Goodbye Madeira, Goodbye EUROPE!!

Goodbye Madeira, Goodbye Europe !!

English: Location of Madeira Islands – Madeira Autonomous Region – (red), in Portugal (green) and in the European Union (blue). Português: Localização da Madeira – Região Autónoma da Madeira – (vermelho), em Portugal (verde) e na União Europeia (azul) Español: Localización de Madeira – Región Autónoma de Madeira – (rojo), en Portugal (verde) y en la Unión Europea (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Goodbye Europe, Goodbye Madeira, our last bit of splendid land before heading out to the big blue ocean – 7 days worth of seafaring.  Wow.

It boggles the mind.  Ocean as far as you can see, ship foam on edges as it glides supremely into the vast waters, no sighting of land,  of any kind,  for all that time….and now – leaving Europe – way behind.  It saddens us.  We have had the most incredible journey in Europe for 2 memorable –  (beyond memorable)   years.   We cherish each and every difficult and wonderful minute we had there.

On this ship, we are reminded what brought us and taught us a lot of what we didn’t know really existed anymore.    What is that you ask?  Pretty simple.  TIME. Yes, even though we were here because of David’s incredible TEACHING, we had  TIME.  Time  for slowing down, time for making friends, time for relaxing, time to sit at a café and gaze into the distance, to welcome friends, buy them an espresso, or they us,  and talk or just watch the world go by….it was a bit of heaven.

 
We’ve made some new friends on the ship that remind us of our days in France. They are Goans, from Goa.  having made their homes in  London and Toronto. ( *Goa is a former Portuguese province; the Portuguese overseas territory of Portuguese India existed for about 450 years until it was annexed by India in 1961.)

We had the best time last night at our anniversary dinner, my new friend created a lovely bouquet of  chrysanthemums in the shape of a wedding cake with pink ribbon!  Plus we received  a gift from their outing in Lisbon.  Then they even went to a pharmacy in Portugal to find me some special cream for my knees since I had fallen rather comically – as I literally flew into the main dining area night before, after entering from a windy deck , at the same time the ship was rolling pretty heavily.  It was a slow motion trip and arms flailing – body going horizontal,  like oh oh , she’ll correct it, no she won’t , yes she will, no, she’s DOWN!!!  And at that moment 6 stewards rushed from both dining rooms to pick me up.  I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life.    Needless to say the muscle cream came in very handy.

So, here we are – with some photos of the last bit of land……..the incredibly beautiful island of Madeira.   What lush vegetation, miles of terraced produce fields, high volcanic cliffs, and some of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet.  They speak Portuguese here and it’s quite fun to hear them speak their sing songy language and welcome strangers here as if they were long lost friends.

obrigado our beautiful Europe…………..

Olá    to open seas…………

Madiera = LAST LAND – – as the tug takes our big boat out to sea…..