Just another day in Paradise: Our Epic Adventure

As a graduation present my mom had planned for us to go on a Mediterranean Cruise to Spain and Italy. I will try not to make my account of the trip the length of a novel, but no promises.

Our EPIC adventure started on Friday June 10, when we headed down to the Miami airport to catch our Swiss Air flight into Zurich.

I just have to say that I never knew that a plane could be so comfortable and the food so delicious!! They served us not only dinner, but also break

fast, had unlimited movies, hot washcloths in the morning, and a

never ending drink service. What more could you need. No flight will ever be the same for me again.

They even had a vegetarian option for me!

After admiring the beautiful Swiss landscape through windows and vis

iting their weird looking rest rooms, we headed back on a plane to take us to Barcelona.

After arriving in Barcelona we spent about half hour waiting for the autobus and eventually we were shuttled away to the airport Hotel where mom proceeded to take a very much needed nap.

I was a little disappointed that everyone that we came into contact with in Spain spoke English; I never got to use the Spanish that I had been practicing. Nevertheless, it was probably for the better. I had trouble saying anything other than, "¿Dónde está el baño?"

The next morning we headed down to the lobby of the hotel where we were provided with breakfast. The seemingly ordinary food that was presented before us, had an extremely unordinary taste. To put it plainly the food was horrible! Or at least not what I was used to. The pancakes were too flat, the watermelon too dry, the water too clean, the orange juice too pulpy. I thought that I could wash all of this down with a cup of nice plain milk, but I was mistaken. The only thing keeping me from spitting out the warm (almost hot) sugary milk was all of the people looking at me as my cheeks started to puff out, my leg started to bounced, and I started to run from the table. And of course Mom only laughed.

Soon we were on the bus to the ship where we were bound to have the journey of a lifetime!

The first day on board was pretty boring. Our rooms weren't ready for the first couple of hours we were on board. While waiting we explored the ship. We ended up finding a spa where we got pedicures, a great buffet place where you could get all the food you wanted (for free), and a bowling ally where my dreams of being a pro bowler went into the gutter.

That night we attended the Blue Man Group, which was a truly amazing show!

The next day was spent at sea. We entertained ourselves with activities such as participating in family Wii, the digital photo scavenger hunt, playing bingo, laying by the pool, and going to a comedy show.

Family Wii was a good way to reaffirm my findings the night before that I cannot bowl, not even in a video game. But it was fun to play on a two-story tall screen.

We came in 2nd place in the scavenger hunt and had a ton of fun running around the ship. It was especially funny to watch mom interrupt ping pong and basketball games just to get pictures of her doing specific tasks, like shooting like Michael Jordan.

The next day we finally docked in Italy. Promptly at 8:30 am we were herded on a bus with a tour guide to show us the great sites in Florence.

We were on a half day tour with the remaining time left up to us to wander to uneven and crowded streets in the city. We started out looking at the beautiful architecture on one of many cathedrals.

We then visited some market places, some bridges, some other cathedrals, and then food and shopping.

After Florence we were in

Rome. It was a much more hectic and dirtier place. It was amazing though to literally see history in front of you. Unfortunately, I failed to listen to my wise mother who told me to charge my camera, so the battery died half way through the day. However, I did learn the art of mental picture taking. I now have great mental pictures of the Coliseum, the old Roman Forum, and Vatican City. All in all it was another fun, but exhausting day.

Next stop was Pompeii. We spent the morning hiking up the volcano, Mt.

Vesuvius and toured the ancient city in the afternoon. We had a great bus driver that was always the first bus to each stop and beat all of the annoying tourist.When we got to the top of the Mountain a tour guide took us around the top and we were able to see an amazing view of all the cities below. At one point the tour guide had us all yell at the same time and we were able to hear an amazing echo from the volcano.

On Friday we had another day at sea.

We were able to sleep in and just relax by the pool.

I was able to convince Mom to go on the three water slides that they had on the ship. We did work up enough appetite to go to the family pizza making session, where we were the oldest people there. We made our pizzas amongst 5 and 6 year olds. In the evening we were able to attend the Beatles concert that they had and also the dueling piano show. The dueling pianist were amazing! They said that they had over 300 songs memorized. Not only could the play outstandingly, they also had great voices.

The island of Palma off of Spain was amazing. We had a bike tour that took us around part of the island. We stopped at a plaza and I was shocked to see that the roads were tiled, just like the side walks. It felt like a Disney Epcot city. It was also super clean. There was no piece of trash I saw on the whole island.