Celebrity Infinity - Barcelona - Sea Day - Malaga - Cadiz

We said goodby to Camiral this morning and hopped in a van for our ride to Barcelona.

Celebrity has the best boarding process ever. We go into a private lounge where there is no line, we sit in comfortable chairs while they check our passports and tickets, and 1 minute later they have a crew member Emmanuel walk us onto the ship. Easy peasy!

It was fun to walk over two miles checking out the ship.

We decided to work out before dinner. Our usual routine is to workout in the morning but we both felt we needed one today.

As we left the port of Barcelona the sun set and this was the view out our window. Not sure why it's blurry, it couldn't possibly be operator error focusing the camera haha.

Sea Day

A nice quiet day at sea. I can't believe how smooth the ship is sailing. The seas are calm and we can't tell the ship is in motion unless we look out the window and see the sea going by.

I try some "ship photography" today. Like street photography, but on a ship :)

Grandparent duty. Who is that in the reflection from the elevator door taking a picture over his shoulder?

We had tea-time with sparkling water in Micheal's Club today.

For dinner we went to Blu. That's the Aqua class restaurant. There was one on the Celebrity Apex from earlier this year but we loved Luminae so much we never tried Blu.

It was quite good.

We sat by a couple from London who have been married for 55 years. Lots of fun conversation ensued as we shared anecdotes of dining in France and their repulsion at sharing food. As just one example :)

Malaga - Spain

We asked our butler to bring some croissants with dolce de leche to our room this morning. They only make them in the Retreat's Luminae restaurant at breakfast. He obliged. So Mitzi and I obliged by eating them. They. Are. Incredible.

We walked 6.5 miles today in the port city of Malaga. Our first stop was Alcazaba, a medieval fortress with a lot of Arab architecture and influence.

We thought the bricks were interesting from what we've seen in Europe before. These are quite thin and have a thick mortar between them.

Caught Mitzi's shadow kissing my shadow :)

Our second stop was the Catedral de la Encarnación de Málaga. Lizzie was here six years ago and it was fun for Mitzi and Lizzie to compare notes. It was Lizzie's favorite Cathedral on her Spain trip.

It is outstanding. More ornate and probably larger than any others we've seen so far.

I have a tradition of getting Mitzi's picture at the confessional booths. The plaque on it says "penitenciario". Confess ya sins, sinna! I laugh each time I say it, it hasn't gotten old yet!

We headed to Pez Lola near the cathedral for lunch. On the way we stopped under an orange tree so Mitzi could send this to Lizzie.

The paella was the best we've ever had.

The mussels were the best we've ever had. They were so tender, incredible.

I love this picture of Mitzi taking a picture of the cathedral. Perfect form!

Here's the picture she was taking. Well done!

The road seems to be made of marble.

Getting back to the ship.

I did some street photography today. Always interesting to see and observe humans.

One of these days I'm going to do a 'ship photography' around the buffet. It cracks me up how people get so focused on the food. I do it to. It's like all I can see and all I can think about is what food to get, putting it on my plate, and getting to a table so I can eat it. Nothing else matters.

So many people are that way in the buffet area.

It might be funny if I can capture that dreamy look in peoples eyes and on their faces. The body is navigating through the physical obstacles of the buffet world but their mind is in a whole different dimension.

Cadiz - Spain

I'll start off with the street photography.

A note about the picture with the Mercedes backing up – it has to be in color to see that the backup lights are on. This car was navigating a very tight left turn. The driver had to shimmy back and forth about 5 times to make the turn. Narrow streets here!

I like pictures of couples holding hands.

I asked Mitzi to stand in front of this cool corner to take her picture. This couple was standing there and standing there. I was waiting for them to move but they were not for quite a while. Then they suddenly started kissing and I knew that was the picture haha.

My internal frustration turned to satisfaction. It's a better picture! I went from wanting them out of the photo to wanting them in the photo in an instant. Amazing how our perception and perspective so highly influences how we feel.

Yesterday Mitzi took a selfie of herself with a cow and sent it to Benson. He was excited to see gwammy with a cow. We ran across another cow today so we sent it over to him.

We had lunch at a cafe where the interior is from the 1920's – Restaurante Café Royalty – nice!

We've been served the fanciest water bottles in Spain. This one is the best.

The towel holder in the men's bathroom. An old cash register.

Then we headed over to the Catedral de Cádiz. Another amazing structure. I wish we built buildings as beautiful and magnificent now. It seems like so many buildings are built for utility and not beauty. Probably a sign of a deteriorating culture or something :(

This is the first cathedral we've gone into the crypt. I thought the ceiling was interesting and unique. It's directly under the main chapel and bears a lot of weight. They designed it to not require a keystone. There are no beams or supporting structures keeping it up. It doesn't look steady but it's been up for hundreds of years so I guess they knew what they were doing.

We climbed up one of the bell towers. Great view.

I had a hankering for Indian food and there was a highly rated Indian Restaurant near the marina.

Some of my favorite food on the planet: Chicken Tikka Masala, Nan with Garlic, and Mango Lassi.

I lost my cabin keycard out in the city. To prevent pick-pockets from nabbing my phone I put it in my front left pocket. Where I also keep my keycard.

It dropped out at some point when I pulled my phone out. Probably caught on the edge of my phone's case.

Getting back on the ship was a bit challenging. There were four security checks where we got stopped and had to negotiate our way through. Two by Spanish security and two by Celebrity security. We eventually made it back on the ship and immediately got a new card. That's what I'm holding in the picture on the stairs.

I played a joke on Mitzi. Right after she took this picture I intentionally dropped the card on the floor without her noticing. When she got to the top of the stairs and saw it laying there she couldn't believe I had already lost the new one! I let her in on the joke and we had a great laugh.

I read recently that couples who gently tease each other have stronger relationships. This was good practice for me. I feel like our relationship just got a little stronger haha.