Cruising Day 7: Imperial Rome

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Rome. Lots, and lots, and lots of pictures.

I’ve been fortunate to visit Italy on a couple of prior occasions and was excited to take AJ there; it was also on her ‘must-visit’ list. We’d just spent a wonderful, sunny, lazy afternoon in the Tuscan countryside eating and drinking delicious things, but today was all about taking in as much as we could.

My parents have been to Rome, and my dad absolutely loved it. The upshot, he said, was to see as much as possible because there’s nowhere else like it. So, that’s what we tried to do.

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GPTweaked: Palace of Memories

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Sometimes, I like to get stoned and take a nice hot shower to unwind. Time passes differently, and my mind wanders – usually to some very interesting places. Occasionally disturbing (we all have our demons), but mostly interesting. Typically, I will marvel at an idea that I had, think what a good (book/movie/song/delete as appropriate) it would be, and then promptly forget to do anything about it.

This evening after a particularly long and arduous day at work, I was letting my mind wander as the droplets rushed over me, and I had an idea that sounded like it could make a short story. I reasoned with myself that I would never get around to writing it, argued with myself for a while on how it would actually go, and then wondered what would happen if I gave the prompt to ChatGPT.

So this time, I took that random thought and did something with it. As you’ll see below, this actually worked out, so I’m going to start up a series: GPTweaked. Every so often, I’ll imbibe and have some high thoughts, and I’m going to feed them to ChatGPT to see what it makes of them. And now, on with the show!

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Cruising Day 6: A Tuscan Farmhouse Experience

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Well folks, it’s almost 8 months since the cruise … and we’re about to go on another one in two weeks! I had high hopes of writing an in-depth recollection of each day but my memory grows hazy and my will to continue weakens daily.

From here on out it’s pictures I think.

Day 6 was a Tuscan Farmhouse Experience; we debarked and were whisked into the coutryside by bus, ending up at an idyllic little vineyard in the middle of nowhere. We were seated outside and given some delicious food and wines before heading back to the boat and ending the day with a Macallan scotch tasting.

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Cruising Day 5: Discovering Éze and Old Monaco

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Any concerns I’d had about the weather were burned away on Day 5 as we rocked up in Villefranche, anchoring in the middle of the bay as we were too large to dock. It was another early morning, but after the fabulous night before, we felt much more energized and ready to seize the day!

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Without a Plan: Raf

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To anybody actually reading these, I apologize for not having continued the series since 2021. I am ridiculous.

I met Raf in August 2009, and he made an immediate impression.
We had been introduced after a chance meeting with his housemate, a lady named Cat. Cat worked on the same site I did, but for a different employer. The place was seven square miles in size, with over 7000 personnel, so meeting people you’d never seen before was common.

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2022

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What a year.

I didn’t post a lot of perpetual content on Instagram this year. 10 posts. I wanted to put something together for the inevitable ‘end of year review’, but as I started with my original idea of a Reel with a rapid flip-through of some key moments, I began to realize just how packed a year 2022 had been, and how much joy had been in it.

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Cruising Day 4: Toulon, France & New Friends

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If you’re thinking to yourself “Wow, there’s been a long pause in between these posts”, then I would congratulate you on your observation, obvious though it is.

Since returning from our cruise we’ve also been to Madrid (a sorry travel tale in itself) as well as moved house, not to mention dealing with some significant work stressors. This series definitely hasn’t gone as quickly as I’d hoped!

But, we’re back, and ready to write! I think …

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Cruising Day 3: All at sea with Covid tests

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Day 3 was our first sea day, as we sailed from Palma de Mallorca to Toulon in France, and we were very happy to have it. The itinerary for this trip had three sea days, which is not many on a 14 day cruise. We were still feeling pretty wiped out – despite the previous evening’s fun – and made the most of our day of no commitments by sleeping until midday, letting our bodies kick more virus butt, and deal with the Moderna booster vaccine.

We did actually wake up early to receive our room service breakfast which we ate, then promptly went back to sleep. The first photograph I have on my phone of this day was at 1:37pm, so we got a good rest!!

Our first port of call after some snacks at the Oceanview Cafe was the Celebrity Theatre, where ‘The Ultimate Boy Band’ was performing a matinee show. We’d enjoyed them so much when we caught the end of their show on Day 1 that we wanted to catch a full show, and fill in some time by doing something other than sleeping or eating.

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