Cruising the Mediterranean

Sunday December 12, 2010 Day 165

We arose early, walked in the dark to the train station and boarded the train headed west and south. We watched the sun lighten the horizon and kiss the snow-capped Pyrenees on its way up, saw pink flamingos and white windmills stark against the morning sky. This is an international train - the announcements are in French and Spanish.

We saw rows and rows of poplar trees serving as windbreaks along the edges of vineyards. We also groves of the same or similar trees planted in neat ranks and files, fully grown - hundreds of them. We saw these in France and Italy as well - we are not sure what they are. I don’t think they are fruit trees - they are too tall. But surely they are not grown for lumber in those neat rows. I think of timber farms as haphazard plantings. Maybe I just need to expand my horizons (stretch my imagination) a bit! But if they are for timber, they have a long way to go, as they are tall slender trees. Roger suggests soil conservation, soil stabilization, carbon offsets, truffle grounds . . .

There were glimpses of the Mediterranean, turreted castles on hills, tunnels, an old-fashioned Dutch-type windmill, terraced hills, mountains down to the sea, cities perched on mountains overlooking the sea, more tunnels, another town, tile roofs everywhere - no shingles. Each inlet into the Mediterranean is surrounded by a town which is cut off from neighboring towns by mountains - this made sea travel the most reasonable in times past. Today we travel into tunnels and over the mountains to get places. There was a ten-minute stop for unexpected passport check at Cerbere, just inside Spanish border.

A woman boarded in Spain with her little girl. The woman saw I had my computer open, asked me if I would charge her little round MP3 player. I obliged by plugging it in. The little girl entertained herself and me by going through a whole series of facial expressions, including several eyebrow-raises, cheek stretches and nostril-flarings. She was quite funny! After we entered Spain, a gentleman sat behind us with his cell phone or other device playing music. This is the first time we have encountered this in our travels - on trains in France, usually passengers use headphones or keep their musical devices silent.

We arrived on time in Barcelona and took the subway to the port stop. From there we walked to our ship’s berth - a mistake. It was farther than we expected and we were pooped when we got there. Also, in our focus toward finding our ship, I forgot about lunch and Roger didn’t speak up, so we were well beyond any restaurants before we realized it. When we got to the terminal around 1:00, I scouted around a bit and found a small restaurant where I bought some ham croquettes and French fries. Mediocre at best, but at least they were nourishment in our stomachs, and they were hot.

There was some sort of computer snafu and there was no boarding going on for the first hour and a half or so after we arrived, even though boarding was supposed to have begun at 11:00. We sat around and made friends with some of our fellow passengers. Finally the computer glitch was resolved and boarding began. The process has been streamlined considerably since we cruised about five years ago on Carnival. It took us less than five minutes to check in once we reached the front of the line.

Barcelona harbor

Once onboard, we dropped our backpack and jackets in our room and went to find some food. We had hamburgers and barbequed chicken on the 12th floor, then located desserts and ate one each along with some coffee. We were finishing dessert when Bobby and Beth, whom we met in the terminal, came along and we sat a bit and talked with them, or rather, Bobby talked and we listened and laughed. His tale is that he used to be a joyless, serious and shy guy until he had serious health problems, mostly arterial blockages, which apparently brought him to the brink of death and made him decide that he had better get out and enjoy life while he can. He said that he was in the hospital awaiting surgery for his arterial blockages, and after having a scan done three times, the doctor came into his room and asked him if he had ever had a stroke. Bobby said “no,” and the doctor promptly asked him why! One artery was 90% blocked, another 80% blocked. Bobby said he and Beth are on their 49th cruise!

After we left Bobby and Beth, we explored the ship then returned to our rooms to rest. Our luggage was delivered and we unpacked, then rested for an hour or so. We were too tired to go up and watch the ship depart, but our TV has a channel on which we could view a bow camera, so we turned it on and watched the ship execute a 180-degree turn in the harbor channel and start out to sea. Then we left for dinner. We had planned to see an acrobatic act in the theater after dinner, but there was a 20-minute wait for dinner in the dining room we picked, and when we entered the theater, the show was already underway and it was standing room only. So we returned to our room for the evening.