Mr. and Mrs. Landrum in Europe: Our Last Days

May 28^th, 2010

After many days of shore excursions (including one that involved climbing a volcano!), we finally had a little more rest and relaxation in the form of a sea day.  Mr. L and I were happy to lounge around the ship, eat, and relax.

We’d even seen some dolphins jumping around the bow of the ship from our cabin’s TV, so we rushed out to the deck to watch them play.  I didn’t capture any pictures, unfortunately, but it was still fun to see!

We chose to eat at the ship’s Mexican-themed restaurant that evening, and this was the only time that we decided to eat at one of the “pay” restaurants Norwegian Cruise Line offers.  The food was just alright, and we concluded that after you actually looked at all of the things that aren’t included in your typical cruise ticket, it wasn’t really nice that we opted to pay extra for food from some restaurants on board.  But more on that later in my mini-review of our cruise :)

Mr. and Mrs. Landrum in Europe: …And Then Came the Volcano

May 27^th, 2010 (continued)

After we explored the ruined city of Pompeii, it was finally time to climb Mount Vesuvius!  Our tour bus made the nearly-treacherous drive up the mountainside on incredibly narrow roads (and yes, this was a full-size tour bus – it was pretty scary!).

The views of Naples and the bay were gorgeous, from the base of the mountain to the top.

Mr. and Mrs. Landrum in Europe: First Came the History Lesson…

May 27^th, 2010

After having a relaxing day of no itineraries aboard our cruise ship, it was time to get back on schedule and tackle our last shore excursion of our Mediterranean cruise.

Our ship was docked in the port town of Naples, the birthplace of pizza.

Mr. and Mrs. Landrum in Europe: Buongiorno, Italia!

May 25^th, 2010

Our cruise ship docked in Livorno, Italy on the morning of the 25^th, and just like the day before, Mr. L and I were up bright and early – except this time, we wouldn’t get to lounge around for half the day because we had sights to see and places to be!

Small portion of Livorno's port

Mr. and Mrs. Landrum in Europe: Bienvenue à Monaco et la France!

May 24^th, 2010

We woke up kind of early on the morning of May 24^th, mainly because we didn’t know what to expect in the hours ahead.  We’d boarded a cruise ship for the first time ever the day before, and now we were pulling into our very first port ever!  Well, Mr. L’s first “cruise ship” port, anyhow ;)

We've arrived!

Unfortunately, we didn’t wake up early enough to actually see the ship approach and arrive in Monte Carlo, but after we got dressed, we walked out on deck and were greeted with these stunning views:

Mr. and Mrs. Landrum in Europe: It’s Time to Cruise!

May 23^rd, 2010 (continued)

After arriving in Barcelona, crashing for the night, and checking out of our hotel the next morning, Mr. L and I sent for a taxi to take us to Barcelona’s port.  Why, you ask?  Because it was time to start our seven day Mediterranean cruise!

Mr. L waiting patiently in the lobby of our hotel for the taxi

We entered our taxi after loading up all of our suitcases and once again sped through Barcelona.  As we crossed the bridge into the port, we could see our cruise ship out of the taxi window:

Our ship is the first one, NCL's Norwegian Jade -- sorry that part of the bridge is in the way!

Mr. and Mrs. Landrum in Europe: We’re Leaving on a Jet Plane…to Barcelona!

In honor of my and Mr. L’s upcoming one year anniversary (which is approaching very, very quickly!), I have decided to start rolling out our honeymoon recaps (AKA "Mr. and Mrs. Landrum in Europe") for anyone who is interested in hearing about our fabulous trip.  It truly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I am so thrilled Mr. L and I got to do something so wonderful and enriching together.  We’ll cherish these memories for a lifetime, so I’m hoping writing down what I remember now will bring back even more memories in the future as we reminisce together :)

And now, let’s begin!

May 21st, 2010

I almost couldn’t believe it, but our long-awaited and highly anticipated honeymoon trip was about to begin!  On the morning of May 21^st, my parents were kind enough to drive Mr. L and I over to the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport from Mobile, where we’d spent the night to save some driving time.  We arrived at the airport, then checked our luggage and received our tickets.  After a few minutes of goodbyes with my parents, we were off to our terminal and on our flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, where we would eventually be departing for Frankfurt, Germany!

We boarded our super tiny plane and made our way to Charlotte.

After our plane landed in Charlotte

Blurb.com Photo Book Review

As you may remember, I chose to order a honeymoon photo book through the website Blurb.com a couple of weeks ago.  We finally got it in, and it's time to review it!

Yay, it's here!

Honeymoon Photo Book

I'm super excited about a new project I'm halfway finished with -- a honeymoon photo book!

I contemplated just going the traditional route with our honeymoon photos by printing them from Snapfish and putting them in a normal photo album, but I wanted to learn more about the other options that are out there.  Since I've made two photo books before (of our wedding pictures for our parents' Christmas presents) with the help of Shutterfly.com, I was definitely interested in pursuing that route again.  But with a project this extensive (TONS more pictures than the fifty or so chosen for our parents' albums) I knew it would take a little more personalization than Shutterfly had to offer.

Front cover of the wedding album we made for my parents

I've been avidly browsing Weddingbee.com for about a year now, and a few posts written by the bloggers have been dedicated to wedding albums, or photo books.  Someone mentioned Blurb.com, and although it took me a bit to finally check it out, I'm pretty happy that I did.

Blurb offers so much more customization plus the ability to tackle large projects with many pictures.  I downloaded their free software, BookSmart, and I was well on my way to designing my album!

I broke our pictures into two halves since there are roughly 600 pictures in total.  The first part will include the beginning of our trip all the way to our first excursion from Monte Carlo, and the second part will pick up after Monte Carlo and end with the end of the honeymoon.  I'm currently constructing the second part, but the first part has been polished up and just recently ordered!

Here's the cover of the first book:

I'm pretty excited about actually getting the book in my hands and seeing how it looks.  The best part was that the total for one book was only about $34 (with a free shipping code), so if it's terrible, I won't feel as upset as if I'd ordered an $80-100 book.  It isn't scheduled to ship until the first of February, but you can bet as soon as I get it in my hands, I'll be ready to (in true blogger fashion) take some detail pictures of it and review my experience with Blurb!

Going through this process also made me realize that I've never properly recapped our honeymoon.  With our one year anniversary getting closer and closer, I think it will definitely be appropriate to tackle honeymoon recaps in the near future.  It'll be a neat way to bring back some fond memories of one really awesome trip, so expect those soon!