The Ramsburg Family Vacation: What did we do? We made relaxing!

Our vacation was awesome. I apologize, but this is a long post. Why not print it out and take it to the john with you?

ROME

It started off with a 4 hour delay at Heathrow. We sat for about an hour in the heat of an non air-conditioned cabin before we were asked to deplane. I've never had to deplane before. After a while we were allowed to board the aircraft again. Turns out the compressed air truck was busted and couldn't start the engines and we had to wait for a new truck to drive by - however we missed our takeoff slot and had to wait to be squeezed in. Jamie and I were told all of this by our seat mate Dave from New Zealand. He too was heading to Rome for a cruise (25 Days, La ti da!). We made it to our hotel room in Rome at 1 AM and made dinner out of mini-bar beer and bedtime chocolates.

Jamie and I booked ourselves on the bus tour of the city so we could make sure we saw all of the sights of Rome. There were cats everywhere! You may know this, but legend has it that Cleopatra gave Caesar cats as a gift. He turned out to be allergic and let them go- the first cats in Rome.

Mike and Caitie arrived that afternoon - we banged around the city looking for the TREVI fountain and the Spanish steps. We ate dinner at Alfredo's - The best Fettuccine Alfredo we've ever had! JFK, Sylvester Stalone, and Ernest Borgnine have all eaten there - I saw the pictures on the wall. We went back to the Spanish Steps to enjoy some gelatto and a romantic Roman night. Turns out the Spanish steps are more of a pickup place for drunk teenagers.

The next morning we met Mike and Caitie at the train station and found out that they got engaged that morning! What a way to start the week!

COSTA CONCORDIA



Holy crap! I knew cruise liners were floating hotels, but this takes the cake. Approximately 12 separate bar areas, a huge lobby reminiscent of the dining room on The Poseidon, an on board art gallery, and 4 different restaurants, casino, and a video game room (btw - 2nd player on Tekken's buttons are screwed) are available for whiling away the short time between ports. The top decks included 4 (really small) swimming pools, hot tubs, and a water slide. One of the decks had a retractable roof so you could hang out indoors in crappy weather. In an odd design choice, you could also eat your breakfast amongst the early bathers. To describe the decor, I'll paraphrase my father - "It looks like South Philly threw up on the walls"
A Ceiling - the lights changed colors.


There were several musicians scattered around the bars to provide what was mainly background music. We listened to wonderful keyboard drum machines, a beautiful violin and piano duo, and our personal favorites - the singing bar tender and waiter at the Pub Classico Dublino. I've never heard From Russia From Love sung live, or so often.

Ports of Call:
Savona
We had a half day in the Italian Rivera. Unfortunately for Savona, all the shops were closed so we could not spend the euros burning holes in our pockets. It was a drab and dreary day - we visited the ruins of a fort and a flea market.

Barcelona

Barcelona was also a half day, but what a different experience! We loved Barcelona. We saw so many different things walking along La Rambla: street performers, artists, a naked man with interesting piercings, pet vendors (birds/rabbits) - now that I think about it they could be fresh dinner vendors, tons of magazine stalls (20 euro worth of Spanish wedding magazines? GIRLS!) We had a lovely lunch in an out of the way courtyard, replete with jugglers, violinists, and a stumbling heroin addict. Jamie and I can't wait to go back - so far Spain is definitely our favorite continental European destination.

Mallorca

If you cruise into Mallorca, pre-book a tour/excursion on Mallorca. Otherwise you get screwed and end up walking for 2 miles to have espresso overlooking a marina and get a big open sore from your flip-flops. However, the conversation more than made up for the hike. We retreated to the top deck of the ship to enjoy the sun which was fantastic.

Tunisia
Tunis was great - Mom actually made it out on the tour with us. We had a crazy-lingual tour guide who phrased his commentary in question form e.g. "How many people live in Tunis? Very easy to answer - 400,000" and then repeated in German for the 3 families who got on our English tour by accident. We saw ruins of Carthage - "How many people did the Baths hold? 4,000 a day", and a museum dedicated to mosaics. We also got to "shop" in a market in a picturesque village. We ran the gauntlet of sellers hawking their factory hand made wares and found the only woman who owned her own stall and went crazy shopping - YAY FEMINISM! All of the vendors thought Jamie was Spanish, but called to her English - "Hola, Spanish Lady!" They'd look at me and either speak French or English. Which is good since I barely speak both. I really liked Tunisia - it also marked the first time I've been to Africa.
Warning sign at Carthage, and Mike and Caitie "shopping"


Malta

We were victims of an unscrupulous cabbie who convinced us he knew of a much better beach than the one to which we paid to go (in advance at the tourism stall). We were deposited around the corner from said "beauty sand beach" and discovered it was a small gross harbour. Super Dad to the rescue - after a brief exploration he discovered a fancy pool club (infinity pool overlooking the Mediterranean sea) and we lounged all day. We took a different cab back to the ship. On the way we passed our bad cabbie who flagged us down and wanted to know why we didn't wait for him to drive us back. Caitie says, "You ripped us off, SIR!" and away we went. Apparently our new cabbie knew the bad cabbie and was very upset that he tricked us. I liked the new cabbie. Also, the ride back was half as much as the ride there.
Super Dad takes a break-



Palermo
Palermo seemed like it would be cool if the stores were open and it weren't raining. After some searching and making a teenage boy waiter cry, we found a fantastic pizza joint. I ate a calzone the size of my head and was very happy. We then found an open air meat and sea food market which was really cool, if stinky.

Cruise Entertainment
There was a beautiful theatre on board. We caught 3 performances - a Flamenco dance troupe, a famous Italian singer (who covered the Scissor Sisters), and a Magician. However, they paled in comparison to the entertainment troupe.

Kudos to the cruise entertainment team. Not only can they speak English, Italian, French, and Spanish, they are up early assisting with disembarkation and tours, encouraging afternoon games, run the audience participatory evening entertainment, and then get people to go disco dancing until 2 AM. Unfortunately for them, adults have a hard time getting sexy on the dance floor when there are 5 year olds spinning around on said dance floor until 1 am. Except for creepy sleeveless guy who apparently brought his favorite escort with him on the cruise.

Mike and I started out by participating in the Circus on Sunday night. The Circus consisted of getting 4 guests to wear silly wigs and make a weird human support bed.


Mike and I signed up for karaoke only to learn that it was a tournament and we were singing the a) only English song b) only non ballad. They loved us, mainly because Mike ran around in a circle while singing "baby light my fire!" as I made sexy poses. We made friends with the guy dressed up as spiderman (they wore different themed costumes every night - seems karaoke and super heroes go hand in hand). Mike's favorite part was when the lead guy told us we were great, and we should believe him because he is Superman and I retorted, "You're not Superman, you're Mr. Incredible" which was true.


We ended up spectating the remaining entertainment sessions once we realized everything was designed to make people laugh at you - in good fun of course, but I didn't want to waste my superior talents. Rock and Roll night they got people to dress up like John Travolta and Olivia Newton John and made them fall over during the dance moves (upsetting one older bigger lady). Sexy Night the girls were wearing bunny costumes and the guys in Chip N Dale outfits. The games were very explicit - the ladies had to get a racquetball up one pant leg and down the other, crossing over the gentleman's junk. The next game involved popping balloons held over various anatomies - the balloons cunningly removed at the last minute to create awkward situations. The final game consisted of blind folding the gentlemen, placing a bottle of water between their thighs and making them find their partner and - for lack of a better word - hump the water into a glass held in the lady's lap. We also enjoyed 70's night, which was more like 90's night with some 70's music and peace head bands. Lots of fluorescent colors.

The best part of the entertainment team's repertoire was the whistle and bouncy techno dance beat that was the basis of their interludes. "HUP HUP HUP HUP"

Dining on the Costa Concordia

Breakfast and Lunch were mainly buffet affairs - you could sit by the indoor/outdoor pool, or take your chances in the free for all that was the official buffet seating area. I think we missed the memo that said you could cut in front of people in the buffet line as long as you were going to take 5 minutes trying to pick up the last slice of pizza with the tongs.

Dinner was fantastic - we sat at table 244 in the Milano Restaurant served by Martin and Mr. Saitdit. Martin proved that he was the best waiter on that ship night after night - mainly by his attentiveness and Parmesan cheese application flair. He would flip a spoonful of cheese at your plate - he was batting .780 at the end of the cruise. Unfortunately Jamie's lap was the target of the other .220. Mr. Saitdit was always so happy and excited to be working there, it would improve your mood just to watch him pour you more wine. We had two gala nights where we wore suits and the ladies wore beautiful dresses. Our last night was Italia night - it culminated in the waiters dancing with all of the ladies and starting a restaurant wide conga line to the sounds of Vallero.


Our Cabins
Mike and Caitie had a cabin adjacent to ours which made meeting for events and meals easy. We each had an exterior room with private balcony. Mom and Dad had suite, which means they had a butler at their disposal. Mom and Jorge hit it off big time. Jorge would screen calls for her, "Mrs. Sandi is making relaxing outside, may I take a message?", scrounge up plates of snacks, and provide companionship as she rested her leg.

Sunset from our balcony


I could go on and on, but this post is way too long as it is. It was an amazing trip, and one that we'll all remember forever. Can't wait for next year's!

CIAO.