Adventures and misfortunes of a crocheter in a cruise-VI

Thursday 5th of September

Yes, yes, it is marihuana. You'll see...

Today we stay on board as we are navigating to Dubrovnik. No hurries, no pressure. We are going to explore this floating mini-city.

It's a huge ship and it's got everything. Actually, we could stay on board for the whole cruise without getting bored, dozens of activities, a thousand ways to get lost- as it happened when trying to find our restaurant- shopping (well wonder-Grandpas have already done it for us and they bought some souvenirs), workshops...

Little Romulan has joined the Kids Club and today is pizza day. You can imagine his level of dirtiness after the master class, can't you?

Mrs. Soft Kitty has made new friends and is "missing in action".

And what about Mc and I? Well, first thing in the morning we've found an invitation that has been slipped under the door last night. It's a "private" cocktail with the Captain invitation. Oh, oh, what a nice guy, don't you think?

Tonight, black tie dinner again. We leave the children with Wonder-Grandpas and head off to the cocktail. Oh, wow! There is a huge queue for the picture with the Great Captain Rafaello, yet again. We better drink cava to breve another picture with him... No, not enough cava in the boat for a second round of pictures with him.

After a couple of cavas we go to meet the family at the restaurant for dinner.

I'm not sure if I've already talk to you about our waiter. The fist two dinners he was a very serious and apparently very reserved guy but we've found out that he is a very nice man, a pretty good singer and he's got a particular sense of humour- we've ordered risotto as our first course and when he comes back-after serving our dishes- he offers a small pot to my mother in law, asking at the same time " Madame, marihuana?".

You should see her face, haha! Eyes wide open, dropped jaw... She slowly opens the pot to discover that its content is just grated Parmesan cheese.

He is brilliant! Our bellies hurt after half an hour of continuous laughs and I think that he is a little bit annoyed by now. I'm not sure if he knows that we are not laughing at him but because of what he has said...poor guy!

We are exhausted after all the laughing so we go back straight to our cabin. Tomorrow, our last excursion: Dubrovnik.

• Hours of excursion: 0.
• Hours of siesta: 1.5.
• Hours of crocheting: 0. Yes, zero! I haven't even touched my hook!
• Sea sickness pills: 4.

Friday 6th of September

Overview of Dubrovnik.

Our excursion to Dubrovnik is going to be an easy-going one.

We can see from our ship many detached houses,- almost all of them with a vegetable garden- scattered all over sheer hills.

We reach the town centre and from the square, we can see a beautiful fortified castle that was built on a hill by the sea.

We decide to wander though the streets and after a while we end up in a densely wooded public park with amazing views of the sea, the shore and the castle. We let the children explore the park-forest while we take some pictures.

Fortified castle.

On our way back we observe that some of the buildings still have bullet holes, a sad static and silent memory of the war.

Suddenly the children begin to run to a souvenir shop, they are hungry so it's time to go back to the ship.

Today you can still see the bullet impacts on some facades.

We have our lunch at 4 in the afternoon and go straight to the water-slide. The children haven't had the opportunity to try it and today is the last day in which they can do it.

A transparent part of it shoots out over the edge of the ship and it looks promising.

I'm the chicken of the family so I go to the deck under the transparent part of the water-slide and lie down on a sun-bed ready to take pictures of them.

From the distance I'm unable to distinguish my children from others and as they slide very quickly I take pictures of everybody. The memory of my mobile is almost full and I'm just about to stand up when I see a thin pale body attached to a blonde haired head. Little Romulan is trying to slide sitting on his bottom. I begin to try and catch his attention and explain to him with signs to lie down and cross his arms over his chest to regain speed but he doesn't see me. Finally- maybe I'm telepathic after all- he does it and slides down.

On the contrary, Mrs. Soft Kitty slides so quickly that I shot like mad hoping that at least one picture is good.

Before dinner I crochet a couple of rows but I'm not in the mood. I think that I'm sad because the cruise is almost over. Tomorrow we will return to Venice but only to go directly to the airport to take our flight back to Madrid.

Maybe we should lock ourselves in the cabin and ask them for another round.

• Hours of excursion: 3.
• Hours of siesta: 0.
• Hours of crocheting: 0.333.
• Sea sickness pills: 4. Today our little creatures have bough several unauthorised souvenirs taking advantage of my sickness on solid ground.