I’ve just been going over our photos and moving some of them to our photo gallery. I am struck by the number of slides from the Athens Archeological museum that are plaster reproductions of stone pieces in the London Museum. Fully 60% of the Parthenon was torn from the building, packaged up, and shipped to London where they were sold to the British Government.

What a rip-off. If Greece could get Britain to pay a fair market value for the stolen pieces, they would not have a monetary crisis with the European Union today! Fat chance of that happening.

I’ve added photos we took while visiting Patmos, Rhodes, Santorini, and Athens in that order. Left to be added are Monemvasia (fantastic), Katakolon with a trip to Olympia the home of the Olympic Games, and Corfu.

We stop in Dubrovnic, Triluke Bay, and Venice in the next few days. We are meeting Marcus and Alexandra in Venice. They are flying down from their home in Germany to spend a short weekend with us before we move on to Florence.

Tonight we have a John Stackhouse lecture about Venice, a meet the captain reception, dinner, a piano recital featuring one of the guests, and dancing late into the evening

As I”ve probably said earlier, we have met some truly fascinating people aboard. People with whom we will stay in contact. Some may visit us in San Francisco. We may visit others in Boston, Melbourne, England, and New Zealand.

We need to have “retirement” cards printed up with our info on them. “Elder Gypsies” Ron and Ellen blah blah…. One couple beat us to it by giving us their retirement card. We had a hilarious conversation over dinner with a proctologist and his wife and friends last night. We nearly closed down the restaurant, but remembered that Paul Adams, the comedian, was playing in the Salon and we boogied on over. Adams was hilarious; too. We called it a night without dancing. This morning Roz said that she got Rob to dance last night, “That never happens”.

Another thing that often goes unconsidered. On a cruise, the itinerary is entirely in the hands of Seabourn (in this case). All we had to do was make it to the ship on 6/6. All has been taken care of for us since then. On 6/20 we’re on our own again. Seabourn will be a hard act to follow. I only hope there are no significant hiccups in our remaining itinerary!

Sailing Away to Dubrovnic,

Ron & Ellen