Well, it's day 8 on the "boat" and it's a "Sea Day". Life is good!
The ship is going in for a major overhaul in a few weeks and changing
seas to Asia, so things are a bit dated. I'm not complaining, just
explaining. Getting online is iffy onboard plus the connection is
very slow (dial up speed on satellite) and very expensive. I can find
free access at internet cafes in port, but have no desire since there
is too much else to do as it is. I can sit in picturesque cafes at
home.

The Amalphi Coast was amazing! We did it by launch so we got to look
at it from the ocean (went inside "Pandora's Cave") and bypassed the
winding road. The town of Amalphi is postcard perfect. Lots of
picture opportunities and shopping of course. If I'd had more time, I
would have gone home with a new purse. We didn't even sit down to eat
one of their famous lemon desserts or to sample the lemoncello.

Cute food picture from Amalphi - Italian Viagra
http://i33.tinypic.com/23hlizr.jpg

Here is a picture of Italian fruit & vegetables
http://i34.tinypic.com/24w51lg.jpg

those big bumpy lemony looking things (lower right corner) are the
lemons that locals in Amalphi/Naples region make their lemoncello
from. The tour guide said they are a cross between citron and orange.
According to her they use only the zest.

Notice the pictures above have a blurry spot. I couldn't figure it
out. I treat the camera with respect... maybe the camera is dying?
Then I realized that whenever I pass the camera to hubby with the lens
open, he puts his hand over the lens. Yep. I needed to clean it.
Problem solved. Lots of partially blurry pictures though. <sigh>

Mykonos was picturesque and expensive. We walked around and took
pictures, bought a pair of shoes - Clarks. LOL! Rhodes was another
self guided tour. We went up the bell tower and had a drink there,
wanted to walk on the wall but it's only open Tuesdays and Saturdays -
we were not there on an "open day"... so we bought rugs instead.

Now for food & drink pictures from Turkey.

We had an all day "ruin" trip where we toured four different ruins.
Frankly, we should have taken the shorter trip that took us to the
first ruin, the museum and gave us half a day to ourselves because you
go on ruin overload after a few hours.

Lunch was mainly buffet style with fish and chicken cooked to order.
The salads and fruit were fantastic. I stayed away from the hummus,
which looked like cement but tried their balaclava which was a big
mistake. I don't know if it was typical Turkish style or not, but I
didn't like it. It was nothing like typical greek balaclava, which I
do like.

Fish
http://i35.tinypic.com/macx82.jpg

Beer... gives a clue about the name of one of the ruins we saw
http://i36.tinypic.com/5agmqb.jpg


For the person who questions if I really left home. Well, this is
typical Turkish scenery taken from the inside of an air conditioned
tour bus.... it made me wonder if I really left home too.

I had intended to buy a rug from Turkey, but they started too high and
didn't come down fast enough for us since we were on a time limit. We
didn't have four hours to haggle, like we did in Rhodes. Buying rugs
is as painful as buying new cars used to be before they put all the
needed information online... and dang, they are hard sell all the way!
I finally had to tell the salesman that I needed the second rug he
wanted to sell us like I needed another hole in the head. The only
reason we bought the rugs in Rhodes was because the owner has friends
and relatives in America so he visits often and knows how we are.
After a few hours, his salesman was getting frustrated and we were
ready to walk out. He stepped in like a breath of fresh air and gave
us a price we could all agree on (all inclusive).

Oh, well. No Turkish rugs for me, but we got Kurdish. "Mine" is a
dowry rug to boot!

--
I love cooking with wine.
Sometimes I even put it in the food.