Location: Barcelona, Spain

You might ask why, since I have motion sickness issues, I chose to take a cruise. The answer is that large ships generally don’t bother me, although I still have to be careful to get a cabin on the lower decks in the middle of the ship. So when Chris woke up in the middle of the night and noticed the ship’s rocking was causing the coat hangers in the closet to bang together, he jumped up to move them, afraid that the noise would wake me up and then I’d get sick. Fortunately, I slept like the dead and only know about the rough going cause he told me about it this morning. I’d say I’m over the jet lag.

So today we discovered Barcelona. The four of us had audio guides (iPods) and maps and spent over two hours wandering around the historic centre of the city, which is jam-packed with medieval-era buildings and churches. We have four cameras among our group but I’m the only one who likes to have people in the pictures, so I focused more on that and let the others photograph the sights. I didn’t know much about Barcelona when we got here, but it was an interesting tour of the old city — I wouldn’t rush back here, but it was still neat to see.

We’re still liking our time on the ship. The staff is amazing at remembering everyone’s names and preferences, we get chocolates on our pillow every night and we just generally feel like we’re being taken care of. Our first formal night went well: Chris actually seemed to enjoy wearing his tux and I managed to corral everybody for a formal group portrait. After dinner we went to the theatre for the Broadway-style show and were handed free glasses of champagne on the way in, so that’s not too shabby. We’ve been away from home for close to a week and neither Chris or I really misses the kids — we’re just having too much fun. Awesome.