Walk like an Eeee-jip-shunnnnnn…

Published May 28, 2013 by jaimief

WARNING!!! -Photo heavy!!!

Our first Egyptian stop was Port Said. I have to say I was not impressed and a bit frightened. It wasn’t very pretty or very deserty just…odd. I was most nervous about the ridiculous number of satellite dishes on the rooftops of some very poor looking buildings. We only went off the ship to the small bizarre that was just inside the port. As long as you were reasonably pleasant with the sales people, they weren’t too rude to you. Most offered a “very good deal” or a marriage proposal. We found a couple of cool things. The guests that went out on excursions all said they did not feel safe traveling through this city. Glad we were working!

Port Said

Alexandria was the following day and the day we were all waiting for. THIS was our trip to Cairo!!! It was also our first REAL day off the entire trip! We didn’t make the list of crew tour to the pyramids. We weren’t able to get on the passenger tours as a helper(?) so we decided to wing it. In hindsight, this may not have been the best choice but we were EXTREMELY fortunate!!!!! As we walked out of the port, we were immediately hounded by cab drivers. The port guard at the gate asked if we indeed were looking for a cab, yes, and he scanned the crowd and picked Ali. “THIS is a good man. He will drive you!” We negotiated a price for the 3 hour drive to Cairo ($40 American for each of us (4) round trip TOTAL!!!). And we were off!

The road to Cairo.

The Nile River.

…

Isis’ house?

About a half hour away you can begin to see the pyramids.

It didn’t quite take 3 hours to get there, but pretty close. Ali let us know that unfortunately, there are some bad people in Cairo and he was sorry. There are plenty of good people, but there are enough bad people and many are near the pyramids. They will try to sell us things for too much, they will offer to take our photo then take our camera or charge AFTER, the usual for large touristy places. Ali was going to take us someplace we could ride camels to the pyramids. He did. $11 to get into the pyramid park(?)…an ancient wonder of the world is less expensive to see than a movie in LA? Or a trip to LACMA? WTF? We negociated $35/person to ride 2 camels and a horse into the pyramids for 1.5 hours. We saddled up on Mickey Mouse, Michael Jackson (camels), a horse, our tour guide Hakim(?) and our 10 year old bodyguard Mohammed were on our way. We were again told that we were not to talk to people, give them money, Hakim was the ONLY one to take pictures for us and basically, stay together.

Mohammed with the map of our tour.

Our transportation.

Then we were there. The pyramids are more enormous than I imagined. And they are just…there! But if you look to the right there is the city sitting right next to them. So in a way, it is exactly like Las Vegas. Mohammed found pieces of Alabaster for us. We climbed ON the pyramid! Then we continued our camel-back trek to the Sphinx. As giant as the pyramids are, the Sphinx is not. Luxor may be life size…

Godzaimie! Raaaaaaaaar!

Looking up the pyramid.

Me, Melissa, Mekhell and Kristin.

Kristin and I riding Michael Jackson together. Not many people can say THAT!

The ancient city.

The Sphinx!

At the Sphinx we ran into our friends on the crew tour. CLEARLY we were having WAAAAAAAAAAAY more fun than them! PROOF…wardrobe may not get out much but when we do, we do it RIGHT!

We finished our camel tour and made it back to our cab driver Ali. We were interested in buying Kartush’s and Ali found a great place for us to get them. It was a bazaar type of store that sold all things Egyptian for decent prices. AND the owner spoke English…cuz he had lived in…umm…one of those middle states near Indiana where Melissa is from. They hit it off famously! We got our kartush’s and had a 3 hour trip back to the boat.

PULL TOP CANS!!!!

If I coulda fit this in my suitcase…

The shop owner. He gave us a good deal and treated us well…while we waited for our Kartush to be made.

I think Shadow could rock this look pretty well.

Back to the boat!

It’s odd that there are other countries with similar traffic patterns to Los Angeles and yet there is NOT the stress, anger or rudeness! For the most part, there were no lane lines but everyone just merges or stays on their side of the road. They honk at each other but it’s not angry get-the-F-out-of-my-way honking, it’s usually a hey-guy or good-morning honk! And everyone gets where they are going in a timely manner…weird…

Bird houses.

The drive back to port.

Egyptian carpool?

Ali our cab driver.

Egypt from port.

So now I’ve been to one of the places I’ve “always wanted to go to” so if I never get back, I’m ok but I would go back to Cairo if the opportunity arose. There are still the Egyptian museum to see (I mean, I’ve been to the 2nd largest Egyptian museum shouldn’t I see the 1st??), Khan el-Khalili market place, Islamic Cairo, and the Coptic Museum…or just hanging out it THE desert of all deserts!

…Greece is the word…is the word…is the word…

Published May 24, 2013 by jaimief

Work got crazy again so we didn’t get off the ship until Santorini. And what a good choice! Sure we were on the very tourist side of the island, but it was SO incredibly beautiful!! We had to tinder over to the island again (take the lifeboat over while docked way out in deep water). We rode donkeys up the mountain? Hill? They smelled great and were very charming…not so much. It was more like roller-derby donkey ride. They liked to run into each other as well as the people walking up or down the steps. We passed some of our officers in their white uniforms along the way I am certain I kicked one of them in the nuts and left a dirty streak mark of donkey hair on him. The shopping was spectacular! The cocktails were divine!!! There is something magnificent about the Grecian sun. I don’t know if it’s the brightness of the water or the lack of pollution it’s just different. Not brave enough to take the donkey trail back down the hill, we took the tram…at a ridiculous angle down the hill and post cocktails. It was new kind of adventure ride.

Santorini from the tinder.

A hhh…elpful Greek to get us off the tinder.

The view from a donkey’s back.

Up the mountain side.

Santorini

🙂

A ride in the tram back to the water.

Athens!!!!! We went to the Acropolis. The lines were too long to IN unfortunately, but we walked around the outside. It’s grander than in my head but not as big. It’s up on the top of a hill and you have to walk through a garden/park area to get there. OF COURSE you would!! It’s a beautiful walk! We sat on broken ancient Greek marble columns. Why is this weird because in the US, old stuff is put in a glass box for us to just look at. Here’s this piece of stone that has more zeros to it’s age than I can imagine and I can just SIT ON IT??? How many have sat here before me? Is that gross? Is that cool? I can’t wrap my head around it. We visited Athens on Orthodox Easter so a lot of odd places were closed. I had been told that there is just a pile of “ruins” randomly all over Athens. I don’t really know what I thought this meant, but it was definitely NOT what I saw! A street of stores, a cafe…then a massive hole in the ground with columns and alter looking things possibly covered in moss and plant life and on the far end of it? H&M.

Acropolis

The Theater of Dionysus

Sitting on really old pillar piece!

Random ruins #1.

Random ruins #2.

and NEXT to the ruins…

I’m standing in the middle of life with my (pants) behind me…

Published May 1, 2013 by jaimief

Soooo…I’M ON A BOAT!!!! It has been super hectic! We have now put up 3 of the 6 shows. The first one was easy, #2 & #3…not so much… It sounds good when “the show is ready except for hooks, snaps and Velcro” but it’s not usually THAT simple…we worked a LOT of hours in a small space while the crew painted things right outside our door. Good times… The shows have been well received so far we’ve all just been too tired to be happy about that. We were able to take long lunches in order to go into Corsica and Naples. It was nice to get off the boat but we really only had time to venture around the port area. I’m not complaining. It’s more of those cities than I had seen before! HOWEVER…I was playing with my camera…in manual mode…at night…and I forgot so all my pics of both cities are overexposed. I might be able to do some Photoshop magic but it’s going to take more time than I have at the moment. My sinus infection cleared up. My ears still haven’t really popped but my balance is mostly normal…until I had to wear heels 3 nights in a row on a moving ship. There are a LOT of stairs to climb on a ship!! I was ALMOST willing to sacrifice some fabulous for easier mobility…but I didn’t and obviously, I survived (reminds me of a song…).

The production team had dinner one night at the schmancy restaurant, The Pinnacle Grill. It was to celebrate John’s (the director/choreographer) bday on April 6 and mine. We got all fancy…and forgot to take pics of ourselves…

We passed through the Straights of Messina on the 25^th but it wasn’t until my birthday in Split, Croatia that we were able to go ashore. Split is AMAZING!!! There was really only time to walk around the Palace of Diocletian but it was just spectacular! I walked through the farmers market first thing and was convinced to buy a container of strawberry’s that were soooooooo dark red and tasty! It’s such a gorgeous mishmash of architecture…Roman, Byzantine, and Venetian. I took SOO many pictures! Since my great grandfather was originally from Split there was some added interest. The weird part was that being there sorta clarified things for me about me? Maybe I was just homesick and was looking for anything to connect to but being in such an ancestral place made me go, Oh(!!!) a good amount. AND it was just a beautiful day anyway so. It was a good birthday. I bought some good stuff…including a towel from Split. It’s a tea-towel, but I felt it was important to get a little nerdy. (wiki-Douglas Adams). After the trek we had to do some quick fittings for show #4 then I was taken to dinner by my co-workers to Canaletto, the Italian restaurant on the ship. Delish! Finishing off the night in the lounge with the HALcats (on ship band) who at the end of their set sang a mash up of Happy Bday and Oh What a Night. And yes it was! We had set sail already but the weather was still really nice so we moved the party to the Officers Bar and hung out on the bow. SO incredible. Stars are BRIGHT!! I did not miss the orange glow of LA one bit!

4/29 we pulled into port in Venice!! THIS show we are actually in REALLY good shape so we were able to spend yesterday evening and this morning in the city. Still not long enough but now I have officially been to both canal cities! The water is as disgusting as you hear…yet it’s still beautiful. Some of the band and a couple dancers jumped into the canal. SO disgusting! The food is better than you can imagine and the house wine??? I would drink a lot of it every night if I lived here!! I would definitely like to visit again.

Now we are off to Greece. Where there are Starbucks in Athens. Many. I checked. Go ahead Becky, speculate on what I’m bringing back for you!

I have a TON of photos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But due to the slow & expensive internet, I have to adjust the size of the photos I post so they upload quicker which means I can’t post ALL of them but I hope the ones I do put up express the vibe! I also can’t figure out how to put the pics in *MY* order!!