[I'm determined to finish this, even though it begins to seem a lifework...]

Ok, here's a picture-heavy look at us getting on the boat, going through orientation, and settling in to the too-brief stay on our boat,


the Louis Olympia, taking us from Kusadasi to Athens...[Note the Valletta registry.  Wish we could take a CC trip to Malta...]

On shore, our last moments in Turkey...

Suffering in line before our cruise...
Here we are in the main meeting hall, the Can-Can Lounge, where members of this apparently brand-new crew were rehearsing for the big show, which, alas, I missed.  (Someone can comment on the show...)

Here's the daily ship newsletter, which describes where and what is going on, with some, uh, nutritional supplement.

We had the lifejacket drill...

Some of us happy to model even these unlikely accessories...

I'll skip the blurry photo of my claustrophobic, lacking in all natural light, windowless interior cabin.  Brief shudder.  More time spent...

in the light,
and on deck...

where the view was much better than in my windowless, steerage, be the ones who drown on the Titanic cabin.

We soon were passing Samos, the isle on which the Greek mathematician Pythagoras was born, rather a while back.  (Oh, you know, that theorem [here's a visual]:  a-squared, plus the radius of a ripe orange, minus the volume of olive oil in a Greek urn, plus the speed of a boat leaving Turkey, and the angle of the wind direction, = well, something profound.)  [Here's a visual, for all those who grew up loving word problems...]

And there were just a lot more views of ocean and isle, and blue everywhere.


later, bob