Day 15. Better known as June 15. Better known as Barbara Elaine Howard's Birthday. I awoke early again, but let her sleep as late as she wished. After a few hours, I went back to bed and got those two hours of sleep after being awake for three, and if you don't know that is the most satisfying sleep we human animals get to have. We awoke together, then, at noon and went to lunch.
The coastline of Calvi, Corsica. To the far right is the citadel. where there's a church and good old medieval defenses. To the left is the more modern town. Village is probably more accurate.
In case you missed it, the Citadel is THERE. We shall soon take a tender to the shore and walk up that hill.
The birthday girl, waiting for the tender and taking pictures of a sailboat or something.
Our ride from the tender. Funny that they call the small boat that goes to and from the large boat a "tender," no? Somewhere there's a tender meat meets tender boat joke. I'm hoping to soon be able to pass by our ship without taking its picture.
The citadel with, lo, the Nice to Corsica car carrying ferry which we saw at launch. Symmetry.
The village from the tender. You know what's sad. I could probably be happy the rest of my life in a small Mediterranean village, perhaps scooping gelato for tourists, if only they had fast internet on the island. Sigh. A slave to technology, I've become.
There's only two things to take a picture of once you're on the dock. The citadel and the village. Was I not going to take pictures of the same object from varying distances? You would do the same, trust me.
The village where my gelato shop would sit.
A birthday girl in front of the citadel's main tower. There are gaps in there where soldiers could shoot from inside which now host birds. Nature takes back anything that we leave behind.
A Christopher Columbus memorial sticking out of the citadel wall. Read up on Wikipedia and you'll see that there is no consensus where Columbus was born. Yet Corsica claims him. In Columbus's time, Cosrica was a rogue island. A source of shame. So Columbus never said, "Hey, I'm Cosrican." Between you and me, I think that tourism might be a factor in the Corsican claim to Columbus. However, there is no question that a few hundred years after Columbus a Corsican woman gave birth to Napoleon Bonaparte. It's not like you can say nobody important ever came from Cosrica.
Corsican graffiti. This is actually about three feet tall. Fafi is not to be ignored. I suggest we all start calling pretty women, "Fafi." It might catch on. My wife is a Fafi, you know.
Up on the citadel, which was a march up 70 meters of steps and ramps, was a mix of old and new. This is old.
A view of the village from the citadel.
Another, with a nice view of a citadel wall.
Protect the coastline and you protect the city. Catalina needs one of these for the day Los Angeles gets tired of her claims to sovereignty and attacks.
Our ship from the citadel. It's right THERE.
The car carrying ferry next to our ship. That ferry is the size of your average cruise ship. Now, as promised, a picture that shows our ship is around 1/10 the size of a cruise ship, yet 5 times the size of a normal yacht.
Let's just say that this is Calvi's guardian angel, shall we. I took the pic and walked away without reading the plaque.
A thing of beauty, no? Chocolat noir.
An accidental shot. Barbie was informing me that my gelato was melting. I was expressing the desire to take a better picture of the melting gelato. During that back and forth, somehow I tapped the iPhone to take this picture. My shadow with gelato and her foot. Art is often accidental.
Again. Imagine being a dude with a sword or a musket, it's 85 degrees and you're dehydrated, and your sergeant is yelling at you to conquer that citadel. Only one way to describe it. That would suck. Fouquet.
Back on the ship, by the pool.
Dinnertime! We invited three couples who we'd met on board, and had a lovely dinner. The people of SeaDream made sure that Barbie felt special. And she did.
So that years later names will not be forgotten: Hollins, moi, Barbara, Jeff, Irene, Ian, Tracy, Diana. We sat Manhattan style; boy-girl, nobody next to their spouse. Try it. I guarantee the conversations get more lively.
The citadel at night. Lovely.
The village at night. Lovely. Maybe I should have been calling it a port or port village all this time?
The SeaDream people think of everything. Barbie was a happy camper last night.
Birthday OVER. Tomorrow (today, really) I shall be rude to her all day.
Gelato scooper, no way! oy vay! sail away-today! Rude will not get you points. Yo Mamma
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