Bon Voyage!!!

OK, now here is where writing about this trip gets hard, because we saw so many cool and fun things, but really I can't put a picture of every single house, chapel, statue, etc. on the blog.  I tried to just throw a cool shot or two of each place to remember.

So, we took a train from Rome down to the port.  We were able to board the Royal Caribbean Grand Mariner of the Seas ship easily, and got up to our rooms to freshen up, and then go search the ship to see what it had, and find our friends John and Sara Visser.  I was so excited to see them, as we always have a blast with them.  They had also invited some friends of theirs from Bentonville, Arkansas (Where they live) to come. 

Lane and I were walking around the boat, and sure enough, we find the Vissers up exploring by the pool as well.  It was a happy reunion, and I knew we were in for a fantastic week.

Sara and I on the top of the boat

We met the Visser's friends, Scott and Marcie Bayles at our dinner table that night, and we all hit it off great.  We enjoyed the amazing gourmet food you always find on a good cruise and had a great time getting to know each other.  

A funny note about the first night:  We were seated at a large table for 12.  There were 6 of us, and they had seated 4 other ladies there with us.  They were Egyptians from New Jersey, if you can imagine that.  I seriously felt like we were sitting with the geriatric version of The Jersey Shore!!  Dark eyeliner, dark lips, sexy tight clothes, ratted up hair, and big jewelry.  It was interesting. We had mom (in her 60s?) and her sister, then the daughters who were in their 40s.  All on a girls trip.  Well of course we felt like we had to make conversation, etc. the whole night.  Lane and John, in an attempt to seem friendly and interesting, grilled the ladies about their work, where they live, how many kids they have, what they do on girls' trips, etc.  I was dying laughing inside.  Finally, the dinner ended and we said our goodbyes, and we never saw them at our table again!  Ha!  I think they asked for a different table somewhere else, or the later dinner, or something, which frankly was fine with us - we eneded up having the whole table all to ourselves the rest of the cruise! :)

Our first stop was at Genova, Italy.  It doesn't have a lot of momentous or truly significant historical sights, except for the birthplace of Christopher Columbus.  It basically is a port city that had some fun buildings and churches to see.

We took a tour of this house which had a lot of the original floor, art, and furniture of the rich family that lived there.  Interesting, and a bit on the warm side in there. :)

Here we are at the courtyard/gardens on top of the house, with a perfect view of our ship behind! 

In our wanderings up and down the streets we came across this beautiful fountain in a piazza there.  Funny, this is what I pictured the Trevi fountain being.  But obviously it is very diferent.  This city was WAY less crowded so we could really enjoy walking and taking in the sights.

Here is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus.

This was a fun and crazy church.  Look at the columns all straight, swirled, striped, etc.  It was really cool to see in person.

That night we got back to the ship, cleaned up and went to dinner, then went to watch the entertainment for the evening.  I still am amazed at how these ships get such amazing talent to come and perform.  It was really pretty top notch singing and dancing, which of course I love to watch!  We all were loving it so much that we decided to hit the disco after, and do a little of our own dancing!  We laughed pretty hard that night.

Marcie, Sara and John doing the "Robot"

The nights up on deck were so beautiful and warm.

I guess the highlight of this night (besides the dancing) was that we went to watch the game show "The Weakest Link", and I was called up to play!  Now I love games and trivia, so I thought it would be fun.  They called 8 of us up to play.  We had to introduce ourselves and say a little about us.  I said I was a mom and taught aerobics classes.

Then the game started and they started firing the questions just like they do on the show.  After each round, everyone votes somebody off.  Throughout the course of the game, the host would stop and talk to one of the contestants to find out a little more about their life.  When he came to me, he asked about aerobics, and asked what I do.  I kind of explained I teach everything, and blah, blah, blah.  He then asked me to demonstrate something I would do to warm up the class.  I asked, "Really?"  he said, Yes!  Show us some moves you would do.  So, I did!  I was up there doing grapevines and jacks and reaches. You had to be there - it was very funny.  Somehow, I found myself in the last 3 contestants.  Again the host comes back to me and asks me to do some more aerobics.  He really made me get out and do more combos, and came and did them with me.  It was hilarious.  The audience loved it.  Then, the other two contestants (who happened to be brothers!) voted me off after that round.  Thus ended my run for The Weakest Link champion!

Our ship - The Grand Mariner of the Seas.