to go to Edge because Vibe is "invading Edge" from 11 to 12 tonight and he wants to go defend his club.  The kids have been coming in around 11 or 12 every night and manage to catch up on their sleep in short naps on the bus aka the Napmobile.  Enjoy the pictures and I'll be back in a couple of days with more pictures to share!  Miss you all, peace out peeps! 

 There are character appearances all over the ship and often the lines are too long for any of my kiddos to want to wait but in spite of that we've managed to get a few pictures.  I love to see their outfits--they change with every country.  Below is Hannah in Lucca.

 Above is Grace and Joe eating breakfast on deck early one morning before we went out on an excursion.  Below is Joe on one of the play sets in Nice.

 Above is Grace and Hannah in Monaco and below Ollie, Joe, and Grace during our bike ride in Lucca.  Wendy--if you are reading this...thank you for the suggestion!!  This might be my favorite thing we've done yet!

 Above Grace is taking the traditional picture at Pisa.  I also have pictures of Hannah and Joe doing the same thing but Grace's turned out the best.  Below Hannah and Grace are in the Colosseum (along with a million other people). 

 Above and below--these pictures were taken at the Pantheon in Rome which was a-m-a-z-i-n-g! 

 Above--Grace and Hannah in Pompeii and below, marzipan in Taormina! 

Seven Quick Takes Vacay Style

1.  This is our last morning in Barcelona and I have about one hour before my suitcase needs to be outside my door packed and ready to be transferred to the cruise ship.  We have about 2 hours before we leave to board the boat.  Right now only Joe and I (and H and B) are awake.  We've all already had breakfast and my plan is to blog super quick, pack everything up and take Joe for a walk outside for a last look at the city.  I actually feel a little guilty for taking precious moments to blog but I'm doing it anyway.  That's what vacay is for--to be wild and crazy.
2.  We went to a really neat place for dinner last night.  It was called Poble Espanol and it was this small village within the city with lots of shops and restaurants.  We had about an hour of free time before dinner, the girls went out with their new friends to walk around and came back with matching Barcelona t-shirts.  Joe and I found a couple of souvenirs as well.  He wanted a model of La Sagrada Familia, the huge church we visited.  I got a magnet for the fridge.  Like I said before, vacay is the time to be wild and crazy.  Actually, I find magnets to be a great, cheap souvenir of a place.  You get to see them a lot, every time you open your fridge and they are usually very cheap.  They take up almost no space in your suitcase or your home.  I imagine I'll have a lot of magnets by the end of this trip.
3.  What I really want are snow globes though...I find it almost funny all of the things you can find in a snow globe and they had some fabulous ones with La Sagrada Familia in them.  I tried to talk Joe into getting that for his souvenir but he wanted a model that wasn't in a snow globe.  I find the snow globes to be funny and a tiny bit tacky which you all know is my favorite decorating style and the only style I'm good at.  Actually, as I type this I'm regretting not just buying the snow globe last night. I could have a fabulous collection by the end of this trip if I wanted to.  (Wendy--Kirk's snow globe with Pisa in it is what sparked my interest in snow globes with famous places in them by the way, no offense with the tacky comment I hope...I really love them!)  Maybe I'll find a kitschy souvenir stand on my walk this morning.
4.  At every meal we've had here there has been bread with olive oil and tomato smashed into it and I love it.  It's especially good with eggs.
5.  Forgot to mention dinner last night.  We had dinner and a show with Flamenco dancers and I was entranced as was everyone else.  I have seen Flamenco dance before but not like this.  It was incredible and the food was amazing as well.  We have eaten soooo much here even though I'm really trying not to.  Thankfully we've done a lot of walking and that helps to walk some of it off but really, I probably need two thousand Jazzercise classess to work off the amount of food I've consumed.
6.  I know this is only six but Joe is anxiously waiting for me and I really don't want to miss having some time to take a walk and look for a snow globe.  I'll be back to blogging in about 2 weeks I think...peace out peeps!

Barcelona Day Two

 I only have a few minutes here to get this post up.  Tomorrow we leave wifi for about 12 days so this is probably the last post for a while, I may try to do one more tonight after our dinner and flamenco show.  The first picture above is from dinner last night.  We went to a restaurant a few blocks from our hotel for dinner.  A few of us had paella, an authentic spanish dish.  Joe and Ollie had pizza and we were all happy with our dinner.  After dinner we took a walk and found a candy store.  See the bottom of this post for those pictures, they ended up out of order.  Grace has decided that she wants to buy candy from every country we visit so we found her a candy store and everybody benefited from that decision.  After the candy store, we set off looking for a clothing store called Mango that Hannah had heard about.  We got there right before closing but that didn't stop Hannah from finding a great deal on a new shirt.  Those pictures are dark but you get the idea.

 We were up early this morning for an hour bus ride to Monserrat, a monastery up on a mountain.  This place is famous for housing the Black Madonna.  A 9th century statue that was found in a cave a long time ago (I can't remember how long ago...).  We took a bus and then a train to get up the mountain to the monastery and immediately got in line to see her.  There is a picture of Joe below touching the statue which is supposed to be good luck.  I don't believe in luck but everyone was touching it and taking pictures so we did too.  When in Rome...or Montserrat...

The church that housed the Madonna was so ornate and beautiful.  Again, as with the church yesterday, pictures do not do it justice but I took a few anyway.  I especially loved two of the windows, so many colors in the stained glass.  

 After seeing the Basilica, we boarded a funicula to go further up the mountain to a beautiful overlook.  We took pictures and then some of us went back down on the funicula and some of us hiked.  Ollie and the kids joined in the hike down and H and B and I went shopping.  The monks are famous for making a special liquor (hazelnut and walnut are two of the flavors) as well as chocolate and we tried and bought both.

 Above is one of our guides, James, passing out the pin of the day--we have gotten pins each day we've been here and from what I hear, these are valuable and can be sold on the black market, I mean Ebay for big bucks.  You can only get them on the tours and pin collectors want them.  We now have 5 each of 4 different pins...hmmm...

Once everyone was done with the hike we had a pre-lunch snack of bread and chocolate, sampling some of the wares and then went on to a huge lunch before taking the bus back down the mountain.  It has been a great day, we have had about an hour and a half of downtime and it's about over.  Time to change clothes and get ready to go out again.  I will try to blog one more time before we leave to get on the ship tomorrow.  

Traveling Hiccups and Barcelona

 We started our travel at about noon on Tuesday and a long 24 hours later arrived in Barcelona.  We made it to the airport on time and even had time for lunch at the airport complete with a margarita!  Our flight was delayed by a half hour but that wasn't too bad considering right after we took off they closed the airport for a while due to weather.  We landed in Miami with one hour before our next flight took off.  We rushed to the gate, boarded the flight and were on our way....until we weren't.  The temperature sensors were messed up so back to the gate we went and while there a fuel leak in the wing was discovered.  They de-boarded us and eventually sent us across the airport to a new gate.  Approximately 5 hours later at 11:30 we were boarding the plane.  We occupied ourselves in the airport playing cards, talking to a real Hapsburg princess (her grandfather was the last emperor of Austria), and reading and waiting.

 The flight was mostly uneventful until about an hour or two from our destination, the plane had to make an emergency landing in Madrid due to a medical problem with a passenger on board.  That was taken care of and we re-fueled and all of that took almost 2 hours.  Originally we were supposed to arrive in Barcelona at 9:30 am and instead we got in at about 4:30.  By the time we made it to the hotel it was almost 6 and we were met by our Disney Adventures guide and immediately (we didn't even go to our rooms!) met our group and boarded a bus to go to dinner.

 I forgot to mention that Joe didn't sleep AT ALL on the plane but did manage to take a short nap from the airport to the hotel.  Below is our guide announcing to the room full of people that we had finally arrived.  They were all aware of our crazy day of travel.  It was a fun invitation to a great group of people.  

 On the way to dinner, we stopped at the Olympic Stadium that was used when the Olympics were here in Barcelona.  Then it was on to dinner at a restaurant that overlooked the city.  The view was beautiful and we took some pictures despite all of us looking really rough.  For dinner we had a buffalo mozzarella salad, chicken, and potatoes and a delicious caramel apple pie for dessert.

 After a full night's sleep we were ready for day one of our tour this morning.  We started early at 8:30 am with a trip to Park Guell, a park full of interesting plants, trees, parrots, and architecture by Gaudi.  I loved all of the mosaics.

 The next stop was La Sagrada Familia, a famous church that was designed by Gaudi and has been under construction for almost 100 years.  They anticipate it being done by the year 2026.  It is beautiful and pictures don't do it justice.  I almost didn't even take pictures but then decided to anyway.

 These pillars are supposed to represent sycamore trees so that when you walk in it's like walking into a forest.  The east side of the church is representative of Jesus' birth and life and there are rounded edges and colors and softer images.  The west side of the church is representative of Jesus' trial and crucifixion and the images are boxy with sharp corners.

 After the tour of La Sagrada, we went to a restaurant for a Tapas lunch.  The tapas (small appetizers) were coming so fast that I couldn't stop to take pictures, I just filled my plate and ate, and filled it some more.  At the end of lunch they gave the adults wine in this special bottle and you'll see in the pictures how you are expected to drink this wine.  The kids got to try it out too but with tea.

 After lunch, we went out into the garden and did a craft Gaudi style.  We all made a painted mosaic coaster to take home.  The weather was so nice and we all enjoyed the opportunity to get creative.

 At the table with the girls are the two friends they have made.  These girls are also sisters and almost the same ages as Hannah and Grace.  They bonded this morning and have been almost completely inseparable since.  I asked Joe if he was hoping to meet a friend and he informed me that he was here to see Europe, not make friends.  Okay then.

The last thing we did with the group today was to go on a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter.  I didn't get many pictures because we were mostly walking.  From here we went back to the hotel where we've been chillaxin' for the last couple of hours.  Travel is exhausting and it's been nice to get some down time.  Between lunch and our walking tour today I fell asleep on the bus and didn't wake up until everyone was off of the bus looking at me through the window and one of the guides had to come on the bus and wake me up.  Not embarrassing at all.  We have had a great first day and are looking forward to finding a place for paella for dinner.