The Main Course: Eli's Portion

My favorite activity in all our mediterranean stops (especially in Venice) was chasing pigeons. It was my goal to get them to fly away but they were too well fed and too used to people so I had to work hard! Here's a video of me in St. Marks Square.

I loved our cruise! Especially Club Ocean. It was so much fun. The teachers blew up a volcano and took us on lots of fun walks around the ship like the Pirate Parade, the Alien Hunt, and Trick-or-Treating on Halloween. I made lots of friends there and other places too. Marie was also from Germany but the teachers didn't speak German so I helped them talk to her sometimes. We even had kids' dinner two times. Plus movies, crafts, toys and songs. Heaven!


I could have hot dogs, cookies, and apple juice all day long on the ship. One day I played Dominoes with Grandma in the library. And we played miniature golf a few times too. All the workers were really nice and always gave us stuff... like chocolates before bedtime and animals made out of towels in our room. I needed a nap every day since I was staying up so late at Club Ocean (10pm most nights) and walking all over the place when we docked. One day we walked 12 kilometers (that's 8 miles for you folks on the US system) across the island of Santorini in Greece!! Two dogs followed us the whole way. They were nice but I was nervous for awhile around them. It was a very hard hike but I'm a 'trooper' said mom and dad and I made it.

Mom and Dad were laughing because I make friends (blond women in their 20's; children of all ages) wherever I go and strangers always seem to know my name. Greetings come my way at the weirdest places... an out of the way restaurant in Dubrovnik, Croatia (blond girl I met walking around the ship); the palace in Venice (Marie from Germany); and at the airport just before coming home (some kids from the club). And I made some moves on Holly, the just married young woman at our dining room table. Her new husband, Michael, was laughing because I asked Holly to sit with me by the window for awhile and told her secrets and smiled at her.

I loved all the boats in Venice and riding on the Vaporettos (like public buses) and the Gondola. In Turkey I learned how to make rugs and roll them up and even saw a "flying carpet." Sometimes I rode on Grandpas shoulders or held Grandmas hand while we walked. It was a wonderful vacation.