On Saturday, we got up and headed out for souvenir shopping. For whatever reason, I did not sleep at all on Friday night and got up Saturday feeling crappy and in a “bubble.” Tim seemed really quiet too. After we bought a couple of things, we decided to go eat lunch and then head back for a nap.
The ristorante owner.
They sure are friendly
Lunch: The salad had a weird mayonaise like dressing on it. I scooped most of it off, but it ended up not tasting to bad.
Really, really friendly!
I thought we decided to go back for a nap together. I would find out later that he was a little upset with me because there were still 5 more things he wanted to see. I knew he wanted to do the “Angels and Demons” tour, not a real tour, but he wanted to go walk the areas where the clues were found from the movie. I had wanted to do that as well, but my tiredness won over and to be honest, I was so tired that I completely forgot about that part. So we went back and I fell asleep for about 3 hours.
When I woke up, we were both a little pissy at each other and I was not really clear why. Later I would find out that it was partly because we missed the last few things he wanted to see because of my tiredness. OOPS.
Sunday morning:
Time to head to the cruise ship to start our cruise! To be honest, I don’t think the universe EVER wanted us to go on this cruise.
Looking back at a whole bunch of scenarios, even before we left on this trip, there were signs that we were not supposed to do this part. Here are the first two “signs.”
1- 1- Clear back in March I told him that if we could cancel the cruise part and get our money back, I would.
2- 2-The week before we left for Europe, Tim had what we can only describe as a “panic attack” and voiced that he thought maybe we should cancel the entire trip.
When we got closer to the cruise we kind of started to bicker. I think it was just a culmination of the ass raping we took in London and the stress Tim had been under due to work that caused him to not be able to enjoy the remainder of the trip as much as he might have and caused us to snip at each other.
The car we saw on the way to the cruise ship.
A car.
This is kind of funny tonight as we sit here watching Vacation. Remember how Clark Griswald finally just has a "come apart" after so many things go wrong? Think that for the next few minutes as you read what happened.
By the time we got to the cruise ship, it felt like he was unhappy at everything and I finally blew a gasket. I took a swipe at him, he clawed back and we had a bit of argument. We stayed in the room for dinner even after we talked it out, neither one of us wanting to socialize or watch others socializing and being all happy and ready to have a good time.
The sunrise in Bastia, Corsica. I don't see to many sunrises with my sleep habits. Neither of us slept much the night before.
The next morning, we arrived in Bastia, Corsica. I know what you are all thinking at this point. Where the HELL is Bastia, Corsica? Let me tell you where it is… it is in the middle of fucking nowhere and there is nothing to see or do there.
We decided to get off the boat anyway. We needed to get out of the cabin and get some fresh air and some fresh perspective. We ended up seeing two other couples getting off at the same time as us, so we walked with them for a bit. After a while we ended up ditching them and going to lunch alone. It is really hard to socialize and pretend you are having a good time when you aren’t.
Getting fresh perspective.
Is this the face of a happy man?
Trying to find our fresh perspective.
Finding a little bit.
We were still pretty tentative with each other. You know how it takes a little time when you have had an argument to get back to feeling “normal.” Well, being in a crappy little nowhere added to Tim’s frustration level. We had decided that we might just get off the boat the next day, permanently and drive back up to Amsterdam or somewhere else we hadn’t seen yet. We were very much playing it by ear at this point. We got dressed up and went to dinner in the formal dining room.
Enjoying dinner.
Looks like we found our fresh perspective after all.
In a couple of days we were supposed to be in Monaco. THIS was the part of the trip that actually made us book the cruise. Tim is a HUGE James Bond fan and was REALLY looking forward to renting a tuxedo and going to the Casino.
It is all over the websites that this Casino in very high-class and you MUST be dressed appropriately. The plan was to rent a tux on board the ship. We certainly did not need the hassle of dragging something like that around for 3 weeks. Every cruise we have ever been on, he has been able to rent a tux for the formal nights. We were told that THIS cruise ship did not have that option. WTF?
I think this was a final straw for Tim on the list of things he felt was going wrong with the trip overall. I had had it with him being frustrated and I let him know it. I let him know it while I was loaded up with 2 glasses of wine, which makes my “filter” non- existant. We both took some pot shots at each other and had another pretty good arguement. At that point we both decided it was pointless to stay on the cruise ship and we decided to get off the next day in Pisa, Italy. Permanently off the boat.
We made all the arrangements, which was a bunch of paperwork that included us buying our airfare out of there (a REQUIREMENT of the cruise lines to release us from the ship).
Almost as soon as we got off the ship, we both seemed to calm down significantly. We took a cab to the airport and went to Easyjet to get checked in. So here are the next few things we got screwed on financially;
1-The cab fare from the Hotel to the Cruise ship was about an hour and a half and costs $300.00. Yes it is costly to take taxi’s but $300.00 for a half a tank of gas? C’mon, really? OUCH
2- Taxi from boat to airport was $100 for a 20 minute ride. Again, OUCH.
So at the EasyJet counter, they matter of factly tell us that we can each have ONE bag that it may be up to but not over 20 Kg. That is 42 lbs. LMAO Are you kidding me? We have a combined THREE bags, two of which are about 65 lbs and the third was about 42lbs. OK whatever, by now we are used to paying more for our stupid bags that for the airfare. Let me just bend over for ya.
“Ok, we will pay for the extra and the overlimit fee,” Tim said.
She answered him dead pan and said, “One bag each up to 20Kg. You cannot go,” then she WAVED him off and looked at the next person.
O.M.G.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Here is the best part: That morning when Tim was packing, he was so mad at everything, including the clothes he had been wearing non stop without washing for 2 ½ weeks, that he THREW ¾ of his clothes under the bed in our cabin and left his shit THERE! So, even with throwing out a bunch of stuff, we were still so far over the limit it, we would have had to throw out an entire suitcase worth of shit PLUS more out of the other two.
I offered to throw out all my stuff and I MEANT it. At this point I would have thrown out all my stuff and tossed all the souvenirs, I just wanted to go home. Tim wouldn’t let me. He went to the EasyJet ticket counter to see about getting our money back so we could rebook with another airline. They have a no refund policy. OF COURSE, THEY DO! Oh, ok. You want me to bend over again?
3- Out Easyjet airfare.
Next stop, Alitalia Airlines where we purchased tickets from Pisa to Paris going through Rome. At this point, I think we were both just wishing we could blink ourselves home. We were going home no matter the cost. The flight left in just 5 short hours. Awesome.
We arrived in Paris at11:15pm and agreed that while Tim collected our luggage, I would go find out about a hotel. However, it is so late that there are barely any desks open or people around to ask. I went out the security doors and ran right into three little French guys. I must have looked lost because they asked if they could help me. I honestly thought they worked there. All three were wearing Official looking uniform type suits. I asked them if they knew where the airport hotel-information desk was and after some confusion about where I wanted to go (their English wasn’t very good) they pointed me to an information desk, where I got a printout of hotels. On my way back in, I realized I had gone thru the security doors that only opened one way. Grrr. This day SUCKED!
The French guys came back over to me and asked me if I needed help. I need to get back in those doors to get my bags and my husband and a damn taxi. All they heard was taxi, cuz then they were joking that one of the guys would be my taxi and take me to a hotel. They also had asked if I was not “solo,” as in traveling alone. These dweebs were all shorter than me and didn’t seem all that threatening, but I suddenly realized I was not in a good situation: alone with three men, on the wrong side of the security doors and my husband was on the other side of security struggling with our three bags. This sounds SO MUCH worse than it felt at the moment, but I know what it is to be in a situation that turns bad very quickly. I waited for the next person to come through the doors and ran thru them at which point I heard alarms. Of course. I set of the security alarms. It freaked me out for a sec but no one came running after me so I just kept going and they eventually turned off the alarm. Great security system.
So, fast forward to us dragging our bags 3 miles (ok, it wasn't 3 miles but it sure felt like it) through the airport to the “board” that showed all the hotels. We called no less than 15 hotels before we found one that wasn’t full. Then we dragged our bags another 2 miles (again an exaggeration) to the shuttle to wait for the shuttle that might or might not still be running, as it was now 1:00am.
I wish I was 2 years old so people would understand when I threw myself on the floor and had a temper tantrum because I was so tired. I don’t think either of us had slept for more than 4 hours in the past 48 hours. So instead I squatted next to my suitcase, laid my head in my arms and cried quietly for a few minutes. These were the worst 4 days of my entire life and the 4th day hadn’t even happed yet.
We finally made it to the hotel and the rest of our trip home was pretty uneventful.
Not once in all of our talking about what happened and how we feel about it, have either of us ever regretted getting off the boat to come home. We both feel as if we were supposed to get off, we were never supposed to get on it.
I wasn’t going to finish the blog. I don’t talk about things when we argue. Yep, we argue every once in a while. I know, crazy right? So, I would certainly not be comfortable in sharing something this personal, a fight of this kind of magnitude.
We were not supposed to be on that boat. We both feel like this was the universes way of making sure we got off that boat. Tim is not a big, “I had this feeling in my gut,” or “I had a premonition about this” kind of guy. I am TOTALLY that kind of person, and yet Tim is the one who said he felt this way.
Who knows if anything would have happened with the ship or if something would have happened to one of us on board the ship, or maybe it would have just been that our money would have continued to evaporate until we had to file bankruptcy, but whatever it was, we both feel really happy we came home early. Everything is totally fine between us and no one is going to jail for murder! HAHA
When we got home, Tim saw that there was a 5.2 earthquake in Madrid, Spain on Wednesday, killing 9 people and 90,000 people left their homes for fear of aftershocks. Our cruise ship is supposed to dock in Barcelona, Spain on Sunday morning. Coincidence? Maybe. Probably, but really freaky to us at this point.
Sorry, I didn't take a lot of pictures of us coming home.
On the plane ride home, Tim got out his computer and was looking through our pictures. He looked at me and said, "We actually had a lot of fun times on this trip, didn't we?"
We really did have a lot of fun, sometimes when you are pissed at the crap that is happening at that moment, it is hard to remember those times. I am glad he is remembering the good stuff and we are already laughing about all the other stuff. We truely had some CLark Griswald "Vacation" moments.
