Before embarking on our cruise vacation, we had an extra day or so to explore Barcelona, the city the ship would be leaving from. We arrived on Monday afternoon, September 1 after flying from Cincinnati to Washington D.C., continuing onto Paris as I mentioned yesterday, and finally a quick hop over to Barcelona. The first day we settled into the hotel and headed out into town for dinner and a little sight seeing around La Ramblas, the main street in town.

The next day we had to board the ship, but we woke up early enough so we could go out in Barcelona again before heading for the port. We went down the La Ramblas area again and then headed up to the top of the hill called Montjuïc, which had outstanding views of the entire city. From there we headed over to the La Sagrada Familia, which is the most famous building in town. This church is massive and has been under construction since 1882, with estimates for completion in 2026. Once spending a bit of time there it was time to head for the ship and start our fabulous cruise.

Well we are back in the good ol’ USA after a couple of weeks in Europe. Overall, it was an amazing trip, but at the same time it’s good to be back at home. The cruise went very smoothly, minus the last day at sea, which was cold, windy, and stormy. That weather led to a rather rough ride through the Mediterranean. And we did have a change to the itinerary, skipping Tunisia and instead heading to Palermo, Sicily, more on that later. I have nearly 1000 pictures that I’m going to slowly sort through and add to the site. Today I present the first few shots of our trip and some from a few hour tour of Paris.

And if you’d like to view photos of our wedding, those can be found on our photographer’s website. Thanks once again Joe, the pictures are awesome!

We are just leaving Cannes now on our first stop of our cruise. The sunset is beautiful and the long islands are very tasty! We had a great day today exploring Monaco first, then a brief stop in Nice, and a little sightseeing in Cannes on the way back to the ship. Our stay in Barcelona was very nice, but cut a little short due to overall exhaustion from our trip overseas. And we did have a few hours to spend in Paris on our layover and were able to see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, among other sites. I’d love to start sorting through pictures and uploading some, but I think we forgot to pack the cord I need to transfer them. I’m going to see if one of the shops onboard has anything I can use. I hope everyone who was able to attend the wedding had a good time. Talk to you all after the cruise!

I’m officially a married man! Posting may be a bit slow for the next couple of weeks, but I hope to add some pictures and things while we are out on our honeymoon cruise of the Mediterranean. Try not to be too jealous.

Today is my last day of work for quite some time. I will then have my longest vacation I’ve had since becoming a working adult. If you’ve missed the countless other posts I’ve made about our fabulous honeymoon cruise, this entry has a good summary of events. Who would have thought that our trip to Tunisia would elicit the largest number of comments giving advice (and other ramblings), but feel free to provide pointers on any of our destinations. I’ve pretty much planned out each stop, using mostly public transportation to get from the port to other nearby places of interest, but I’m always open to altering our plans or taking a detour to see something spectacular. Now I just need to get through three more hours…

I’m stuck at work today in the office, so I haven’t been able to keep up with the DNC events as well as the past couple of days. What would have been really cool to see is Rage Against the Machine’s concert that is going on now. I used to love this band, and have never seen them live, though I’m sure it’s full of energy. Instead, I had my yearly review, and despite receiving the highest marks possible, received another mediocre raise. I guess it could be worse, the amount equates to 8%, but still I always expect more. I’m really curious as to when I’ll get my next promotion from level two up to level three. There is always next year, I suppose.

If you didn’t already know, the Democratic National Convention started yesterday and is going through Thursday. Even though I’ll miss some of the bigger events, like Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field, I’ve been doing my best to get downtown often and catch any other happenings around town. Here are some pictures from Saturday, Sunday, and yesterday. The last pictures of the set come from a march gone bad last night in downtown, which can be read about here or here.

Sunday night we caught a performance from the best Beatles tribute band on earth, 1964. This is not their own claim to fame, rather something that Rolling Stone has said about the band. In fact, they were 167 out of the Top 200 Box Office grossing bands, according to Pollstar. And not only did we get to see this spectacular band, we got to see them play at one of the best, if not the best, amphitheaters in the world, Red Rocks.

Going into the show, I knew it was going to be a sell out crowd, since this is a regular occurrence when this band plays Red Rocks. However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people in attendance at Red Rocks before. We arrived fifteen minutes before the show was scheduled to start, and could not find a place to sit in the entire place. We ended up standing toward the back, until the wind started kicking up dirt into our eyes, and eventually found ourselves watching the show from outside of the main seating area, on the other side of the steps. It wasn’t a bad spot actually, and we could see everything, not that there was much to see. The band has the simplest setup I’ve ever seen on that stage, or possibly on any stage. They stay very true to the tribute, and play with just enough gear to get by. But what they may lack in stage presence, they make up for in great sounding music. It truly felt like you were hearing a live performance from the Beatles. This band is a must see!

As if the office weren’t already distracting enough, I arrived this morning to see that we now have a popcorn machine less than 50 feet from my cube. So, not only do I get to hear constant popping, I also get the constant smell of popcorn. The smell obviously isn’t all that bad, it just makes me want to eat popcorn all day long! I think the worst part is the noise, not only from the machine, but also from the people standing around it talking about the machine and whatever other random office talk they choose. I just don’t understand why it wasn’t placed in the big break room with all of the TV’s, stainless steel appliances, and constant noise.

Sandwiched between two days at sea, is our final stop on our honeymoon cruise, Tunis. Tunis is the capital of the north African country Tunisia. So our cruise involves two continents, among all of the different countries we are visiting. I think the first thing we’ll do when we get to Tunis is to leave. I’d like to immediately take a train out to the ancient city of Carthage and continue on to Sidi Bou Said, a town which is famous for its white buildings with blue roofs and windows. It looks very picturesque!

Once we are done exploring the suburbs, we’ll head back into the center of Tunis and explore the sights in town, including the medina (old town) and souk (more or less the market). Depending on the time, we may also try to take in the Bardo Museum or the Zitouna Mosque. I think it will be neat to just see a country that should be quite a bit different from the others we’ll see during our crusie.

So here is our final cruise itinerary:

• Start: Barcelona
• Day One: Cannes / Monte Carlo / Nice
• Day Two: Livorno / Florence / Pisa
• Day Three: Rome
• Day Four: Naples / Capri / Sorrento / Pompeii
• Day Five: At Sea
• Day Six: Venice
• Day Seven: Venice
• Day Eight: Split, Croatia
• Day Nine: At Sea
• Day Ten: Tunis, Tunisia
• Day Eleven: At Sea
• End: Barcelona

I still have some research to do for Barcelona, since we’ll spend a night there before the cruise, but we are definitely in good shape for the majority of the honeymoon. Now if only I could skip over the next week.