Day 10 - At Sea and Day 11 - Dubrovnik, Croatia

At Sea
The next day was a day at sea. Jen, again, stayed in bed a large part of the day. I thought that was a waste of entertainment time, but she said it was her vacation and she could do what she wants. I couldn't argue with that so I went to be entertained by myself. I played in the paddle tennis tournament, went to the art auction, and played in the blackjack tournament in the casino. Then I discovered that you can play blackjack on the television in your room. Suddenly, staying in bed sounded much better.

Here is me playing blackjack for real. Pretty cool! You can't even do this in Vegas, as far as I know.

That night was the last formal night. We went to the Olympic Restaurant on board again. They prepare most everything right at the table and it's "extra fancy." Although we didn't get another birthday cake, we did get a honeymoon cake, complete with violinist.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Today was the second to last day. :-(

We feel like we could stay here forever. Apparently some people do! I met a guy playing paddle tennis today who is retired and I guess all they do is cruise. He and his wife are staying on the ship and doing the exact same trip in reverse, starting the day after we get off. Sounds good to me!

Today, this was what it looked like when I came up on deck in the morning. Croatia has over 1200 islands. Here are a few of them:

Before we left the ship, I stayed around (waiting for Jen to get ready) and watched the crew's fire drill. They actually put all the life boats in the water on one side. Each boat had three crew members on board just to get it lowered in the water. They circles around beside the ship until the drill was over.

When we got off the ship, we found a taxi driver who gave us a whole tour before taking us to the "old town" in the walled-in city of Dubrovnik. You don't see too many Merecedes for taxicabs, but this was one of them.

Here is a view from the top of the city with our ship in the background on the right. On the left is the newly-built bridge that replaced the one that was destroyed in the recent war with the Serbs.

Here is a view from the top of the hill overlooking the old town.

This is the view behind us where we parked. That is Bosnia in the hill in the background.

This is the cable car which used to go to the top of the hill from the city below. The Serbian soldiers destroyed it.

The Serbs, before they destroyed the cable car, filled it with dynamite and sent it down to the bottom. Here is the parking lot where houses used to be, not that long ago. Our taxi driver, it turns out, was one of the Dubrovnik villagers who went into the hills for four years to fight the Serbs. He said if he had known 15% of what that would be like, he would rather someone had just shot him. This was all part of the stuff that Milosevic is in prison for now.

Another view of some of Croatia's 1200 islands. All of this countryside used to be green and covered with trees like those in the background, but it was all ldestroyed in the war.

Here is the monument, on top of the hill, to all the citizens and citizen-soldiers who died in the war with the Serbs.

Here is Jen in front of one of the two bridges into the city.

Here is a view of the boats outside.

The old town of Dubrovnik is a neat old city with a large wall running around the entire city.

Here is another Internet Cafe inside the old town.

A view up the hill from inside the old town.

Walking back to our ship, here is a good shot of it, one of the top 5 big cruise ships in the world.

This is a shot from on top of our ship with the new Croatian bridge in the background.

This was our final dinner on board. Tonight, we are going to have dinner in Venice! And tomorrow they're making us go home. Actually, they didn't say we had to go home -- just that we can't stay here anymore. This is a picture of Barry and Rochelle.

This is Rochelle and Rosalyn

This is Sheldon and Rosalyn. Sheldon is the one who told the waiters it was Jen's birthday.