As a total cruise novice and full-time troll, my initial reaction last night to the mass of people that I will be spending the next week with borders between terror and revulsion. But this trip is about Wife and not about me, because it’s something she has wanted to do for a long, long time. And as far as cruises go, this is a micro-cruise with barely a 100 people on the boat (compared with the thousand that are on real cruise ships). I had a poor night sleeping last night going over a myriad of ways that I was going to be miserable. But in the end my focus on the reason why I was doing this allowed me peace and I fell a sleep
We have to get up early today to get our luggage all arranged and entered into the coaches. There is going to be a tour of Budapest that will cover mostly things that we’ve already seen after which we will drive in the afternoon to Bratislava and finally get on the boat. All of us will be glad to get our bags to one spot and stop moving around unpacking and repacking. The tour itself was uneventful and we are now on the road to Bratislava so I will make couple of observations based upon a full six hours of this tour group experience (can’t call it a cruise experience yet since we haven’t made it to the boat yet).
Cultural Identity – This is an Anglo group with representatives from the US, Canada, Great Britain, South Africa and Australia. I am fearful of the implications that this has for the culinary experience.
Friendliness Can Be Alluring – In spite of my best efforts to maintain the curmudgeonly standards of the mail line of my family, I’m finding the genuine friendliness of my travel companions a serious obstacle to maintaining a monastic posture. I’m sure the great saints would have something to say about this but I don’t have access to any of there writings now.
Watching the Great Al in Action – One of the main reasons for agreeing to this trip was hearing all of the stories of how Al has created contacts and relationships around the world as well as having had a wide variety of non-traditional experiences as a result of the a his natural gregariousness, fearlessness, desire to find a better way to do things with cruising. Up until now we were doing a vacation separate from the “cruise experience”. This has now changed. Today I watched him work with our tour guide. This led to her taking us on a special shopping trip apart from the group to the ‘hidden’ grocery store under the Central Market so we could buy booze for the ship at a discount from what was being sold on the floor above.
Inside Church at Buda Castle
I Love Stained Glass Windows
The Haul from the Grocery Store under the Market
Sandy, Wife and Our Wonderful Guide Andrea
1 comment:
I can't wait to hear more about the Al experience.
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