Tomorrow Is Another Day...

It's Like Thunder, Lightning

We haven't gotten much rain over the past couple of months, but last night and early this morning the skies over Charleston set out to make up for the deficit.  Colby is living on base this week, so I spent the evening with him, then drove home around midnight, happy to see that the streets were wet and we'd obviously gotten at least an inch or so of rain.

I got home, fed my starving dogs, then fell asleep within minutes.  Just a few hours later, I was awakened by a lightning strike that lit up my whole bedroom and a loud crack of thunder.  I rolled over in bed, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but two big brown eyes in a terrified face belonging to a certain yellow puppy dog who lives in my house and is NOT allowed upstairs.  With her short hair, the tags on her collar generally give her away when she is nearby, but her fear of thunderstorms seems to give her the ability to slink up a flight of stairs and right up to my sleeping face without making a peep.

I knew I couldn't let her stay upstairs, but I felt awful about sending her back down knowing that she was scared out of her wits, so I hauled myself out of bed, and planted myself downstairs, collecting Jack who was bouncing off the walls with a lightning and thunder induced mania.  We settled ourselves on the floor, Ellie in my lap and Jack laying next to me and intermittently making a barking and bounding circuit of the room.

I've always liked the nice rumbly thunderstorms that the South is so adept at producing, but this storm was a whole other animal.  The house was shaking with each crack of thunder, and my living room felt like a discotheque with the lightning providing the strobe light effect.  But then, without any warning there was a crack of thunder that I swear split the sky in half, and I was immediately thrust back in time, the memory of the cruise ship mishap sweeping over me.  I felt like the room was listing back and forth, and the thunder that continued to rumble sounded exactly like the waves crashing against the side of the ship and up over our porthole.

It probably only lasted for a few seconds, but my heart was pounding, and I just hung onto Ellie and kept whispering "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay".  It was seriously one of the weirdest feelings I have ever had.  I knew I was sitting on the floor in my house in South Carolina, but my brain felt exactly like it was back in the middle of a massive Mediterranean storm.

After about an hour, the worst of the storm passed, and I made sure the dogs were relaxed and in their beds before I headed back upstairs and back to sleep.  This morning the skies are still grey and I'm sure the grass is very happy.  I was able to sleep just fine, but had to have a grim little laugh this morning.  Of course, only I would go on a romantic Mediterranean cruise and come back with a case of post-traumatic stress disorder.  Angela, this is your life.

And... The End

At long, long, long last, we reach the end of the trip recap.  We made an uneventful (and anticlimactic) journey from Malta back to the port of Barcelona, Spain.  We disembarked the ship before the sun had even thought about gracing us with its presence, and boarded our bus for a trip to the jagged peaks of Montserrat.
I promptly fell back asleep as we wound our way up the worrying narrow mountain roads, and when we eventually got to the site of the monastery, the sun had risen but the temperatures dropped.  We made our way to the cathedral, heads down into the sharp, blustery winds and spent the morning wandering through the chapels and the attached museum.  If you've read The Secret Life of Bees, you may recognize the "Black Madonna" pictured above.  There's plenty of lore attached to her arrival at the top of the mountain, but whatever the origin, she is a stunningly beautiful piece of art.  The surrounding opulence of gold, jewels, and filigree only serves to highlight her simple beauty.

We may not have made it to the pyramids, but the Monsastery museum had a lovely section of Egyptian artifacts including the requisite mummy.
We arrived back in Barcelona, near La Rambla, in the early afternoon and still had time for a lunch stop (Finally got in my international McDonald's visit!  I can check another country off of that list!) then went on to do a little walking tour of Barcelona, stopping off at the old Roman wall and Santa Maria del Mar.  We finished the day at the Picasso Museum, which had a lovely retrospective of his work from his first entry into an art competition which showed his talent as a painter of realism, through his blue and cubist phases, and finally into his ceramics.  We were lucky enough to be there at the same time as a Degas exhibit which compared the work of the two artists and prominently displayed my favorite, and probably the most well-known, Degas, Little Dancer, Age 14.
And, because bad things evidently really DO come in threes, we couldn't end our trip without one last teensy tinsy hiccup.  The complete and utter meltdown of a major international airport.  That long line of people shows just a fraction of the travelers who were affected by the terrible weather in London.  Thanks be to God, after our four hour wait (with nearly ended in fisticuffs), the lady who booked our new flight apologetically changed our itinerary from a London to an Atlanta connection.  And I swear, if it weren't for that woman, we would STILL be in Barcelona, trying to get home.

We stayed an extra day in the city, unfortunately wasting most of it in the horrible rebooking line, and dragged our poor, weary bones home 24 hours later than expected.  But at least we made it home.

Were I to be completely honest with you, I would say that I just can't recommend a European cruise.  We got to see a number of spectacular sights in a condensed amount of time, but if you are a traveler who revels in the feeling of immersing yourself in a new culture, you would be sorely disappointed.  Cruise food is not all its cracked up to be, and I would so much have rather had the nights in Greece or Malta or Sicily to wander the streets and enjoy the cuisine.  Instead, I felt more like we were on little field trips into each country, and I never really got the feel for each city as I would have liked.

Following our little "incident" in the port of Alexandria, many people have asked me if I would ever go on a cruise again.  And you know, I would.  I think the cruise atmosphere is perfect for the Caribbean.  But if you want to go to Europe, just pick a couple of countries, book some hotels and go there.  Get lost in the back alleys.  Take the wrong bus and end up somewhere you didn't know existed.  Order dinner in the local language.  Take advantage of the incredible train service available to you to whisk you from place to place.  

If you really want to experience a country, the sterilized version offered up by a cruise line isn't the way to do it.  It's a way to mark a country off your list, but in my opinion it's no way to see a country.

I'm On A Boat!

We had one full day left in Barcelona, so we packed it to the gills with cultural experiences.  We started the day by arriving to the Cook & Taste building for an expedition to La Boqueria (the market) and a half day cooking class.  The building was located in the Gothic Quarter, just off La Rambla and a short walk to La Boqueria, where we went to get supplies for our tasty Catalan meal.

Our teacher was absolutely adorable, and everyone in our cooking class was highly entertaining and enjoyable.  There were only about 12 of us, and by the end of the day and copious amounts of wine, we all felt like family.
 

Since the class size was fairly small, we each got lots of hands-on time behind the stove, as well as plenty of time to have fun, drink, and take photos.  And is that not one of the most beautiful meals you've ever seen?  As well as the seafood paella, we had a squash soup, potato pancakes (peeled and sauteed in part by yours truly!), and a creme de catalan for dessert.

The class ended up going until late in the afternoon, and though we half wanted to go home and sleep off our wine and food buzz, we sucked in our food guts and pressed on with the tourist experience, heading to the Barcelona City Museum where an entire Roman town had been excavated and was on display in the basement.  We then scooted over to the Barcelona Cathedral, dedicated to St. Eulalie, with its impressive flying buttresses, Gothic spires, and guard swans... yes, guard swans.

And still, our day was not complete!  After a quick stop at the hotel for freshening up, we headed out once more into the cold night for a Spanish guitar concert at the Palau de la Musica Catalana.  Manuel Gonzalez played a beautiful assortment of classical and original music, all with a Spanish flair.  It was absolutely amazing what that man could do with those strings.

The next morning, we waved a sad goodbye to Barcelona as we boarded the Brilliance of the Seas for the beginning of our 12 day Mediterranean adventure.  And an adventure it was.  But first we had a day at sea to get to know our floating home away from home, and more importantly...

NAP!!!!

El Viaje de Mi Vida

There were times on our way to Barcelona, on the cruise, and on the way back home that I honestly believed I was either going to die or commit murder.  Despite that specter of death, Barcelona managed to catapult itself into my Top 3 destinations, earning itself the great honor of being a city to which I would return without the slightest hesitation, following only Dublin and coming in slightly ahead of Tuscany.  It is remarkably clean, the architecture is stunning, and the people are incredibly kind.  The traveling trifecta!

We stayed at the Hotel Regina which was clean, comfortable, and a nice fusion of modern and traditional design, but more importantly inexpensive and amazingly located in the heart of the city steps away from the Placa Catalunya and La Rambla.  And right next door to a Starbucks.
My parents were supposed to arrive in Barcelona the day before us, unfortunately due to the horrible weather in Atlanta, the Northeast, and EUROPE IN GENERAL, they ended up arriving about seven hours after us.  While we were waiting for them, we decided to jump on board the hop-on-hop-off bus and get an overview of the city.  We saw plenty of modernisme architecture, centuries-old buildings lining the streets, cathedrals, and more and got back to the hotel with just enough time to squeeze in a short lay down before meeting up with my parents.  We went to dinner at a nearby tapas restaurant using the toothpicks to hold our eyes open, then my parents hit the hay while Colby and I went for a nighttime stroll along La Rambla.

We were warned and warned and warned again about the pickpockets in Barcelona and especially along La Rambla, but we never felt the least bit unsafe.  We kept our belongings where we could see them, were alert to our surroundings, and Colby wore the dread money belt under his shirt, and we came away unscathed.  The best part of visiting the city when we did was that all of the streets were decorated with beautiful Christmas lights and decorations, the buildings were glittering with LED lights, and pesebres (nativity scenes) were scattered around the city.  It was magical.

The next day we went back to the hop-on bus so that we could hit the Gaudi sites.  We started at Casa Batllo on Passeig de Gracia in a block of buildings referred to as "The Block of Discord".  Now granted, Gaudi architecture is a bit much, but I've got to tell you, I fell in love with the whimsy, surrealism and organic flow of his buildings.  You'd be hard-pressed to find a right angle anywhere in his design and there is so much creativity in everything from the flooring to the door handles.  We also went to Casa Mila, but as it has been converted into shops, we decided to just view it from the outside.

To continue our Gaudi experience, we continued on to La Sagrada Familia, his unfinished masterpiece.  Gaudi began construction on the cathedral in 1882, and it is estimated that it will take another 30-50 years to reach completion.  I cannot even put into words how incredible this cathedral is.  Let me tell you, this is no St. Paul's Cathedral or St. Peter's Basilica.  This cathedral is like walking into a mythical forest--unimaginably tall columns stretching up toward Heaven like towering trees, jewel toned stain glass windows cast bands of rainbows on every surface.  It is unlike anything I've ever seen, and all you can do is stand there, slowly rotating in the center of the construction chaos, pivoting slowly, head tilted back, mouth agape.

I'm not a particularly religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but standing in that cathedral, taking in the genius of another man's passion for his art and his faith, I couldn't help but think, this is a cathedral God could really get behind.

Vacationing on a Budget

Hellooooooooooo, world!!  I am at long last returned from our epic international voyage and feel sufficiently recovered from the psychological scarring incurred to discuss it at minimal length.  A full trip report will come post-holidays, but before I revert to my slack-jawed DVR-dependent ways, I wanted to take a moment to impart some quick tips for ensuring that you get the most bang for your buck when you decide to plan that "Vacation of a Lifetime"!

And yes, rest assured, these tips have all been thoroughly tested over the course of the past few weeks and proven highly effective, though potentially dangerous to your mental well being.  But hey, what's your sanity REALLY worth, money-wise!!

Tip #1: Plan Your Vacation Off-Season

Easy enough, right?  Most destinations have a high and low season, in Europe the high season is typically at its highest during the summer months and lowest in the winter and early spring.  By booking during that low season, you are sure to save a good chunk of money on most fares including airplane tickets, hotel prices, and even entrance fees to some tourist sights.  Hey, that seems pretty painless!  What's the next tip, Ang?
Tip #2: Take a Cruise to Make the Most of Your Time

A cruise is an all inclusive way to see many different locations with minimal stress.  If you combine this tip with tip #1, you can save even more money!  Particularly when the countries to which you are traveling are experiencing record breaking TERRIBLE HELL WEATHER, placing you and your fellow shipmates in peril!  The tricky part will be finding a way to induce your Captain to enter a harbor with nearly 80 knot winds and slow down to a near halt so that you find yourself pitching around your room in the middle of the night, with thrilling undersea views of the Mediterranean out of your porthole.  Sure, the thought of a near-death experience may not seem appealing to some, but when it gets you a $200 onboard credit and a full refund of your cruise fare, well, how can the budget-minded girl say no to THAT?!

Tip #3: Ensure That Your Departing Flight Is Scheduled for Armageddon

You want to be absolutely certain that there are absolutely no flights leaving for any of your desired destination at any time during the day.  The way to be sure that you've accomplished your goal is to check any flight status board at your nearby airport to see CANCELLED listed glaringly next to each and every flight that could possibly get you home.  While you will then have to spend long hours of your life in a line wrapping multiple times around the airport, and will possibly get into a disturbing altercation in which neither party speaks the other's language, rest assured that you will receive ONE FREE NIGHT in a swanky airport hotel of your choice, a FREE SANDWICH, DRINK, AND DESSERT at the delicious airport deli, an disgusting edible DINNER at a Chinese buffet, and a moderately decent BREAKFAST!  Who could say no to such a marvelous extension to your already low cost vacation!

With these three tips, you'll be able to pat yourself proudly on the back when reviewing your vacation costs.  In fact, they are so easy to implement, that thousands of people have recently had great success with them as evidenced by many highly publicized news reports!  Sure, you may break out in hives and collapse into the fetal position any time you hear the word "free" used in normal conversation, but you will have saved so much money, you'll be able to cover intensive therapy for years!

Thankful Thursday Through Thursday Through Monday

I really did have every intention of keeping up with my blogging and documenting all that I have to be thankful for this month, but then I didn't.  To think that I actually considered participating in NaBloPoMo this month, HA!  Right.  So, what exactly have I been thankful for?

Well...
Colby made it home safe and sound!  And he brought with him the gifts of jewelry, chocolate, and 8,000 pounds of laundry.  We've spent the last two weeks attached at the hip pretty much 24/7, and now that he's returned to work the house feels awfully empty.  I am, however, incredibly thankful that at least for the next month or so, there will be no trips to far off, sandy locales and he'll be coming home to me and the puppies each night.
His parents and I had been conspiring for the past couple of months to spring a surprise visit on Colby upon his return, and if Colby's look of shock and confusion upon seeing his mom and dad waiting for us at a local restaurant was any indication, we definitely pulled it off.  I'm thankful that our families are close enough to pull off a surprise like this and that we had a beautiful weekend to spend together eating, touring and enjoying each other's company.

Colby coming home was the last big milestone I was counting down to before our big trip, and now an international flight and 12 days floating on a giant boat shaped hotel is just a little over a week away.  We've spent the last two weeks having fun date nights (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 = AMAZING, The Social Network = Wow Justin Timberlake Can Actually Act), squeezing in some sight seeing, spending time with friends as couples, and yesterday I took Colby on a shopping spree that would have made Stacy and Clinton weep tears of joy and pride in preparation for the cruise.

So, now that the vacation is becoming a reality, I'm becoming a bit overwhelmed.  Our itinerary is definitely good enough, but I still feel like it could be better.  I really have no idea what I'm going to wear at any time that doesn't include the phrases "formal" or "semi-formal".  I need to bring some clothes to be altered.  And honestly, I feel like I'm forgetting a whole lot of other must-dos, but can't think of what they could be which means they probably don't exist.  But they're still bugging me.

Oh whatever, can we just go see Harry Potter again?

One Month to Go!!

Well, my Halloween weekend was fairly pleasant, up until we all received the soul crushing news that the deployment return had been pushed back by days.  Most of us were faced with completely empty weeks stretching before us, as we'd been planning to spend them with our husbands.  I've been scrambling to make plans to fill up the week, and plotting various methods by which I would punish the person responsible for the slip should I ever discover who it was.  So far, my ideas all involve alligators and vast marshy regions, miles from civilization.

However, I did wake up this morning and was struck by the realization that in exactly one month, we'll be boarding an airplane and jetting off to Barcelona and the Mediterranean!  I've spent the past week planning out our itinerary for the days in Barcelona leading up to the cruise, and these are the sights and activities I'm most excited about.
The Picasso Museum traces Picasso's journey from talented, critically acclaimed painter of realism through his experiments with various Impressionist techniques, into his unique ability to paint what he felt rather than what he saw.I'm looking forward to seeing all of Gaudi's incredible architecture, but most excited about exploring Parc Guell.  It looks like a fairytale land come to life.
Visiting La Boqueria Market for fresh, local ingredients and then drinking a glass of Spanish wine as we learn how to turn those ingredients into delicious dishes in a cooking class.
Ai yai yai yai!!  We're hoping to fit in an evening of flamenco dancing--well watching it that is, I don't expect it will be a participatory experience.

And of course, as with any major European city, there are scores of majestic cathedrals, hundreds of delicious meal options, and the always entertaining experience of figuring out public transportation.  But more than anything, I can't wait to be with Colby, far away from home and the clutching, grasping claws of the Air Force!