More update...

First of all to answer everyone’s question: YES we got our luggage. It came to our hotel in Rome in the evening.

Our first trip was to the Forum and Colosseum. It was a beautiful day and walking around on no sleep was hard, but I was amazed at the size of the buildings and how it’s so different when you actually see it in person. You may see it on TV or in books many times but to actually see it in person and hear about the history is very different. I will have to put some pictures later.

That night I was real tired and running on barely any energy but I wanted to see some of my friends from camp in Romania who lived in Rome. So I called them up and at about 7:30 PM we were able to meet. My group was done touring for the day and we had dinner already (I had the same thing as I did for lunch because it was so good). We walked around, had some juice (fresh squeezed - so yummy), and had a great time talking about lots of different things. It was almost 10 PM and I was tired so I said “good night” and off to bed I went.

The next morning we were up early with our luggage ready. We had a great breakfast at the hotel and at about 8:30 AM we were again on the bus for our next tour. We went to the Vatican and St. Peters’ church with the same tour guide. The art, building and history was incredible. The amount of people that visit is amazing. I did not like the rushing, pushing, and walking like cattle through those places. It did not give you the time to appreciate what you were seeing.

Soon we were off to our ship. About an hour away from Rome. We got in the departure area, filled in our paper work and were ready to check in. Ok the next story is going to be told with little detail, but you had to be there (and maybe real tired for it to be funny). The paper they gave us to fill out asked about our past medical history (last 3 days). Take in account that I have been flying for a two days, not much sleep, and had lousy plane food. I indicated on the form that I had one too many things in the past 3 days, so when we were checking in they told us we had to see the doctor (mostly me but because L. was my roommate she was also affected). We walk over to the other room again and wait. We wait about 15 min and no one comes. The next room is empty and everyone seems to be checked in and the staff is cleaning up their stuff. L. asks some one and they assure us they will not forget about us and we will soon see the doctor. A few minutes later the lady who pulled us aside, along with the doctor, nurse and some other dude (who at the time I thought was the captain). They ask me about my problem and they say this is very serious and I need to be serious about how I respond to the questions (I was tired and I just wanted to get on the ship and of course was not taking this very seriously). Long story short I had to write a statement stating that I was not sick and would visit the doctor if any problem arouse and would wash my hands constantly throughout the cruise. For a moment I thought they would not let me go on the ship but they did. Yay...

Off we were to our rooms. Which I might say are very small but you get used to them since you’re not in there much and the ship is so big. Soon after we were on board we had a life vest drill. At 6:30 PM (which was our assigned dinner time for every evening) we had dinner where we were able to meet our waiters and other staff who would serve us for the rest of the cruise. The rest of the evening we checked out the ship (casino, gym, library, pool, outside area, stores, etc) which is a city on the water. We also had a chance to meet our celebrity singers and dancers (I thought the first show was cheesy) in a introductory show.

That first night I slept well despite the fact that the ship was rocking (I know we were on sea).

More to follow. (We are now on our second day at sea with no stops so I’ll try to update everyone on what I saw in every city later).