Morocco, Malta and the Mediterranean: Another Great Adventure
We thought we were done with cruising (this happens a lot) when suddenly this trip popped up on Viking’s new itineraries. We waited only two days, and called to reserve. The cabin area we want was already almost sold out! We got the last cabin, not the normal cabin we reserve, and felt lucky to get it. I checked the cabin catagories; the ship was almost entirely sold out.
Algiers. Malta. Ajaccio. Places we had never been before. It got our hearts racing.
We tried something new; for Barcelona, we booked a tour through Viator to visit the hillside Monastery of Monserrat. For Tunis, where we lived so many years ago, we booked through Tours for Locals, so that we could have a personalized visit to see things that mattered to us. We paid in advance – like more than a year in advance.
We are cautious with our money, so this was a little scary for us. Booking private tours in expensive. Between booking and implementing, a lot can happen. And what if the guides don’t show up??? What is your fallback? By faith, we bit that bullet and it worked out great for us.
It was also a long trip with 23 days total and various climates, so I did not believe I could do it with a carry-on. I used a bigger suitcase, again, by faith, and checked it. We never had a problem, and I was thankful to have a variety of clothing appropriate to the cultures and climate.
This trip took place from mid-November to early December. Today, AdventureMan asked me how I wanted to spend the weekend, and I said “I want to write up the trip for the blog.” In between getting home and now, I had to get Christmas decorations up, bake Christmas dishes, do Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas Day brunch, deal with having norovirus (me, just before Christmas), deal with AdventureMan having norovirus (shortly after Christmas, and with AdventureMan getting a papercut that turned into a severe infection with heavy duty antibiotics. Take Christmas down. Oh, and jury duty. And welcome the New Year with friends.
We are just now getting back to normal. At the end of this month, we start a major bath reconstruction that will disrupt us for six to eight weeks. Now is the time 😊.
Faux Amazon Offer
This morning I got a “special offer” from Amazon:
Very strange. It isn’t Easter. This just smells off.
I checked the return address:
admin@windows.strangelearned.com
That does not look like any Amazon address I have ever seen. I think this is faux.
Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas . . .
I’m not a person who likes to be rushed, and I am a person who front-loads, who gets things done early, so as not to have to make decisions or preparations in a rush. If I can plan, and execute early, it all falls into place.
So when we had another early cold spell this week, our second ‘unseasonal’ cold spell, so cold we had to cover our more sensitive plants and bring others into protected areas, and with Thanksgiving coming so late this year, I decided I could let myself do a little early Christmas prep.
No, no tree, not yet, and no lights outside. Time enough for all that, just a little sparkle to get us started. As much as I love real greenery, real garlands, the temperatures here are too high for it it stay green longer than a week, so I use the artificial kind. You’d think the benefit would be no dropping needles, but this stuff also drops ‘needles’, and we laugh at where we find them hiding in August.
We bought our crêche many years ago in Germany, and it has gone with us everywhere we lived. It has lost a lot of its Germanic moss through the years, but I wouldn’t dream of replacing it:
The normal crêche occupants through the years have been supplemented by extra sheep and camels, and actually, by French santons, extra wise men, an angel ornament . . . hmmm, maybe it’s getting a little kitchy, but we wouldn’t sacrifice a single thing. One of our Saudi friends contributed a line of camels 🙂
In France and in Germany, crafters make the cutest sheep, and we found ourselves buying them at Christmas or crafts markets.
And, from Doha, The Church of the Epiphany, our “Aboona” or Our Father, the Lords Prayer written in Arabic calligraphy, one of our treasures.
Last, but not least, time to change the hallway quilt, and The 12 Days of Christmas will reign for more like 40 days 🙂
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