Food Crusie

This cruise was all about food for me.  It was our final Greek Island cruise and I ate as much Greek food as I was able to!  I now completely understand why we have weigh-ins every two weeks…there is too much delicious food to enjoy in all the ports of call!

My food cruise started in Barcelona with my first Tapas experience.  Tapas are a bunch of small dishes that are shared with the whole table.  We had hummus, guacamole, cheese in olive oil, Spanish omelet and sangria.  It was delicious. 

(Tapas in Barcelona)

In Mykonos I had the most amazing salad that I will definitely be attempting to recreate when I get home.  It was a watermelon salad.  All you have to do is cut up fresh watermelon into small cubes, add chunks of feta cheese, pieces of mint and some olive oil.  Yumm.

(Watermelon, Feta and Mint salad)

Mykonos continued with more Greek food for late lunch.  Tatziki (Greek cucumber sauce), saganaki (spinach stuffed in pita) and bread. I ate so much! After lunch we went snorkeling to try and burn off a few pounds.  I was snorkeling around, looked down and found €10 stuck in a sea urchin!  What will the exchange rate be for that in the Found Money competition?!

 

Continuing with the Greek Islands, Santorini was our next stop.  Maarten and I had the whole day to ourselves, so we rented an ATV and explored the island on our own.  We saw the Red Sand Beach where we shared a sweet corn, headed to lunch at a restaurant overlooking the ship and ocean, then up the mountain into the clouds.  Our last stop was a Black Sand Beach before getting back on the ATV and heading home.  It was a perfect day spent with my man.

 

(Overlooking the Red Sand Beach)

(Lunch)

(Sweet Corn)

 

(Black Sand Beach)

 

It rained when we were in Athens; a nice change from the 100° weather that we have had in Athens the past two times we were there.  I went to Plaka, a local Greek shopping and restaurant area, with Matthew and Charmaine (one of the nurses on the ship).  The lunch I had wasn’t that amazing, but there was a Greek Frozen yogurt place called “chillbox” across the street that looked absolutely delicious.  And boy, was it good!

 

(Charmaine and Jessica)

The last day of my food cruise was in Malta.  Maarten, Hannah and I went out and found the cutest restaurant with the most scrumptious meal.  We had a cheese platter, sautéed mushrooms, bruschetta and a caprese salad.  It was such a good meal with even better company.

I am such a lucky girl to have had this amazing experience to see (and eat) the world.  I have missed a lot of my favorite American foods while in the Mediterranean, but I know that when I get back to the US I am going to miss all the incredible European tastes I have had here.  I am going to have to recreate some of my Mediterranean favorites with goods from Hannaford…we’ll see how that works out! Two cruises left! Wow.

Not Just Another Mediterranean Cruise

This cruise started with a surprise.  We normally have our first show on the first full day of the cruise.  For some amazing reason, it was postponed until the second full day so we got to actually spend a day in France! Matthew, Hannah and I went to Nice, France.  We had a wonderful day chatting, eating, drinking wine and enjoying one another company.  We found this crazy gelato stand that had unheard of flavors.  Hannah had “Bailey’s”, I had Chocolate Ginger and Matthew had Avocado! It was a wonderful day with wonderful people.

 

(Hannah, Matthew and Jessica)

 

In Civitavecchia I was able to go on an olive oil tasting tour.  I didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out to be delicious.  We first spent time walking around a beautiful Italian village and then went to the olive vineyard.  The villa used to be owned by Napoléon Bonaparte’s brother.  It is now owned by another family and is used to make olive oil.  We were given a buffet of delicious olive oil and other snacks.  My favorites were the green olive paste and the bruschetta. 

 

Napoli is probably one of my favorite ports that we go to, and this time did not disappoint. As my cruising time comes to a close, I finally made it to the Blue Grotto on Capri.  I have tried to go before, but the tide made it impossible to anyone to enter the grotto.  This visit we were lucky!  We took the ferry to Capri, a motorboat to the entrance to the Blue Grotto and a row boat into the Blur Grotto.  It was not a cheap day, but the view inside was stunning and it allowed me to cross off another thing on my TO DO list. 

 

(Matthew, Jessica and Maarten)

 

Back in Venice, I was not only able to see Shannon, but I got another surprise! Simone was a foreign exchange student from Italy at Gorham High School my senior year.  When I knew that I was coming to Italy on the Solstice, I contracted him on facebook to see if he lived in any of the ports we were going to and then kind of forgot about it.  It just so happens that Simone did not forget about it and he contacted Shannon (who he had seen in Venice before) to see when I would be there next.  So we all were able to catch up and talk about life.  He looks and acts exactly like I remember him from 5+ years ago, except that his English is amazing! It was such a treat!

(Shannon, Simone and Jessica)

(Maarten, Jessica, Nic and Shannon)

 

Our last stop of the cruise was Dubrovnik.  I had such a wonderful time sea kayaking last cruise that I recruited more friends and went again!  I good time was had by all…minus the sore arms.

(Dejan, Sanci, Brook, Matthew, Tim, Vanessa, Jessica and Maarten)

 

As we get closer and closer to the end I find myself craving American and Maine-specific foods a lot more than past months.  I really want Pad Thai from Lucky Thai, Amato’s pickles and a pazzo bread, homemade nachos right out of the oven made with Hint of Lime chips, my dad’s meatloaf, Cool Ranch Dorito’s (although I do have a bag of those hidden in the back of my closet from when we were in Florida), Simply Lemonade, and almost anything from Jan Mee II (but especially the crab rangoons).  Honestly, most of all, I miss eating anything in the breakfast nook with my mom, dad and Andrew.  I have the most amazing family (aunts, uncles, grandfather and cousins, included) that a girl could ask for and I can’t wait to be back in the same country as them! Homeward stretch continues...

P.S.  You may be wondering about the extremely attractive, tall, sandy haired man who has begun to appear in my pictures recently.  His name is Maarten.  He is from Belgium.  He works as International Cruise Director Staff here on the ship.  And I am very pleased to get to call him my boyfriend.

Dreams Come True

This cruise I was able to do so much.  I think it is settling in that I only have 4 cruises left until my 7 month contract is over and that has inspired me to get out and do everything that I have always talked about, but had yet to do.  I haven’t been a Tour Escort a lot recently because I have done most of them and have been enjoying just hanging out with my friends in the ports, but one tour that I have signed up for multiple times and never was able to do is this tour called “Leisurely Tarquinia & Ice Cream Tasting”.  Ice cream tasting?!?  Yes, please!  So this cruise I decided to sign up for it one last chance and, guess what, I got it!  I had Lemon, Mint and Nutella gelato.  It was delicious ice cream and I am so glad I was able to finally go on the tour.

In Napoli, Matthew and I decided that we were going to go find this pizza place that is hailed as “the best pizza in Napoli”.  It was even featured in the book “Eat, Pray, Love”, if any of you read it.  So we went walking through Napoli with our map, only to find out that they were closed for the summer holiday!  Luckily, we found another delicious pizza place.  After all, you can’t go too wrong with pizza!

In Venice, I wandered around and got lost with Matthew and Maarten.  We took some beautiful pictures of Venice and had a wonderful day.  I also bought new watch bands for my watch.  There is this Italian company called Full Sport that makes convertible things.  They have bags that you can change the handles and pocket watches that you can change the color and tons of watch faces that you can change the color of the bands.  There are so many options for the watch face and a rainbow of colors for the bands.  I bought 5 different colored bands and a black watch face with numbers.  It will be a great souvenir to have from my contract…and it was made in Italy!

(Jessica and Matthew)

 

(Jessica and Maarten in Venice)

(My watch with 4 of the bands)

 

When we were in Dubrovnik I was finally able to do something that I have wanted to do for quite a few cruises.  Sanci and I saw an ad for sea kayaking months ago and decided that we wanted to do it!  However, the last few times we have been in Dubrovnik Boat Drill was scheduled so we weren’t able to have as much time off the ship.  This cruise the scheduled Boat Drill was rescheduled for a different port which meant that I GOT TO SEA KAYAK!  It was an amazing experience.  We kayaked over to an island and then to this small, private beach in a cave.  At the beach we were able to snorkel and swim.  We saw so many fish, the water was clear and the sun was hot.  It was an unforgettable day. 

(Jessica and Sanci ready to paddle)

(Sanci and Jessica - post snorkeling)

 

Later that day I was able to participate in another rare life experience.  Ringmasters, the barbershop group here on the Solstice, has a tradition of singing tags and drinking beer as we sail away from a port once a cruise.  The boys teach each person a vocal part and then we all put it together and it sounds awesome.  Sometimes we learn 8+ part tags, 8 people are each singing something different.  It is such a great experience and I really love it. 

(Jason, Jakob, Rasmus and Jessica)

 

 

And now on to my last 3 GREAT cruises! Homeward stretch!