Friday :
So tonight is our last day time at Sea. We disembark in Venice early Saturday morning. There we booked a hotel for Saturday night since flight is Sunday. We are all thrilled to tour Venice for another complete day. We thought it may have been too much to do 1.5 days at beginning of trip and a full day at the end…but there was a lot we did not have a chance to do –including a gondola ride-so we are happy to go back as the finale of the vacation.
Dubrovnik today was soooooo incredibly beautiful. What I love about these European cities is how within 30 minutes you can walk from incredible architecture, to amazing food, to breathtaking beaches…and it’s all by foot. Our kind of place. We walked around the old city, took a cable car ride of the sites with an incredible lookout point where we enjoyed bitter lemonade and beer, did a little shopping and went to explore the ocean for a good 30 minutes surrounded by amazing monuments.
Bad part was that we had to get up at 6am and the shipped docked from 7am -12pm so again way to short. Very depressing to return back to a cruise ship after seeing such beauty so early in the day.
Bear is a trooper-he is still really fun to be with and hardly asks or wants for anything at all. Never an ice-cream-never a drink-never a souvenir. Nada. But by this point in the trip his enthusiasm is wavering a bit too-he is tired and I think misses other kids(especially his kids aka brother and sister). Although most the time he is really happy to be with us..and passionate and excited about the trip-there are times I think he feels a bit lonely too.
None of our kids would make very good only children! They seem to crave each other like oxygen.
But he has been amazing and a pleasure to be with just as we had expected. He comes down on us hard for a couple of things the main one is that he thinks we spend too much money frivolously (guess who just got named the executor of our Will)! And we are not that lavish either..a beer here and there and a soda here and there..I mean we are on vacation . I bought a 12$ watch for myself today and he was not impressed at all.
Second thing is first three quarters of trip he was fine with all the pictures but now he is fed up! Maybe he is the one who threw my camera in the ocean?
Other than that he loves his Mommy and Daddy big time.
And he has become a Ping Pong fanatic. I mean 6 straight hours today at the table mostly by him!!! He has attracted Cliff the Chinese ping pong friend and an ex German Ping Pong all time tournament gold winner and he has learnt a lot this week. Each time we go and try to play with him he is usually found amongst his over 60 yr old buddies in a concentrated game.
And the pro told us he has “lots of potential and that we should send him to China to join the best table tennis club there is”. Ok mighty convenient that plan is!
So expect two blogs one more forced by Bear since he needs to meet the criteria of this all paid vacation with his parents alone and please my academic need of him writing this week. The second by my Protector, that he is anxious to do but literally has been no time to do as running one activity to another most days and he is a lot slower at writing than I am…although well worth the wait.
Just got back from one of our best evenings in the ship. A great circus show followed by an acrobat in the air show. Was really, really good. Followed by the best meal yet, so many good appetizers that we could not choose so ordered about 7 different ones as samplers. The actual main meals were equally as good. By the time the coveted key lime pie came around we were sad that we were too full to polish that off. I have to say we have eaten very well all around. We certainly did not lose weight on this vacation even if it seemed liked we walked endless miles. The food both in the countries and on the ship was yummy.
I am beginning to see the benefits of cruising in many ways; I could see us doing this again in the shorter term future. Takes us a while to get used to things but once we do we like them a lot. Some definite pros and other definite cons…but I liked it especially with a kid with us.
So all in all I sign off from this wonderful vacation with the following statements: Exhausting, breathtaking, bonding, beautiful, tours , I love the sparkle of Latin people, I love the way blond young European men wear necklaces and smell good, I love the two amazing men travelling with me, I miss my two other kids at home a lot , I think my Mom is the sweetest lady on earth and an amazing and devoted Grandma, I love lemon anything, I am proud of myself for loving all the touring and never complaining much about the guided tours, I can’t wait to travel all over the world after the kids are in university, I love being with Bear, being with Bear is so quiet compared to my three kids, I am happy to have turned my brain off for a week, I am scared to go back to the pile of work that awaits me, I feel more middle aged every year, I feelmore beautiful in Europe. I love my life.
I am a lucky girl.
