camanoescape – The Wagnerson's Travel Adventures

We left our hotel in downtown Frankfurt by taxi and were driven to the Frankfurt airport. The Condor Airline departure desk took our checked luggage and issued us our boarding passes.  We had two plus hours to kill before our flight home would begin boarding, so the four of us headed to the business class lounge for some breakfast and a place to sit down out of the way of the hustle and bustle of the airport.  Making our way through the airport, our concern for Doug’s health was at the forefront of our minds.  There was a lot of walking going on.  One takeaway from our experience at the Frankfurt airport is that the Germans are extremely serious about their airport security.  After you are scanned, then you are frisked/searched and one out of two carry-on bags seem to be checked for explosives residue.  There are uniformed police/soldiers with automatic rifles walking around through the various areas of the airport.  Despite all of this security and the fact that our small four-person group included someone who had become known throughout much of Europe as the ultimate breadstick pocketer (“you never know when you might get hungry later on”), we all made it successfully through security after a somewhat lengthy process.  Then it was more hurry up and wait, until we eventually boarded our aircraft.

Our flight home was 10 hours and 45 minutes and thankfully pretty uneventful.  We were able to read, watch movies, and some of the lucky ones were able to sleep a bit.  It was a comforting feeling for our weary souls when we finally touched down in Seattle.  When the plane made a couple of loops around the international terminal before pulling into the apparent designated gate, it was a curious move that had us scratching our heads.  Oh well.  Customs and immigration were not ready for our flight and after funneling everyone who deplaned from our flight down a long hallway, we turn a corner and find the hallway locked up tight.  The two hundred plus people from our flight stood there while a couple of security persons tried unsuccessfully to use their pin codes to open the security door with a voice at some other location giving them some instruction.  More waiting but soon enough the doors were opened and like a herd of cattle, we all mooed and moseyed our way along the hall and down the stairs to pass through our typical immigration and customs checks.  We collected our bags and successfully navigated through the last customs check, just glad to be back in Seattle.  Jose was kind enough to drive down to pick the four of us up for our return home.  Traffic was…terrible but normal for Seattle, and we soon found ourselves delivered to our respective homes back at the Camano Island vortex.

Once home, we had a plan which would allow Doug to follow up on his Santorini heart issues that had raised all kinds of questions for us with few real answers available.  We followed each other into Amigos Restaurant in Stanwood for some dinner (we had now been up about 20 hours and Barb had run out of breadsticks).  After dinner Doug and Barb drove up to Skagit Valley Hospital to the emergency room to get Doug checked out.  A story of “I had a heart attack 3 days ago in Greece while diving 70 feet under the sea and they wanted to do more extensive tests but I refused in order to get back to the States to have any testing done” is the kind of story that gets you into the ER without having to wait in the lobby seating area.  After running some further tests on Doug, they admitted him to the hospital where he spent the night.  His next day (yesterday) involved more testing and evaluations.  A little before 6 p.m. the cardiologist came in and discussed the results with Doug and we were soon notified that Doug could come home.  Since three of us were not present when this conversation happened, we have to accept what Doug tells us about it.  He said, “Ha! Just spoke with the cardiologist. No significant [heart] damage.  Stress test looked good and I’m being RELEASED!”  Well how about that?  Superman still lives!

We have been able to sleep in our own beds with our own pillows for two nights now (except for Doug who got his first shot at that last night since his release) and it has been wonderful.  It is that old familiar cliché that comes so appropriately to mind, “There’s no place like home!”  This was our longest adventure away from home ever and the length of time away from home has caused us to rethink and arrive at the conclusion that six weeks is probably too long to be away from home in the future.  We missed our kids, we missed our grandkids and we missed our dogs, Silver and Lilly.  We also appreciate more than ever that we live in an incredibly beautiful location that cannot be duplicated.  Italy and Greece are gorgeous and amazing places, but so is this area we call home.

This trip took us many new places where we could experience new things plus revisit some familiar things.  We’ve made new friends and renewed some old friendships from our first Italy trip.  We continue to find the Italian people kind, helpful and gracious.  In Greece, it seems the people are kind, helpful (also loud) and they are quick to express their emotions.  You always know where you stand with them.  We experienced the gamut of emotions in our six weeks away.  We laughed, oh we laughed, and yes, we cried.  This our second swing through Italy and first time through Greece, has reminded us that life is indeed precious and life is good.  We are so thankful.  We were reminded that life is not to be taken for granted.  No one is guaranteed tomorrow, so seize the day.  The Wagnerson motto of Attitude is everything, enjoy the journey plays just as well at home in our daily and sometimes mundane activities as it does when traveling abroad.  We’ve learned it is good advice for us at all times.  Such an attitude we found breaks down barriers and invites others to open up and share themselves with total strangers.  In that process there is made a human connection which reminds us that despite language and cultural differences, we all share the same hopes and fears and even mortality.  Despite the practical cost of this trip, the Wagnersons are certainly richer for it.  Thank you for walking through this six week adventure with us.  It has indeed been a tremendous, fun and wild ride!

This morning we said goodbye to Santorini and took an 8:45 a.m. flight into Athens.  We had about four hours to kill in Athens before we caught our next plane which would take us to Frankfurt, Germany for an overnight.  As a result, we basically hung out in the Lufthansa Airlines business lounge at the Athens airport which allowed us to get unlimited coffee and beverages, some lunch and comfy chairs to sit in while charging any and all electronic devices we had that needed it.  We caught our next plane after a whole lot of walking and then it was an almost 3 hour flight to Frankfurt from Athens.  After walking forever to baggage claim in Frankfurt, we gathered up our checked bags and flagged down a taxi.  Arriving at the Lindner Hotel on the River Main, we checked in and slumped into our rooms.

The weather here in Frankfurt seems a little like back home.  It has been raining pretty steady since we arrived.  All four of us are weary and ready to be back home.  Without energy to do much else, we took the elevator down to the main floor and had dinner at the hotel restaurant.  We have an 11:40 a.m. Condor Air flight straight through to Seattle in the morning.  We said good night to each other and retired to our hotel rooms to rest up for our flight back home tomorrow.  Too tired to post much else.

Saturday morning began with Barb and Doug waking up to celebrate their 39^th wedding anniversary in separate hospital beds here on the Island of Santorini.  What a memorable way to celebrate 39 years of marriage!  This is one anniversary I am certain they won’t soon forget.  Here are some photos of the special honeymoon suite they slept in overnight. 

Physical surroundings notwithstanding, they were sure glad they were able to celebrate their day.  Barb texted us first thing this morning to bring food since the hospital didn’t have anything for their patients.  We gathered up food from our hotel restaurant and took a taxi into the hospital.  The doctor had ordered more blood work this morning and Barb walked it over to the private lab.  The results came back as we arrived with their breakfast.  The results showed that Doug’s situation had improved but that it was not normal.  Of course not.  Doug is not normal, he’s exceptional!  The doctor wanted him to fly to Athens for more extensive cardiac testing and Doug said no, he will get those tests done when he arrives back in the States.  They made him sign a release saying he is not following their advice.  He did and he put on his shoes and walked out the door with us.  We went back to the hotel and rested.  That was the order of the day.  After a while at the hotel we went to the restaurant and had a nice “Yay, Doug is still alive lunch!”

After lunch while everyone rested once again, I caught a cab to go back to the dive site and get some commemorative T-shirts to mark our near fatal dive experience.  The road was too steep and the cab driver would not go down it.  I told him fine, I’ll walk.  So I got out and walked down the long steep narrow road only to find at the bottom that the dive shop was closed up.  So much for that great idea!  I walked back up the road where obviously the cab driver was still waiting for me because he had not been paid.  At the end of the trip I had only a 40 euro cab fare to show for it.  As I paid him, the Bob Hope melody of “Thanks, for the memories” played in my mind.

Back at the hotel to catch up with folks back home on Doug’s status took a while.  Lynda and I then walked across the street to a Greek mini-mart where we bought a bottle of champagne (sort of) and a vacuum packed bag of spicy olives to take to our upstairs 39 year newly weds to celebrate their anniversary.  You have to improvise when you’re on a secluded island in the Mediterranean.  We had a great time of celebration and reminiscing about this trip and the highs and the lows.  It was fun.  We leave tomorrow morning to start winding our way home.  All flights from here on out: Santorini to Athens; then Athens to Frankfurt; overnight in Frankfurt, then we board an 11:40 a.m. flight in Frankfurt to Seattle which arrives an hour and a half after we leave at 1:10 despite a 10 and a half hour flight.  We are planning a final farewell dinner and anniversary celebration tonight at the hotel restaurant which has been simply amazing.

On our first morning in Santorini, we had a great breakfast at our hotel and then the four of us waited outside of the hotel at 10 a.m. (midnight back home) for the van from Santorini Dive Center to pick us up to go diving.  They drove the four of us to the dive center which was down the cliff to a very secluded beach.  The water was kind of rough and so Barb decided she did not want to snorkel and Lynda decided she did not want to dive.  That left Doug and me to go out on two different dives planned for the day.

While Lynda and Barb stayed on the beach Doug and I geared up with the rented dive gear.  There were twelve divers on the boat and it took about a half an hour by boat to reach to dive spot.  The first dive was good, Doug and I went down to about 65 feet and saw a ship that had sunk over 40 years ago which was pretty cool.  We surfaced and swam back to the dive boat.  When everyone was onboard, we made the 30-minute return boat trip to the beach where we’d left our ladies.  After hanging out on shore for about an hour, the divers geared up and walked out with our scuba gear into the water to make our last dive from shore.  Once out away from the surf, we slowly descended into the deep.

Let me state right here that what I tell you from here on out is from Lynda’s and my perspective.  I’m sure that Doug will have his own take on this and it can certainly be different from ours.  Around 50 feet deep Doug started noticing a problem, he was having a difficult time catching his breath, feeling like he wasn’t getting enough oxygen.  He was trying to relax and we went down to about 70 feet deep.  He checked his tank level and saw that he had used up a lot of air already.  He notified the dive masters who also saw that Doug was using way too much air too quickly.  He had gone through 2/3 of his air tank in only 15 minutes.  They knew there was a problem.  The dive master started taking Doug to the surface, but since we were down so far, they had to do a safety stop at about 15-20 feet for around 3+ minutes to allow the residual nitrogen that builds up in your body from the deep dive, to dissipate. By the time Doug got to the surface, Lynda who stayed on shore, saw them surface and that Doug was being dragged toward shore by the dive master.  She went down to the shore to help out.  This was a very remote beach.  I stayed down with the rest of the divers and two other dive masters and didn’t know what was up until I surfaced about 20-25 minutes later.  Lynda said Doug was grayish when she saw him and his lips and hands were blue.  He was not responsive and couldn’t or wouldn’t talk.  She kneeled down in the water so Doug could rest his back against her after the dive master took off his tank and regulator.  Then the dive master and another guy got him up out of the surf and walked him to shore to a chair and sat him down.  They had a pure oxygen bottle that they hooked up to a device and had him breathe through that.  He was just sitting there in that position when I surfaced and came on shore 25 minutes later.

By that time Doug was talking and his color had improved.  An ambulance was called and they got there relatively quickly.  They loaded Doug up in the ambulance, Barb and Dimitri, the dive master got on board the ambulance and it took off up the hill on the only road out of there, a very steep and narrow dirt road.  About 2/3 of the way up this road, the left (steep cliff) side tires of the ambulance caught in the sand and it plowed to the left, tipping towards the cliff edge.  It was now stuck and could go no further.  About 12 guys tried to push the ambulance with a small pick up trying to tow it to get out of there without success.  Before they attempted this, they got Doug out of the ambulance and he had to walk up this steep road on his own to the dive center van and then Doug, Barb and Dimitri took off for the hospital with the Dimitri driving.  The doctor at the hospital did an EKG which was sort of okay.  Doug’s oxygen sat levels were low despite being on oxygen for the past 3 hours.  The hospital doctor wanted him to see a cardiologist, but Doug refused.  The doctor then did another EKG which was more concerning and at that point, Barb told Doug to be quiet that she was calling the shots now and that they were going to the cardiologist.  By this time, they were joined by Paul, the owner of the dive company and they drove Doug and Barb wherever they needed to go.  Doug spent about 3 hours at the cardiologist who did ultrasound tests and some lab work.

The cardiac tests and the ultrasound they did showed that Doug had had a “cardiac event”.  He has fluid on his lungs now as a result and he is spending the night in the hospital here in Santorini.  They’ve got him on a Lasix type medication plus a blood thinner type heart medication to get the fluid out of him.

This hospital here in Santorini makes the Seattle Greyhound bus station look like the Mayo Clinic.  Seriously!!  The cardiologist here wants him to fly to Athens to undergo testing to see if there is a heart blockage but Barb has been trying to get an answer which she hasn’t been able to so far about just flying him home and have the testing done there.  I don’t think I want a Greek doctor doing an angioplasty where they stick a needle up into his heart to test for a blockage and Doug said he certainly didn’t want that.  Around 9:30 last night Barb came back with us to the hotel to get out of her swimming suit and to eat and get some clothes for the two of them as she was going back to the hospital to spend the night with Doug.  We ordered some takeout food for her to take back to Doug as he had not eaten all day and the hospital doesn’t have food.  It’s been a very long day and we are so thankful that our superman is still with us.  On reflection, the experience of the dive masters in immediately recognizing a problem that far under the surface of the water and taking immediate action to address it probably saved Doug’s life.  The Lord is so good.

It was a pretty wild ride last night with the ship churning through the heavy seas.  We awoke in the morning in the port of on the island of Crete.  The winds were still blowing about 25 mph although it was sunny and warm.  We never got off in Crete as no one had the energy to do so.  After breakfast we packed up our suitcases preparing for our disembarkation in Santorini.  Place your packed luggage outside your cabin by 2:00 p.m. and prepare to exit your cabin by 4 p.m.  Those were our instructions and you know us, we followed those to the T.  We now simply have to wait for our arrival in Santorini and our call over the loudspeaker to board our tender boat to take us off the ship and onto Santorini.  We said goodbye to Evelyn, a 27-year-old cruise ship worker from Brazil, who always seemed to be ready and available to assist us in our endeavors and sometimes just to chat.

Getting on or off the cruise ship was only by tender boat in Santorini.  Those are the small boats that come alongside the ship and passengers are loaded onto or off of the tenders, departing whether they’re coming or going.   It was pretty much hurry up and wait for us.  Passengers who were actually departing the cruise ship for good had to wait until EVERYONE else who even thought they might want to get off to see Santorini had already gotten off.  When there was no one else left, then they finally let those leaving the cruise to get off.  We joked that “You are dead to us now” was the official stance toward those no longer wishing to stay on the ship.

Santorini is beautiful.  Seems like all civilization is way high up on the cliffs.  A 20-minute tender boat ride and we were on land.  We were picked up by our hotel and whisked upwards on a switch back road to our hotel, the Volcano View Hotel.  What we found when we arrived were absolutely breathtaking views from here.

After a pleasant dinner at the hotel with live Greek music, it was off to bed for some much needed rest.

We woke up today docked at the Island of Rhodes.  On this trip through the Greek islands, the Wagnersons will be celebrating our respective wedding anniversaries.  Number 42 for Lynda and me, and number 39 for Doug and Barb.  Today is June 8^th and that means my lovely bride and I have hit 42 years of Lynda putting up with me and me still just the luckiest guy alive.  My marathon training started yesterday where I circled the top deck on the Olympia 18 times to equal 3 miles.  Today I got off the ship in Rhodes first thing in the morning and ran 4 miles into the old town and then into part of the new.  I got back on the ship after completing the run and came back to our cabin.  We all chose to eat breakfast at the ship’s buffet rather than the more formal restaurant on board.  Doug and Barb were ahead of us by about ten minutes and found a table out on the deck with their trays of breakfast and coffee.  Lynda and I went through the buffet line picking and choosing what to put on our plates and then carried our trays out of the restaurant and up to the deck to hook up with Doug and Barb.  It was at this point that everything went sideways…so to speak.

Let me start by saying at this time in our trip where we’ve been on the road and living out of a suitcase for 7 weeks already, the fatigue that we’re all feeling is palpable.  Lynda headed out ahead of me while I stopped to get a cup of coffee to add to my tray.  As I left the restaurant and headed up the stairs with my tray to join Lynda, I saw a buzz of commotion ahead of me.  Curious as I advanced towards a second set of stairs, I could see a tray of food scattered across the floor with ship staff scurrying about to clean it up.  I could also see Lynda standing there telling a ship staff person that she was just fine.  “No, no, I’m okay, I’m just fine.”  She was insisting to this person that she was okay but that she was embarrassed and that she just wanted to head into the bathroom to clean up (the bathroom was about 50 yards away).  When Lynda turned towards me to tell me she was okay, it was then that I was able to see her face.  Oh my!!!!  The first thought that came into my head was of a Seattle Mariner post-game interview where the player gets hit with a shaving cream pie in the face while being interviewed and then after he wipes some of the cream off and away from his eyes and his mouth, he stands there to complete the interview with the cream still spread all over his face.  I quickly abandoned that thought for concern over the health and safety of my bride.  “Are you alright?” I asked.  She smiled at me through her pie covered face (it was apparently Greek yogurt) and said “I’m just fine, I’m going to find a bathroom and clean up my hands and clothes.”  I grabbed a napkin from my tray and offered it to her.  Although she initially declined, I suggested she REALLY wanted to wipe her face before she made the long walk to the bathroom looking like Soupy Sales at the end of his routine. (those younger than us might want to google that reference to understand what I’m talking about).  Lynda took the napkin and headed off to the bathroom dabbing the yogurt from her face.

The toll from the fall besides the unfortunate embarrassment, was a wrenched back, a sprained and swollen wrist, and a bunged up knee.  It put a damper on our day of celebration.  Lynda came back from the bathroom to rejoin our table and sat down.  After discovering that Lynda was for the most part okay, Barb got up to go get another breakfast tray for her.  As we finished our breakfast, the four of us decided that it might be a good time to head off of the ship and explore Rhodes.  We headed back to our cabins to clean up and get ready to go.

It is at this point that I make my entrance into this modern day Greek tragedy playing the village idiot.  We have not needed our wallets while on board because all we have needed was our ship issued ID card which we utilize for any food, beverage or store purchases in addition it functions as the key card to enter our cabins.  I had left my wallet in my pants which were hanging in the wardrobe closet. I go to the wardrobe to get my wallet out of my pants so we could leave the ship, and I could not find it.  I checked all of the pockets and it was gone.  I asked Lynda if she had seen it and no, she had not.  She also checked the pockets in my pants and could not find it.  We checked through all the drawers in the cabin and the wallet was nowhere.  We checked my backpack and her day bag without success.  We pulled out our suitcases and emptied everything out on the bed searching for the lost wallet.  It was not to be found and we repack our suitcases.  I am now starting to panic.  We retrace our steps.  I again searched my pants hanging in the wardrobe.  No wallet.  Lynda does the same with identical results.  We look under the bed, undo all of the items in our suitcases once again including my backpack and her day bag.   We repeated this process another two complete times to no avail.  With an ominous tone in her voice, Lynda tells me it is time to go down to the reception desk and report my wallet missing.  I agree.  We head down the elevator to the reception desk and tell the desk clerk that I am a dumbass.  Actually I think I just told her that I cannot find my wallet and wondered if anyone had turned it in.  No, no one has turned in a wallet.  Where and when did you last have it?  I told her it was in my pants which are hanging in the wardrobe in my cabin.  She contacts security and the head of housekeeping who quickly arrive and we go from there to return to our cabin.  The security guy asks me where I last had my wallet.  I open the wardrobe and show him my pants hanging there.  Lynda and I step away and go out on the deck to await the crew’s direction.  We had no more than stepped outside when the security guy called me back in.  “It feels like there is a wallet in these pants” he says.  As he steps aside to let me look I reach out to those same pants that Lynda and I had checked no less than 4 times each and sure enough, my wallet was in there.  I look inside the wallet and find everything intact with nothing missing.  Joy, wonder, embarrassment and a realization that I indeed have been awarded the status of the ship’s village idiot were emotions that washed over me at that time.  Wow, Lynda and I are making history on this our 42^nd wedding anniversary and we haven’t even hit 10:00 a.m. yet.  What more could possibly lie in store for us today?

With all of our wallets in place and on our persons, we walk off the ship to head into Rhodes.  This is a beautiful city, with a tall rock wall surrounding the old town and seven city gates to enter.  Apparently it is the oldest walled city in Europe and 3,000 people live here according to “George” a taxi driver we met later on in the day who took us on a tour of the city.  We had a great personalized tour of Rhodes, stopping at various locations while he told us the history of these places.  George told us that what he liked about us was that we were two couples who “had a low profile”.  Now I don’t think that George knew that in these present times here in Europe, that was the posture we were trying to adopt, so his unsolicited consistent assessment of us was music to our ears.

After our city tour, George took us to Faliraki beach, a beautiful quiet beach about 20 minutes south of Rhodes where we enjoyed a beverage or two along with some lunch as we sat and soaked up the ocean breeze and the sun.  I was able to use the restaurant’s Wi-Fi to upload the previous two blog posts.  After a couple of hours, George returned to pick us up and drove us back to the town of Rhodes where he let us out to explore the old town where we could have an easy walk back to the ship.  That is exactly what we did, having a leisurely walk through this ancient city and then back to the ship around midafternoon to rest up before the ship pulled out and headed towards the island of Crete.

Some afternoon naps left us all feeling rather refreshed.  Doug and Barb had purchased a bottle of Champagne to celebrate our anniversary and invited us to their cabin to enjoy a celebratory toast.  That was so nice and Fergie, our personal steward came into the cabin and took a photo commemorating the occasion.

Our night was not finished.  The winds had picked up and we headed to the lounge which said it was on the 12^th deck.  Since there was not an eleventh deck, we knew we were pretty high up.  By now the ship was rocking back and forth pretty good.  30 knot winds and we had seas of about 15-17 feet.  Dinner was in the restaurant as the buffet was closed.  The waiters and waitresses were having to pause in their steps as they carried trays in order to flow with the roll of the ship.  As an appetizer Doug ordered fried octopus balls, at this point an unknown delight.  Now I don’t know anything about the reproductive system of octopus, but I can tell you that what arrived on his plate were a couple of items that looked like meatballs but tasted like octopus.  When it comes to Greek food, the wisdom of retired Brigadier General William Brookshire, a former boss of mine at Westinghouse Hanford Company came to the forefront.  He always said never ask a question unless you’re fully prepared to hear the answer.  Nobody asked any questions about the octopus balls.  They were actually quite tasty.  We just enjoyed them and let any remaining questions in our minds about them remain unanswered.

After dinner we headed back to our cabins for a night cap.  The ship was rocking and rolling pretty good by this point and it seemed the best thing to do was to simply retire to our beds and let the ship sort of rock us to sleep.

We finished our first full day on the cruise ship and it’s pretty much all wonderful.  The views of the places we cruise by are stunning.  The food and accommodations are excellent.  And of course, the company that the four of us keep is pretty darn great as well.  We had opportunities to go into Kosadasi, Turkey and to get off at Ephesus, but we were all tired and decided that staying right here on the ship was the best option for us.  We wanted to make sure that we all stayed hydrated, taking advantage of the $25 unlimited beverages on board the ship.  The internet on the ship is spotty and slow.  I have not been able to post anything on Camanoescape.com because I can’t hook up to the web site , so these posts are sitting on my computer in word format.  I’ll have to post them at a later time perhaps when weleave the ship for good in Santorini in a couple of days.(We arrived at the Island of Rhodes this morning, our third day on the ship.  At a beach side restaurant with Wifi that solves the internet problem temporarily!

We finally made it onto the cruise ship but not before a twist of sorts that at first appeared to only deepen our brief homeless episode.  A shuttle bus picked up the four Wagnersons as well as six other people at our hotel to take us all to the port to the location of our cruise ship, the Olympia of Celestyal Cruises.  We had been told that our ship would depart at 6:30. As we arrived at the port at 6 p.m., the one and only ship at the port was a Norwegian Cruise Line vessel.  A lady at the front of the shuttle was speaking to the driver in Greek, asking if we were at the right location because we were supposed to be going on Celestyal cruises.  The driver said he would check and left the van to consult with someone.  We couldn’t see who or if he spoke with anyone but in a few minutes he returned and climbed back in the van and told us this is the correct location but we are way early.  He said he would take us to a place where we could wait with our luggage.  He drove a ways and stopped at a bus stop where he told us to get out, our luggage was unloaded and he drove off.  And so we waited, and waited……..Hmmmm.  Questions of “Did we just get ditched? Or don’t homeless people hang out at bus stops were echoing through our heads.

In about a half an hour however, we could see the Norwegian vessel begin to pull out as the Celestyal Cruise vessel approached in the distance.  We all breathed a sigh of relief.  The Olympia soon docked and we began walking towards the ship trailing our luggage behind us.  After everyone’s credentials were checked and our luggage was evaluated by a drug dog, we were allowed to proceed onboard.  This is a small cruise ship but is quite a cushy place.  Our cabins are huge, bigger than just about every one of our hotel rooms that we’ve had on this trip.  Doug and Barb are right next door to us and we each have a balcony off of our cabins that measure about 15’ x 8’ each.  A king size bed, a couch, coffee table, two front room chairs along with a desk and chair and full bath make up the interior.

We were told to report with our life jackets found in our cabins to an abandon ship safety briefing.  Doesn’t sound too safe if we’re abandoning ship, nevertheless we all attended and then signed up for beverage service while onboard, all you can drink (alcohol and non-alcoholic) for $25 per day.  We’re thinking they will be losing money on us with that deal.  Dinner in the dining room around 9:00 p.m. (pants required for the men) and off we went to another section of the ship where we were planning unwind while listening to a guy who was playing a piano when we passed him before dinner.  After dinner however, that guy was gone replaced by a loud singing something that drove us from the area.  There are multiple music areas around the ship and you can pick and choose what type of live music you want to listen to.  We moved on and found another.  As we sat to relax with a glass of wine, the length of the day caught up to us and we were soon headed back to our cabins to sleep as the ship began to pull out and we set sail for Kusadasi, Turkey where we would arrive at 7:00 in the morning.  As I blog this, I’ve discovered that my camera which I’ve relied on for this trip and which gave an inkling of trouble back in Athens when we ditched the 60-person tour, has finally given up the ghost and has died.  Unfortunately, all the photos I took over the past day and a half which I would be able to share, are now forever gone.  I guess I’ll be switching to photos with my iPhone.  To be continued.

Last night, our final night in Mykonos was capped off by another wonderful Greek meal at the restaurant connected to our hotel.  Once again there was Greek dancing, although this time the Y chromosome factors of the Wagnersons managed to avoid it.  A good night’s sleep and we’re all packed up and ready to head for the port to board our cruise ship where we will spend the next three nights as we visit Turkey and different islands in Greece.  Right now it is 11:45 in the morning and we need to be checked out of our rooms by noon.  Our transfer to the port doesn’t pick us up until 5:30 tonight, so for the next five hours and 45 minutes, we are virtually homeless in Greece.  I suggested drafting a couple of signs that read: “Homeless and need to get back to USA.  Anything will help.  Thank you!”  The ladies however put the kibosh on that plan.  So here we sit with approaching homelessness, but with a smile on our faces!  Until the next time we have internet access, we sign off.

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