Venice, Italy

October 28th, 1996

First Times

By this time in my life, I'd had just a taste of international travel.  I'd been to Singapore on business, and had been flying around the country on various trips.   Now I had some vacation time to use up.  I decided to do something a bit more substantial than I'd ever done before: so I talked to my travel agent and set up a cruise.   But not just a quickie tript to the Caribbean: I wanted to go to Europe!

Diversions

I started my trip in Venice, Italy.  Damn near didn't make it, though: due to fog, I couldn't land directly in Venice: instead, my plane was diverted to a small airport down the road and bussed up to the Venice docks!  From there I had to walk to the ship, and had my first look at what was to be my home for the next week.  I must say, I was impressed!  Never having been on a cruise before, I had expected something much smaller!

Welcome Aboard

Boarding proved to be interesting: there were so few English-speaking passengers that I had to wait a bit for a dinner table assignment: they had to find enough people!   Eventually I got on board and got settled in my cabin.  I explored the ship for a while and went up on deck as we departed that evening.

That evening I met my dinner group, consisting of two sets of honeymoon couples!   Leslie and Scott hailed from the East coast of the U.S., while Paul and Sonja were from California.  They made for pleasant conversation as we headed towards Bari, Italy.

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© 1997-2000 William Geoffrey Shotts. Last update: Saturday, November 02, 2002