Corinthian letter

I am not sure whether they wore gladiator sandals in ancient Corinth, but I am trying to stick to a theme here. I picked up these just after Easter - in Oslo. Tried on the very same shoes last summer, but they were not available in my size. Kept looking for similar shoes in the right size throughout the winter, but could not find anything like these. And then this brand decided to run them for another season, including size kayak! Hooray! I danced out of the shop that day. Oh, the memories.

Hey. I almost forgot to tell you. Yesterday we were anchored next to an old friend outside Mykonos. The Wind Spirit. She really is a beauty. We have done 14 cruises with the Windstar fleet, three of them aboard the Spirit. So we felt a very short pang of guilt tendering past her. But it passed. Nothing wrong with them, but think I have moved on now. Once you have tried Seadream, there is no way back. Your are spoiled forever.

Also, sailing from Mykonos yesterday evening, we saw dolphins swimming along the ship. We have experienced this once before, sailing through the straits of Gibraltar during sunset. Ten years ago, but it is a memory that sticks with you. We still have the joke between us when sitting out on deck. If you suddenly scream "DOLPHIIIIINS!" the ship will tilt, as all the passengers will come running to the one side of the ship. Everybody loves dolphins.

Monday morning. Not normally my favorite time of the week. Today was special. We got up really early to get a nice spot on Deck six. The ship was planned to transit the Corinth Canal just after breakfast. It is difficult to describe it in words. The canal is straight, 4 km, goes straight across the Peloponnese peninsula. I think the Seadream I is among the few cruise ships that can pass. With just a few meters clearing on each side. Quite spectacular. We even saw a fox climbing the steep wall. Unfortunately the memory was to a big extent destroyed by the sleazy middle-aged gentleman seeing the fox and then shouting "Hey, foxy-foxy-fooooxy!" in what my dirty in told me was the same manner as he would scream when "spending time" with his young far-too-young girlfriend. Pig.

Another highlight of the Corinth Canal was the Cruise Director's very informative messages to the ship. I am not sure how many years this man has been at sea, but it has been a while. Still, he kept going on and on about these amazing bridges at each end of this canal. And how they did not open to the side or get lifted to let us through, no - they actually submerged down into the water! Last time I checked, that was called a lock. Never a bridge. To top it all off, he went on about this on the calling system for the whole ship to hear. As we approached the LOCK, he was saying in a very strange voice: "Oh, and doooooown she goes...". Scary.

The day was spent anchored outside Itea. The harbour of ancient Delphi. I am not really a big fan of watching old rocks in the heat of summer, so we spent most of the day on the ship. Sunbathing. Swimming off the water sports platform. Just a short trip ashore to write postcards and have some Retsina. Wrote four postcards or "Corinthian Letters".

Being Norwegian can sometimes be an advantage. The captain is a very young (my age!) and really nice gentleman from Askoey outside of Bergen (Norwegian!). He invited us for dinner, together with another Norwegian couple. It is considered a great honor to be invited, and you get this very formal invitation to your cabin. I could not help myself posting it to Facebook. Sorry. Got a bit carried away there. Anyway, we had a really great time, it even turns out that the captain went to school with two of my friends! The other couple was very nice. He is a well-known Norwegian investor, so he and my husband had a lot to talk about. If you add football to the equation, it was a great match (he used to own a club). His wife was also really nice, and EXTREMELY good-looking. We are talking absolutely stunning. I felt like the world's dumbest person when asking her what she did for a living. She is an international model. Of course. Stupid question. Normally I am quite proud of my own job, but this time I just fell real silent, and it was really awkward. Corporate accounting just isn't that glamorous.