I know everyone is sitting at the computer in nail biting suspence anticipating my next vacation post. In case your not, then let me bore you some more.
In 2007, Sondra, Jonathan and David moved to Germany. This seemed like a million miles away instead of just a few thousand. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would have the opportunity to travel outside the United States and to be honest I never wanted to. I always said there was to much that I had not seen and probably never would see right here in the states. Well that all changed when Sondra got there and decided she wanted us to visit. Again you do things for your kids that you wouldn't do for anyone else.
Well after I gave her a possible maybe, she made plans the very next week. So before we knew what had hit us, we had tickets for a flight to Germany for a three week visit and a cruise for the five of us while we were there. We flew out on John's birthday, the 21st of May and arrived on the 22nd. We were both a little apprehensive about the fight, but by clinging to each others hands and the help of a couple of night time P.M pills for me we were able to make our very first transalantic flight. I still think Sondra was surprised when we actually got off the plane.
We were in Germany for a week when we drove down to Italy to board our ship. We drove through parts of Austria which is the greenest most lush looking landscape you can imagine. We drove through the wine country of Italy, and it seened as though each mile brought a prettier picture. After a little stress over a traffic stalh, we made it to Venice Italy to board our ship the "Splendour of the Seas". We unloaded the car, the luggage, David and headed for the ship. After we got into our cabin and freshened up a bit we went up to the main deck to see Venice as we departed. I told John "oh we need to get the camera to take pictures of this", that is when we realized we had left the camera behind the seat in Jonathan's car. Needless to say we didn't take any pictures of the places we stopped at on the cruise. But that's OK we will let Sondra take pictures for us. As it turned of her camera malfuntioned and we have no pictures of the cruise.
This may be great for you all.
Our cruise was a seven day cruise. Our itinerary included Dubrovnik Croatia, Kusadasi (Ephesus) Turkey, Santorini Greece, Corfu Greece and then back to Venice Italy.
In Croatia we went to a small outside resturant to eat. I didn't recognize any thing on the menu so I ordered the small fish, so living in the south I invisioned something like a small catfish plate. Well when it was brought to the table and the waiter set down in front of me, you can imagine my shock when I told him I thought he had brought the wrong plate. It looked like they had drained a bucket of minnows and dropped the into the deep fryer head guts and all. Now I can eat just about anything, but I could not eat those tiny fish. The fries were great though.
When we disembarked in Kusadasi. Turkey, Jonathan hired a taxi for the day. We drove the the ruins of Ephesus. It was suprising how big the city of Epheses was and how elaborate the buildings and the colisum. This is where St Paul preached. Then we went up on the where St John brought Mary and she spent her last day. It was so peaceful and sirene.
Next we sailed to Santorini Greece. John and I chose to stay on ship with David, but Sondra and Jonathan went up to the city. The only way to get to the top is walk or ride a donkey up. They chose the donkey. Sondra said she had never hugged a donkey so hard in her life, as they made it up the steep cliff to get to the top. All I can say is I'm glad I passed that one up.
Our third stop was Corfu, Greece. We did our own walking tour of the city and took a buggy ride through to old part of the town. Again just beautiful. We arrived back in Italy on the eight day and decided to drive to Turin, Italy to the church that houses the Shroud of Turin. We then drove up to Switzerland and stayed over night. We drove through the Swiss Alps, I mean we liteally drove through most of the Alps. The roads take you through tunnel after tunnel for miles and miles. If I had know before hand how long we were going to be underground, my claustrophia would have kicked in and I would have paniced.
Oh I almost forgot. On the last day of our cruise, we decided to play bingo. The pot had grown each day, so we were playing for something like $1,700.00, when they called the winning number and Sondra was the winner and didn't have to split it with anyone. This could not have happened to a better person, since she had treated us to this magnificent trip.
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