Crusing through the history of Civilization

Well I'm finally getting around to writing about the cruise. First of all, pictures are UP!!!
They can all be seen here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/logan.jones

Obviously there was a ton of pictures when you combine mine, my parents and Kendra and Marc's pictures. So I tried to post the best.

So first of all. The trip all started here in Toulouse. My parents and K&M met here at my home in Toulouse. We had a full house for a day, as there was the 5 of us, along with my roommate Vladimir, his mom and his brother. So 8 of in all. The graduation ceremony was fine. Nearly all in French so not so interesting for the family and we sat and watched as 150 names were individually called up. But most of all my family got to see where I'm living, meet some of my friends here, see the apartment here, and just generally get to know my life here in France.

From here we rented a car and made a pit stop in the town of Carcassonne, made famous by the beautiful castle. After we followed the GPS as it took us on a cross country adventure as we wanted to take the 'scenic' route on the way to Barcelona. It was definitely scenic, I have no idea where we took it. But we managed to make a 3hr trip to Barcelona in....7hrs.
	From Carcassonne

Barcelona is a beautiful city I know fairly well. Even before I had met my Barcelonan roommate I had spent a lot of time there. And since then I've been back several times with Vladimir (my roommate). So it was my chance to show my family the sights of Barcelona and the beach of Barcelona :)

From there we took a nice cheap flight to Rome (Man I love Europe, Rome to Barcelona for 35 Euro's). It was my first time in Rome!! And it was amazing. Really, this whole trip was a trip through the birth of civilization. From the Great Pyramids of Egypt, to the ancient city of Ephesus, to the renowned Acropolis in Athens and the 'Eternal City' of Rome. It is what made this trip amazing!
	From Roma

The Trip route looked like this. The ports of call were as follows:
Rome
Naples (where you could go to Pompei or Capri or the Amalfi Coast)
Athens, Greece
Ephesus, Turkey
Istanbul, Turkey
Mykonos, Greece (skipped due to bad weather)
Port Said, Egypt (with bus trip to Cairo)
Alexandria, Egypt
back to Rome

I'll let the pictures mainly speak for themselves. But in short the trip was amazing!!! This itinerary could not have been more perfect. I've been lucky enough to see a lot of Europe so far, but every single place on this trip I had never been. And of course the places! Athens!! Istanbul!! and probably the hi-light for most people on this trip, the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

The ship was a lot of fun too. The food was unbelieveable. In addition to the all you can eat buffet 24hr buffet (nothing like filling that 3am craving), and the burger bar, and the pizza bar. The formal dining was unreal. It was like eating at a 5 star hotel every night. And being a student....lets just say I don't get to eat like that very often...much less every single night. I ate steaks and lobster and king crab and prime rib and frog legs and escargot and halibut and....man....unbelievable.

The ship was huge, 951 feet long. 2.5 times walking around it was one mile. There were times it was a bit lonely. As with many cruises, the majority is older people (I was told the average age on the ship was 70yrs old) and if they are young they are usually newly weds (i.e. Kendra and Marc). So I became friends with a lot of the staff, as well there were my 'drinking' buddies who I could find up in the 'not so lively' nightclub each night. We spent most of the evenings 'shootin the shit' and showing of magic tricks. Finally on the second last night, the nightclub was a little more lively and I found my dance partner :) Darcie and I danced the night away, her teaching me to salsa and me showing her the two-step. Kendra and Marc were there all night too, dancing the night away. Pictures are all in the 'Grand Princess' album. As you can see, it was formal night so we had the James Bond tuxes going on, along with the Martini's in hand.

From The Grand Princess

The next day (and last day on the boat) I got to experience what it was like to spend your time on the boat with someone. Darcie and I spent the day laying in the sun, watching movies on the deck, playing mini-tennis, mini-golf and ping pong. And then follwed by yet another 5 star dinner. It was a wonderful day. One I won't soon forget.

And then....seemingly as soon as it began. We were back at Rome. The cruise was over. Back to reality....back to having to cook for yourself....sigh

But what's left over is the memories made and the pictures taken. And as you can see by the pictures...it really was the trip of a lifetime. The thing we saw, the history we witnessed, the people we met, the things we learned. I crossed a lot of things off of my list to do. The Great Pyramids, the Coliseum of Rome, Athens!! We will be telling and sharing stories from this trip for a long time.
	From Cairo and the Great Pyramids