Going

Monday, June 15 my expedition began at 10:40 am when I called a taxi to take me to the Princeton Junction train station. In family tradition I sat down and counted to ten before leaving. I caught a New Jersey Transit train to the Newark Liberty International Airport Station and rode the AirTrain Monorail to the airport.

While taxiing we passed several Boeing 737 aircraft. Interestingly they all had winglets. Winglets are the wing extensions that point upward and outward at the ends of the wings. They cut down on turbulence and increase fuel efficiency. So either all the planes were the latest model or, more likely, had been retrofit.

The flight was Continental Airlines flight 0040 direct to Rome on a Boeing 767-400ER aircraft. The airplane seats 235 passengers; 35 business class and 200 economy. The plane was completely full. The plane's displays above the aisles cycled through several screens of interesting information. Some showed the plane's flight path, completed (solid) and planned (dashed) and I could see that we passed by Gander, Newfoundland, across the Atlantic, south of Scotland, and over France. There were maps that showed the entire route and several that zoomed in on our current position. There were other screens, some in Italian, some in English, with flight data: velocita al suolo 970 km/hr, altitudine 10363 m, temperatura esterna -53 C, and vento a favore 46 km/hr, ground speed 624 mph, altitude 34000 ft, outside temperature -63 F, and tailwind 73 mph. On Tuesday, June 16 after an 8 hour and 25 minute flight we landed at Rome's Fiumicino Airport.


At the baggage claim area there was a woman holding a sign that said Corinthian II. I identified myself. We collected my baggage and she led me through the maze of the terminal. My passport was stamped. Then she led me outside to a bus that took me to a Hilton at the airport. There I waited for several hours as more of the ship's passengers arrived. Finally a bus brought us to the port of Civitavecchia. Here we saw many ancient fortifications. Just of a hint of what was to come.


Then we could see the Corinthian II, our home for the next week. She can carry 114 passengers, though there were only 85 due to the state of the economy. The literature states that she has a crew of 75. Since on this voyage she didn't have a full compliment of passengers, she probably had a smaller crew. Her crew seemed to be made up of people from all around the world. Her statistics: length 297 feet, beam 50 feet, draft 12 feet, and registered in Malta. The agenda for the first day included a safety drill. Seven short and one long sounding of the ship's whistle ( * * * * * * * ******* ) meant take your life vest and go to your muster station. From there we went to the location where we would board our life boat (if it had been an actual emergency). Then cocktail hour, we set sail for Livorno, and dinner.

Postcards

In a futile attempt to send postcards that arrive before I get back, I bought postcards in the Piazza Signoria (a plaza and central meeting area outside the town hall and other historic buildings) in Florence (Firenze in Italian) on Wednesday, June 17. That evening I wrote notes on the postcards and left them at Reception on the ship. The hope was that they would be mailed the next day in Nice. It looks like the cards were mailed three days later in Cagliari on Saturday, June 20 and postmarked Monday, June 22. As a check I sent myself one. It arrived on Friday, June 26, three days after I returned home.

Notice that the date is of the form dd.mm.yy. Pretty much everywhere we went the dates were of that form or dd.mm.yyyy. Interestingly, my date of birth and the date of issue on my passport were printed dd.mmm.yyyy. A U. S. Customs form required for reentry used the date in the form dd.mm.yy. All different from the U. S. usual bizarre mm/dd/yy. (Of course, this is not news. But it lets me practice scanning a document and placing the results in the blog.)

Time Zone

The time in Italy is currently six hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. While on the ship I usually awoke about 1:00 or 2:00 am. Now that I'm back and just lost six hours, what time zone is my body in? It feels like the same time zone as Tranquility Base on the Moon.

Landmark Sites

Here are the cities visited on the June 2009 Landmark Sites of the Western Mediterranean cruise aboard the Corinthian II sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History. This map is from the trip brochure.

Florence, Italy.
Nice and Saint Paul de Vence, France.
Bonifacio, Corsica, France.
Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy.
Tunis and Carthage, Tunisia.
Trapani and Erice, Sicily, Italy.


Here is my photo of the Corinthian II in among the limestone cliffs of Bonifacio. What a fantastic voyage! (By the way, I see that if you click on the image you get a very enlarged version.)


Note. Any picture in this blog for which a source is not specified is one that I have taken.