Monday, November 20 – Valletta, Sorta Free at last! Free at last! Following the shortest quarantine in the ship’s history – less than 24 hours – D was able to have breakfast in the MDR and to go anywhere he wanted. Of course, he was advised to take it easy the first day, so breakfast was soft-boiled eggs and toast. It was reminiscent of watching his father eat the same thing every day for eternity. The only difference was that there was no springer spaniel to catch buttered toast. [Are you reading this, Linda?] As for Malta, we saw the major archeological sites as well as some of the historical ones in 2009 and had decided before the noro episode to stay aboard today. Several of the MDR staff expressed curiosity about Valletta and Cuba, so D tried to connect the laptop to the printer in the “library” to print out our journals, but to no avail. Our journals may would probably have bored or confused the waiters anyway. So today is “bi...
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Sunday, October 29 – Wasted Efforts Another sea day started in fog, according to the captain, but the sky was only a bit cloudy and the sun was bright enough that the MDR curtains were still drawn on our side of the ship when we went for breakfast. The Atlantic was so smooth that the only motion we could detect was the Veendam’s wake. It was as if we were standing still. When we returned to the cabin after breakfast, we found that the stewards had not cleaned it for the day, so we took our tablets and the NYT puzzle in search of a place to work. After several false starts, we ended up in the Explorer’s Lounge, a space frequently used for concerts by a piano-violin duo. This morning, it was empty when we got there but became busier when a group traveling with Cruise Specialists used it for a meet-and-mingle. MA didn’t even notice their presence, and we worked on our respective copies of the puzzle until we were bleary-eyed. Once again, the roo...
Sunday, November 26 – Cadiz, the Final Frontier Cadiz, Spain, sits on the southwest corner of Spain and was our last stop on the Continent. We will be in Casablanca, Morocco, in northern Africa, tomorrow and Madeira, a Portuguese possession in the mid-Atlantic, on Wednesday. So this is absolutely the final frontier. We love Cadiz. We have been here several times before and taken the HoHo; followed a painted path through old neighborhoods; and just wandered the pedestrian shopping area. Cadiz is like Cartagena, Malaga and Katakolon because we can literally walk off the ship and cross the street and we are there; in Katakolon we do not even have to cross the street. Other ports make it easy, but these are the best. We did, in fact, cross the street around 11:30, allowing plenty of time for the Mongol hordes to disembark for their tours and hunts for WiFi. We walked through a park to get to the pedestrian area, passing a Burger King on the w...

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