Villa Morgana Hotel Messina

... it wasn't unpleasant, just exciting. Whenever we are in our room, we open the balcony doors. Jim likes to sit on the balcony doing Sudoku. If I'm in the room, I prefer reading in bed. The sound of the waves hitting the bow is extremely soothing. The best.
The crew is a mixed group. Our captain is from Norway. He's a baby, only 38 years old. Everyone teases him about bringing his toys to play with on board. He handles it well. The galley ...

... 8217;m Done Like Dinner.
Maybe I have a lack of truly being able to live in the moment, I never thought about that before. I am always moving towards the next phase, the next process. When I was leaving, I wasn’t allowing myself to enjoy the process, I was stressing about my apartment, and my new job and my friends dog. Even while on my trip (this is a natural thing I hope) but I was constantly concerned with where I ...

... But I carefully picked my way down towards my objective, I put my hand down the next time the waves hit home, just happy to be here, to be touching this alien object, to revel in the sea! I turned around, to see Greg snapping pictures of the horizon and the landscape around us, just in time to be over taken by a wave and washed ashore as my pants, that I thought I'd hiked up enough were tinged with the sure sign of being conquered! I burst out laughing reach down to ...

... about the garbage which is everywhere except the Old City but maybe they have other pressing priorities.

Cairo
A difficult city hampered by traffic, poverty and generally unable to handle the population. Best avoided if it didn't have the Pyramids and the Cairo museum and you should try to see them.

Luxor
Everything that Cairo isn't plus more. Lived up to the hype so I will be back.

... s a nice change from the hustle and bustle buffet in Horizon Cafe. Although we're not big buffet patrons, it seemed that most people in the buffet line believed their last meal would be this particular lunch. Thus, nothing would stand in their way, not even manners! So, it was best to stay at least two meters away from those people.

After a nice quiet lunch we caught the last half of the ...

... places, but then you are always surprised at the tiny shops when you peep inside, its so classy. It was very hot and we are thankful our excursions are morning ones mostly. Now we have passed Strombolli, again, at a very close range to see the ash belching out at intervasls, and the huge slopes of ash and where the lava goes to the sea, all the houses at the bottom, brave ...

... A small village perched high above the Mediterranean sea. It's church tower was spotted by Francis Ford Coppola from below and that was how he picked this for the movie the Godfather. It is the village where Michael spots his bride to be and the wedding party winds through the small streets. Very beautiful.

We then went to Taormina ...

so i had my first day in sicily today. i got in at like 3am. yesterday was hell. i traveled for 21 hours. sicily is beautiful tho. i went to the beach today and enjoyed the bluest water i've ever seen. i saw some fish, the only other time i've ever seen them is in the pet stores at home. they were pretty small and silver with some black towards their tails. the water between sicily and the boot is really interesting ...

... ruins atop a mountain on the other side of the island. Bob and Carol are... how do I put this tactfully, bickering. I can totally see where Michael gets it form now. . . . but it is not bad, just a case "oh my God, I have spent so much time with you over the last few weeks!" , which is partially why we came along, to give them a break. Our tour is called and we head down the gangway and out onto the bus. No crew member dressed up in costume for us ...

... open face and genuinely enjoys getting to know people. She can't go for more than five minutes without talking to somebody new. I don't know how she does it, but she blatantly pumps her sources and they talk to her! Either that or Royal Caribbean needs to seriously educate their people on confidentiality. She even had the nerve to question the security guard on duty in front of the cabin the day that everything happened. Well, these contacts are paying off now. Apparently ...