Cruisin 'round the Cruise ship

Multiple-story lighting, and a fun sign.

 Us with big goofy things around our necks.

 Wren in our very vast hallway, and in our very tiny room.

Playing with our toys in a rare empty room!

 

Giddy Wren during and after the water slide.

 

 Juggling and hooping on the windy decks.

No pic for this, but we also performed our now "International" rope and juggling acts for the talent show. Good times.

Salalah and Muscat Oman

Salalah, Oman. I've been enjoying snapping pics of signs of the towns and countries, along with other random things.

A mosque behind beautiful iron fence, and a building with intricate designs on the entrance arch.

Here's the Omani flag, and a surprising cultural blend of traditionally dressed women in the "Ladies Only" line of a McDonald's restaurant.

We walked an achingly long way today, under the hot sun, with no end in sight, which Wren has appropriately titled, the "death march". Thankfully, we had a cool dip waiting for us.... along with a bunch of even cooler pics.

 And me, trying to be a mermaid, made for a surprisingly nice shot!

After a brief day on the cruise ship, we were in Muscat Oman, home of "death march" number two!

We walked through the souq (an expansive open air market place).

Then started our march to find the Al Alam Palace.

There were cool structures along the way, like this bridge structure, and vast hallway.

 

We couldn't enter the palace, but this was the entrance gate, with much beyond.

The water breaks are also where birds take breaks, and these goats were a colorful part of art museum.

So many things to see on a death march!

The Suez Canal

Our boat, the Costa Fortuna in the Suez Canal, each side having about this much room. We are in transit between Turkey and Israel.

Some fun facts: The Suez Canal is the realization of an idea devised since the ancient times. Various men over thousands of years tried to merge the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, not succeeding both for the hard work and the limited resources during that time, but for the adverse general belief that the Red Sea was at a height higher than the Mediterranean. Such conviction was denied November 17th, 1869 when the Canal, just completed, was opened to marine traffic. The canal is 100.5 miles long, 87.5 nautical miles deep, and takes between 11 and 14 hours to reach the exit into the open sea.

Marmaris, Turkey

Another brief, one-day stop on the cruise. This one to Marmaris, Turkey where we took pictures of us taking pictures.

and emulating fountains...

finding Wrens perfect food-combo carts...

and drinking salep...

  seeing funny signs like this one...

and the No No Bar?... Umm, awesome!

 

And enjoying a delightful view of our ship from the long and beautiful boardwalk.

 

  My next post will show some of the awesome designs of the boardwalk. Art is everywhere!

Boardwalk tiles of Marmaris Turkey

Heraklion, Greece

 We are in Greece! On the Island of Crete, in the town of Heraklion.

 

A view of the town.

A wall to a small castle.

One of the cute shops.

This cool old building that has been rebuilt many times.

How many people get around.

Pretty things in the city parks.

We were only there for a few hour but it was all quite nice.