Carnival Pride

When I dropped my friends off last week, they said "I think Carnival's ships are all named by drag queens. The last one we were on was the Carnival Ecstasy."

Today I picked up my friends and drove them back home to Alexandria. It's about a 100-mile trip for me each time, but I don't mind - they are my friends! As we drove back to Virginia, they told me some stories from their cruise to the Bahamas. It really made me miss cruising; the last one we were on was in February 2008. We'd done one every year from 2004 to 2008, but this year we didn't go on any. We did have a vacation - we went to Hawaii in April - but we haven't been on a cruise in a very long time.

I like both cruises and land vacations, actually. Some people prefer one or the other, but I enjoy both. I think they're different types of vacations: a cruise is for relaxing, being stuffed full of food, sailing gracefully from port to port; a land vacation is for exploring, finding ways to save money, and really getting to know the character of a place. There's definitely space for both in my life, but unfortunately I don't know when my next one will be.

My in-laws just booked a post-retirement cruise for 2011. They take major cruises every few years - the last one was three months around South America in 2008 - and this one will be four months around the world. They're talking about it nonstop even though it's so far away, and it just makes me more jealous!

I did get to hear the announcement bell from the ship when I picked my friends up though. It was very faint, I didn't have my hearing aids on, but I'd recognize that "bing-bong" anywhere. It was nice.