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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Sailing the North Atlantic

Hello from some whether off the coast of Miami!

Currently it's 22C, breezy and the waves are between 1.5 and 4 ft. The ocean is a dark blue, but getting lighter with flecks of dark turquoise. This must mean we agree heading in the right direction!

The past two days have been sea days. Yesterday it was quite cool and windy, though we spent some time in the morning in the Solarium, listening to our iPods and reading. We signed up for a meet and mingle event through CruiseCritic a website for cruising, our meet and mingle event was scheduled your yesterday morning, so we got up at an un-godly hour for a holiday and had a lovely breakfast in the dining room and went to one of the lounges for the event. This was apparently one of the biggest groups registered, about 110 ppl. Royal Caribbean staff drew ballots and gave away a number of prizes, 2 free in room movie rentals, $50 worth of Internet, hats & bags etc. The event was an opportunity to meet other cruisers and it also included a gift exchange. The gift was to be something representing either your home country, state or city...we brought maple syrup that Peter's boss made last year. Due to the larg size our group, the Capitain came by and introduced himself and took a group photo. Apparently this never happens!

Oddly enough the largest group on board this sailing are the Canadians! The are apparently approximately 3300 passengers about the vessel and 1200 are Canadian. What does this mean? Well it means maple syrup was not a thrilling gift for a Canadian....it means that at our table for 6 at dinner, the other two couples are from Vancouver (actually Mission) and Kitchener respectfully.

The majority of the passengers are French speaking, and oddly enough remind us of Peter's mother everywhere we go! (Not in a good way...) last night at the first formal night Peter and I were in stitches over all the ladies who were dressed very much as he would expect his mother to dress...oh well...

This cruise has a much older demographic than the last time we sailed this cruising. We would hazard a guess that the average age is about 75. Unlike the last sailing, which had 800 kids, this one only has 200.

This afternoon we are heading to one of the ice skating shows. Apparently they brought in a trapeze artist from Paris, France. Not sure how she does the trapeze on skates, but I guess we I'll see!

Tomorrow we are in Labadee, Haiti....Come on warm Carribean weather! It's expected to be about 30C in Haiti!

Megan & Peter

Monday, February 27, 2012

Ahoy from aboard the Explorer of the Seas!

Well today was a quiet day. We stayed at the hotel and took a car (a private cab) to the cruise port around 1:30. We boarded the ship and after a small snag regarding our dinner seating (all fixed), we went to claim a seat in the Solarium to check out the NYC skyline.

So far we've found significant number of folks from Quebec. There are at least three tour groups from Quebec. Many New Yorkers and New Jersey-ites and a number of Brits and other Europeans.

With our Muster drill complete, the ship will be setting sail in about 30 minutes (5pm)

Have a great evening...

Megan & Peter

 

 

Sunday, February 26, 2012

New York - Romans, Egyptian Pharaohs, the Byzantine Empire and Medieval Knights

It was another glorious day in NYC. The sun was shining and the temperature was warmer than yesterday, however brisk. Today we repeated the subway trip we took yesterday, from Newark to Penn Station and we once again took the C-line subway to 81st Street. We crossed in front of the American Natural History Museum and walked across Central Park to the Upper East Side.

Where did we go?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art!!!!!!!

We started out in the Roman Empire...

Roman Pottery

She was one of my favorite Roman Sculptures...her expression really captured me.

This was also one of my favorites, the detail was incredible

I love the expression of this little Roman boy

From the Roman Empire, we moved onto the Egyptian Pharaohs. I loved this exhibit. I have never been so close and even able to touch the Egyptian Statutes. Simply enchanting!

I look so small compared to the Egyptian sculpture. So close I could even touch it!

This Egyptian "fresco" of pigeons or doves was beautiful

Wow!

The sarcophaguses were impressive, however the lighting in the room and the cases were not photo friendly. So this was the only picture we were able to get.

From the Egyptian Pharaohs we moved on to the Byzantine Empire.

The art was incredible!

This Byzantine painting of the Archangel Gabriel was exquisite and one of my favorites

After the Byzantine Empire we moved on to the Medieval Times where we saw beautiful stained glass and knights armour and swords.

The statue of St. Catherine of Siena was entrancing, one of my favorites of the day. I absolutely loved it although I can't explain why.

After spending all day at the museum, there were still exhibits we didn't see, the American Wing, the European Masters and paintings and the African art. Unfortunately, although we wanted to see the Asian exhibits they were not wheelchair accessible. We could easily spend another day to see the museum and even then we would need more time.

After the museum, we walked back to the Upper West Side and headed to 70th and Columbus for dinner at a hole in the wall restaurant called Big Nick's. It seats probably 20 people, with a huge menu of pizza, heroes and submarine sandwiches and burgers. We ordered an appetizer platter to share and Peter had a huge bacon cheese burger with fries and I had a fabulous veal parmigiana hero.The veal was so tender and flavorful. All this and 2 bottles of Coke for $35.

We left the restaurant and walked down Columbus, past Trump Tower to the Columbus Circle Subway Station. We hopped on the C-line back downtown to Penn Station and once again took the PATH back to Jersey. We got back to the hotel and watched a bit of tv and posted this post.

Up next.....Cruising!!! Tomorrow we board the Explorer of the Seas for 11 nights.

G'night!

Megan and Peter

Pictures from New York- Day One

I ran into a few technical issues and couldn't upload photos from the iPad to the blog so I am trying a new app and I hope this works...Here are a few pictures from yesterday....

 

Riding the NJ PATh into NYC


T-REX!!!!!

At the American Museum

Awww....he's happy to see you


Strawberry Fields....Forever!

Central Park

 

See the New Years Eve Ball is still up!

Time Square


We have one more day in New York and the tomorrow we set sail!!!!

Enjoy! Have a Great day!

Megan