Thanks everyone for your comments.

As Jan mentioned above we finally found each other at the party last night. We had dinner in Signatures - wonderful as always. I just love that mushroom soup followed by the lamb and then chocolate tart.

Today we headed into Athens on our own - it was kind of fun to just stroll down the gangway knowing we got to come back for another week. I like this back – to – back cruising concept. It's very easy to take the train into Athens - only 0.70 euros and the metro station is about a 15 minute walk from the ship. You only need one connection to the Acropolis stop and it’s pretty easy to figure out. We spent most of the day wandering at the Acropolis – it is another beautiful sunny day here but fortunately a little cooler than last week. The usual horde of international tourists were roaming around once we reached the site. Some additional people were there because they are filming a movie starring Nia Vardelos (from my Big, Fat Greek Wedding). I walked right past her intent on photographing some ancient marble things but Jim actually recognized her – she’s kind of tiny in person and very pretty. Today’s movie making seemed to consist of a great deal of standing around being gawked at by all the tourists. Tom Hanks was directing but we did not get close enough to see him.

We walked down to the Ancient Agora and then up to the temple that overlooks the site. Then we wandered out into a very nice neighborhood with killer views of the Parthenon for lunch. In an unusual turn of events we found the closest metro stop with only one small wrong turn and returned to Piraeus. It was easier to find the ship than locating the train station as you could see the Voyager gleaming white across the port.

The ever helpful Darren has delivered the evening canapés along with a fresh supply of limes for the G&Ts and the new passengers are having their lifeboat drill. Tomorrow we are back at Ephesus – we were so fascinated last week that we are going back tomorrow. Clearly you could spend days there and just begin to really learn about it.

Mary Ellen