December 27

We had a very quiet Christmas; no real gifts to each other as it seems we have been picking up a number of things lately… all geared toward the trip. Jim has a new MP3 player and a speaker for use in the cabin; he’s busy choosing and transferring music from our media computer to it.

It seems that the world events on the news these days have a different perspective as we look at how they may affect our ports of call. This morning we heard about the bombing of the Gaza strip. I looked at a map and found that the strip is about 20 miles from Ashdod (our port) and about 50 miles from Jerusalem. We are also watching the Indian/Pakistan situation. It will be interesting to see what our final itinerary turns out to be. If you haven’t seen our itinerary here is a link: Itinerary

We are only planning one overland multi-day excursion, the one to visit Beijing and the Great Wall in China. There are also big excursions to Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat but financially and physically I think I can only handle one this time.

We are about three weeks from leaving and are starting a little more of the prep – we’ve gone through the toiletries/med. bag and replaced needed items and cleaned out all those little bottles of lotion and shampoo that seem to accumulate. I’ve sorted through my formal wear and decided what to take and Jim had his tux cleaned. It should be interesting to see what happens with the tux as there is no dry-cleaning available on Royal Princess.