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Hey everyone! Guess I haven't written in a while. Don't worry, I have a good excuse. In the last six weeks, I've been to London, Stonehenge, Southhampton, Paris, Cherbourg, Ponta Delgada, across the Atlantic Ocean, Ft. Lauderdale, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Maarten, St. Kitts, Ft. Lauderdale again, back to Nashville for Thanksgiving, Annapolis, DC, Nashville again, Atlanta, Nashville again, Tucson (by way of Denver), back to Nashville again (by way of Las Vegas). Not bad for a land lubber, eh?

I'm back now!

The last post I wrote was a countdown to a bunch of things.. let me get you up to date on those things, and then start a new countdown for the only thing that I am counting down to right now.

In September, Nicole got married! It was the most beautiful and fun wedding ever, with a great reception afterwards! So much love and merriment and great Beatles arrangements played by a few of my favorite string players. 

At the end of October, I flew to England by myself. I couldn't sleep on the plane, but when I arrived I successfully navigated a bus to a hotel to another bus to Stonehenge on my way to the cruise ship terminal. It ran late (my sweet Matthew was waiting over an hour past when I said I'd be there), but everything went as smoothly as it could have. 

I hopped aboard the Celebrity Eclipse, where I got to hang out with my four favorite ship buddies, Full Tilt, the Acappella Sensation! It was absolutely loads of fun. I very much enjoyed being on a ship again, dressing fancy, eating everything, hearing good music. I met the string trio that was on board, and found out that they were the group that replaced my group on Infinity in 2010! Ship world is a small world. 

The very next day was our first port. Le Havre, France. Five of us rented and squeezed into a car and drove two hours inland to Paris! We didn't have too much time to spend there, since we had to allow enough time to drive back to port, but we got on a little one-hour lunch cruise up the river, which killed a few birds with one stone. We were hungry, and we got to see much more of Paris than we would have simply by walking around. We saw the back end of the Louvre, and also Notre Dame. After that, we walked around the Eiffel Tower and took pictures. 

Yes, I'm shamelessly posting my "kissing in front of the Eiffel Tower" picture. It was a beautiful day. 

The next day was Cherbourg, France, which didn't have a whole lot to offer, but we had the most wonderful lunch. It was a small seafood restaurant in the harbor, with fresh fish and organic wine and vegetables. In fact, the folks who grow the vegetables for the place were sitting two tables down from us! And then dessert was a small scoop of heavenly chocolate ice cream. I have never, and probably never will again, have chocolate ice cream as perfect as that was. 

Cherbourg, France

After a sea day (that allowed me to finally rest and recover from jetlag), our third port was Ponta Delgada, Portugal: a very small town on an island on our way west across the Atlantic. It was a good time! We ran into a couple from Tucson that I had briefly talked to on the ship - all were looking for a place that was open to eat, and ended up there together, talking for quite a while. We hung out with them several more times the rest of the cruise, and (spoiler alert) had dinner with them this past week when we were in Tucson! :) After lunch, we wandered around the town a bit and did some shopping.

Portugal. 

Halloween! I was granted permission to go to the crew Halloween party, which took place in one of the guest lounges, after hours. It was great and I felt totally comfortable being one of the crew. (easier to fit in there than it was with the guests on the ship whose average age that cruise was 64). The hard part about this Halloween was packing a costume for two people that wouldn't take up much room in my luggage. I think we did all right :)

Fast forward seven sea days. Days filled with good music, good food, good wine, and watching the weather get steadily nicer as we moved south.

We got to Florida and I had to get off the ship in order to get back on. It took a while, but I really can't complain. A few hours of hassle, just to stay on board for 8 more days, bopping around the Caribbean? Thanks, I'll take it.

Our first port was San Juan, Puerto Rico! It was humid and warm and gorgeous. So we went to the mall. Haha. There wasn't much time to do much of anything but get dinner, but it was a good time anyway.

The next day was St. Thomas. I have to say, of everywhere I've been in the Caribbean, St. Thomas is definitely a favorite. I still adore the Cayman Islands, but I had a beautiful time in St. Thomas.

St. Maarten was also pretty, and St. Kitts. Not a whole lot to say, it was different than the transatlantic cruise, we had more ports, it was sunny and warm and we went to beaches. We got to rent a jet ski in St. Kitts, so that was a blast.

Well, that was pretty much the short version. I'm running out of energy to write all these things, so let me just say that life from the end of the cruise until now has been really lovely, nothing too exciting, just seeing family and going places, hanging out and having a good time. 

I looked at my last post countdown list. I still have a few things to count down to! Aaron's getting married in March. And in April I go on the Celebrity Solstice to go more places! (119 days. look at that. More than 100 days since I last posted. And look how quickly that went by!)

So, since I'm traveling more, I'm going to write more about where I go. I'll write more often, I'll (hopefully) be more interesting. It's much more fun to do the things I'm counting down to, rather than just anticipate them. But would they be so great without the huge amount of anticipation?