It's been three days on this ship now and it's starting to feel like forever, sort of. Well, okay, not that bad. At least I'm managing to get some good sleep in and get a good rest after the massive whirlwind that was the last three weeks. But this is a huge liner -- almsot 4000 people -- and I have to admit that I suppose I don't really like the floating-city-on-the-sea idea.
One good thing about this ship, though -- it has a chocolate bar! Everything's chocolate -- they even have shot glasses made of chocolate inside which they serve choc-flavored liquor. And the whole place smells like chocolate. It's fast becoming my favorite place on the ship.
Anyway, the ports have been nice so far. Went cycling in Bari yesterday for about two hours -- those of you who have been on the biking trips with me before, it was about 38 degrees Celcius and under the noonday sun, so you can imagine what it was like. But somehow it didn't seem as bad as it would have been in HK -- maybe because it was so dry that your sweat pretty much dried off immediately. I do have a small sunburn and a few bruises from a minor accident to show for it, though :-D
Today was Olympia, place of the ancient Olympic games. And to be honest, it was a little disappointing -- maybe it was the hordes of tourists (note to self: when a 4000 person liner docks, it regurgitates 4000 tourists onto the same small town at once), or maybe it's because I have been spoiled by too many Roman ruins before, but it was somewhat underwhelming. I much preferred the ruins of Leptis Magna in Libya, or those in Jordan -- those had more of a "WOW" factor to them.
Tomorrow will be Ephesus. Will report more then. For the time being, I better get off this expensive Internet connection (0.50 Euros per 30 secs!!!!!)
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Greetings from Olympia!
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3 comments:
Sounds like you are having fun. Do you feel like you have been transported back 2000 years? Are you inspired by the experience yet? Any chance of stealing a rock/marble or two from the ruins? The last one is just kidding, of course, - don't want to get you in trouble.
A little bit, but as I was saying, the hordes of tourists make it quite difficult to get some time and quiet alone since you get jostled all over the place.
I was shocked to see how accessible the ruins were, though. People were climbing over them, sitting on them, etc etc. Surely that's got to be damaging to the marble carvings. But I suppose they know what they're doing so maybe it just looks bad.
Do people know what they are doing? Perhaps, but not always. If they do, then our own Chinese palaces, city walls, etc., wouldn't be what they are like now.
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