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Vacation is over, and xpcdoojk is back. hee hee

xpcdoojk

By xpcdoojk,
in Royal Caribbean International

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hstrybuf

hstrybuf

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[quote name='xpcdoojk']Deb, we are going to be at the Rapheal on October 30, but we won't be eating at a PB & J. My buddy is dragging me to a silly football game, where the Chiefs will find another way to lose.[/QUOTE]
Looks like I'll miss you again! We set sail on the 30th from Miami! :D As for the football game, win or lose, those things are a blast! Nobody, and I mean nobody, tailgates like the Chiefs fans! Have fun!

Now back to our regularly scheduled, ummmm, program!
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[quote name='wallie5446']jc,
Where to today ?[/QUOTE]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Yeh JC, what gives??? You've had all weekend to finish this thing up. Let's get on the ball here![/color][/size][/font][/i]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000]Stretch[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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mellow

mellow

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Frankie, what's an O board? ;) Is it some kind of code for an ironing board? I always like to get involved in the question of why irons are a fire hazard and smoking is not..... :D Wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. :eek:
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Ocean Boy

Ocean Boy

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[quote name='mellow']Frankie, what's an O board? ;) Is it some kind of code for an ironing board? I always like to get involved in the question of why irons are a fire hazard and smoking is not..... :D Wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. :eek:[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I do believe it was an iron that burned Explorer's roller blading track to a crisp. :rolleyes:
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xpcdoojk "Live from...." Rare

xpcdoojk

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Here is the conclusion, unfortunately the best parts are done!

[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Day sixteen was our planned trip back on to the mainland, and visits to Pompeii and Herculaneum. I won’t go into a lot of detail about these sites as many have seen movies, and read books about these historical victims of the volcano Vesuvius. It was a very warm day, and trying to do both of these sites in one day was a little challenging because the sites are quite large and with a group it is difficult, because some get into the minute details and others just want to get an overview. We spent about 3 hours at Pompeii before we decided we had better go eat lunch. Lunch was very average, but the pizza was fresh at least. We drove about 25 minutes over to the other site. Here we encountered a RCI shore excursion. Bad! This is in many ways a better site than Pompeii, as the city is much more preserved it is, also, in a very concise area. That is very easy to see all of it, especially compared to Pompeii. The RCI group was the perfect vision of my med cruise in 2000 with lots of older folks blocking the view of anything. I quickly learned if I saw a lollipop go somewhere else anywhere else! [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]On our way back to Maiori in the evening we stopped at Vietre Su la mar which is the first stop off the autostrada on the Amalfi coast. There were about 6 Italian destroyers in the harbor. We stopped and did a little shopping there and this is the spot to stop if you want Amalfi ceramics. Shop after shop there were too many choices and even though the prices were good, we ended up not buying anything because the choices were simply overwhelming. We had a nightmare finding a parking spot there and after a gelato and an hour of shopping we headed home to the villa and Mitza, and a home cooked meal of leftovers from the week. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Day seventeen was another beautiful day and it was our last full day in the villa. Susie, David, Gary, and Kathy needed to be in Naples by 11am in order to turn in their car and to catch the train to Rome. Gary and Kathy were going to spend some time at the Inter Continental atop the Spanish Steps for 4 nights. Susie and David were going to spend two nights in Rome in the same hotel (Empire Mecante Palace) that we had stayed at a week earlier. They ended up with the best room in the hotel, with a view of the beautiful frescos in the huge church across from our hotel. Then Susie and David were going to take a cheap airline flight to Frankfurt to visit David’s relatives that live near there. Anyway it was our last day, and we again hung out at the villa and around Maiori. I went into town and parked where I had all week, and we went shopping and I bought the most amazing ravioli in a store. It was huge, with sausages, goat cheese, spices, and lobster. They were huge and they gave me more than I wanted, but it looked so good, and they spoke so little English that I paid for more than we could eat and left happy. When we got to the car, I had a ticket on the window; it was placed there no more than 1 minute after I had parked an hour before. I was not going to find the local carbineri to pay the ticket, so I guess at this point I am an international fugitive. I expect one of these days to see a charge on my credit card from the rental car company, but time will tell. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]After a glorious lunch of fresh fruit, cheese, Parma, proscuitto, and bread we got to the serious work of killing off our stores of wine, beer and spirits, over the next 12 hours we did a very credible job of this. In the afternoon, we made another trip to our cove and swam for hours in the luscious water, and played in the waterfall. Some hung out at the pool and some took naps. It was a great day in Amalfi. I was doing dinner, which was why I bought the ravioli. We were having grilled chicken and Ravioli with a red sauce that I make from scratch. Nobody but Krystal knew about the special ravioli, but when dinner was served everyone was raving. I wish I could take credit for that. My red sauce is very good, but the ravioli was spectacular. I have never had a ravioli that came close to that ravioli. Including my favorite local Italian restaurant Gilardis with the owner coming from Italy about ten years ago. We ate some baba for dessert (bread soaked in Lemongello or rum with sugar), and we went down to the pool to drink laugh and watch the satellites twinkle overhead on our last night in Amalfi. [/font][/size]

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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]Day eighteen came early, and Carmella was to meet us at 8am so we ate packed the cars. Carmella came, we got our deposit back told Carmella how to treat Mitza’s ears. Which, of course, was a challenge. Then we loaded up and convoyed back towards Naples. We waived goodbye to the other car at the exit from the autostrada, and we continued to retrace our trip back to Rome. We were staying near the airport in [/size][/font][font=Arial]Fiumicino[/font][size=3][font=Times New Roman] at a Hotel that was reasonably priced in that suburb of Rome. It took a lot longer to find the hotel than we expected, so it was pretty late in the afternoon before we got there and everyone was pretty tired. There is a huge Roman ruin called Ostia that covered miles of land. We were too tired to visit, but it looked much larger than Pompeii and much larger than the ruins in Rome. We ate dinner at a nearby restaurant, and went to bed early to get ready for our long flight home. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Day nineteen was a depressing day. Vacation is over. Krystal and I know we will have to go to work the next day, and we are going to be in the airport system for most of the next 24 hours. Our first flight was at 11am and we flew to London Heathrow on British Airways. Had to deplane and go thru security after changing terminals. A lot of rushing around, and waiting in lines. Finally got to the gate and waited about 30 minutes past time before they allowed us to board on our American Airlines flight to Chicago. We finally land in Chicago about 8pm and it is rainy and ugly there. Now we get to claim our baggage and go thru customs. Then we get to take our luggage and get it rechecked to go on the plane. Nightmare. We again have to take a train to our terminal, and then we get to go thru security again. Yikes. It was at this time that our cell phone finally worked, and we had a voice mail from the girl who was house sitting for Sue and Shelby. We tried to get thru to her, but there was no answer. We reboarded and flew the last hour home. When we got to our airport we again called the girl. I gave Sue the phone as the luggage carousel started turning. I send Krystal to get our car, which a friend had parked, in short term parking a couple of hours before, and Shelby and I are getting the bags. I send Shelby to the curb with a couple of bags, and I notice that Sue is crying uncontrollably. Oh, Oh! I get the remaining bags and take them to Shelby and tell him something is obviously wrong. It turned out that thirteen days earlier her oldest Siberian husky had died, Sasha was five years old. [/font][/size]

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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]It was a very quiet drive home. Very sad. The only good thing was the phone I had purchased so that we could get and make calls while in Italy had never worked in Italy, and we didn't get the phone call while we were in Italy, and therefore the sad message didn't cause the negative impact on our vacation that it could have.[/size][/font]
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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]jc[/size][/font]
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[size=3][font=Times New Roman] :( [/font][/size]
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xpcdoojk "Live from...." Rare

xpcdoojk

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Yes, that was a tough thing to hear after a 3 week vacation.:(

I hope I didn't bore everyone to tears with my story.:D Fortunately, the big vacation in 2005 will be a cruise! Unfortunately, it will be a HAL cruise so you will have to hang out over there to read about it.:p

jc
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[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]It's good to see that you finally found time to finish this truly amazing vacation story. Thanks! And my best regards to the[/color][/size][/font][/i]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000]"FOJC" group! [url="http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb001_VNxdm82446US"][img]http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/7/7_4_3.gif[/img][/url] [/color][/size][/font][/i]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=#8b0000]Stretch[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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