My eldest brother in law (BIL) was hospitalised two days ago with suspected hepatitis; at the moment there is no definite diagnosis, but he seems to be in fine spirits. I agree that this is not the sort of information that generally appears in this blog, but there is a reason for starting with this. He was due to start a five day cruise to Rodos and Crete on Sunday, but of course he won't be able to go.
We discussed this cruise some months ago; as BIL prefers to pay 'single supplement' and have a cabin for himself as opposed to sharing with an unknown person, I wondered whether it would be possible for my wife to have a break and go on the cruise with him (this is before we started planning our Como trip). Indeed it is possible, so for some months we have known that my wife would go on this cruise.
A short digression: about six years ago, my personal mobile computer fell onto the floor; as a result, the hard disk was damaged. I couldn't find any documentation about this in my blog but it certainly happened. About 95% of the important data stored on the computer was backed up, either at Mega or on external hard drives, so very little was lost. The major item that disappeared was all the video footage that I took when we were in Rodos (June 2017). Thus when we saw that my wife was going to Rodos, I said that I wanted to be there for two hours to film again all that was lost, but as that was not possible, that she should film as many videos as possible.
Back to the present day. As there was no possibility of BIL cancelling the cruise at this short notice, he suggested that I go instead of him. Who would turn down the offer of a free* five day cruise of the eastern Mediterranean basin? Well, I would, as I have commitments at work, and we've only just returned from a previous holiday. My wife besieged me to reconsider, so I asked my manager whether it would be OK to go on this trip (fortunately I was in Tel Aviv yesterday so we spoke face to face). She gave permission, as long as I have internet access. The ships these days have access to the internet, so I was free to go.
I wrote free* in the previous paragraph: although the trip and the
catered meals are included in the price that BIL paid, extras are not
included. These include any shore trips (we won't be going on these), cups
of tea and refreshments in the various lounges, and of course, the internet
access. Even changing BIL's name on the passenger list and replacing it with
mine cost 25€; so the gouging starts. We - BIL, my wife, son and I - went on
a similar cruise nearly 20 years ago; this introduced BIL to the pleasures
of a cruise. We decided not to go again for various reasons, but BIL assures
me that the ships have changed immensely in the intervening years - larger,
of course, but also better.
So: a cruise to Rodos! I can film all that I want to! Last night my head
was filling up with images of the places that we visited in the town that I
want to visit again. I don't know how long we'll have there: I am hoping
that it will be about 24 hours. From our previous cruise, it took about a
day and a half to get from Haifa to Rodos; we had two hours in the evening
to walk around the town, then overnight we set sail for Siros. By my
calculations, if we leave Haifa at lunchtime on Sunday, then we'll be in
Rodos on Monday evening; we sail from there to Crete on Tuesday evening then
leave Crete sometime on Wednesday so returning home on Thursday. I may be
slightly optimistic about how much time we really will have, but even two
hours will be sufficient!
One small pang: I haven't ordered a new video camera yet as I didn't expect to go on holiday so soon again. Do I go without one? Should I look for one in Bet Shemesh tomorrow?
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 38 | Fructose | Food science, Jeff Duntemann | |
| 1228 | Yet another new mobile phone | Mobile phone | |
| 1621 | Glucose | Health, Non-fiction books |
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