The past week and a half was very wonderful, but I’m so thankful to be home. I feel comfortable and refreshed, and with the time change I was able to get up at 6:00am, no problemo :)

I began the trip with food poisoning or something like that from the airplane food. This meant that I missed most of our tours in Rome (I did get to see the Colosseum) and I developed a distaste for pizza, pasta, and Italian food in general :(

Rome/Venice

After lots and lots of rest, I was well enough to get on the bus which took us to the Norwegian Jade ship in Venice. I had a few feelings about the cruise. It was very entertaining and there were shows every night, including breathtaking ballets and Motown show (yay!!!). The staff was so friendly too. They made me laugh all of the time, and the guys who cleaned our rooms would leave animal-shaped towels, which looked super creepy.

However, there was something unsettling about being surrounded by a couple thousand tan bodies just basking in the sun, not needing to move a muscle for seven days if they didn’t want to. One of my roommates and I talked about this odd lifestyle. Work, work, work, and then…do absolutely nothing. Laziness is equated to bliss. I guess it all depends on how you spread out your time. Ideally, I would like to have a life in which I eat and sleep but also, you know, walk, explore, read, create, etc.

Thankfully, we did a lot of that stuff during our port visits. Once we arrived at each port, we would begin a new tour and turn our minds on once again. Dubrovnik, Croatia was tiny but refreshing and beautiful. In the midst of all the souvenir shops, I found a little place called Atelier Ultraviolet, where a nice man sold his cyanotype sun-printed artwork. He told me all about how he made everything and it was so neat!  I bought three bookmarks and now I’m looking up how to get into this sun printing business.

In Athens, we visited the Acropolis and a cute little restaurant near a peach building. I kept turning around to stare at it. I decided this will be the color of my room soon:

The most beautiful part of my whole trip was Turkey. Good gracious. I got off the ship ten minutes after I woke up (whoops) and felt so obnoxiously grungy. But then, we drove off to Ephesus, stopping at a ceramics factory that lit up my whole heart. I need to take a ceramics class.

Next, we visited some ruins including the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And then we stopped at a weaving school where a man gave us coffee and showed us how Turkish rugs are made before trying to persuade us to buy them. Just a few thousand dollars, no big deal. Oh but they were gorgeous. That night, I dreamt that the man told me he would give me eight small square-shaped rugs for $100. Only, he had lied and brought out the $2,000 ones once again.

On our last day of the cruise, we went back to Croatia, this time to Split. We enjoyed yummy pizza and I finally found fresh squeezed lemonade. Summer brings upon lemonade cravings for days. We found a bunch of neat things at the underground market and I collected Croatian antique maps which will probably look nice in my new peach room :)

Finally, after leaving the Norwegian Jade, we arrived in Venice and went over to a cute hotel in Mestre. Venice was my favorite place to shop aside from the ceramics shop in Turkey. We went in tons of glass shops where the crowded touristy-atmosphere didn’t even matter since everything was so stinking pretty. I also found Italian yarn!

I couldn’t stop looking at these tiles.

The airplane rides were enjoyable (sans the food on the way over) and I had plenty of time to read Harry Potter Numero Uno and The Secret Life of Bees. I spent half of the first flight trying to figure out if the guy in front of me was Bill Cosby, but it was only his much younger French doppelganger. Twice, as we landed in Italy and departed from France, Ray LaMontagne’s This Love is Over played over the airplane speakers. Thank you for knowing what’s good, Air France ;)

What a long ten days it has been. Of course, next time I will stay for a lot longer. Tours are so helpful, but sometimes you’ve gotta be your own tour guide. I won’t do the cruise thing again, but it was nice to feel fancy for a week and have those free yummy desserts.

And now, I am home. I have added so much to my summer list. I have new craft ideas and I think it is time to get out the Rosetta Stone again. French :) Although, I realized last week that Croatian people speak the most beautiful words I have ever heard.