Bingo is on every ship, but here on a ship with over 2,000 Italians, 100 Americans, 300 Spaniards, 150 Germans, 250 French, and a smattering of Brits, Japanese and South Africans, nothing is easy. Every announcement, and I mean every announcement, is translated into five languages -- and this makes for a very long Bingo game.
First, the musical soundtrack to Bingo is the theme song from the Flintstones (as in...Flintstones, meet the Flintstones), only they all sing Bingo, Super Bingo, followed by lots of Italian. Then come the instructions for the game which take at least 20 minutes because of all the translations -- it seems there is always someone from each language who has never played the game before. The actual game playing goes something like this: B-Bingo undici, onze, once, elf, eleven......G- Genova sieben und funfzig, cinque cinquante, cinco cinquenta, ciq cinquante, fifty seven....B Bingo eins, elf, un, uno, uno, one. It took at least 45 minutes to play one straight line game. But fun anyway. Mom won 200 Euros in the coverall bingo!
Istanbul, much to my surprise, is a city of over 11 million people, with the smog to prove it. But that smog made for gorgeous sunrises and sunsets. With over 3,000 mosques you can very easily hear the calls to prayer from everywhere. Our dock was exactly opposity the Golden Horn, where the view from our balcony included the dainty Blue Mosque with its six minarets, the ancient Hagia Sophia with its four minarets and the Topkapi Palace fortress - absolutely amazing! We visited the Blue Mosque (a working mosque, where worshipers wash their feet before entering and where we all had to remove our shoes and carry them around in a plastic bag while we were inside), then it was a short walk to the Hagia Sophia, a former Christian church transformed into a mosque and now displayed as a museum with incredibly intricate mosaics. We also spent several hours in the Grand Bazaar and bargained with the best of them for spices, scarves and pottery. Brenda, Cindy and I then bravely took a taxi from the Bazaar back to the ship. It seems that street lane markers exist just for looks in Istanbul! Yikes!
First, the musical soundtrack to Bingo is the theme song from the Flintstones (as in...Flintstones, meet the Flintstones), only they all sing Bingo, Super Bingo, followed by lots of Italian. Then come the instructions for the game which take at least 20 minutes because of all the translations -- it seems there is always someone from each language who has never played the game before. The actual game playing goes something like this: B-Bingo undici, onze, once, elf, eleven......G- Genova sieben und funfzig, cinque cinquante, cinco cinquenta, ciq cinquante, fifty seven....B Bingo eins, elf, un, uno, uno, one. It took at least 45 minutes to play one straight line game. But fun anyway. Mom won 200 Euros in the coverall bingo!
Istanbul, much to my surprise, is a city of over 11 million people, with the smog to prove it. But that smog made for gorgeous sunrises and sunsets. With over 3,000 mosques you can very easily hear the calls to prayer from everywhere. Our dock was exactly opposity the Golden Horn, where the view from our balcony included the dainty Blue Mosque with its six minarets, the ancient Hagia Sophia with its four minarets and the Topkapi Palace fortress - absolutely amazing! We visited the Blue Mosque (a working mosque, where worshipers wash their feet before entering and where we all had to remove our shoes and carry them around in a plastic bag while we were inside), then it was a short walk to the Hagia Sophia, a former Christian church transformed into a mosque and now displayed as a museum with incredibly intricate mosaics. We also spent several hours in the Grand Bazaar and bargained with the best of them for spices, scarves and pottery. Brenda, Cindy and I then bravely took a taxi from the Bazaar back to the ship. It seems that street lane markers exist just for looks in Istanbul! Yikes!
Today was a very lazy day at sea. Tomorrow is Dubrovnik. It's so hard to take it all in. But I'm doing my best.
No comments:
Post a Comment