sea legs and jet lag

Hello again! We arrived home Sunday night and been trying to get back into the swing of  'real' life; the jet lag is killing us lol. I wanted to blog last night(Tuesday) but after I came home from work, made dinner and went to watch TV with the boys, I was asleep by 8pm and slept right through until this morning. Today I fueled up with some Starbucks on my way home from work and it's after 8pm now so fingers crossed I don't konk out in the next half hour lol.

I have a few pictures to show you. I took just over 3000 so it was hard to narrow them down!

We flew from Vancouver into London. We ended up sitting for 90minutes on the tarmac in Vancouver; the plane fuel was put into the wrong tank apparently(eek!) The flight was long(9.5hours) and for the first time ever, I flew without having to medicate lol. It was awesome. And flying into the sunrise? Amazing!

We flew from London into Istanbul, Turkey and talk about a culture shock. There was next to no English; we had no idea where we were going and we were exhausted. After some stressful moments, we ended up finding where our hotel shuttle was and we were on our way.

I woke up the next morning with the 5am prayer call in Istanbul. The sun was just coming up and was stunning.

Now time to get to our ship!

And what a beauty she is.

Our first day was exploring Istanbul.

First day at sea on day two.

Day three, Ephesus.

Standing where the apostle Paul preached? Surreal.

I took so many pictures of our ship. This was in Bodrum, Turkey on day four.

Day five, the rock tombs in Marmaris, Turkey.

And swimming in the Mediterranean Ocean.

Day 6 brought us to Rhodes, Greece.

Santorini, Greece on Day 7.

I loved this town so very, very much! 

The blue roofs; stunning.

It was also the only tendered stop on our cruise; so neat.

Off to Athens on Day 8.

We got into port and were greeted with a thunder and lightening storm. And wow, did it ever rain!

Day 9, Mykonos 

And the windmills. Loved the windmills.

Day ten was our second and last day at sea.

Day eleven, we landed in Naples Italy to another storm. And a storm it was.

That it is hail. Cars were literally stopping on the freeway; they don't get snow in Italy this close to sea level lol.

Pompeii

See the water spots on my lens? It was POURING. So hard that at one point, our guide pulled us all into a roofed house for protection. And the lightening; crazy!

Once leaving Pompeii, we went on a drive up the Italian coast; the Amalfi coast. 

Stunning.

Our #dreamtrip ended in Rome. Sadly there was no time to see the city; we were off the ship before the sun to make our flights home.

As I said earlier, we had a fantastic time. The trip was so much more than either of us imagined it being. And the cruise? Already planning our next one!

Don't forget, I have a giveaway going right now; I'll draw the winner on Saturday. You can still enter here.