France!

Also known as the day the cruise ship discovered Christmas.

Today was (by design) a pretty relaxed day.  Royal Caribbean only offered six excursions, and none of them really sounded impossible to miss, so we opted to sleep in a little.  And then watch the new Spiderman movie.  Had to happen.

Once we had gotten our super hero fill, and some food, we took advantage of the ferry to Toulon, which is the city in France where we had docked.  Toulon is definitely not a tourist city, but we walked around the marketplace for a while anyway.  It was probably the best weather we’ve had, with direct sun and pleasant temperatures for the majority of the day.  The area around Toulon is beautiful – all these mountains just seem to rise up from right behind the city.

A few hours later, we headed back to the ship and used the rest of the afternoon to read in the sun.  I’ve finished The Life of Pi (thrown for a little bit of a twist there at the end), so I’ll have to download a few more books for the flights home before we leave tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was accompanied by a Christmas tree and a large ice sculpture, and there was another Cirque du Soleil-type performance (I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned this, but every other night or so, I’ve stumbled into an aerial performance in the centrum) this evening, also complete with Christmas theme and tree.  I probably should have expected it – it is Black Friday, after all, but for some reason it still just seems very early to me.  Guess I should get on the shopping, and maybe it wouldn’t have caught me so by surprise.

One of the greatest things about traveling by cruise ship is the staff’s willingness to take care of all of the details.  We packed up our bags tonight and stuck them outside of our stateroom, and Royal Caribbean will take care of getting them to the airport for us tomorrow.  It’s very, very streamlined.  Have to love that.

As much as I love traveling, coming home is pretty great too (obviously minus the many hours spent in an airport/on an airplane).  Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!