At sea, 1 mile from Istanbul.

Last night was formal night in the restaurant, as every sea day tends to be. Or, at least, every first sea day. Last night was also the Captain’s welcome cocktail party. Needless to say this too is a formal occasion. Careful readers will note that Mary Alice and I have already been formal on a ship in the past, and found it unrewarding. On this trip we decided to skip formal events.

We were almost alone in this plan. As our trip through the Dartenelles was coming to an end and evening falling, the sun deck emptied of people. We alone were taking photos and walking about. I wanted to get a shot from the back of the ship showing the East and west shores of the Dartenelles in one picture, so we walked back on Deck 10. The rear of the ship on that deck is an outdoor café, an extension of the buffet which is where all informal dressers go to eat on formal night. I got my photo, and we saw a table set with linen and glasses, so we sat. It was the Trattitoria, that evening.

The table was sheltered under an extention of the upper deck,but open to the air and the breeze, the air was in the 70s, and there were veryfew other diners. In some ways it was as if the ship were chartered for us and a few friends. Informal dress, yes, but informal service, never. We had a head waiter, and a drink waitress, a meal waitress, and a bus boy. Their English varied, so my pear tart turned out to be cheese cake, but the food was quite good – a pleasant surprise since we had lowered our expectations to standard cruise ship cuisine., That is, we expected it to be ok but not great. And we ordered a bottle of Seghiso Zinfandel, which had been recommended to us on an earlier cruise by a dinner companion who was a wine buyer. She was right then, and she was right this time too. It’s a nice wine. Probably cheaper to buy it at the winery, however, which is our plan when we get home. This could reduce our dependence on Two Buck Chuck for dinner wine.

We ate slowly, and dinner took about 2 hours, finished off with Expresso and a digestif for Mary Alice, which I sampled. It was 3 beans in a very small glass of a clear liquid. I wasn’t ready for the strength of the alcohol and it left my eyes tearing and I was coughing. ‘Good though” The sun set giving us a modest display of sky coloring. It was a marvelous evening.

Docking in Istanbul

Istanbul (once the capitol of the Western world, when it was Constantinople) like Budapest is built on both sides of a relatively narrow strip of water. For Budapest it is the Danube River. For Istanbul it is the Bosphorus, a narrow and shallow connector between the Marmora Sea (and beyond it the Mediterranian) and the Black Sea. The difference is that on the West side of the Bosphorus, Istanbul is in Europe. On the East, it is in Asia.
Turkey wants to join the EU. Almost 100 years ago the Turkish leader, Attaturk, decided to throw his country’s fate in with the west instead of the east. He made western dress compulsory and the government secular. The country is Moslem, which is the problem. In the Moslem world a great fundamentalist surge is moving, in reaction to Western values. I

The harbor, if that’s wishat it is, in Istanbul is quite busy in the morning. There are many ships, some ferrying people and freight across the Bosphorus from European Turkey to Asian Turkey, some larger freighters going through the city.

The Royal Princess

We’ve been on 3 Princess ships, including the Royal, which is our vessel for this cruise. The Sapphire and the Dawn are 2600+ passenger ships, the Royal takes 710. It is much more elegant and less o f a “fun ship.’ Fittingly the passengers are older (and less mobile) than the Mexican Riviera bunch were. About 30 arrived on the plane from Munich with us and of those more than 10% were in wheel chairs. I doubt they’ll all be climbing around Troy with us.

The ship information book lists 17 ships in the Princess Fleet (It is owned by the same people who own several other lines, too. The cruise business is consolidatiraryng). Assuming the ships fill up, at any one time Princess has about 36,000 passengers on its ships. That’s a lot of people.

The Royal has lots of dark wood paneling, a library that not only looks like an English manor house library, but which has an excellent selection of books. The world classics, guide books, mysteries. Our cabin is a bit small, but it has a balcony, which Mary Alice thought would be a good idea (we started with an inside cabin – ok with me. Then outside cabins – ie those with windows. Now, a balcony.) The balcony is really wonderful. Its all of 5x8 feet but its open to the sea. Last night I woke up and went out in the moonlight for a few minutes. Breakfast this morning was really nice with sea breezes, and of course we left the door open when we went to sleep so we had the sound of the waves lull us to sleep.

Out of the 4 points Sheraton at 11:30. Shuttle to the international Terminal at LAX. Check the bag in, then take it to be screened – a very long line -they screen it then take it back to the airline that checked it in- see any security gaps here? Upstairs its take off the belt and shoes time for the personal screening. Of course I couldn’t take my bottle of water through. Coming out on the other side we got to gate 105 to wait a couple of hours. Buy a Newsweak because it looking like they’re knocking Bush, read it, read a New Yorker article about how important doctors who specialize in aging are to the aging, a group in which I believe I’m obtained membership, and how there aren’t enough of these doctors and not enough coming through med school to replace current doctors for the elderly, who are aging. That was depressing

Finally we board Lufthansa’s flight LA to Munich. That’s about 6000 miles and it takes over 11 hours in the air – non-stop. Seats are small, very small and tightly packed, so my idea that I’ll watch these DVDs about Greek History founders because I have to hold my head at an odd angle to see the lecture and that makes my neck hurt.

They do feed you well, and they do not share the American airlines’ sense that there is something wrong with alcohol so they offer it, but not wholeheartedly. Lufthansa will give you a pre-dinner wine, wine with dinner, and an after dinner drink to polish it off.

I saw parts of 3 movies. The plane must have been older because we didn’t have individual screens. Music and Lyrics was kind of fun – romance between a washed-up 80s star who now plays amusement parks and a woman who writes a song. Night at the Museum worked well on the plane. I like the cowboy guy, and Robin Williams was good as a statue of Teddy Roosevelt (see the movie if you wonder what this means), The Pharoh was good too. Then we saw parts of Freedom Writers, where a teacher helps a group of inner-city kids, no doubt based on actual events. I saw parts because these films have slow parts and they are boring even on an airplane, and I was hoping to sleep so I would slip in and out of watching.

Late Nite LA

The train arrived at Union Station just before midnight. The station is a huge and wonderful artifact of a by-gone age when everyone going cross country went on the train. There is a bus that takes you to the airport for $3, and we took it. We had the Sheraton 4 Points booked for the night, since it was close to the airport and has a shuttle. The task was to get there. I thought getting to the airport was a good first step. It probably would have been a better first step at 9pm when the train was scheduled to arrive (4% on time record said the train historian). We got off on the in-coming level, elevated to the baggage claim floor and ventured out to find a shuttle. It was 1 a.m. We found shuttles but none were going to the 4 Points. Finally a shuttle for somewhere else that was empty agreed to take us to the hotel for a small tip. Good deal, I thought, and we did it. No one in the entry hall of the hotel except a couple of airline people wheeling luggage out to go to their flight. I found the desk, called Hello a few times, and the desk people emerged, and before you know it we were in a small room with a huge bed and quite a few pillows. The internet was down, but I plugged in my camera battery charger, and the computer and off to dreamland.

Beware One Star Hotels

I booked my LA hotel on hotels.com. The first one was $55, which sounded great. for laughs I looked it up on the internet. It turned out to be a one-star party motel. People posted photos of broken furniture and shabby rooms, with stories of being kept up by the crowd at the pool. I phoned hotels.com and ended up at the Sheraton instead. Cost a little more, but sleep is useful on trips.

The Trick

We had lunch in the dining car. White tablecloths, flowers on the table, wine on the menu (2 reds, 2 whites, no label names), paper plates (go figure) There seemed to be plenty of empty tables but they insisted on seating the next couple that came in at our table. Nice couple from LA and we had a pleasant conversation. He did most of the talking, and he used metaphors quite often, which were interesting. “Most people are like vegetables that have been in the refrigerator too long. They have a flat spot. The trick is to stay with the round parts of them.”

Lunch. was ok but not fabulous. I had a hamburger– better than Burger King but nowhere near Patrona, and very expensive ($9.00) I had higher hopes for dinner. My hopes were realized. I had the beef ragout and the beef was very good, the rice acceptable. Salad is an embarrassment. I had better salad at the mountain climbers hut outside Petropalvosk – much better, and better served. Prices still over the top. Nice wine.

Seating is 4 to a table, so we ended up with other couples both times – and both times the conversations were so v that we ended up sitting long after the food was gone. Dinner took 2 hours. Our second couple wasn’t much for metaphor, but one of them was a railroad historian and on a train that’s a great thing to be.

At lunch we passed by Lompoc prison, which has been the home to some of Southern Humboldt’s nicest people. Back in the 70s I believe Timothy Leary escaped from there, too. Made me think of that Johnny Cash song about being in prison and seeing the train go by, thinking of the people sitting in the dining car – just like us. We were not, however, smoking big cigars, which the singer imagined his diners were. I think that was a symbol of living in luxury, then.