Shipboard Arrival and Kusadasi

November 10/11 – Tuesday/Wednesday

At the beginning of any cruise, there seem to be a series of dance steps which everyone is obliged to repeat – no matter how familiar one is with the concept of cruising, the dance remains the same and our dance on Tuesday followed all the appropriate steps:

· The nervous trip to the cruise terminal step: will we be left off at the right one? Will our luggage need to be put in a pile somewhere and possibly mishandled, or broken into? Has the luggage got the right tags on it so it will eventually arrive at our stateroom and not be left on the pier?

· The check in step: which documents do we need to show? Will they have our reservation? Do we need to go through security? How realistic will our ship photograph/ID card be? (do we look harried? Are we wearing sunglasses?); who has which documents? Which credit card will we register?

· The first entry onto the ship step: will be offered fresh juice by smiling obsequious staff? Will our room be ready? Or if not where are we going to be asked to wait? What do our fellow shipmates look like? Will be stuck with yahoos for the next 40 days, or soignée knowledgeable sailors?

· The first entry to our stateroom step: on what side of the ship are we located? How do the entry keycards work? Who delivered us the champagne, or flowers, or whatever is arrayed in our room? Is the bed facing fore or aft? Where are the bathrobes? Does the room seem claustrophobic? What’s the view from our balcony?

· The unpacking step which is the most delicate dance step of all: how will space be fairly divided? Followed by how the hell are we to get all this stuff into these cabinets, cupboards, under the bed or into the bathroom? Is the electric outlet going to be able to manage our array of toys (computers, iPods, Kindles, battery chargers, razors, cell phone chargers , etc)?

· The finale of the dance: when everything has been stowed into its new home, and the empty luggage has been tucked away under the bed. It is now time to explore the ship, get ones bearings and find out where that first meal will take place. We are now officially on-board and ready to enjoy the cruise.

Bob and I have almost perfected these carefully choreographed steps , though there are always a few missteps in the process. Our first meal was in the Terrace Café aft where a buffet awaited us, as well as two beers. We sat with the first of many couples (Tom and Marj) and everyone told their ‘tier one’ story. This is always where it starts: this is our nth cruise; we’ve been on this line before; we come from…; we’ve already been to the following places; we live in…; we used to do…; our children are….? Etc. Tier One Tales are always glowing, happy reports with the appropriate spouse or partner smiling, nodding and adding a few salient points. With a 40 day cruise there will be plenty of time to get to the tier two and three tales to learn about the ‘real’ story behind each individual. In this case Tom worked for the railroads all his life; has been on many cruises much longer than this; he retired; he’s cruising a lot; his children are in the bay area and he and Marj have been to many of the same ports of call. There is an assumption that anyone able to disappear from their normal world for this length of time is probably either incredibly young and rich; or more likely older and retired with time to spend. It’s never a question of wherewithal (though that plays a role) it’s more a question of the availability of time – the most precious commodity we have.

Bob attended the Cruise Critic meeting – a group of people who have been emailing each other for the last months thru the vehicle of the internet and the specific site Cruise Critic which is a wealth of information on cruising in general and specific ships in particular. I finished my unpacking, we dined, and we fell into bed. Of course Bob had to watch the ‘sail away’ just in case the captain needed his assistance. Tomorrow is a ‘sea day’, so we’ll have plenty of time to get to know our new home away from home.

Today, Wednesday, after a fabulous night of being lulled into dreamland by the lapping of the waves, we slept a wee bit late and raced through breakfast before heading to our muster stations for emergency boat drill. For the rest of this leisurely day we explored the ship’s nooks and crannies, sitting in some of these to read with our new Kindles, which are obviously THE reading approach for cruising folk since I’ve seen seven other users already.



At just past “…the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month…”, the ship slowed to a crawl just off the beaches at Gallipoli…to mark the anniversary of the end of World War One. Today is Armistice Day…Remembrance Day in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand … and we looked out at the stark modern monument built by the Turks, and the simpler white pillar on a distant hill erected by the British. Very moving.



In the afternoon we attended an interesting lecture on the history and politics surrounding the building of the Suez Canal, and after “high tea” in the Panoramic lounge, retired to our stateroom to rest before dinner.

November 12 – Thursday at Kusadasi, Turkey

How to organize the damn blog – it publishes on the day you put it out in the ether so it is the most current…but what to do when you’re combining that day with two older days…. Ah. The problems of the blogger.


Today was an early start – out the door and off the ship by 8:00 a.m. Having been to Ephesus at least two times, we decided to skip it and visit smaller, more intimate sites. Ten of us boarded a bus and with John ,our tour guide, headed for Miletus and Didyma. John had trained at the American school in Turkey and spoke flawless, idiomatic English. He had wit and knowledge in equal portions. Starting out in the rain he told us general information about Kusadasi (large tourist site, which since 1994 is learning how to take advantage of the cruise ship mercantile opportunities), the industries in the area of Smyrna which surrounds the town (figs, fruit, olives, cotton and silk, still fairly rustic), and the tidbits of Turkish history.

We passed over the Meander River and within an hour were at Miletus – an inland ruin which was once a harbor before the area was totally silted in by the ‘meandering’ river. The site itself is very simple and since it was the end of the season for tourists, you could tell that the small set of vendors , in their simple stalls, were hoping for one last gasp of money before packing it in for the next four months. John led us through the mud to the Greco/Roman theater, which once held about 15,000 people. By the size of the theater one could extrapolate the size of the town which was probably over 150,000 citizens and another 30,000 slaves which for that time was a good sized city. It made me wonder what would be found and dug up in the future when money was made available for high tech digs. It would appear that Ephesus receives the lion’s share of the money for excavation currently, but perhaps at some point , maybe when Jessica is an old woman, some ambitious young archaeologist scraping in the dirt around this theater ,or in the village behind it, will dig up some wonderful statuary from Miletus and the focus may turn to this very interesting, but unassuming site.

Accompanied by two mangy dogs we climbed to the top of the theater and looked at the remains of the village behind with its two agorae – one for the politicians and one for the markets. We examined the Roman bathes and were told the four rooms that would be part of any bath leading from warm to hot with heating being provided by underground cisterns and heated walls – all quite advanced for a ruin that goes back about 1900+ years. While standing amidst these ruins we got the fastest explanation of Turkish history that I have ever heard. In a mere 10 minutes we went from the Hittites to Attaturk , and at the time it was perfectly clear. But now as I type the blog, it is somewhat of a blur. But in this Cliff Notes version of history we learned the roles played by the Greeks, the Romans, Alexander the Great, Constantine, and the Ottomans. It is a long and proud history where once the world was ruled from Constantinople, then Istanbul , and then how it dwindled to being a small country fighting to become part of the EU.

Geography and history were never my forte in high school or college… perhaps because memorization and huge time-lines were not easily absorbed. But with each new place that is visited and with each tour guide or guidebook , another piece of the puzzle fits into place and makes sense to me. Eventually organizing all the bits of information on who fought whom, who conquered whom and who influenced whom together into a logical sequence I begin to get an inkling of how it all fits together. This to me is the major benefit of travel. I truly think I’m learning every day.

Next stop was Didyma – a sanctuary to Apollo, not unlike the one at Delphi. In fact, this temple to Apollo is larger than that of Delphi. The reason it seems smaller is that at Delphi the entire sanctuary being set against the hill gives one more of a sense of grandeur as one walks gradually up the hill passing the treasuries of different city states before arriving at the temple and then continuing past the temple to the theater and the stadium. Here the poor temple stood alone on flat ground. Here too the oracle who was working under the influence of drugs, gave out wisdom and predictions. New piece of data: only when the columns of the temple were completed and the individual pieces had been lifted into place, were they carved – from the top down! Who knew! I always thought they were carved first and then hoisted into place, but this makes more sense. Afterall, how could you line up all the striations for each column correctly when each segment of the column weighed a ton or more.

Filled with new knowledge, we headed back into Kusadasi where Bob and I bought another new rug for the house in Peacham. It is the end of the season, even for rug merchants who close their shops for 2-3 months, so culling the unsold inventory is a goal. Who knows how much of a ‘bargain’ we got. My only goal is that at the end of the haggling, and the back and forth proposals, both we and the merchant are happy. We got a rug we love at a price we’re pleased with, and the merchant, who like a car salesman has to keep going back to the manager to see if he can make a better price, walks away thinking we were fools. It’s a win-win all around. We signed our name on the back of the rug so we know it’s our when it arrives, and walked out for a celebratory lunch of kebabs, tzaziki, and an Efes beer.