Adventures in Home Education: 2015

Christmas Trip 2014 (part 7): Genoa and Home

December 30th was the end of the cruise and we docked back in Genoa. We didn't want to be rushed trying to catch a flight the same day we disembarked so we booked a hotel for the night. It was a pretty quick and easy disembarkation process and we were able to get a cab to our hotel pretty quickly. We arrived at the hotel prior to check-in time and since our room wasn't ready reception held our luggage and we went to find lunch and do some exploring. It was very cold!

Motorcycle and mopeds were everywhere. This is how they parked!

Home of Christopher Columbus

BEST CALZONE EVER!!

This "red line" led us right back to our hotel!

December 31st we flew from Genoa to Istanbul. Since we had a 27 hour layover we got a hotel in hopes of ringing in the new year in comfort. While the hotel was quite comfortable the weather was NOT. It was cold and rainy. We stayed up until midnight and went up to the hotel balcony and watched about 2 minutes of fireworks before we froze and called it a year/night!

Statue of Christopher Columbus on the way to the airport in Genoa

Hubby as Santa in the airport in Genoa

You can't really see them but this is a picture of the fireworks for New Year's

Yummy food we found in Istanbul

January 1st we flew from Istanbul to Abu Dhabi and stayed 1 day with friends. Then hubby took me back to the airport so I could fly back to the US to pick up the kids. Because of the weather in Abu Dhabi we were delayed in our take off. Then because of the delay the flight crew couldn't legally fly the entire way to London so we had to land in Vienna and wait (5 hours) for a new flight crew to arrive. Because of this I missed my flight out of London to Phoenix and I had to spend the night in London. Normally this is not a big deal but there wasn't time to enjoy London and I missed my kids! I finally made it to Phoenix 26 hours late but safe and sound. I spent a couple days enjoying Arizona and then the kids and I headed home. Gratefully it was an uneventful trip home with the kids!

Christmas Trip 2014 (part 6): Olympia and NOT Malta

December 26th was spent at sea. It was a nice day of relaxing.

December 27th we visited Olympia, Greece. Olympia is where the first Olympics were held and where they were held for thousands of years. It was neat to see current excavation sites. After we walked through the ruins and excavation sites we went into town to do a little shopping. Instead of shopping hubby and I found a little restaurant and had some gyros that we had been craving!

December 28th we were supposed to go to Malta but once we got close to port it was determined that it was too dangerous to enter the port because of the winds that were up to 50 knots. This made for some very rough seas and the ship was "rocking" enough that I spent a lot of time in bed with a queasy stomach!

Here are some photos from Olympia:

current dig site

Here are a couple photos to show how bad the weather was:

The white-caps and waves were visible out our window on deck 10. Also, it was too dangerous to walk on the decks outside so they closed all the doors that led outside. We were actually very grateful for this as the door right across from our door would SLAM very loudly because the wind was so strong.

Christmas Trip 2014 (part 5): Istanbul

Christmas Eve we arrived in Istanbul! Since we were going to be in port for 2 days I took advantage of a little down time and had a massage, manicure and pedicure! It was a nice day of relaxing and pampering.