Cruising

Warning: the events detailed in the following posts are not necessarily presented in chronological order.  The writer of this blog is not responsible for any confusion this may cause the reader.

In May of 2010 we sent Pia and Silviu on a cruise of the western Mediterranean.  Unsurprisingly, they loved it.  As soon as possible they wanted to go again, this time with us.
In the meantime Mihai and I were trying to figure out the best method for transporting ourselves to Turkey and in the middle of one driving-versus-flying debate someone suggested an eastern Mediterranean cruise.  Herein seemed to lie the solution to everything.
Except I've never really pictured myself as a cruise sort of person.  Ladies who order rhinestone covered sandals off QVC are cruise people.  College-age Americans who drink themselves into embarrassing stupors at each port and crawl back on board like feckless reprobates are cruise people. None of my footwear sparkles and I disapprove of public inebriation so what business did I have taking a cruise I wondered?
I have friends who have cruised before and they tried to disabuse me of my misconceptions by pointing out that there is far more to it than wearing sequined garments and vomiting in trash cans.  "They've got basketball courts and arcades for the kids." they assured me. "There's a theater on board." and then the clincher:  "There's an all-you-can-eat buffet."
Mihai was sold, the kids were sold, and I was left to battle it out with that relentless affliction of mine: claustrophobia.
Who remembers watching The Love Boat back in the early 80s?  I recall some wizened adult looking over my shoulder at the TV screen and commenting "Cruise cabins aren't like that at all.  They're the size of match boxes and they stick you in the hull." For the past 30 years those words have been stuck in my brain and once Mihai actually paid for the tickets I started losing sleep over them.  I checked to see how much diazepam I have left in my panic-attack stash (turns out it expired two years ago but I still use them-I think the correct term for this is the placebo effect).
I considered going to the doctor to get a prescription for few preloaded syringes of lorazepam, 1.0-2.0 mg each which I could carry around with me and inject as needed like diabetics do with insulin.  Or something like an epi-pen only instead of a bee sting it would be the sight of the sleeping quarters that would send me into shock.
I wondered if worse came to worse if I would be allowed to sleep somewhere on the deck or if I would have to hide myself under a tarp like a stowaway.
On our last night in Rome I was tormented by images of dark, airless holes and kept sticking my head out of the bathroom window to suck in air as if I could somehow store it for the next six days.
Then we got on board and I saw the room.  A window.  Above sea level.  A bathroom almost as big as the one we use upstairs in Obedin.

Did I feel stupid?  Yes.
Having an irrational fear of something is really a drag.

I found out my friends really weren't exaggerating: there is a basketball court and a movie theater as well as miniature golf, pools, jacuzzis and a running track which, had I known I would have brought my running gear so I could have used it.  Its been far too long since I've broken a sweat over anything other than worrying over sleeping in small spaces.

Since I had no running shoes the only thing left to exercise was my brain so I spent most of my free time in the library where I ended up meeting a lot of nice people who were neither binge drinking nor wearing anything that sparkled.  It ended up being my favorite part of the ship (Luci joined me when the card rooms got too full of "old people playing mahjong")

Second favorite place: the dining room.  Mostly for the unexpected pleasure of meeting yet more very nice people who work on board: Indians, Filipinos, Turks and, lo and behold, Romanians which was actually very cool since one of them was our waiter.  What are the odds?  (actually there are a lot of Romanians working on cruises so the odds are not bad at all that we would meet a few but I didn't know that beforehand)

The dining room was awesome except for the fact that it aways made me feel like I was dressed like an unmade bed.  Guess I should have packed with greater care or paid more attention to The Love Boat.

 A few views of the boat.  Population and square footage-wise I think it's bigger than Obedin.

Views from the deck.

Needless to say, I can see why my in-laws were so thrilled the first time around.