Just A Cup

Which Super Hero Are you Ethel?

:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 80% Hulk 70% The Flash 70% Iron Man 70% Green Lantern 65% Catwoman 65% Superman 60% Robin 58% Batman 55% Supergirl 53% Wonder Woman 48%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Next Vacation

Well we did it again -- Just paid off our next vacation !

We leave on a 7-Day cruise out of Miami with Sailors family in Feb.  Whoo Hoo.  Good thing too - I am already going through vacation withdrawl....

Amsterdam

I had such a wonderful time in Amsterdam last week.  How and why another vacation so soon?  Well it was made possible by a couple of ways.  First it was a reward/bet I had with Sailor.  I had a (great), but fussy client that I had been trying to get into a home for sometime.  Sailor bet me that I couldnt find him a home before our Europe trip.  The reward was my trip to Amsterdam.  The second (and more important) reason is that my friend Barry was staying there for a month - working. 

The week was filled with wonderful food - lots of bar/club hopping - some coffee shop hopping and lots of museum & sight-seeing.

Here are a few pics....

It's Broken...

What's broken you ask?  My Gaydar....  It doesn't work in Europe anyway....

Oh  for those of you who don;t know what it is:

gaydar (GAY.dar) n. An intuitive sense that enables someone to identify whether another person is gay.

See the men in Amsterdam (and many parts of Europe) don't have the huge homosexual hang-ups like the Americans.  Men often hug and sing (while often in a drunken stupor) and generally don't act all uptight and overly "butch" like Americans.  See being in Gay in Amsterdam is like being from a neighboring city.  You are different but who cares, I'll buy the first round of drinks...

Spending 4 of the past 8 weeks in Europe makes one wonder - why is our country so fucked up sometimes??? 

There are so many differences and while those who insist on driving Hummers with a gun rack and bitching about the price of gas think the USA is the best place on earth - I would bet they are also the ones who don't have a passport and have never (nor do they want) to explore and see different parts of the world.  The USA might not be better - it's just different.  Life seems much less complicated in other countries.

They may not have some of the "must have toys" we have in the US - but guess what - the food is better in Europe - the people are nicer - the Mass Transit is generally much better and how much easier life would be (and how much healthier) if we just biked to work and back home instead of driving our HUGE cars and bitching about gas prices and parking?!

The US might be one of the biggest countries but - Bigger isn't always better...

Back again and to WORK

Well I am glad that I finished posting about my last trip - as I have just returned from Europe again.  I will post something here in a minute about Amsterdam.

Meanwhile - its back to work.  Now that I have spent my money on multiple vacation across the pond - its time to work.... Anyone wanna buy a house?  hehe

Cheers

Departure Day

Finally the last post about this vacation.... WHEW....

Istanbul is a MASSIVE city with an amazingly busy port.  I have never seen so many ships in one area before.  We enjoyed our last breakfast, didn;t faint over the ships bill for the almost 2 week trip (ouch - that bar bill did make me whimper a bit).  The Brilliance of the Seas was very quick in getting us off the ship and getting our luggage and on a bus to the airport.  The bus ride out of the place was a bit hectic-but I wasn't driving so who cares?

The airport in Istanbul was interesting and seemingly efficient.  A security checkpoint right inside the front door where you send everything through - then you check in for your flight 0 go through a quick Immigration 0 then just before boarding a 2nd security check.  Only bad thing was the $4 coke and the $24 Burger King.  (hey what can I say - I missed American Junk food).  Plus it was the only menu we could read!!!  We should be shot - but hell it was good...

Once we left the Istanbul airport (thank god I was so over breathing 2nd hand smoke) the flight to Frankfurt was easy.  Then the security in Germany....  We had 90 minutes between flights and almost missed our connection.  3 security checkpoints just to switch flights.  We were quite secure....

Love the United 777.  Even in coach it was not bad.  Watched 3 movies ate a decent meal (well it was no cruise ship meal) and arrived back in DC on time.  The guy at immigration looked at passports and said - you have been everywhere... we said we were on a cruise.. he said get out of here and sleep!!  After paying the $150 at the car lot we headed home.  I don;t even know how many hours we were up...  We woke up at 7am 7 time zones away and now back on the East Coast at 10 pm... Hell I barely knew what day it was......

Here are a couple of pics of Istanbul....

Day 12 - Sea Day - Last Day

Now this was a true vacation.  After the Toga Party  - OK OK  Ill post the pics.... we slept in until 9 am!!  OMG...  We enjoyed a great breakfast then packed.  UGH...

After packing most of our things; Sailor went to the last Art Auction (mostly for the Free Champaign) and I chilled by the indoor pool.  It was cold and WINDY on deck so there was mostly no activity on deck.  This last full day of our vacation was really the only crappy weather day.  I cannot complain about that!

Our last dinner and evening on board was very enjoyable, although a bit sad.  It's funny how quickly we formed new friendships with so many people on board.  There were our good friends from LA and the Scots... Lovely folks tho' I cain't undastnd them sumtimes.  Then Don and Marge from Minnesota, a nice couple from Utah who's son works for Cirque du Sole in Vegas.  Our Kiwi table mates from New Zealand were wonderful people.  We even have an open invitation to stay with them when we visit.  (They should know better that to extend such offers to us - we will take them up on it!)  We met another nice couple from just outside Toronto Canada;  then all the other "non-traditional" couple... The boys from Chicago (who want is to cruise with them to Northern Europe next fall), the guys from Oregon, the California boys, the old guys from ??  I forget...

Gosh we met a lot of folks... But most of all we will miss our favorite bartenders.... Ricki & Eric...

Pics from TOGA & BUFFET....

Athens - Day 11

Since we were not pressed for time (in Athens until 5am) - we decided NOT to do a ships tour; but to venture out on our own.  The tour books say that cabs in Athens can be a pain.  What they do not say is that Greek Cabbies are ASSHOLES.

We were off the ship in minutes and walked to a slew of cabbies.  Of course all standing around smoking (this is Greece you know - if you don;t smoke you are weird).  We were happy to see that the cab fares were posted all over the place - stating the fares to various parts of the city form the port.  Cool - 9 Euros to where we wanted to go...Just 1 small problem...No one would take us.  Seems these cab drivers only wanted to take us on an all day tour for 60 Euros.  We just wanted a ride into town - explore and come back when we were ready.  The asshole told us we had to find a "public" cab.  Yeah right-they are all the same cabs...So we walked to the main street only to find the same unhelpful cabbies.

My opinion of Greece is now tainted.

So we walk and walk and walk (about 30 minutes) to the Metro.  There seems to be a great bus system (if only I read Greek).  So we took Metro.  I think we overpaid by 1 Euro but we got on (and it was cheap).  Not the cleanest, fastest nor easiest to use/understand.  But we just kinda followed the crowd and got downtown.

SO.. map in hand and camera in the other we head up to the Acropolis.  WOW.  It was incredible; but with a couple of drawbacks.  As you will see in the pictures I will post - so much (re)construction is happening that every picture seemed to have a view of modern day scaffolding.  2nd drawback PEOPLE- hundreds of them!!

We walked, took pictures and were both impressed by the views of the city.  We also realized that despite our LONG ass walk- we beat the groups from our ship that went on paid tours.  When we left the Acropolis we realized that we REALLY MISSED the even BIGGER crowd.  WHEW....

We saw more of the sites, the Olympic Stadium, more ruins, did some shopping and had a great lunch.  We then took our tired feet, olive oil and Ouzo, and headed back to the ship.  People from the ship paid for the same trip at $100 that we paid about $40 each (including lunch).  Plus we walked off the buffet from the previous night.  Sore feet but now I had an extra $60 for the Casino!!

Then after dinner there was a late night Toga party / Chocolate Buffet on the pool deck of the ship.  ROCK ON!!!  We had multiple cocktails, danced with our many friends we met and had a really nice evening.

Athens - been there - done that - no need to EVER go back again.  YUK.