When Things Seem Slow They Are Actually Quite Busy

St. Mark's Square in Venice taken from my room aboard the Carnival Magic
St. Mark's Square in Venice taken from my room aboard the Carnival Magic

The last week or so I haven’t posted much. It has been an extreme case of Gary’s Paradox. This has been due to my manic schedule across Europe and the limited Internet access I’ve had on the Carnival Magic as we have been sailing around the Mediterranean.

Just to give you an idea how hectic things have been for me, since I arrived in Europe on April 19 I have been to:

Prague
– Cesky Krumlov
Vienna
– Bratislava
– Ljubljana
– Venice
Dubrovnik
– Sicliy
– Naples
– Rome
– Cinque Terre

And that doesn’t include the day in Monaco we had to cancel due to high winds that prevented the ship from being docked.

Internet along the way has been spotty. I’ve stayed in some places where I had weak signals, slow connections and of course when you are at sea, the only way to get online is to connect via satellite which isn’t great. Europe isn’t very good at free wifi.

Tomorrow I’ll be disembarking in Barcelona and spending 2 days in Spain before flying to Zurich for a week in Switzerland. Then I’m in Budapest on May 20th where I’ll be going overland by train to Istanbul by way of Romania and Bulgaria.

One thing I love about cruise ships is meeting the crew. I’ve met crew members from 45 different countries and I know of at least 5-7 other countries represented by the crew who I haven’t met. I’ve been able to practice my Spanish, say hello in Thai, learn how to say “thank you” in Bulgarian and Croatian, discussed the upcoming Rugby World Cup with Australians and Kiwis as well as the just completed cricket World Cup with Indians.

It is amazing how quickly you can make friends with people from other countries if you can just show a basic level of knowledge about where they are from. One Indonesian guy was shocked that I have been to Yogyakarta and several Filipinos were happy to know that I knew where many of the cities around Manila were.

I’ll be writing more in the coming days once I have regular internet access again.

15 thoughts on “When Things Seem Slow They Are Actually Quite Busy”

  1. I’d love to hear more about Cinque Terre. I intend to take the train to there and then hike (I live in Luxembourg currently)

  2. Hope you’ll do a post on the train journey from Budapest to Istanbul. We wanted to do that when we were in Budapest a few years ago but there were repairs going on on the rail tracks. We ended up taking a VERY long bus journey through Bulgaria and into Istanbul. Not highly recommended.
    Julia

  3. Oh wow, that’s crazy! So many places in such little time. I’ve been to Vienna and Bratislava before (I did the bus ride from Bratislava to Vienna then the boat ride down the Danube river back to Bratislava). I LOVED Vienna, but not so much Bratislava. I mean, it was a good experience.. but yanno, nothing compared to Vienna which stole my heart ;) lol. Enjoy your trip!

  4. What a long list of travel destinations!! It sounds exciting, and am looking forward to your posts on all of them when you finally land home!!! What a lovely journey:)

  5. I’m pretty jealous right now. The only place I have been to out of the US is Mexico how lame is that! I really need to go somewhere cool and see the world! Especially if the world is going to end on May 21, 2011 :) Let’s just say I hope it waits a couple more years because I still need to see the world.

    • Everyone has to start somewhere. Don’t be embarrassed by where you’ve been, be excited about where you are going.

  6. You sound much like a friend of mine who is called MR cruise, all he does is go from cruise to cruise writing reviews about the ships and each cruise. Each cruise is free because he is a guest speaker. He is away from home for months at a time and when he is at home he is writing books and articles about his trips. I myself enjoy a cruise but the only thing I don’t like is not being able to stay in any city more then 1 day. There are just too many cities where a week isn’t enough time let alone 1 day.

    • I really don’t go on that many cruises. This was the 3rd cruise I’ve been on in my life and I doubt if I’ll be doing any more this year.

      I enjoy them on occasion, but they are not my primary way of travel for the reasons you stated.

  7. O your a very busy man! But your also very blessed to be able to travel so many places. Carnival Magic sounds great.

  8. Like you I enjoy cruise ships, meeting new people, great food, lots of activities, and like you I have had trouble with the internet. where you can find wfii, then it is typically expensive. especially on the ship!
    I am enjoying the blog, and the photos.

  9. What are your plans in Switzerland? I live near Zug. Tips: Ballenberg Open Air Museum, the mountains of course…. but there is sooooo much to do in this most beautiful country!

  10. It is interesting to know that free WiFi is not wide in Europe. How is the quality of networking via satellite?

    Showing the basic understanding of things related to the people often makes them happy. When I talk about the mainland China’s geography with people from there, they are often excited to talk more.

  11. There’s actually 60+ nationalities on our cruise ship. And we love talking to guests too :)

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