Showing posts with label world cities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world cities. Show all posts

Friday, November 18, 2011

I’ve lost my flags!



I have a flag counter here and I wanted to make it a bit different. Well, I sure did that! And in the process lost all the count of how many different people from what country had looked at my blog. I don’t think I’ll ever get to the count that gaznjo has: 12,259 from Oz, 2,330 from the US, through 63 from Bahrain, down to 22 from France, but I had quite a few and I’m desolate that the list has vanished. That will teach me to tinker with my blog! 

Although time seems to be moving at a glacial pace, our trip IS getting closer. Everytime I watch the videos from this year’s World Cruise I get alternately energized and depressed. Watching gaznjos blog and vimeo posts I am energized by the wonderful videos of the ports they went to—and, for the most part, we will also be going to next year. I think he does the videos and she picks the music; they each do a fabulous job! At the same time I get depressed because I don’t think I can ever do as well.

But I tell myself that I don’t have to do as well, I’m just doing this blog for my family and friends and they will be very happy (won’t you?) just to see and read about what we’re doing. So I’ll try some videos to add a bit of interest to my blog.

However, taking videos of Kathy’s horse show made me realize just how difficult it is to do GOOD videos! Anybody can point a camera at a thing and take a picture of it; not just anybody can make that picture or video into an interesting one. If it were easy all of us would be making movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade all the time. I mention that movie because we will be going to the area where at least part of it was filmed, Petra in Jordan. Naturally, we’re going to have to watch it again!

I’m going to google the ports we’re going to and see what movies—if any—were filmed at those ports. For example, Athens was the setting for, among others, For the Love of Benji and The Day the Fish Came Out (I never heard of that one either) and several dozen others filmed in Greece, mostly in Santorini rather than Athens, but how far wrong can I go watching a movie set in Greece? For movies shot in Mykonos, I hit a double: The Kings of Mykonos, an Australian movie shot in Mykonos. Really it’s a hat trick as it’s a comedy, too.

OK, I really HAVE to get cracking on some tours. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s still—let me look at the cute little counter on my blog—179 (5 months and 3 weeks) days until the cruise leaves. But it’s only 2 weeks until our second payment is due. Ouch. Then there is the third payment due about 6 weeks after that. Then we’ll REALLY know we’re going!

Anyway, I’ve put a request on the Cruise Critic Roll Call for the Sun Princess about a tour of Mumbai by a company (used by others on Cruise Critic) called Mumbai Magic. I wish I had discovered Cruise Critic long ago, before our first cruise! They have everything you could possibly want to know about cruising. And I expect we’ll have a much better time on our cruise because of the connections I’ve made on the Roll Call.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

A hike and some questions

Columbus was a traveler so I think it’s appropriate that I add a bit to my blog on Columbus Day. Nevermind that it was celebrated the day before yesterday, Oct 12 is, to me, Columbus Day.
Randy and I went on a four mile hike today, up Marshall Gulch Trail (on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona, where we have a small cabin) and back on the Aspen Trail. This was the site of the origination of the Aspen Fire of 2003 that burned 84,750 acres (343 km2) and destroyed 340 homes and businesses in Summerhaven, the town at the top of Mt. Lemmon.
I don't know what these are, but I love them, they flower at my cabin every year, all summer long.
The forest is recovering, and it is encouraging to see all the new growth. Some of the pine tree seedlings are four feet tall, which is pretty good for eight years! New oak trees, new aspen trees, and several species of pine and fir (I get my coniferous trees mixed up).

And I couldn't resist this group of mushrooms (probably not edible by humans) being devoured by some unknown insect.
So what does this have to do with our cruise, you may well ask. Randy and I talk a lot when we hike; the longer the hike, the more we converse! So we were talking about the cruise, which is coming up in only 216 days, one hour and 43 minutes (as I write this). We’re stopping in a lot of places (41), by far the majority(27) are places we’ve never been before. So we’re hoping for help! Do you have any ideas for what we absolutely can’t miss in any of the following cities? The ones with asterisks are places we have been before, but that doesn’t mean we know the absolute most wonderful things to see and do in those cities.

Sydney*
Darwin*
Singapore*
Kuala Lumpur* (but it’s been 45 years since I’ve been here)
Penang
Mumbai
Dubai
Salalah (Oman)
Luxor/Karnak (Safaga)
Aqaba (Jordan)
Suez Canal
Alexandria
Mykonos
Istanbul
Anzac Cove
Athens
Venice (2 nights)
Dubrovnik (Croatia)
Naples
Rome
Livorno
Cannes
Barcelona
Lisbon*
Paris*
London*
Bergen*
Shetland Island
Reykjavik
Halifax
NY (2 nights)* (we’ll at least go see a play here)
St Thomas*
Aruba*
Panama Canal*
Puntarenas
Los Angeles*
Honolulu*
Papeete
Pago Pago
Auckland*
Bay of Islands*

So please think about it, and email me (if you don’t know my email, use pamelamryan@yahoo.com) with ideas or add a comment on this blog. We’d love to hear any and all ideas, remarks, comments, observations, thoughts, opinions, views, feelings, sentiments, prospects, or viewpoints on any and/or all of the cities above.