today we arrive at our first port, warnemunde, germany. it's a cute little touristy town, selling the obligatory keychains and postcards and what not. well, at least it looked like it was. we never made it past the atm machine and the train station to buy tickets to get out of town.

this picture of gavitron and pv reminds me of the time we were in spain buying bus tickets and the ticket agent pulled the shade down (cerrado!) right as we got to the ticket window to comprar our billetes. rejected!


while the rest of the fam (including jano) took the 3 hour train ride to berlin, we waited for the train for the 15 minute train ride to rostock. it was probably one of the hottest days for us on vacation, and there was no air conditioning on the train for us, nor the other part of the fam that went to berlin. perhaps this contributed to the "let me give you some advice" (finger pointing) shellacking that took place on the train-ride back from berlin. i won't go into the details now, but if you really want to know, i'll tell you about it. let me just say that now i know where my anatomy of a breakdown madness comes from.



we took the train and then a bus/tram to neuer markt in rostock. you can't really see the bottom of this sign, but it says, "nazis? no danke."










rostock was a medieval town, and parts of the city wall are still standing. it's quite cool to see things in the city that have been here for hundreds of years.








we were trying to find our way to an old monastery that was converted into a brewery. while wandering through town unsuccessful (we found a brewery, but tours were not available that day), we came across this ad, literally just on the sidewalk. looks refreshing, no?










rostocker bier is the brewery we tried to get a tour of, though, it didn't look like a monastery (at least from the outside). it tastes like other german beers i've had (warsteiner immediately comes to mind).







we walked down Kröpeliner Straße, and ducked into a little courtyard (the name escapes me) for some rostocker.









everytime i've been in germany, the easiest thing to get to eat is the döner kebab. after drinking our share of bier, we headed back out on the main street for some street food. we settled on the doner kebab and some körri braat-wurscht. yum.






chief bro found a wine shop with $5 (USD) bottles of wine. what a deal! we decided to buy the cheap wine and bring it on the dream so that we could drink it in the room and not have to rack up our credit card bill. not until we got back on the boat did we realize our mistake with purchasing wine: when you buy wine outside of the boat, you MUST check it in, and are charged a mandatory $15 (USD) corkage fee for each bottle you bring onboard. so we essentially paid $20 for each of the three bottles we brought back onboard. we were totally hosed and so we came up with an alternate solution on how to drink on board without having to pay the dream's exorbitant prices...stay tuned for more on this.




after many hours of gallavanting around rostock and berlin, we all met up at 9pm to celebrate tony's bday at le bistro, the reservations-only, french restaurant, that costs $15 per head (the only pay restaurant onboard). it was one of the better nights of food for us on the dream. the staff were really great, and when it was time to bring the cake out for tony, the waiter pretended he was going to shove the cake into tony's face. here's a picture of just that, while tony is covering up with the napkin.

Labels: random, travel, wine

today is a day at sea - basically relaxing on the boat. but it also happens to be the day we go through the kiel canal, which links the north sea to the baltic sea. the dream is especially suited to travel through the canal, because the stacks on the boat flip over so that we can travel under some of the lower bridges in the canal. here is a picture of the smoke stacks normally.



you can see here the stacks have fully "lowered". the captain of the dream talked about it like it was some life-changing event, which, in my opinion, was a little anti-climactic. the total time it took for them to flip the stacks took about 5-7 minutes, and afterwards, most of us were like, 'oh. is that it?!?' though, the dream is one of a few ships that is able to go through the kiel canal, and after september, the dream will be retired from the north baltic. i guess that's something, right?


here's a picture of the backs of people's heads. sike. it's a picture of the locks we had to go through from the elbe river to the kiel canal. oh, and apparently the canal is the world's busiest artificial waterway. woah.






while we were waiting for the locks to open, looking out the side of the boat, there was a band playing music, and lots of people with flags waiving: the dream's fan club. on the bridges we passed under, people were up above anticipating our arrival. i also remember seeing this guy driving up and down the road in this red car following us while we were in the canal. europeans are wacky.



after we finally got the lowering of the stacks and the opening of the locks out of our system, we realized it was a really nice day. so we headed for the back "plunge" pool. the other two pools on the boat were heated, but not this back one. it's filled with whatever water the boat is cruising in (in this case, the north sea), at whatever temperature it was (cold). here's cavin, me, chief bro, gavitron and jano doing "the jano" thumbs-up pose.



here's a view of the kiel canal from the aft (from the plunge pool area). nice, eh?








before dinner, there was a "weakest link" game for the guests. jano, cavin, and chief bro's name were in the pot. jano and chief bro's names were randomly picked. here they are competing for luxurious dream prizes!






"what fairytale includes a character named tinkerbell?" it's pretty obvious that the answer to this is peter pan, but it wasn't that obvious to jano. not only does he get it wrong, but then he continues to get berated by the host. now everyone on the boat knows who jano is (partly because it's replayed on the tv for the next several days, consecutively, 24-7).








fortunately for chief bro, he makes it to the final round with another contestant, jeff. unfortunately, jeff answers more questions correctly and is deemed the winner of the weakest link. here is chief bro and jano doing their consolation tequila shot (and enjoying quite thoroughly, i might add, hehe).





when we finally retire to bed, cavin and i get our first towel animal, which are very popular with the guests on cruises. (i think it's a bunny rabbit.) in fact, later on in the cruise cavin and i attend the "how to make towel animals" hosted by the housekeeping crew. monkeys, snakes, lobsters, oh my!

Labels: games, travel

after the 3-hour bus ride from lhr to dover, we finally made it to our first port. the white cliffs of dover are really white. who would have thunk?







here's a view of the norwegian dream (deck 10, star deck) while we are still waiting for all passengers to embark.








it's hard to tell, but it's extremely windy today. in fact, we were sitting towards the front of the boat (forward), but it was just too much for us to handle. so we moved towards the aft. the ice cream bar is that structure in the back with the glass windows.





we started off with a bang. the "special" on the cruise was to buy this bucket of 5 beers, and then get one beer free. but in fact, it wasn't a bucket, it was a helmet. here is jano on deck 13 (sky deck) where the basketball court is. like i said earlier, it was really windy and the helmet was blowing off jano's head before we could get a decent shot of his football stance.







along with basketball, and ice cream, and helmets of beer, they had a wii on board the boat for bowling tournaments and what not. i had hyped up the wii to my mom in the past few weeks, and since they were doing a demo, my mom jumped at the chance to try it out. here is tita vicky bowling for a spare.




we had been traveling for quite a while. in fact, we left phl on saturday, and arrived in the uk around noon or so. we pushed on and stayed awake until the wee hours, when we discovered the stylistics of jose and patty in the observatory lounge on deck 12. while tita vicky is used to little sleep, pv looks like she might kill someone. but you know what all woke us back up? blue kamikazees, the blueish drink on the table! (vodka + blue curacao)



here is our first foray into the seedy world of the blue kamikazee, which would eventually be our shot of choice on the dream for the entire vacation.

even tito tony enjoys the blue kamikazee.

after some blue kamikazees and other booze, the nebulus nine decide to try the "jelly bean" shot instead of our tried and true blue kamikazee. here we are doing our blue steel poses, before figuring out the jelly bean shots were nasty!






in fact, there was an extra jelly bean shot that no one claimed (not surprisingly). the 6 youngins rolled the dice and the lowest dice roller was to do the shot. chief bro and jano tied as the lowest, and their roll-off resulted in a loss for chief bro.





here you can see the lone pip on the die that ruined him. also, take notice of his cougar bait shirt.









the booze is flowing now, as well as the dancing tunes from jose and patty. rudy and vicky show us how it's done.

apparently pv and chief bro have been taking dancing classes. they are hamming it up for the camera (or ARE they?).










here's cavin and i dancing the old-school 5th grade slow dance.













note: what i don't have pictures of, is us hitting the sports bar after midnight for bbq chicken wings and fries. even pv was wasted, as we all heard her originally say she didn't really want to eat, but then after finishing a bunch of wings, saying, "so who's turn is it to get the next plate of food?" hahah

Labels: booze, travel