Well, to start, we had our 10 day cruise to the Carribean out of the beautiful little township of Bayonne, NJ. Believe me, it's so quaint. You can feast your eyes on cutesy industrial complexes, antique buildings complete with faux crumbling exteriors, and of course, a myraid of colorful shipping containers. At least they erased the giant image of Bush the 2nd from the building at Port Liberty. Bush. Liberty. Ironic. Sorry, that's my Libertarian bent speaking. I'd be just as disgusted with almost any other poltician, I'm an equal opportunity hater. But, as the Muppets would say, moving right along.
The cruise rocked. We've been on this ship a number of times, it kinda feels like home and we are familiar with all the cool spots to hang at, and we always grabbed late night (errr, early morning) nightcap at the disco. As usual, we made some good aquaintances with a few bartenders, always tipping well, and always being treated well. They were always happy to see us, and we enjoyed just shooting the bull with them when they had a chance. I don't think it was all about the cash, it was also that it was respect at realizing how hard they worked.
Per usual, I overdid it the first few days, racing here and there, always doing something or other. Come about day 4, we started taking it more easy, hanging in the room from time to time to catch a movie, read or just sit on the balcony. I had forgotten from the last cruise how wonderful this relaxed pace was. I always worry that I'm going to bore Neesh doing this, but I over worry about everything. She was more than happy with this (perhaps relieved), and we had a great vacation. Usually, I'm ready to go home the day before disembarking, but for the first time, I wasn't even close. Bodes well for this summer. I'm not in my 20's anymore, taking it slow and easy rocks.
We met a couple on the cruise (the dude was, pardon me, an obnoxious prick: "I'm going to wear this watch for the cruise and return it at the end!" What an a-hole.). The lady was in a scooter, so we asked some questions. Seems like a good option for Neesh to allow her to go distances without pooping out from walking. Crap. Another thing I got to get moving on. Reminds me I need to get my car inspections done. Oh yeah, taxes, too. DAMN!
Anyhoo, after the cruise, it's been craziness at work, to the point of 19 days without a day off. Squeezing in whatever hike I could when I wasn't sick or flat out exhausted, and trying to catch up around the house pretty much precluded doing anything with the cruise.
Well, it's that time again. Things have gone from insane at work to severely crazy. What a relief! Of course, the lovely Mrs. Salty is partly helpful in getting me going again. "What am I going to do for clothes?" Sigh. My wife is awesome, free of most womanly traits that drive men nuts, but this ain't one of them. And ladies, I am more than well aware there are many manly traits that drive you bazonkers - and I am all that. But back to The Clothes. I come home from vacation with nothing but dirty clothes, making copious use of the laundry, she comes back with half a suitcase of stuff she never wore. Yes, she'll explain why to me over and over again. I'll never understand, I'm a big, dumb guy.
So with that, the first order of business was to finish finding the average high and low temperatures for each of the ports. Some of these obscure places aren't easy to find this information, but being as
I've been getting a lot of comments from my friends about Amsterdam for some reason. As in evil little laughs as if something insidious is going on there. What's that all about? I was promised my appetite will be excellent there. :) Lots to see there, really should start working on that and Dublin.
Speaking of which, the shore excursions came out since the last time I wrote. Overwhelming choice. A lot of stuff I don't care for (guided tours: "And this sidewalk is where the Queen of Norway met her husband" - shoot me now.). A lot of overpriced tours, but also some really cool looking stuff. Will be hard to decide, but we really should get this moving before they book up. Need to work on the highlights of each port and then cross-reference to the tours, I guess. So much to do. So much to do.
Ah well, as the Norweigians say: "Gi meg en øl kjære venn."
(Bring me beer dear friend!)
