World cruise 40

April 8

Kusadasi, Turkey. This is the port from which one visits the magnificent ruins at Ephesus and assorted other sites. Any tour one takes eventually winds up in a rug salesroom. This is my fourth visit to Kusadasi. It's 7:40 a.m. and the temperature is 46F outside. That seems pretty chilly for Spring in the Mediterranean, especially after all the really hot temperatures we've had along the way.

Anyway, I wound up deciding not to go on the tour I had booked. I later looked at the photos on my little iPad here, and I found I already have pictures of everything I was supposed to see on the tour today. So I spent most of the day puttering around the ship, talking to friends who stayed aboard, playing cards, working on another blanket for Project Linus. Margaret went off to tour the area and up to my favorite little village of Sirince where she had a good time and took tons of photos.

This evening the nabobs are throwing a major party for all the passengers which I understand they do for each World Cruise. This time they have rented the Great Amphitheater at Ephesus for the party. (Note: as a Roman amphitheater it is outdoors, and this one is big enough to seat 25,000. I'll put a photo from my first visit here.)

Beginning at 6:00, they are busing everyone 20 minutes away to the lower gates at Ephesus where it is a not super hard or long walk in to the place. Guests will be plied with all sorts of drinks and "heavy" hors d'oeuvres and desserts located at different points. Since it is so cold with a good chance of rain, the guests are being issued a deck blanket and umbrella as they leave the ship. HAH! Supposedly there will be something like stadium cushions to sit on instead of bare marble. Eventually there will be entertainment consisting of folkloric dancers and then the Aegean Chamber Orchestra. I have this mental image of hundreds of bundled up older people sitting there holding up these transparent umbrellas and their drinks while trying to keep plates of food from sliding off their blanketed laps. Oh my.

It will probably be 10:30 to 11:30 before guests get home to the ship. I'm sure it will be a fine party for those mostly senior citizens who go, although they may turn into tourist-cicles if it does rain. Not me. I don't need to get any colder than I normally am on this over-air-conditioned ship. Margaret and Mike and Judith and Carol and Ismet can report back on that one. I think I'll go soak my hands in hot water.

April 8

Evidently the big bash last night went pretty well, and it did not rain. Margaret got back about 11:30 or so, and she got some nice photos. She was well insulated in layers, and she doesn't get as cold as I do anyway. She said the hors d'oeuvres were excellent and plentiful and that the music by the Aegean Chamber Orchestra was wonderful. But the walking was long and rather difficult, particularly after dark despite lights on the way. I suppose I might have managed by taking the wheelchair as there were lots of crew from the ship to push wheelchairs and help people, but I still would have been freezing.

As of about 9:00 this morning, we've been rocking and rolling. It's a sort of Catch 22. The stabilizers don't work very well when the ship goes less than 10 knots, but if we go more than 9 knots we will get to Piraeus, Greece (the port for Athens) too soon. Fortunately neither Margaret nor I get seasick...just sleepy. Also, since we are sailing through all the islands between Turkey and Greece, they occasionally make the swells less.

We had a nice dinner with Judy and Carol at Caneletto which is the Italian specialty restaurant on board. Seriously good food, but too much of it.