At Port in Rome again.

Well, we've completed the first half of our cruise. And we're still kickin - well, maybe not quite so hard. But Peg's knees are better. She's a real trooper. Ted cn't get his temperature under control. He's either too hot or too cold.

Yesterday was a "see day". The day before was a Sea Day - we all rested. The guide we had yesterday was awful - her method of delivery put our nerves on edge. In fact most of our guides haven't been so good. The one in Athens was pretty good, however. The weather has been good -no rain. We missed the volcano mess (Iceland - that is.) The food has been a little disappointing and the Eurodam is a little disorganized. The worker bees are all nice, however. We've also seen some movies in our room just saw Terminator Salvation - Wow. The ships entertainment -a magician, is really good. The dancers are good too. Sorry we can't put any pictures. The ships machines won't do it and our lap top is kaput.

All for now from Rome.

TnP

Our Darn Computer

I know - it's been a while. The hard drive on our computer crapped out. No more Dell's. We're in Kusadasi, Turkey right now. It's the port for Ephesus (re the Ephesians) but we had already been there, done that so we're staying on the boat. I'm using computers they have on the ship for use by the passengers who don't have their computers-like us now.

We've gone to bed dog tired the last few nights. Lots of hills, rough streets (cobblestone)-we even took a horse and carriage at one spot. Tours are rated I, II and III - the III being the hardest. We have a lot of III's on the second leg of our cruise. We're changeing them to II's-at the most. Peg's leg is still bothering her - the Vatican steps really did a job. And my lungs don't like going up-hill. Holland-Americas Eurodam is not organized as well as our last cruise with HA. A lot of sorta little things, but aggravating.

I don't see any way of putting photos on this computer but maybe I can find out a way. At worst, I'll put some out as a Webshot Album when we get home. So far we are a little dissapointed in the cruise in general. Hopefully it will get better. Except for Peg's knees we're doing okay on the health thing. A little dissapointed in the food - not up to what we expected - especially when we were looking forward to pigging out. As usual the worker bees are very nice -Indonesian. But things just seem to be lacking in organization.

All for now folks.

Watch out for these Italian waiters

We ate out the other nite at a small (8 tables at most) ristorante very close to our hotel. I wear my Georgia Tech cap everywhere. Since I was eating I put my hat on a chair next to mine. The waiter came over, saw the cap and we all had quite an evening. He was much into American sports. The Miami Hurricanes was his favorite team. He didn't like the NBA but loved college basketball. Was really into golf - had a golfball in his pocket. So we had a fun evening, The food was just so-so, but the waiter was quite a card.

Talked to Tommy today. Susanne will get a full checkup in the middle of May. The only bad spot in our journey so far is that Peg's knees (her good one in particular) has really been giving her fits. We get on the ship tomorrow and she will check in with the ship's doctor. Hope this air travel thing gets straightened out soon. Would hate to row back to the states. More later.

First post on the road

Hey there - I'm not the swiftest but I figured out how to beat the Italian stuff. I won't repeat what I said on the e-mail. What e-mail you say! Why, the one I wrote and then managed to lose - or at least I think that's what happened. I will repeat and hope you didn't get the e-mail.

The trip over was lousy - although the leg room was pretty good. But the plane was late getting away from Phoenix. Therefore we missed our flight to Italy. Ran like the dickiens to another flight. Caught it. But the guy who was supposed to pick us up waited for two hours and then left. So we got a taxi. Everything is expensive in Italy. Even the Italians say that. Or at least our guide did - blames it on going to the Euro.

Our room is okay but not the one we thought we were getting - with a balcony view of the gardens. Balcony view of the back of the hotel - but not noisy. The terrace - that does have a nice view if you get up and go over to the ledge - is closed.

First whole day lhere we took the hop-on-hop-off bus but just stayed seated for a tour of Rome. Nice driver and guide dropped us off close to our hotel although they had said earlier that they would not.

Yesterday we walked to the Borghese Museum and Gardens
Then walked the Vatican. 4 GB steps. We were bushed. Lots of pictures. Cleaning ladies are here now. Signing off.

Holland America Eurodam

It won't be long now. This will be our home for almost three weeks. If you want to read about some of the amenities you can Google Holland America Eurodam. We'll come home tired and happy. I hope some day all of you can do the same things we have been fortunate to do.