Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome! Part Five

Greetings Coolers!

Today's funny.....

Sometimes even the same day.....

Have a great day all!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Funny Mysty! We come from near Melbourne where you have 4 seasons in a day!

Just arrived in Venice. I’d forgotten how much I loved it. On a canal away from the crowds with a bar just across the bridge! Here for a month and couldn’t be happier. Must learn how to post photos as the canal is small and very pretty.

We are meeting friends who are here for a few days and coincidentally are next door!

My friend looked out her window and saw me on our deck! Knew we were in the same vicinity, but not next door!

J....YUM!

Jill...that sounds heavenly! Pics would be great if you can manage that. Our first visit to Venice was not enjoyable at all. Second visit turned the tide. I fell in love with it.

Just arrived in Venice. I’d forgotten how much I loved it. On a canal away from the crowds with a bar just across the bridge! Here for a month and couldn’t be happier. Must learn how to post photos as the canal is small and very pretty. We are meeting friends who are here for a few days and coincidentally are next door! My friend looked out her window and saw me on our deck! Knew we were in the same vicinity, but not next door!

Appreciate your great, fun posts from wonderful Venice and the continued follow-ups. Keep up the excellent, exciting sharing!!! Am happy to share more details here if needed as to the easy steps for posting pictures on these Cruise Critic threads. Not that hard, but takes a little time and patience. BUT, the results can be super!! A picture can be worth a thousand words.

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

Venice: Loving It & Why??!! Is one of your future desires or past favorites? See these many visual samples for its great history and architecture. This posting is now at 78,312 views.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1278226

This picture shows San Giorgio Maggiore, a 16th century Benedictine church built between 1566 and 1610. The gondolas are docked in the foreground in the main part of Venice. There were eight to ten thousand gondolas during the 17th and 18th century with only about four hundred in active service today.:

(Open your screen/viewer wider to see these pictures larger/better!)

This Venice picture gives a sample of different roof designs/decorations, the church dome and the famed Campanile. This bell tower of St Mark's Basilica is 323 feet tall and is a plain brick square shaft, 39 feet wide on each side. This tower reached its present form in 1514, but was reconstructed in 1912 after the 1902 collapse.:

Greetings Coolers!

Thanksgiving Day here in Canada! Time to reflect and count our many blessings! And Myster is doing a prime rib for our dinner! One more blessing to add to the list. :)

Today's funny......and message....

Have a great day all!

Loving the mountainous regions outside Quito!

We got in at midnight Friday night and were ready to go for our tour at 7. We drove out of the city and visited a market at Pujili before the main attraction, which was the volcanic crater lake Quilotoa. Spectacular views from the crater rim!

It was a long slog down a steep trail, dodging donkeys and their droppings the whole way. We decided to climb back up and it was a killer. 1200 feet of elevation gain in less than a mile with no flat spots at all. But that wasn't the worst of it - the trail started at 11600 feet, and ended at 12800! Hard to climb when there is no air, but we did it!

A well-deserved lunch then a long drive home. Stunning vistas and an unexpected surprise - there had been a significant snowfall in the mountains, so we drove through snow, less than one degree south of the equator!

Dinner at a place serving local specialties. I had a fritada, delicious spiced pork over mashed potato with giant corn mixed in. We tried some local beer and wine too. The beer was great and the wine good.

Off to Mindo today for the cloud forest then we leave for home at 23:45.

Pix. Fruit at the market (similar to passionfruit). Beautiful vista. Quilotoa. Happy hikers pre-ascent. Fritada at Miskay restaurant.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving, all, especially to my fellow Canucks. Our turkey dinner was yesterday, so today we are eating leftovers and watching (CFL) football. Not quite as exciting as JP & Chris in Quito. Keep posting those pictures, JP! I can only climb mountains vicariously these days, but do so enjoy following along on your adventures.

Mysty: we won't be able to meet up at the Whisper in San Francisco when you're boarding for your world cruise and we are (probably very sadly) disembarking. Our transfer whisks us away from the ship at 9 am. My husband was musing the other day that if we have had a really good time on our holiday cruise, maybe we'll just 'stay on' for a few more segments. I wish! As it is, if our holiday cruise meets our expectations, there is an improving chance of WC 2020. Fingers crossed.

Hello Coolers, just logged on to lurk, and noticed the call to action. Happy T-Day to our Canadians, we just got home at 10:45am from Toronto to visit my mother-in-law for the long weekend. It was the quickest drive back in 18 years of doing this, 6 hours 1 minute. Between leaving at 4am, and it being a national holiday, all the little Canadians were still tucked snuggly in their beds until we crossed the border. Now, it's laundry, grocery shopping, and food prep for the week before I head to the salt mines, errrr I mean work tomorrow. No interesting food pictures to post, as the cupboards are currently bare .... I have promised Mr. Wonderful that I will make fresh hummus for him for lunch for the week, so beans are soaking, not picture worthy at this point. Leaves are really starting to turn colors, but it's a damp dreary day. Hope JP & Chris enjoy Mindo, we loved it when we were there, Ecuador is a very special place. .... now off the swap loads, and make my list .....

Jan

MLeh....I guess it's a swing and a miss this time. Hopefully there will be other opportunities to meet and mingle. :)

Thanks Jan! Homemade hummus sounds wonderful! Glad your trip home was uneventful and relatively speedy. Lots of crashes on Ontario highways this weekend.

Loving the mountainous regions outside Quito!

 

We got in at midnight Friday night and were ready to go for our tour at 7. We drove out of the city and visited a market at Pujili before the main attraction, which was the volcanic crater lake Quilotoa. Spectacular views from the crater rim!

 

It was a long slog down a steep trail, dodging donkeys and their droppings the whole way. We decided to climb back up and it was a killer. 1200 feet of elevation gain in less than a mile with no flat spots at all. But that wasn't the worst of it - the trail started at 11600 feet, and ended at 12800! Hard to climb when there is no air, but we did it!

 

A well-deserved lunch then a long drive home. Stunning vistas and an unexpected surprise - there had been a significant snowfall in the mountains, so we drove through snow, less than one degree south of the equator!

 

Dinner at a place serving local specialties. I had a fritada, delicious spiced pork over mashed potato with giant corn mixed in. We tried some local beer and wine too. The beer was great and the wine good.

 

Off to Mindo today for the cloud forest then we leave for home at 23:45.

 

Pix. Fruit at the market (similar to passionfruit). Beautiful vista. Quilotoa. Happy hikers pre-ascent. Fritada at Miskay restaurant. [ATTACH]431123[/ATTACH][ATTACH]431124[/ATTACH][ATTACH]431125[/ATTACH][ATTACH]431126[/ATTACH][ATTACH]431127[/ATTACH][ATTACH]431128[/ATTACH]

 

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

Am I the only one who can not open photos sent via a link? I don’t use an app so maybe that’s why I’m having trouble. When I first discovered CC I saved it on favourites and have been using it that way ever since. That suits me but it’s getting very frustrating not being able to see photos - looks like I will have to move into the 21st century!

Sorry joc123. Posting directly from the app can be hit or miss. The pics themselves should show up, not the links. They show up for me inside your quote so I'm not totally sure why you can't see them other than the app being a pain.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

In the priority pass lounge here in Quito waiting for our plane. Another packed day today.

Mindo was incredible. Hiked to a bunch of cascades until our legs about fell off then did a visit to a butterfly house and a hummingbird sanctuary. Quick chocolate factory visit, then the "real" equator visit (the more famous one is about 200 meters too far south). Had time for dinner at Zazu which was ridiculously delicious.

So, a fun getaway and lots to see here for a few days.

Here's a few more from today. Cable car in Mindo. Two waterfalls. Classic epiphyte. Butterfly. The real equator.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

Greetings Coolers!

JP...that was obviously an awesome trip! Thanks for taking us along for the ride!

Today's funny....it's a bit of a groaner.....

Have a great day all!

Good morning from Atlanta! We got from our plane and through customs, then through security really fast this morning. The only problem was that the Customs agents almost went nuts on us as we exited, because we didn't have any checked baggage. Somehow two people with backpacks raised all sorts of disbelief. After a few questions they finally must have believed us...

And for the first time ever, they actually had a separate TSA Precheck line after customs! I've never seen that in Atlanta, and that security is usually a bottleneck. Perhaps because we were in Terminal F and not our usual Terminal E. No line and right through. Now another 2h to wait until the Albany flight.

Thanks Mysty, it was a lot of fun but lucky that we have today to recuperate. The altitude and the flights made this a little tougher than Europe. Still worth it though.

I've seen that funny before but it is still funny - somebody sent it to Chris a while back.

What are our plans for the Cooler now that the old forums format is being abandoned?

Good thing you got your trip posts in when you did JP. Looks like read-only starts in 1/2 hour. People posting on their voyages may have to scribble notes until the forums open for posting again. Have a great few days folks!

Hm. Are we back?

I made a few pizzas on Sunday. A simple Margharita with fresh basil from the garden. And a "Saltimbocca" with Prosciutto and lots of fresh sage (also from the garden). 

Greetings Coolers!

I think we are mostly back JP.  With some glitches as might be expected.  Pizza looks delish!

Toady's funny.....

Have a great day all!

Good afternoon all  ......  JP  lovely pizza and M I think that driver is safe!

Busy few food days .... pasta, piggy pie, rib-eye with slaw salad, roast sirloin ... and curry!

....... and lots of bread making ..... including onion platzels (bialys)

Hehe, welcome back all. 😀

J....those dishes look soooooo yummy.  And Myster would especially love the breads!

Glad to have my food fix back. Have missed the Cooler a lot in the past week. Delicious creations as usual, Jeff.

New site looks cool so far. Will need to spend some time with it to see all the new features. 😁

DW....a big purple D for you.   🙂   I think you need an avatar.  Maybe I can find one to suit.

😀

Hope you’ve all been keeping well. 

Saw this the other day M and thought of you.