Naples today, Valetta Malta tomorrow

Valetta Malta
A UNESCO World Heritage Site

Hello,

Naples today,

Valletta Malta tomorrow.

We have nine ports in 12 days, so there is lots to see.

Wyona

London Bates-Treleaven Travels Part 2

This is Marcia again. I just posted all the 'good' things that have happened since we arrived in London 24 hours ago. Now for the bad things...

It is impossible to sleep on the plane. Gabe and I tried several times to close our eyes, but we both kept peeking at each other and giggling. So no sleep was to be had, and we arrived at 8am London time.

When we got to the Best Western Hotel, Wyona (my mom) had switched to a family room in the basement. It was larger than our original two rooms, but Gabe was aghast at how small the bathroom was. When you sit on the toilet, your knees touch the sink plumbing, and the sink is the size of a tissue box. There is a very small shower in the corner and the shower head is no higher than 5 feet. If you stand in the middle of this bathroom, you can touch all four walls. Cozy for sure.

It is so hot here. It is hot on the tube, on the new busses, in the hotel, in the airport... but it is supposed to cool off in the next few days. Can't wait.

We had a 3 hour nap at the hotel, but then Wyona woke us up at 1:30pm. Gabe and I would have slept the day away if she hadn't. As it was, he was hard to wake up, and when he did, he woke up with a tummy ache. I went to the matinee show 'Once' while Gabe and Wyona went to 'Billy Elliot'. Can't say anything bad about those to shows, they were so entertaining. I did get a little nervous just before the show when I went to look for my money wallet and couldn't find it. I was a little bit sick to my stomach, and then I remembered taking it out at the hotel room and not putting it back in my purse. Oh well, as least I had my show ticket and a drink and snack in my purse for the Interval.

I went to Trafalgar Square to meet up with them, and they didn't show up for 45 minutes. My mom had forgotten the evening tickets for Merrily We Roll Along, so she and Gabe went back to the hotel before meeting me. He kept telling her to call me on the cell, but that is too expensive and we both know there is nothing the other person can do anyway. Funny how available we all are with our phones and texting. It is really fun to hang out in Trafalgar Square and watch the people and the traffic. Those cyclists weave in and out of traffic. I saw so many things that would have caused many vehicle honks in Calgary, but didn't phase the drivers or riders here.

We couldn't find a place that Gabe would eat at, he is sometimes quite picky. We were hunting for that ever elusive McDonalds, but found a Burger King instead. Not my first choice, but the fruit smoothie was good.

Then we were nervous about making our next show and the bus wasn't showing up, so we hailed this 'rickshaw' driver (for lack of a better word, not sure what they are called), and he drove us to the show. Gabe was on my lap since it was a little squishy. We were laughing so hard out of fear and embarrassment... packed in like that and being in bumper to bumper traffic with the busses, cars and cyclists. Three minutes down the road, and Wyona realized we were headed to the wrong theatre. We checked the tickets, the driver pulled out his phone to check where that was (I had a mild coronary watching him peddle and check his phone map at the same time) and we realized it was back where we had started. The massive coronary came a moment later when he did a u-turn in traffic! I just had to numb myself and close my eyes, it was so crazy!!! And no one honked at us. I just couldn't believe it. A wide rickshaw being driven in the narrow spaces between vehicles. Oh if only I had had my video camera out. I was trying to keep my 11 year old from falling off my lap into traffic. He drove us back to where we started (literally), we through him 5 pounds for his troubles, then ran. We ran past the Burger King we ate at, then past a McDonalds (!!), and right around the corner from the McDonalds was the theatre for Merrily We Roll Along.

It was 7:27pm and the show started at 7:30pm, so we rushed in, showed our tickets at the entrance, then again at the dress circle door, and ran in to this empty theatre! As my mom was saying "When does this start", I was checking the tickets and realized they were for 2:45pm. We had matinee tickets instead of evening tickets! Oh my! Exhaustion and the frantic last 20 minutes made me want to cry, but we laughed instead. Honestly, there was only 3 other people sitting in the theatre at that time. One of the fellows sitting in the theatre told us he thought it started at 7:30 as well, but he looked at his ticket when he arrived and saw it was a 7:45pm start time instead (he probably thought we were crazy for not looking at our own tickets for the start time). We laughed about rushing, we laughed about the 2 ushers we showed our tickets to not seeing the time, and we laughed about the mix up in theatres. W didn't dare leave the dress circle area just in case on reentry an usher would see we had the wrong time. Five minutes before the show started the seats started to fill up. We hung out at the back and took seats in the back row just as the show was starting. It was a fantastic show.

I was happy to get back to the hotel that night to find my wallet right where I had left it. We laughed again at all that went wrong. Gabe fell asleep at about 1 a.m. and Wyona and I kept talking. At 1:45 a.m. Gabe woke up and wanted me closer, so Wyona had this wonderful idea to move the beds around. Now my family knows how important Wyona's environment is to her. She moves furniture (I mean, has us move furniture) around every few months. There I was, executing her new bed arrangement... going from single, double, single to single, single, double so that Gabe and I could sleep side by side on the singles. I didn't completely clear the path of shoes and purses, so the single bed got stuck at the foot of the double bed. Not to mention that the room was just wide enough for the length of the double and the width of the single. It was a nightmare. At one point Wyona said "maybe we should just sleep like this" with the T-shaped bed arrangement and the beds blocking one side of the room off from the other. Laughing and crying again, we got it all set up properly. Of course, thinking it through afterwards, we realized we should have just slid the single and double together, and then had Wyona sleep on the single on the outside. But that would have just been too easy. As it was, Gabe reached out for me several times in the night, probably a time-change-induced restless sleep. But he was still asleep at 9 a.m. when I came to the foyer to right this blog.

As always, loving London. Here for my 3rd time and still can't get enough. I wonder what adventures this next day will bring.

Cheers, 
Marcia

London Bates-Treleaven Travels

This is Marcia typing from Wyona's account (my mom). Gabe and I arrived in London 24 hours ago, and a lot has happened since then. I don't know whether to start with the good list or the bad list. Let's do good first, it is shorter.

We saw Life of Pi on the plane. Gabe had never seen it before, it was my second time. We both really enjoyed it. We arrived at the London airport, and we took an express train from Gatwick to London, quite an enjoyable ride.

Wyona had switched things up at the Best Western we are staying at; originally she had a single room on the top floor and we had a double room close by. It has been so hot in London, so she went and checked at the front desk about other rooms available. They had a family room with a double bed and 2 single beds available in the basement. We switched to that instead and it has been fun to be in the same room. When we arrived at 10am she was still sleeping. She had switched to that room the night before because it was 10 degrees cooler than the sweltering upstairs room. Gabe and I checked out the room and really liked it... except for... that will have to wait for the next list.

We had a 3 hour nap while Wyona went to get us show tickets. Then at 2:30pm she and Gabe saw Billy Elliot and I went to Once at 3pm. Oh, Once was so beautiful. What talented musicians/singers/actors. Is it ok to cry in a show when you are by yourself? I wondered if Gabe was crying at all the right parts in Billy Elliot. He loved it and spent the evening singing 'Solidarity'. He also bought a hoody with Billy Elliot London on it, he loves that jacket already.

We met at Trafalgar Square after our shows. There was some big screen Opera event being set up, the crowds were already converging, and we snagged 6 free inflatable seat cushions before going to find a bite to eat before our next show. Always resourceful, those Pilling Aunts! I'm just not sure they will get used before we return to Canada, so far we haven't sat long enough to have sore bums that need seat cushions.

We took a 'rickshaw' ride to our next performance (more on that later), and we saw Merrily We Roll Along. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. A little too adult-themed for Gabe's understanding, but he still enjoyed the musical numbers. Gabe and Wyona went back to the hotel room during the interval (intermission), he was so tired... he put on a brave face, but with only 3 hours sleep in the past 36 hours, he was fading fast. The best number was in the second half. When they started singing The Blob, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, yet another show I cried in.

I went to Trocadero on my way home... what a lively place at 11pm! Took the tube back to the hotel room, called home to see how Art, Zack and Audra were doing, then slept soundly until 8:30 a.m. the next morning. Oh yeah, those two were still awake watching Waterworld on tv when I got back to the hotel, so we didn't go to sleep until 1 a.m.

What a wonderful first day... although now for the post about all that went wrong... 

Two Layers of Shoppers

Times have changed, said the shop keeper. There are now only 2 layers of travellers.  Those who have so much money that they can come into a store and buy anything they want, and those who buy the usual cheap tourist souvenirs.  The class of people who had two or three hundred dollars to spend is gone.  They were the middle class and they don’t exist in Europe anymore.  Some Canadians, Americans and Brits, but rarely do the European cruisers have that kind of money any more.

Wyona and I always look at bags, scarves and jewellery.  When Margaret’s husband said good-bye to her as she left for this holiday, one of his last words to her was, “I hope you don’t pick up any bad habits while you are gone.”  She hasn’t.  She picked up 2 scarves in Santorini and one on the boat – and that hardly counts as shopping.

“Holy Doodle”, she said when she saw the ring Wyona had purchased but and then offered to let me buy from her. Picking up a piece of jewellery is a significant investment of time; I was glad to be on the receiving end of that deal.   I just say yes. Yesterday at the end of a long day in Santorini, we stopped by some merchants who had 35 % or 50 % off of their rings and necklaces – the end of the season sale. 

Easy to tell it was the end of the season.  Many of the villas and hotels are already closed – really closed.  Plywood is nailed over their windows, no deck chairs are out, and their pools are empty. We didn’t take a ship excursion into town.  Wyona had read that if you go into the village at the other end of Fia, take the cable car to the top of the cliffs and then ride a local bus That way you can go to Oia (EE-yah) for €1.6: 4 euros up in the cable car, 4 down and 1.6 each way into town and out – a grand total of 11.2 euros for the day instead of 89 on a boat excursion.  Another significant saving would have been to walk to the top of the cliffs on the same trail that a donkey ride can also transport you to the top, the donkey ride being 4 euros – the same price as the cable car.

I can’t remember the last bus I rode where the bus fare is taken on the ride – except for those trips I take home from Sicamous and haven’t purchased a pre-paid ticket. Then I am all the way to Golden before I have to pay. Here the local ticket taker walks down the crowded isle, bills stuffed in one hand, a set of tickets he tears off in another and clenched between his hands is a set of 5 metals columns out of which he dispenses the correct change, should people give him bills.  “What do I want 30 centimes back from 3.50” said Wyona, “so I just whispered to him, ‘Keep the change.’  That is how my hand got an extra squeeze and a large smile from him.”

She did the same thing with her money to a clerk in a jewellery store in Athens.  A young 19 year old shopkeeper said to her on the street, “Come in.  I give you no hassle.” 

“No hassle?” she confirmed. 

“None ,” he said and he was true to her word.  He let her look around for more than an hour, just left her alone, though she had gathered information along the way that it was his brother’s shop (aged 32) and his uncle was somehow in the family business. 

When the bill was finally totaled up, for her it was tip time – to the younger shop keeper, even though the older brother and uncle had tried to hover around making the sale.  When he saw the size of the tip he ran to get her another “free” gift.  The tip may have been too much for him to comprehend.

Arta

The Travellers in First Class

Yes, Tonia -- I am one of those who love train travel.

To get Wyona's and my tickets for the Britrail passes, there was only once choice, due to our advancing ages. We had to travel first class.  That was hard on two women who are always looking for sales.

Still, I am hooked on train travel.

That would make sense, considering the number of times I have stood at the side of the tracks and waved to those who are passing by. 

 2... our passes let us travel through England, Scotland and Wales ...

And I am missing my travel companion
Greg and I were lucky.

We had Wyona who would figure out the schedules, look for destinations that would work between stations, pack a lunch for us, make reservations for hotels if we had to stay over, and she would act as the alarm clock -- the one who got us out the door on time, for trains wait for no one. 

... the feast?  Wyona's box lunch for  us ...

When Greg retired he got a new life and I lost an old one -- the one where I did lots of train travel.

What would be good for me is if he would go and find some contract work.

Then Wyona would be mine again. l

I miss those picnic lunches on trains. 

Arta

Cruise to the Canary Islands

Don’t answer the phone after midnight.  That is what Wyona said to Moiya last night.  Wyona does her searches for good cruise deals after midnight.  I answer the phone after the twelve bells had tolled to hear her say, would you rather go on a cruise around England, stopping in at many ports, or one to the Baltic.  Going to the Baltic was a no brainer for me, I told her and that is how I woke up in the morning, going on my first cruise, and how I discovered myself walking along the streets of St. Petersburg, 10 days later.

Moiya had a similar experience.  She answered the phone after midnight, and was on a plane 24 hours later, joining us for our trip to the Canary Islands the day after that.  Steve had upgraded our room from an inside cabin to a balcony so that Alex could come along with us.  That opened up another bed and Wyona picked up the phone after midnight to ask Moiya to join us.

There is a sense of adventure in Wyona.  We didn’t take any of the port destination trips that are offered to passengers.  Instead we get off of the boat, Wyona finds someone who can speak English, asks them for a good local bus route to take, one that we can use to go to a destination and then walk back to the ship.  That is how we found ourselves walking along a small side street, Moiya and Alex in a grocery store buying pop, and Wyona and me strolling the avenue looking at churches, statues, the design on pavements, and the graffiti on buildings.  I had stopped to look at a quickly painted political statement on the side of a building about democracy, probably inspired by the trauma of the long dictatorship under Franco, and Wyona went back to see what was taking the shoppers so long.  When she didn’t come back, I, too, wandered back, to find her sitting on a chair, surrounded by 8 locals, all of whom looked worried, and a couple of clerks were standing there, one with a phone in her hand. Wyona was pale and disoriented. “Have you fallen again,” I asked.  “Oh, does she speak English?  We thought she spoke French,” said one of the onlookers. I looked quizzically at a small old woman who was standing by her own shopping cart and she looked back at me right in the eye, but speechless, though she was intoning the musical fifth, doh/soh, doh/soh, doh/soh, over and over, which lead me to believe an ambulance was on its way.

Having had a number of on-ship discussions with Moiya and Wyona about the high cost of medical treatment abroad, I said to Wyona, “There is an ambulance on its way.”  She put out her arms, stood slowly and said, “Look, I am OK.  I am OK.  Call the ambulance back.  I am leaving right now and walking down this street.  Thank you everyone for your help.  I am going to be OK. ”S he limped back up the street, the by-standers shaking their heads.

“Alright, Wyona, what just happened there?”

“I was going into the store and tripped over the step that leads up into the store.  I did a face plant.  The clerks saw me.  I got up and leaned on the wall outside, but when I did, I knew I was going down, so I slipped down the wall to the ground. I had taken a really hard fall. A clerk saw me and brought a chair and put me on it.  That is where you found me.  I needed to sit there for a bit.  There was no way I was going in an ambulance, so I got up and started walking, telling everyone I was OK.  Who was around me?”

“As far as I could tell, only Spanish speakers and you must have uttered a bit of French to them, for they thought that is what you spoke.”  Wyona can flesh out her story when she gets on the blog – sufficient to say her energy level dropped for a few days until some healing occurred.  She was back on her feet and into the markets again when Moiya missed a step going down reconstructed the same fall, letting her elbow and knee act as part of her 3-point landing that she bounced from, rolling into a position of being prostrate on the ground.  Suddenly I was on the outside of a circle of 10 people gathered around her, asking her if she was alright. What is wrong with this picture, I asked myself later.  I have my eyes on architectural details while my siblings are contending with each other for who can come away with the biggest bruises and contusions. Moiya has the perfect thing to say from the ground.  “I am fine.  I just need a minute to sit here and collect my senses.”  But everyone stands around for that minute to watch and Moiya isn’t in for that kind of spotlight and scrambled as quickly as she could to her feet, all the while someone saying, “I am not stalking you, I am helping, I am a nurse,  I am going to watch you for minute to see that you are OK.”  How sweet was that?   

So at night, when the shows are over, those two compare the colour of their bruises and the pain level of their stretched muscles, and I sit there determining to hold tight to the banisters on every staircase, and to keep my eyes more on the gutters than on the eaves troughs around me.

Wyona

Cadiz, Spain

I saw the Cathedral from the top of the ship this morning as I was taking my walk.  I couldn’t see any clear path that lead to it – only a maize of streets.  How hard can it be to find something that high, I thought as I was walking the deck.  But as soon as Wyona, Greg and I got on the cobbled streets, the Cathedral disappeared from our view.  We walked through narrow streets, enjoying the wrought iron balconies, the tiled walls of the the plazas and the marble under our feet and searching for a way through the streets to the church.

The entrance fee was three euros for Spanish pensioners, and five euros for all others except those in groups for whom the price dropped to three Euros again.  “Do you want to form a group and get in a little cheaper?” asked Wyona to people behind us who were also looking at the entrance fee. 

And that is how we made our way into the cathedral for 3 euros where we spent a quiet Friday afternoon trying to see what it is about the neo-classical style of the 19^th century that is definitely Spanish. The old stone out of which the church is built is porous and  disintegrating.  The ceiling is falling into the nave of the church.  A fine net is strung from one end of the church to the other to keep that ceiling from falling on the worshipers and the travellors as well. I was trying to figure out what about the design of the church was definitely Spanish – a square border, the corners of which all had squares in them, but which were definitely offset and not symmetrical, for example. 

The church also houses the tomb of Manuel de Falla, which is why there was a portrait of a musician, obvious because of the notation manuscripts around him in the painting.  “Falla?” said Greg.  “Does anyone know this musician?”

“Fie-ya,” I could hear the announcer on CBC saying.  But then I couldn’t remember if I should pair him up with the Firebird Suite or with something else.  Where, oh, where is the internet when I need it.  The same thing happened at lunch today.  We had brandied lattice cups that held lemon perrot.  I could identify the waffle-latticed cups but not the lemon perrot it held – this sharp delicious lemon flavoured confection, but what about it means perrot?  I will probably even have forgotten the question by the time I get back to my blessed internet.  I had no idea how many times a day I go to it to find out the answer to some question, which no longer burns in me when I have discovered the answer.

Greg left us to explore Cadiz on his own.  Ever since Italy he has been looking for a lemon pastry that escaped him there.  Wyona and I like to travel down the narrow old streets.  I had gone to the destination lecture about Cadiz and looked at the Port Explorer, published by the ship.  I had gone to sleep in the lecture, but I didn’t know if I was out for just a few seconds or for much longer.  I did remember enough that I could identify the 17^th century stone walls, a spotted the Coastal Walking Path, located on the Atlantic side of Cadiz, and when we passed the Spanish Plaza, I could hear the words of the lecturer – “Every Spanish town has a main plaza.”  Wyona and I stood for a long time looking at the monuments, celebrating liberal assembly.  Burned into my brain was the man on the square who stood holding a long banner onto which these words were written:  all I want is what others have – a democracy to live in.  Living in one,  how often do I forget that others don’t have that.

Passenger watching.  That is what we do a lot of.  When I was first boarding I saw an old couple, dressed absolutely fit to kill.  Beautifully tailored cothes and I one point when I looked at the clothes carefully, it seemed he garments were hanging on skeletons.  Wyona saw the same couple often – they must be Celebrity Pinnacle Passengers, for they are always early to the theatre and get the reserved seats for people who have travelled with the line often, and always impeccably dressd – she with a lovely hat and matching coat; he with a tailored evening coat and a beautiful scarf at his neck.  Tehy are so old that the two hardly have any meat left on their bones.  I have no idea how they got their luggage on board for they look too fragile to even carry themselves along.”  Wyona pointed the woman out to me one night in a show.  There is a box of seats especially reserved for Platinum members (people who have cruised for over 80 days are diamond plus members and the platinums are above that).  This time the woman was wearing a sequined sparkling cap to die for, one like women wore in the days of the flappers.  The third time we saw them was at an elevator around lunchtime.  The woman had a hat on again, a beautiful rhinestone piece on its headband is what I was admiring.  The elevator came.  I saw someone gently take her shoulders, turn them 180 degrees and say softly in her ear, “The elevator is this way, dear.”  And then push her gently forward.  Then her husband, again in a lovely suit with a silk scarf at his neck, slowly tugged on her hand and she took tiny steps, barely staying upright, into the elevator. 

That is how long I want to cruise.  All the way until I don’t know which way to the elevator, though I still want to be able to put on a beautiful silk dress and hat to look good for that journey to the elevator.

After the Fact... London with Arta

After the better part of a week spent in London hounding the streets for a home to rent for the year, I was left with one free day to spend with Arta. The three of us headed off to Leicester Square, to the half-price booth to get theatre tickets for the last night. The plan was to head in different directions: Arta wanted to see "Love Never Dies" again, and Wyona wanted to spend her last night with "Dreamboats and Petticoats".

Ten minutes before hitting the Tube station, we'd had a long talk about how to meet up with each other if we got separated... the easy answer is of course just to look back for Rebecca's hair. :-) In a moment of irony, the two women went through ahead of me, and my Oyster card ("bus pass") denied me entry (I had run out of money and hadn't noticed).... the line up to re-nourish my depleted Oyster card was long, and the women were gone...Arta, though, in typical Arta way, had decided for fun to see how easy it was to find me, and had noticed I was gone. They came back, spoke to me through the barricade, and we sent Wyona ahead to wait in the ticket line up while I lined up for the Oyster card. Nice start to the day... way to practice finding each other after getting lost.

Just proving that different paths do not always run at the same speed, Arta and I somehow still managed to arrive at the Leicester Square before Wyona.

Go figure. 

So... tickets purchased, we split up for the day: Wyona to visit her favourite scarf sellers (What?! More scarves?!), and Arta and I to visit the National Gallery.

One of the recent 'installations' at the national gallery is the "Eco Art" outside. VERY westcoast!

They have planted grasses and small mossy growing things all over one of the walls of the building.

Not sure how visible it is in the shot, but the effect from some ways back is a bit like a Georges Seurat painting... it just looks like a lovely watercolour painting. Pretty groovy!

Arta and I have not spent much time in museums TOGETHER (as adults, that is... i certainly spent time following in her path of educational exploration as a child...you know, "fossil rock walks in downtown Calgary", "identify bat guano in fish creek park", etc).

But it was a revelation to see that she is just as bad as me in her desire to consume til your belly/brain explodes.

In between our own wanderings, we took in the 10:30 and 2:30 guided tours, each of which offered a more close exploration of 5 or maybe 6 paintings.

Christ Healing the Blind Man by Buoninsegna

We started out looking at some panels from an alter piece done by Duccio di Buoninsegna (c. 1255-1260 – c. 1318-1319), the most influential Italian artist of his time.

The first one we saw has Christ healing the blind man. 

It is fun to look at the conventions for telling story through image: here, you see the blind man both before and after being healed. 

The panel that goes beside this one has Christ appearing to the apostles.... when they are set along side each other, you can see that the "healed" blind man is looking up at the body of Christ in the panel along side. 

Fun.

We also learned that this was painted on wood, which was then covered with linen, and then covered with plaster to make a smooth surface to paint on. The paint was egg tempera, which would give you vibrant colours, albeit without tons of nuance: the paint would dry very fast, so you only had a short time where it could be pliably worked). 

Annunciation of Mary

In the afternoon session, we returned to Duccio, to look at another painting of the Annunciation (Mary getting informed by the angel that she was going to have a baby....). 

We listened to a nice discussion about the number of people who would have participated in making the painting.

Different artists in the studio would have done the people, and the buildings (would would have had painters specializing in buildings)

Then we moved up a hundred years, to spend time with the Spanish Bartolomé 

St. Michael Triumphs Over the Devil

Bermejo's 1468 painting "St Michael triumphs over the devil". This one is in oil, which explains the greater nuance and emotion captured in the paint. We also learned more about just how much gold leaf there was on the original. First there was a 'cartoon' of the painting... like a paper version laid over top of the prepared canvas. then someone would poke holes through it onto the prepared canvas below, so that the outline of the painting was transferred there. Then the gold specialist would be next, and would cover certain part of the painting with a red glue, over which was laid tiny pieces of gold flake. The gold would then be further pressed it into the wood with some kind of embossing tool, so that the painting would be even more luminescent when seen in the candlelight of the darkened church. Only after all the gold pieces were laid down would the artist come into to paint the figures and images in the scene. When you look at it now, there is not so much gold, and the background looks reddish... that is just the red glue stuff (which had some special name i have forgotten) showing through. If you click on this link, so will get the picture on the national gallery's website, and can zoom in to get a closeup of the monster! The feminist in me was so happy that the guide did eventually take us to a painting by a woman artist! Here were looked at a painting by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842). This is a self-portrait of her, but she is also showing off her skills as a painter by making hers a version of a similar painting by Rubens, on the right of the gallery and which you can see beside her in this post. What she was doing here was making a 'calling card'.

Self Portrait of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

She is showing herself AS an artist, showing off all the skills she has, letting male viewers know that she can make their wives look this good but that they needn't worry about leaving their wife alone with her. I also like how she is holding her hand out, encouraging them to give her a commission! There was more, but I am getting tired. :-) which was just what happened to us too! So.... in between the two guided tours, we went for a "Talk and Draw" session. Here, they set up 40 chairs in front of one painting.

Artist: John Constable

In this case, the painting was John Constable's "Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Someone talks to you about the painting for 20 minutes, then they give you two drawing tasks, to practice some of the techniques that were used in the drawing. They hand out these nice big easels for you lap, boxes of pastels, pencils, conté, etc. So we had two tasks. First to draw a single tree from the painting by building up layers of colour (ie. start with black, go over with red, with brown, yellow, etc). Second task was to show perspective in the same way (ie. capture the darkening woods in the distance). I will confess, we both had to come to terms with some of our limits! hahaha. And yet, it was totally fun, so sit, listen, draw, and laugh. At the end, they had people set their drawings at the front to compare what people had produced. We also then had to head to the bathroom to wash the evidence of our crimes from our fingers (stained by the pastels). I felt very much like Lady MacBeth! We did bring our drawings home and showed them to Wyona at the end of the night. I will not be more specific re which of the drawings below belongs to Arta and which belongs to me... but I think Wyona was arguing that one of the paintings looks less like 'the woods', and more like a Judy Chicago plate! You can see that neither of those two women was taking my artist production very seriously.

Artists.

They are never appreciated while still alive...

Cancelling the EuroRail Pass

Wyona and I put aside our plans to get EuroRail Passes this fall, tempting as the adventure sounded.  Our common friends, Peter and Margaret Oldham, did the trip and updated Wyona on the planning that has to be done.  Even the seats on the train must be pre-booked. 

The two of us are spoiled from the freedom of the BritRail pass – no booking unless you desire a certain seat and the freedom to change travel plans on a whim. 

“How about letting me plan a Mediterranean cruise instead of going EuroRail,” said Wyona.  “Greg, Margaret, you and me. I think we can see the same places, and not have to carry our bags along with us, but leave them behind on the boat while we do day trips.”

So the next trip will be one that is planned for so far in advance that Wyona and Greg bought special luggage for it.  When they  passed through an outlet store in Texas that sold cruise luggage, they called me to say, “We are getting a large piece of this for the two of us, and think you would enjoy a single.”

That is the piece of luggage I was packing today.  It is getting a trial run before the Mediterranean trip. I might have cancelled both trips if I had known that I would be in a cold sweat before I got my clothes inside.  This bag has more compartments than I have categories of things to pack:  14 pockets, 22 zippers, 16 snaps, various plastic interlocking straps and a complicated locking system.

Good thing that I am counting this as a trial run with me so that I will be skilled with its use by the fall.  I had to get someone to come into the room and help me close the bag, and it didn't even weigh fifty pounds.

“Did you get everything ironed before you got it into the hanging garment bag,” she asked me this morning.

“Ironed?  Is that part of the deal?” 

 Arta

Split, Croatia

We are on our way to Alexandria Egypt and have three sea days to get there. Our Deluxe stateroom has a balcony.  Arta is in the room with us.  It is Wyona’s birthday.  This ship is so big and the service is exquisite.  The food is out of this world. 

I want to tell you about our trip to Split, Croatia.  There are so many things I want to know about your mission there Matthew.  How many months did you spend in Split?  Did you ever get to old town?  Greg said that he went up the clock tower and that you could see the whole area from the top.  David went on an excursion while I stayed back to spend all the money....the Kuna.....that Matthew brought home from his mission.  I sent $300 Canadian dollars to Matthew just before he was coming home from his mission about 8 or 9 years ago.  I told him to spend it all and to bring home something for everyone.  He didn’t have time to do that.  Unfortunately, the money was already changed into Kuna in his account, so he brought it home.  Wyona and I shopped around in some of the jewelry stores to find something I liked.  It was after lunch time and Wyona was thirsty so we stopped to get a diet coke from the kiosk.  The lady would not take the 20 KUNA and pointed to another 20 Kuna that she had in her hand.  I have to say that they did look different. They have changed the look of their currency and it now has so nice shiny stripes on it.  Ours looked old, very old.  We went to a Bank nearby and waited in line.  They could not change the old money for new money and the fellow told us that we would have to go to the financial institution [FINA] to get it changed.  It was quite a ways to go and we were on foot so we (two old sisters with aching feet) started going in the direction we were told to go.  We had not money to buy water or anything.  We had no money to take the #6 bus in that direction.  We didn’t know if we were even going in the right direction.  We just kept asking people if they spoke English and asked for “FINA”.  Some Croatians could help us and some could not.  Wyona’s foot hurt so bad!!!

Oh, I must let you know that the ship was leaving Split at 4 PM.  The last tender to the ship was at 3 PM.  If we don’t make it.............we have to find our own way to the next Port which was the last port on that ship and it was in Venice. 

Wyona and I have shopped until we could drop. We’re trying to speed walk to “FINA”.  Yikes!......Isn’t a BANK a financial institution??????  Why do we have to go to FINA?   

I’ll tell you why ... because we want to spend the Kuna that would have been good for nothing ... no one would even take that OLD money. It is worth about $230 dollars!    We either try to get new for old OR just let that money go to waste.  I COULDN’T DO THAT NOW!     Oh, Poor Wyona.....her feet were sore and she was limping. Finally Wyona said, “There’s Fina”.

We go in to Fina and I am getting shaky.  I know that my blood sugars are low so I went outside and ate the melon yogurt I smuggled out of the ship.  I always need to have something close by to take care of those lows.  

One other important thing!  I didn’t take any identification with me.  No credit cards.  No passports.  No driver’s license.  I handed the money over to Wyona because she just happened to take her driver’s license.

The only problem now is that the girls in Fina don’t know if that can change the FINA but maybe they could change it tomorrow......That darn Fina!

I was outside trying to eat and Wyona came out an told me they could not change the Fina.  I said, “OK” and was ready to go back to the ship.  She, of course was joking.  So, we headed back to Old Town wondering if we would ever be able to find the shops.  I had no time to shop around anymore and ended up buying a gold pendant for my gold chain and a silver chain for a necklace.  We had enough Fina left to each buy a Gelato and a few pastries. We got back on the Tender (a boat that takes you out to the anchored ship in the harbor) and made it back to the ship.

I declare......I have never spent that much money so quickly before in my life!

Love to all,
Moiya

Paris - Three Seconds or Less

To make the most of our Paris Autobus Tour, Wyona suggested that we get off the bus, take a quick tube ride to the end of the line, and pick up one of the variations of the tour that would take us to see the Bercy District again.

I had a bag in one hand and my underground ticket in the other hand.

We approached the doors of the brand new line underground, remembering that Greg had said of the station,"Stunning. New. Modern." 

The train arruved and we stepped up to the glass doors. Two people, much younger than I pushed ahead of us to be first into the train. When the doors opened they entered the train first and stood toe to toe slower than one normally enters the doors and then they didn’t go for the seats but stood right in front of us, blocking our way to the seats they didn't seem to want.

At the same time, people behind us were pushing me to get in, pushing Wyona as well, but I was being blocked on one side by Wyona and on the other side by a younger woman. 

I was also grabbing for the centre pole since I like to get my feet shoulder length apart and have one hand on a stable structure when the train accelerates out of the station. 

My bag was in one hand and my ticket in the other hand was interfering with me getting a strong grip on the pole.

The jostling in front of me and behind me reminded me of the London tubes in the evening rush hours when people are travelling home and I have to keep close to Wyona or the doors will separate us. I was concentrating on getting a stable standing position.

I looked down at my hand holding my bag just as the girl who had been pushing me from behind slipped back out of the train, now deciding not to push past me to take the ride to the next station. 

As she left, I saw her hand slid out of my purse that is strapped over my shoulder and rides on the front of my body .

“Wyona? That girl’s hand was right inside of my purse,” I said in quiet surprise.

“My purse. My purse is open too,” Wyona said, digging down into her bag. “I will bet she got my wallet.”

Wyona was right. 

The wallet was gone.

She calculated her losses. At $2 a scarf, she could have bought 80 scarves for the money the pickpockets had lifted from her.

My money was fine. I keep it in an old envelope so that I don't have to carry the weight of a wallet -- a tip Wyona gave to me.

I calculated our gains. 

No broken arms. No broken bones. No concealed weapons used to attack us. Both of us still standing. 

That is not to say we weren't bewildered and angry at ourselves for being both pushed, blocked and having no inkling we should be resisting the pushing.

The above happened in 3 seconds or less, a much shorter time than it has taken to type this.

Arta