Pictures from Marmaris, Turkey

The pictures from the western town of Marmaris, Turkey have now been posted. Go look at them, I know you want to!

Find them here!



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Our Stop in Messina

We got on the ship in Rome (or close enough to Rome). We did our muster drill to make sure we all understood how to survive a close encounter with an iceberg or Kate Winslet. We ate food and then finally we went to sleep. Well some of us did. Actually Bonnie and I sat through this 1 hour presentation on Messina and all of the things you can do there. Bonnie and Kelly were all set to tour a jewelry shop and go see Mt. Etna. Ed and I had absolutely nothing to do. Then I saw this presentation.

The presentations are funny, informative, and more than anything else, a way for the ship to make a lot more money. You show up and the session is part information and part stand up comedy. John was our cruise director and he made everything sound like it would be the most amazing experience in your life. He would start every section off with "If you're going to do anything in this port you have to do this...". The problem was that he would say that for every tour in the port. So it made it seem like you should be taking seven tours a day.

Anyway, he sold me. I left the information session thinking to myself, "you know, I never have been to a volcano and that is a shame". I suddenly couldn't believe that I had not signed up to walk up a live volcano. How stupid could I have been. This should have happened years ago. Anyone who is anyone has been to a volcano at least once in their life. I must do this! Of course it never occured to me that I would have two opportunities to see a volcano on our cruise. I could see the famous Vesuvius (kind of like a rock star in the geological world) OR I can see Mt. Etna, which besides having some sort of health care named after it has never done anything important. I chose Etna.

I found Ed at dinner and we talked. Somehow our inner man came out...we were going to climb a damned volcano! Uh, we never could imagine just how anticlimactic this would be. Walking up a volcano is no different than walking up a damned mountain! No one tells you this. They trick you with all the volcanoey stuff and none of the real world steep hilly stuff! It is also just about as entertaining as walking up a mountain, except there are no trees, no grass, nothing, because it is a volcano.

So in short, we took a harrowing bus ride up the mountin (and as a side note, if the world ever goes down the tubes, I want our bus driver as our rescue driver...man can thread a six ton bus through a 8 foot wide alleyway at 40 miles an hour....dude rocks), we then got out of the bus and had an hour to explore two craters and a gift shop.

All in all it was our first trip so we had nothing to gauge it against, but in hindsite...well it was a volcano. Thats all I can say. That and I can say "Sorry Ed" for dragging you up a damned volcano when you probably would rather have been sleeping.



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Messina, Sicily Pictures

Hey everyone! Come see our pictures from Messina, Sicily. Just posted!

Click here for the Messina Pictures
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The Cruise

So where did we go and how did we get there? Read on.

We were booked on the Carnival Splendor setting sail out of Civitavecchia, Italy. Which is about 50K away from Rome itself.

The Splendor has just been finished in the past few months. So basically we would be cruising on a new ship. We, unfortunately, you would never be able to tell that from looking at the inside. It looked like a really bad 1980's bomb exploded the decorations onto the ship. Seriously it looked like this was the one ship, that by law, Carnival had to have a disable employee work on.

You know how companies have quotas and they have to hire X amount of disable individuals or they would be breaking the law. Well I think Carnival had been ignoring this law and suddenly they were going to be audited. They didn't have any normal positions open so they fired the decorator. Upon realizing that their offices were not equipped to handle anyone with a wheelchair they were forced to the conclusion that they needed to hire someone with another disability. The only disable individual that could navigate their offices without requiring renovation or special assistance would be a blind individual. So they hired one, gave them the only open position, which was the decorator, and set them lose.

Finding themselves in a very awkward position the blind individual complained that they were a Human Resource specialist and had no decorating experience. Carnival must have scoffed, gave them some kind words of encouragement and dropped it. The HR individual, after many complaints decided that they were going to quit due to the unfair expectations of the company. Before leaving, however, the individual took their revenge and decorated the most horrible and ugly thing ever conceived...and of course Carnival loved it.













ANYWAY we did our muster drill and we were off. Where were we going?

Messina, Sicily (Home of Mt. Etna)
Marmaris, Turkey (Home of Rhodes and Topless Beaches)
Izmir, Turkey (Home of the House of the Virgin Mary and Ephesus)
Istanbul, Turkey (Home of 13 million people, Blue Mosque, and Hagia Sophia)
Athens, Greece (Home of the Acropolis)
Naples, Italy (Home of Pompeii and Vesuvius)
Florence, Italy (Home of Renaissance)
Rome, Italy (Home of Alex)





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We Made it to Rome

Okay so we made it to Rome without any major heartache. We had a few minor glitches. We took the tube to Victoria Station and picked up the rail to Gatwick. I don't know if you have ever been to Gatwick but it is the most boring airport in the world. I was so unimpressed with this airport that I had actually forgot that I had flown out of there before.

We got to the airport and I had this feeling of deja vu. This place looked so familiar. I just couldn't figure out why. Later I figured out that I had actually taken the exact same flight to Rome from this airport years before. Thats how unimpressive this place is.

Anwya off to Rome

So we met up with Kelly's parents in Rome. They were actually at the airport waiting. We could see them off in the distance. They were standing in this little hub where four moving sidewalks converged. We were on the moving sidewalk from the airport terminal. Really we could see them waaaaaaay off in the distance. They, however, were looking down a different hallway. We started to wave our arms and whistle, and jump up and down, but to no avail. They never saw us and we went right past them.

In fact we never saw them the entire trip. Every now and then we could see them on the ship but by time we got to where they were they were gone. They were always looking the other way. Very bizzare. A two week trip and they never saw us.

Okay, Im just kidding. They saw us almost immediately. We checked into the hotel and went down to dinner. It always amazes me how you can just meet up with people in other countries. It always seems like it should be some logistical nightmare, but of course it is not. Meeting someone in Rome is probably easier than meeting someone at the mall.

Anwyay we had a nice meal, went to bed and woke up in the morning with a mission. The mission? Find Ed's luggage and head off to the ship to set sail. Why do we have to find his luggage? It was lost on the flight over. So eventually the luggage is found and off we go to the Ship.



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Off to Rome

Well, we are packing up the room and getting our packs ready. We head to Rome today. Not sure when we will get network access again...so stay tuned.



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Dandelion and Burdock

Okay, so I just want everyone to know that I am addicted to Dandelion and Burdock. It happens to be the very best fizzy drink every invented in the entire history of consumable liquids. I am going to go into shock when we leave the UK. I have never seen it in the States and I seriously doubt I will be able to find it. I am going to miss it.

On a side note, Kelly is completely addicted to Grape and Elderberry. Quite a combo if you ask me.

We found these drinks at our local Pret a Manger. Another thing we have become used to in a short period of time. This has become our anchor to life itself. Feeding us, caring for us. It rules

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Pictures on Picasa

Just want to let everyone know that we have been uploading pictures to Picasa for everyone to view. You can find them at

http://picasaweb.google.com/hunter.rauscher






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Going on a Ghost Hunt

So what is cooler than hanging out in London? Hanging out in London while looking for Ghosts!

Tonight we are going on a London Walking Tour...tonight we are going to "Apparitions, Alleyways, and Alehouses". So we are meeting the guides at the Embankment tube stop around 7:30 (after dark) and we head out into old London looking for scary places and weird things. I'll let you know how it goes.

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The Great Bead Migration

It is often talked about in hushed tones and with the reverence usually reserved for church. An awe inspiring event that occurs once a year, but rarely in the same place twice. Last year it was in Ormond Beach, Florida, and this year was seen all over London. What is this mysterious event?




I am speaking, of course, of the Great Bead Migration. This year I have been to four different bead stores located throughout London. Many of which are actually just a few minutes apart. One was located in Oxford Circus and has touched Kelly so much, that we must return there tonight after she was inspired in a dream. A dream about beads. The other three were located in Covent Garden. One was small, one was nice, and the other hardly seemed worth the rent. They have not spoken to Kelly in her dreams.

Seriously though, who would have thought it possible. I know London is a booming metropolis, but many of these bead stores are literally in the same shopping district, just a few minutes walk away from each other. There have to be at least 10 stores just in London itself. I had no idea that beading was so popular or so old. One of the stores claims to have its origins in a bead store started in 1915. Who knew?

Anyway I have been dragged to these stores, left outside in the cold and then attacked for money. The Great Bead Migration is not for the feint of heart. It is not for the weak of will. It takes a stout individual to survive such horrors. And this is only the beginning.

We are actually scheduled to embark on a dark trek to find the very origins of beads themselves. High on a mountain top in Greece, amongst the gods themselves we will find their birthplace. Our journey will take us to the very edge of a volcano where once a woman took the lava itself and formed it into the very first bead.

As we continue our pan-European Bead Migration I will continue our story. Seriously, I bet we end up in a bead store in Istanbul.

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My Kind of Town

London is my kind of town. Nothing starts earlier than 10am (except for coffee shops) and nothing is open pat 5pm (except coffee shops...though I don't know why everyone would be so tired unless they worked at the coffee shop)
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London By Air

We landed in London in a sea of fog, both on the ground and in our sleep deprived heads. Seriously after a long long long flight direct from D.C. we found ourselves in a holding pattern above London due to thick ground fog. In fact as we finally made our approach you could not see the ground until we were about 10 feet over the runway. Okay, okay...London gets fog, but why did my wife and I have fog in our heads? The simple answer...the baby.

Not often, but every now and again, life imitates art that imitates life. Our flight over had all of the hallmarks of a movie or sitcom. The flight had been moved up by six hours, and we had not been notified. We arrived late to the airport only to find ourselves at the wrong end of an extremely long queue. Our flight was delayed in take off due to the plane arriving late. Our flight was delayed in landing due to weather. As if that was not enough...we actually had a crying baby on board the plane, just a few seats in front of us.

I am not one who sleeps very well on flights, if at all. I usually find the flight very uncomfortable and this just keeps me awake. This time, however, I thought may be different. I actually found myself thinking this as I began to drift off after a very nice dinner. I had my chair leaned back, my tummy was full, I was watching the Zohan movie, and my noise canceling headphone were working overtime. It was a pleasant place to be at that very moment. My eyelids grew heavy, and much to my surprise I began to drift. Wow, I was going to sleep the rest of the way to London. The remaining 3 and a half hours of the flight would be done by time I woke up. This was going to be fantastic.

At first the screeching sound was faint and far away. Barely noticeable. Then it grew louder. Suddenly I was jerked awake. What had happened? Had we broken a hydraulic hose? Had the flaps been jammed? What had that noise been? What on earth had ripped me from my sleep? Then I heard it again. It sounded like a wounded mountain lion. It sounded like something completely alien and inhuman. Again I heard the screech. It was coming from a few rows ahead. Once more the shrieking called out into the dark plane cabin, followed by a plea. Followed by a desperate plea. "Shhhhhh....shhhh"

After I regained my senses and figured out that the plane was not falling appart nor had a giant rift been opened to some demon realm, it dawned on me that the sound actually came from something 1/10 my size. Something small. Unfortunately size does not mean a whole lot 36,000 feet in the air. Something that small had the power to bring every passenger to their knees.

And you know what? I think he knew it!

Anyway that was our flight to London. Virgin Atlantic is a great company. We had awesome food, great entertainment, but they lacked the ability and courage to face a small child and make the rest of us happy. Don't they train for this sort of thing? I doubt that child could have handled more than 10 or 20 adults with large forks or sticks.

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