Been there done that

We've been to Palma De Mallorca before, (read the blog from last time) so we didn't need to do much.

We walked to the bus stop about 15 minutes away because paying 3 euros on a local bus is better than 20 us dollars on the ship-organised shuttle. It's Sunday and most of the shops are closed so we walked around a bit and headed back to the ship. 

Lunch, gym, arvo tea, reading, depending on who you are.

We did see the second half of the Socceroos vs Turkiye game at 6 this morning and are now packing for our departure at Barcelona tomorrow.

A successful cruise, maybe 2 days shorter would have been enough, and only 1 week left of the holiday.

One last meal in the dining room and then to use my 1 hour of complimentary wifi now that my sim card has run out (fyi 12gb of data over 1 month).

One last washing and drying load is being completed and then it's on to dry land tomorrow.

The last few days were a bit boring. I apologise.

My dining experience was not great. Obviously the sight of me busting out of my shirt got back to the chef, who decided that any plurals on the menu would not be recognised. The 1 croquette main meal was the main protagonist.

The ladies who we were talking to at the adjacent table thought it was an entree. Ed: By the way, you may notice the menu does list Entrees; they've decided to use the American way of referring to main meals as entrees (I think I need to research the history of that as it makes no sense).

One of them had the rhubarb pavlova dessert and then waited for us to see what we thought of it. We chose poorly. The looks on our faces may just have been one of the highlights of her holidays. 

I had to go to the buffet before it closed, just to stave off starvation.

The seas were angry today my friends, plus what happened yesterday.

Before we talk about today's sea story, let's talk about yesterday's sea day. 

But first, to what I've been doing in my spare time. I like writing, and I like milk, so I wrote a book on the history of milk. Unfortunately, milk has been around such a long time, that my initial draft was over 1,800 pages, which is way too big for a book, so I've had to do a shortened version, a condensed milk version, I would say.

So yesterday was your standard sea day. I ran for an hour on the treadmill in the morning, or the late morning because breakfast takes a while to settle. Annette went to a talk on terrorism and then headed to the buffet area to do some new house and garden planning (Ed. because they had tables and I was using my laptop). I found her there and had a chocolate brownie with chocolate ice cream because that is what you need to recover after a run. 

Lunch, rest and then to the gym for both of us around 4. I need to work on my abs a little in case the guy in the acrobatics group gets injured and they need me to come off the bench.

Then, I finally made an appearance in the pool. Why is it so hot? Why is the spa so extra hot?

Buffet dinner, looked for the opening world cup game on the sport channel, then sleep.

Some time at maybe 4 or 5am, there was lots of noise and creaking and a noticeable swaying of the cabin. It woke us up. I continued to sleep, sort of, with my mp3 mask on (yes, a total blackout mask with inbuilt earphones. Do yourself a favour and get some).

Annette decided that it was too much for her and at approximately 5:39am when I decided to go to the toilet, she thought it was the right time to throw up.

I went back to bed and she wandered to the deck in an attempt to feel better. 

It was very windy apparently and we were in a notorious location for roughish seas. It's 10pm when writing this and we have similar conditions minus the vomit. A bit of swaying, lots of noise and potentially no sleep tonight (but I did find the world cup channel).

So today was Valletta, Malta. We figured the normal 4ish hours on land and back for lunch. We were docked on the wrong side of the harbour so had to catch a shuttle ferry for 5 minutes.

First stop via walking way too far was the high elevator that goes up to ... wait for it ... the old town. 

A totally different one to the others. More jewellery shops to trap a passing editor, lots of restaurants and around 7,000 people jostling for position from the 3 cruise ships in port. 

We took a few wrong turns today and every one of them meant a long walk back up many steps.

The main wrong turn was looking for a ferry across to another fortress. We found it eventually, got a seniors price in, used their facilities and got the ferry back.

Our only problem then was getting back to wherever the shuttle ferry back to our ship left from. 

We stumbled upon a sign that said cruise ships, found our ferry and made it back on board at about 4:30pm. We never got around to lunch, but the burger bar was open to save our lives. Dinner and a show. Sleep on roughish but not vomit inducing seas.

Day 3 in the same post.

Another sea day, gym, food, gym food, sleep.

Our Japanese stalkers

A later start to the day due to the lost tourist yesterday. The port in Dubrovnik is around a 20 minute bus ride away from town. It was a bit slow getting off board as a group of Japanese were a bit slow. We could pay the US$10 plus the Cunard 18% service fee, or you could walk about 5 minutes to the nearby bus station and get 4 x E1.73 tickets.  

Google said catch the number 8, the woman at the information booth was useless, and the 1D to the Old Town came by so we took a punt. 

We walked past the Cunard shuttles as they arrived.

First stop was the cable car to the top of the nearby hill. Somehow our Japanese friends got on at the same time. As far as cable cars go, it was a bit ho hum. Nice views but not much to do at the top. 

Photos finished, we just beat our Japanese group to the cable car for the trip down.

The Old Town was at the bottom, enveloped inside the fort walls. As far as the old town rankings go, this one is my number one. 

Not so touristy, some nice churches and a visit to an ice cream shop. If you've ever watched Somebody Feed Phil, he went to an ice cream and pastry shop in the old town called Gianni's. We followed in his footsteps. I imagine the ice creams tasted the same as every other one visited, but we paid the price for Phil giving it his thumbs up.

Finished with town, it was back on a bus to the ship, just in time to walk on board with our Japanese stalkers.

For the second time in a row we went to the theatre after dinner to see Martin Kaye do his Elton John show. Another good night.

When worlds collide

A 9:30 excursion today to a national park about 80km away. At the park, waterfalls were rumoured to be waiting. I love a good waterfall. It was really nice to not have an old town to go to. I always forget. We are in Zadar, Croatia.

It was good to get out into nature. Not too much hard walking around the 2km board walk and lots of good pics.

One ice cream (the Mediterranean croissant), one lost drink bottle and back on the bus.

We had a quick stop in a town on the way back. 

Oh, change room guy was on our tour. I really wanted to ask him, why?

Just before departure, the guy in front of us gets off the bus and is then talking to our guide. As we travelled, she comes up to talk to him.

Long story short, his wife was on a different tour, got separated from them, called him and it seems they left without her. They did eventually find her but our ship departure was delayed one and a half hours due to the search. The Captain said he would put the throttle down and he did. 

Just a short run today.

Tonight is bbq night on deck, which I had been looking forward to. I have also been craving sweet and sour anything, but the menu seems to be tipped mostly to the Indian side to please the Poms on board.

Tonight the dining room had sweet and sour pork. Bbq lost. I probably should have tried on the nice shirt I last wore 2 years ago before I packed it, but maybe the bodyshirt trend will come back.

After the sweet and sour experience (the food, not the ABC TV show from way back that I believe starred David Reyne (I have the album)), it was back to the cabin to get into my theatre watching clothes (shorts and t-shirt).

Tonight's show was an amazing acrobatic duo with the 2 of them putting to shame my Les Mills Pilates efforts from the trip so far. Their strength and flexibility was insane. Mystery solved. I think I now know the identity of the people in the gym doing head and hand stands over the last week.

I hit the wall

Breakfast didn't taste the same and my legs are feeling heavy. There was a hint of pain in my right forehead but I don't get headaches so I can't be getting sick.

Destination for today in Trieste was a castle that was on the water's edge. It would be a pleasant walk along the seaside. At about 6,000 steps and without having seen any water, we decided that the number 6 bus was our best option.

We crammed on board the sardine can with wheels and continued our journey. Had we purchased our ticket correctly? Only a transit officer would know.

We got off at our stop and proceeded to the Miramare Castle via the shore line. 

Nothing like Australia - here you have stones for beaches and lie on a strategically placed towel on concrete to sun-bake. 

Numerous old Italian ladies chatted to each other while half naked. Some things cannot be unseen.

The castle was more of a big house but it had some really nice gardens, good views and free toilets. Tick x 3.

We slowly made our way back to the road where we once again found the number 6 bus and the transit officers joined us. We had tapped our phones to pay but he got us to tap again and no arrests or fines were issued.

We transferred to the number 8 (please take notes if you are ever in Trieste, Italy) and got back to the ship in time for lunch, one of the 5 most important meals of the day.

As much as I like the free on-board drinks, sometimes a Pepsi or Coke is a good addition to your ever-increasing calorie intake.

We went off board again, in search of drinks (  i got a low calorie ginger drink on special and a sports drink that may come in handy. No Pepsi!), found a church and some ruins and back on board, for a lie down. 

Trieste is likened to Vienna in its architecture. I didn't like Vienna but Trieste is a bit nicer.

20,000 steps by mid afternoon and I'm almost done for the day. But Garmin Easy Run is still not done.

After some TV sport watching and a strong coffee, I put on the running gear and went for it. Surprisingly I felt good. My legs are back to being alive. 

I went into the change room, which has a massive window overlooking the port from the 9th floor. Now I don't know if you can see in from outside, but you can see out.

The second shower screen was open, but a naked guy was in there showering. I waited for the other shower. I hung up my dry clothes and towel, showered, got changed in the shower and came out to see naked shower guy now being naked change room guy doing a full frontal to the outside world.

Buffet tonight. We decided on a soft serve ice cream each but then the Editor's Desserty senses kicked in and she ended up with a chocolate brownie concoction. Food must not be wasted. I had 2 ice creams.