Today was a day at sea, which meant rest and relaxation. Not that we didn’t enjoy everything we had seen, but we were ready for a break. That morning, I got up early and walked the promenade on deck 5. You have to do it early because if you get up at 8:00 a.m. or later, sections of the deck were blocked off for maintenance. By getting out early, I could walk the entire length of the ship and look out at the sea in peace and quiet. For some reason, the only people who were up on the promenade deck at that hour were two or three smokers and members of the crew who were making cell phone calls.

Our first at sea day was also the first formal night. The sea days were the fullest days of activity. There were plenty of things to do such as the 9:00 a.m. “walk a mile with the captain and officers,” but by that time I had already done my walking. Plus, the walking deck was located on the top level, called the sports deck, and it had a really short track. The fact that there were people running and sunning, made for a mess. It was much more fun to walk the quiet of deck five. Let me give you an example of some of the other activities.

The casino was open all day beginning at 9:00 a.m. The spa offered services such as acupuncture, steam room, sauna, and teeth whitening. The fitness center was open from 6:00-11:00 p.m. The activities crew offered bingo and family beginner karate class. There was a Fisher Price activity center called “royal babies and royal tots” featuring storytelling, creative arts, play and music. The British hostess conducted a British history trivia context. In addition, there was a belly dance class and men’s sexy legs competition. Caricatures were also available, and we sat for one once we were all dressed up for formal night. Speakers offered a historical lecture on Roman history through archaeology, gourmet cooking, and wine tasting. Anything you could think of was going on that day including a ballroom dance class, an informal bridge session and a number of movies including “The Game Plan” and “Dan in Real Life.”

As I said, that evening was the formal evening and so we got dressed up. Before dinner the Captain formally welcomed us aboard during a reception with champagne from 8:00-9:00 p.m. (and I gotta say that Captain Zini was a hottie). Hope it doesn’t sound sexist, but he really was a hottie. One could have one’s picture taken with him from 8:00-9:00 p.m., but we didn’t do that. We just admired him from a distance and then we went to dinner.

After dinner the show that night in the main theater was Ranotto Pagliari. He was described as an international singing star and entertainer. I’m sorry Ranotto, but he was sort of a cheesy classical singer/comedian. We weren’t really crazy about it and I’m not going to call any names, but some folks in our party actually fell asleep during the show. Later that evening in the Colony Club we watched a game show entitled “Who wants to be a Royal Caribbeanaire?,” which was pretty fun. We thought the questions were pretty easy, but we didn’t volunteer to be participants. Instead, we critiqued and enjoyed. After that, we went and sat in the piano bar for a little while and visited with some of the folks we had met on the cruise and then it was time for bed because the next day we were going to tour the island of Mykonos.

We arrived in Civitavecchia at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. I was so excited to be in Rome, well we really weren’t, because Civitavecchia turned out to be quite a ride from the center of Rome. And, as we found out later that evening, the traffic could be terrible. In fact, 2 or 3 buses of excursions were very late arriving to the ship because they got caught in traffic. All I could think of were the wonderful romantic movies set in Rome, “Three Coins in the Fountain,” “Roman Holiday,” and I had a feeling of excitement and romance and beauty and history all rolled up into one. We got up that morning early because we had an all day excursion and we had to depart the ship early. Fortunately the minstrel dining room (which was the main dining room) had early breakfast hours in anticipation of the fact that so many people would be leaving the ship early for the all day Rome excursions. We had a nice relaxing breakfast and then headed up to the theater to depart for our excursions. The procedure for departing were as follows: all the people who were going on excursions for the day would go to the theater and they would tell you your excursion number. For example, say our excursion was entitled, “A Taste of Rome,” so everyone going on excursions would go to the theater and then they would say, “Those of you who are on Taste of Rome, please come forward” and you go up and you’d show them your tickets and they’d give you a bright colored sticker. It might be lavender or orange or green or whatever and it would have a number on it and everybody with that same number would sit in the same area and would then disembark at the same time. It was very organized and then everybody would just go right to the bus for that particular tour.

Our tour, “A Taste of Rome” was a 9 hour and 30 minute tour and it was described in the tour book this way: “This tour is designed for guests who would like a limited guided tour with free time to explore Rome at leisure. The tour begins with a drive through the Etruscan countryside. Once in Rome, you’ll be dropped off at a designated point to explore or shop on your own and have fun in the eternal city. Visit one of the highlights of the Vatican City, St. Peter’s Basilica, one of Christendom’s most significant churches. Construction began in 1452 on the site where St. Peter was buried. During the next 200 years such famous masters as Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael and Bernini worked on this design and created an unparalleled masterpiece. It also describes St. Peters-in-Chains Cathedral, a masterpiece of classical architecture and the coliseum, an enormous amphitheater where gladiators, Christians and wild beasts once battled to the death.” That gives you a sense of what we anticipated seeing on our excursion. One of the things about the excursions is they’re subject to vary because so many people are there during the summer that the sites get crowded. Sometimes the tour guide will change the order of the sites that we would see. The guide might reverse the order of the tour, skipping certain sites and coming back. We didn’t have any problem with that because it was so, so hot (and when I say hot, I mean it’s really hot) that we were not really excited about standing in long lines anyway, so we thought that was just fine. Because the ride was such a long one, we stopped at the equivalent of a truck stop, it was kind of fun because everything was different. I know that sounds really silly, but I think it’s neat to go into a place and everything’s in a different language. One of the fun things in the store was a revolving rack that had a bunch of American music on it, but it was an interesting mixture of music, like Barry Manilow and Aretha Franklin and Travis Tritt. It’s kinda fun to pick up the papers and think, “I don’t have a clue what that says!” I know, I’m a geek. There was an opportunity to buy cold drinks and things like that and to make a pit stop or to get a cup of coffee and a roll, so everybody poured off the bus and we took maybe a 15-20 minute break there.

We were then back on our way to Rome and we arrived about a half an hour later from that stop. It was, for me, sort of a dream come true and an amazing experience to be in Rome because I had always wanted to see it. I had all these images of what it would be like. As we pulled into the city, I just clicked away on the camera. What’s so fascinating about Rome, similar to when I visited Paris, is how striking the old is versus the new. There were apartment buildings and bustling traffic, and right in the middle of all that was something that was so old that you knew that folks had built it thousands of years ago. I couldn’t help but think that the cobblestones we walked on, people from other millennia had walked on. I know I keep using the word amazing, but it really was an awesome experience. Marjorie had never been before either and she felt the same way I did, and Carol said that even though she’d been before, she was really struck by the beauty of it.

Our first stop on our excursion was the St. Peters-in-Chains Cathedrals and the draw of St. Peters-in-Chains Cathedrals was the fact that it contained a statue of Moses. I have to say that upon entering the Cathedral, I was awestruck. The art was simply amazing. It’s just hard to really say how amazing the Cathedral was. The statue carved by Michelangelo of Moses is very famous, the majestic bearded figure is holding the 10 Commandments. We stayed there about 20 minutes to take photographs. The carving in the marble is so lifelike and realistic that it really is a marvel at how that was done so many years ago. I felt the same thing about the paintings because of the incredible beauty of them and the detail. What I didn’t realize at that time was that St-Peters-In-Chains though beautiful, paled in comparison to the places we would later see. It was just a beautiful experience.

On to the Coliseum. When we pulled up in front of the Coliseum, I just felt struck with a sense of wonder at seeing one of the amazing marvels of the ancient world. Some of the tours were to go inside the Coliseum, but ours simply stopped there and gave us time to walk around the outside. But that was enough just to get a sense of the size and the grandeur of it and to think about the things that took place there. It was just amazing. There were hordes of people and it was super, super hot. There was a group of college students who were dressed in togas as well as guys dressed up in ancient gladiator garb and took pictures with tourists. I want to say it was two Euros to take a picture with them, but we just stood back and took their picture from a distance. We weren’t interested in being hugged by a sweaty gladiator. We wandered around the Coliseum and our tour guide gave us a lot of history about the various pieces of the Coliseum that had been reconstructed and some of the more important events that had taken place there and we were free to wander for half an hour. Very close to the Coliseum is the Arch of Constantine. The Arch was dedicated in 315 AD to celebrate Constantine’s victory three years before over his co-emperor Maxentius. Our tour guide explained that most of the medallions and the statues and the relics on there were scavenged from earlier monuments. It’s another very striking structure really near the Coliseum, in fact, less than a block away.

I have to say I’m a kind of picky when I take pictures. I don’t mind people in the background, but somebody’s face right in the foreground is irritating, but of course given the throngs at the Coliseum, it was very difficult to get a clear shot. But of course, our bus driver was so awesome, that he violated I don’t know how many traffic laws to get really close to the Coliseum. We all had to run and get on the bus and he would pull off before the police came. All of us were very grateful to get quickly back on the air-conditioned bus without a long trek.

If you are interested in going to Rome to see the Coliseum, there’s a website called www.italylogue.com/planning-a-trip/roman-coliseum.html and in that it says, and boy this is really good advice, “If you go in the summer time be sure to take water and to wear sunscreen. There’s no protection from the sun and it can be brutally hot and it says, believe me, you’ll be glad you brought water with you” and we were. One of the things that we really liked about the tour company for that excursion was that when we got on the bus, we each had a bottle of water and that was awesome and boy were we glad to have it. For a little bit about the history of the Coliseum and a 360◦ tour, see www.destination360.com/europe/italy/coliseum.php.

After we boarded the bus, we were on our way to the Vatican and the views from the bus were also pretty striking. One of the things we passed while on the bus was the Castel Sant’Angelo, considered one of Rome’s most famous landmarks. It is also known as Hadrian’s Mausoleum. We arrived across the street from the Vatican. There was an amazing view looking at the front of St. Peter’s Basilica, one of the most important churches in all of Christendom, at least according to our tour guide. You can see, if you look closely at the picture, each one of those individually carved figures on the top. It was pretty amazing. I know I keep using things like amazing and astounding, but it really was awesome and amazing to see these things in person. We were standing at the outside and looking at the statues around the top right there in St. Peter’s Square. We saw the Vatican guards about whom there is a great deal of history. They were pretty interesting to see. We couldn’t help, though, but feel sorry for them in their uniforms. They looked pretty hot. They are also known as the Helvetians. As we stood in front of the Basilica, I could only think about all the times I had seen news clips with the Pope’s Easter or Christmas message and to stand in that spot! Again, it was pretty awesome. One of the best things about the “Fabulous at 50” cruise was getting to go to a lot of the places that we had always wanted to go. This was truly one of the highlights for me. I must say that one of the places I most enjoyed visiting was Rome and I would love to go back and spend an extended stay there. We entered the Vatican with our tour guide who had was pretty cool little headphones. The devides picked up our tour guide’s transmission so that even though there were tons of tourists and many tour groups, we would set our dial on a certain channel and then our tour guide could talk to us as we wandered about and took pictures. The artwork in the Basilica was just something to behold. You had to wonder, or I did wonder, how those ceilings were carved in such elaborate detail, given the lack of technology or the tools, it was just a site to behold and I took a plenty of pictures. I could not help but be blown away by the details on the ceilings, in addition to all the sculptures and the frescos, just looking up at the ceiling and particularly where the light came through. It’s truly a holy place, I do believe that. Outside of the Basilica there are carvings of both Peter and Paul. The statue of St. Peter that stands outside in St. Peter’s Square holds a long sword in his right hand and his left holds a book and he has a pointed beard and on the book, the inscription in Hebrew is Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me”, the text from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. In the right hand of the statue of St. Peter he holds the keys which is the symbol of the power promised to him by Christ in Cesaria Phillipi. In his left hand is a scroll bearing the words “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven” which is based on the gospel of Matthew 16:18-19.

After that we were free to see Rome on our own, so we took off with lots of energy (amazing, lots of energy, given the heat). As we walked across the Tiber for lunch we also saw some of the other sites of Rome. I took a number of pictures of street scenes including a close up of Castel S’ant Angelo which I’ve mentioned before. Our tour guide had given us a little map and told us the best routes to walk. The bridges were not simple bridges. On each bridge were carved elaborate figures as though they were standing guard stuck in stone. We then arrived at the Piazza Navona where we saw the Fountain of Neptune. We were really hot and really tired and really hungry and we thought about eating, but then we decided that the restaurants there were very expensive, and in fact our tour guide had warned us that if we would just walk on we would get to places that were much less expensive. She gave us a very interesting tip: she said if you want to know if you’re being overcharged look at the price of bottled water and it should be no more than 1½ Euros. If it’s more than that, you’re being really overcharged. She said it’s really a place for tourists and that you could get much better food, more authentic food, and much less expensive food if you just continue to walk further. So, walk we did, despite the fact that we were tired and hungry and grouchy, and we did find some very reasonable restaurants. We sat down and Marjorie had a Roman pizza and Carol and I had salad. I had cannelloni and Carol had some ravioli. After that we said, “OK, ladies we have to get a plan.” We only had probably about an hour and forty-five minutes before we had to be back to the tour bus. Now my two “Fab at 50” buddies were feeling the effects of the heat and the humidity and they were just thinking “There’s no way we’re going to do it.” But it’s important if you’re all the way in Rome from Fayetteville, Arkansas, to see the things that are important. So, I ran over to a cab driver (and by the way that was a rare site because the taxis were on strike that day) and asked him how much he would charge us for one hour to see those sites. He told us that the ride, in a cool air conditioned cab, would be 40 Euros and we thought $20 a piece was definitely worth it. So we hopped in the cab.

Our first stop was the Trevi Fountain. There is a lot of lore around the Trevi Fountain and so many people had talked about it, including our tour guide. Now I mentioned earlier that every evening there would be a video that would show about the sites of the next port and provide tips about particular destinations. It mentioned the Trevi Fountain so we had to go there, or at least I thought we really should go there. And since we had our air conditioned cab, it was a lot better. The Trevi Fountain is described on a website, so I’ll let you look at that www.italyguides.it/us/roma/trevi.htm, but it was incredible. There’s a lot of lore around it and our tour guide had told us that everyone goes to the Trevi Fountain to toss in coins. That came from a very famous art film apparently that was made in Italy. If you know what it is, please write in and comment. You can help me. My memory is not that good. Anyway, if you throw in one coin, it means that you want to return. If you throw in two coins, it means that you want a new romance and if you throw in three coins you’ll have a divorce, so given that I was torn about that, I took and threw in one coin to come back and two coins to come back with a new love. We’ll see what happens. No matter what, it was definitely worth getting to see, just incredibly beautiful. Again, very, very crowded but we managed to get some great pictures, then it was back into the cab and we were on our way to the Spanish Steps, another famous site in Rome. At the foot of the Spanish Steps is the famous Baraccia Fountain, the work of Pietro Bernini and his son, Gian Lorenzo. The Spanish Steps are named after a Spanish ambassador who lived in the square above the steps. They are done in a Roman Baroque style and there are 138 steps. They were built with French diplomat Etienne Gueffier’s bequeathed funds of 20,000 scudi in 1723-1725 linking the Bourbon Spanish embassy to the Holy See and they are a must see for tourists. There are lots of beautiful shops around there. It’s also a place to sit and hang out if you’re in Rome. There were plenty of people sitting there to have conversations and just hanging out. After that, it was back in the cab and as we drove I snapped a number of street scenes. Then our driver took us to random places before heading back in the cab again to get back to our meeting point for the bus pick up. Lots of street scenes again and then we jumped out and went into a little gift shop to do a little bit of souvenir buying for Rome and I bought my mom a beautiful silk scarf. We didn’t buy too much from there, but mainly used the restroom, got some Italian ice, and waited for the bus to show up. I have to say that we were in a lot better shape than a lot of our fellow cruise passengers. Of course we had a wonderful air conditioned cab for the last hour and a half of our excursion where other folks had been hoofing it around in the heat and humidity on foot. So we were fresh and ready to go and everybody else was pretty tired and pooped out.

We were very much looking forward to the third day because after the break neck pace at which we toured the day before in the hot sun, we were ready for something a little more relaxing. Because we had to leave our ship early, we ordered room service, which we woofed down and then went to the theater to await in disembarkation with the other folks in our tour group. This day we were arriving at Livorno, Italy and from there it was easy to get to Florence and Pisa, but we had selected something a little more relaxing which was a wine tasting in Tuscany excursion. That just sounded great to all three of us. I remember there’s a movie, “Under the Tuscan Sun” and the setting was just beautiful so I was excited about being able to be there myself. I have to say that this whole cruise was a dream come true because I had never been to any of the places that the cruise docked and it just felt incredible to be standing in those places. Even though our tour guide the day before had us on a forced march through Nice, Monaco, and Monte Carlo, just to be there was amazing. It was places you had seen on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” or in “James Bond”. I know that the movie “The Transporter,” (I believe at least the second one) looks like it was set in that area, the French and/or Italian Riviera.

We were looking forward to wine tasting in Tuscany described in our excursion book as traveling through the Tuscan countryside and visiting a small vineyard that produces wine, which made the region famous. Wine is never in short supply on Italian tables. The country produces some fine wines and Tuscany is the place where wine is tradition. It goes on to say, “driving through the Tuscan countryside, you will admire the soft rounded hills, the medieval architecture of the village, and the silver green of the olive trees mingling with the dark green of the cypress trees.” How awesome does that sound? That’s what we thought, too!

We left on what was to be a four-hour excursion. We got off the boat and boarded our tour bus and departed on a very relaxing drive through the Tuscan countryside. That was one of the biggest draws of this excursion. It was absolutely beautiful. On our drive out to the farmhouse in the Italian countryside, we passed fields of sunflowers which I didn’t realize were grown there, rolling hills, very old homes kind of like almost something that came out of a fairytale, and medieval looking churches. We finally arrived in the rolling hills in the countryside of the farmhouse we were to visit and there were tomatoes growing in the yard, a fabulous view, a very idyllic setting, and of course vineyards. We entered into the winery which really looked like it was a building attached to the house and we saw the vats where the wine was stored and the daughter of the family gave us a description of how the various wines were made. The tour wasn’t very long, but it was pretty neat just to learn about wine making on a small scale. One of the most fun parts of this excursion, as you might imagine was the actual wine tasting itself. There were a number of sliced meats, something similar to salami but without the peppers, salami and ham and all kinds of cheeses and breads and olives and then on the table were various bottles of the wine. One of them was called Trebblano and another one was called Montecradoblanc. All the wines available from the small winery were on display in the dining room area where we had our wine tasting and our snack. After our wine tasting we were free to wander the estate for a little while and then back on to the bus for the ride to the cruise ship and back through the countryside.

On the way back to the ship, because it had been such a relaxing day and the views of the countryside were so beautiful, a lot of the folks on the bus tended to take a little nap. It was just too fascinating, so I felt like a compulsive picture snapper, but it was just so amazing to be there that I wanted to capture all I could of that experience. We didn’t buy any wine because we didn’t want to have to deal with taking it home in our suitcases because as you know there’s so many restrictions on the amount of liquids you can take on to the airplane.

That evening we had made reservations to experience intimate Italian dining (in the words of the cruise ship) at Portofino. On the cruise ship you could have the regular dining and I think I mentioned before you could go upstairs and have the buffet. They also had two specialty restaurants, which had a $20 additional fee to eat there, but promised to offer an upscale meal and exquisite service. We decided to try the Italian restaurant while we were in Italy and in fact the meal was fantastic. I’m really frustrated for the foodies out there that I didn’t keep better track of the food, but you couldn’t take the menus out of the dining room and I didn’t have any way to keep track of all the various meals we had. For the next one, I will probably just take a little notepad and jot down some notes because part of the fun of cruising is the fabulous meals that you have on ship. Click here for an example of a menu from Royal Caribbean on international sailing. Every day when you got the little daily planner that I mentioned before, it would tell you what the dress was for dinner, so it might range from casual, smart casual, formal, like that. Well we set the standard that we always wanted to be smart casual at the very least, so we looked very spiffy as we went to dinner at Portofino’s.

Anyway, back to the story, we went to Portofino’s for dinner and it was absolutely fabulous. By the way, every evening you could tune in on the TV in the cabin and watch a video about port and shopping information for the next day’s port, so what we would generally do is turn that on as we got dressed for dinner so we would know what to expect the next day, what kind of things to look for, and even what things to look out for. It was a very helpful way to prepare for the next day because our next day we arrived at Civitavecchia, and from that port we were going into Rome, so we really wanted to be prepared for that trip.

That evening there was a Salvador Dali art exhibition, a show by a guy named Gorony Thom and he was hilarious. He was sort of a comedian juggler and when we looked at his posters we thought, “Oh, boy, lame” but it really wasn’t. He was hilarious and we had a lot of fun with his show. He really was a hoot. After that we went to play a game called the “Finish that Lyric” game show up in the Colony Club at 10:30 p.m. and there was also dancing with the hits that started at 11:00 p.m. up in the disco, and karaoke fun time at 11:15 p.m. Karaoke was, as karaoke is anywhere, pretty amazing and for the most part pretty awful and pretty funny. We then realized we had a long day ahead of us in Rome, so we headed down to the cabin to get some rest for the next day.

Just to give you a sense of some of the activities that take place on the ship, we of course didn’t go to all of these: there was a gathering for solo travelers, a Pictionary tournament, they showed the movie “Harry Potter 5” in Spanish as well as the “Bourne Ultimatum,” there was British TV trivia for the passengers who were from England, a honeymooners reception, a digital camera sale, and an adult shuffleboard tournament that evening. There was always a lot to do and as I mentioned before, starting at 5:30 p.m. there were nine different varieties of music available to passengers.

Today we arrived at Villefranche, France. Villefranche is a small, coastal town, located in the heart of the French Riviera, which stretches from St. Tropez to Menton on the Italian border, and includes the cosmopolitan towns of Cannes, Nice, and Monte Carlo. The Riviera, often referred to as the Côte d’Azur, has beautiful beaches and pleasant climate, and it is a major tourist resort. The hill-sides surrounding it contain many small, fortified towns which still retain much of their medieval character. There’s different ways that you leave a ship to go into see the various places. One is to tender over and a tender is a small boat that holds maybe 60 people (I don’t know, I’m guessing). That is where the port is not big enough for the ship to come over. The other way is where the ship docks and you just come down the main way and walk right on to the pier.

As we got into the tender we sat upstairs and we had met a young lady named Claudia and as the four of us sat there and took in our first real day at sea, all I could think was how amazing it was to be there and how very, very beautiful the scenery around us was. Every day the cruise ship would put out a little mini newspaper with the day’s activities called the “Cruise Compass” and it described our stop in Villefranche as the gateway to the one of a kind French Riviera home to Monte Carlo and Nice, shaded by jagged mountains touching the blue shores. The French Riviera offers sunny beaches, sophisticated resort cities, quaint red roof villages and spectacular views. We had selected an excursion and the excursions are little day trips that you take from the ship that are sponsored by the cruise ship and they take you around to see various places that are in close proximity to wherever it is that you stopped for the day. We had picked for this port the excursion entitled, “Nice, Eze and Monaco.” It was fabulous. We very much enjoyed that excursion.

We started out in the morning by going to Nice. Nice is just 3 miles from Villefranche and is known as the capital of the French Riviera, its main attraction being its location, right in the middle of the Côte d’Azur. In Nice we did a little bit of touring on the bus and after a while we parked the bus and we got off and we were able to go to the flower market there. Nice was incredibly beautiful. It was easy to know why the rich and famous love to winter there and the description of the excursion said that it is one of the favorites of the jet set, so we spent about half an hour walking around the flower market. The flower market was incredibly beautiful and it had all kinds of food, fare, art and pastries.

We then got back on the bus and headed for Eze. On the way to Eze we stopped and got some beautiful, beautiful pictures from the mountain road on the climb to Eze. Eze is a charming medieval village that is perched on a cliff 1400 feet above the Mediterranean and the views were spectacular. Looking back over Villefranche and Beaulieu. You have to walk through the village on foot because it had very narrow cobblestone streets and on those streets, they sort of twisted and turned up the hill and were very steep by the way, and there were little restaurants and shops and galleries and that was pretty neat and on the top was a beautiful garden. You had to work to get there, it was quite a hike, but when you got up there the views from the top were just spectacular. You could come down from the garden and there was a very beautiful old church there and then after we came all the way back down to the bottom, we had lunch in a little restaurant named Du Chevat Blanc and inside there was a guy playing the accordion and he just kept hanging out at my table. He was pretty funny. He sang songs that he thought I would know, but of course I didn’t know them or they weren’t my favorites. He was very sweet. For lunch we had wine (there is wine everywhere) and cheese and olives and then we had sort of like a stewed chicken and a pastry for dessert.

From there we boarded the bus and went to Monaco and walked around Monaco for a little while. Our tour guide took us to see the church at which Princess Stephanie was married. We also saw the homes of some of the royalty. We went into a beautiful little garden area around the Rock of Monaco, the wall city overlooking the sea. It was really cool.

From there we went to Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo is 6 miles from Villefranche and it belongs to the Principality of Monaco and is governed independently, although the way of life is distinctively French. Known as the play-ground of the rich, it is famous for its wealth. Monaco is ruled by Prince Rainier III, a direct descendant of the Grimaldi family, who has reigned since 1275. In Monte Carlo we saw the Grand Casino and there was like a little sculpture garden in front. It was amazing to be in Monte Carlo because I never thought I’d be there. All I could think of was the James Bond movies where he would go and gamble at the Grand Casino in Monte Carlo. We didn’t go in because we weren’t gamblers, but I have several pictures of the outside of it. It was very clear that this was the playground of the affluent. Unfortunately, it was so hot and everywhere where went that day was uphill and it was a very long excursion- eight hours and thirty minutes. By that time, the crew was cranky, so we went into an outdoor café that had a mister and had Italian ice and also some cold drinks and just caught our breath a little bit. We then walked back down and got on the bus and from there we rode back to the dock and took the tender over to the ship. It was a full day and a really, really neat day.

When we got back to the ship we were hot, sweaty and tired and we couldn’t wait to shower and get dressed for dinner. We went to dinner early that evening. The evening’s entertainment was The American Drifters in the Main Theater and also that evening there was a movie entitled “The Game Plan,” a digital camera demonstration, dancing to the hits in the disco, and a Majority Rules game show in the Colony Club.

We asked the night before whether we could hire a driver to take us around because we only had so many hours in the day before we had to be on our cruise ship. The cruise ship was to depart at 7:00 p.m. and you had to be on by 5:00 p.m. and we wanted to try and see some of Barcelona before we left. We had left a note for the morning clerk asking whether we could hire a driver, so Friday morning we were awakened by a call from the front desk informing us that to hire a driver for three hours, it would cost us $450 US dollars, plus $80 US dollars for any hour that went over and $23 for the driver’s lunch. We opted to learn the metro instead, but then we found out that we could walk to what we really wanted to see. We also found a lovely little restaurant on the main floor of the hotel and sat down and had breakfast. Our waitress was a delightful young lady who told us how much she loved gospel music and that there were large popular well-attended gospel concerts all over Barcelona. To our surprise and delight she even sang “Oh, Happy Day” for us, so we were off to a very special start that morning. The breakfast, for the foodies out there, had ham, cheese, croissants, scrambled eggs, sausages, quiche, all kinds of breads, fruit, peach, orange and pineapple juice, yogurt, and cereal. As you can imagine, we were good to go once we finished eating breakfast.

Roman Wall and Defense Towers

We took off walking and just photographing interesting street scenes, there was just so much to see. One of the first things we came across was an old fort. There’s a picture of it, along with the sign in front and it says, “Roman Wall and Defense Towers” and we took a number of pictures there. And, you know me foodies, I took a picture of the little sandwich shop across the street. We then saw a great massive cathedral under construction and we came across the equivalent of a Spanish flea market and in the back of the flea market was a group of guys playing a guitar and singing and that was pretty fun. After that, we continued up the street and we found a pretty neat souvenir shop, so we did a little bit of souvenir shopping (actually I didn’t buy anything) and Carol and Marjorie found good things to take to the people back home. We headed on our way after purchasing souvenirs. It was so marvelous being in a city so old and the architecture was amazing. At one point we came across a building with, I don’t even know what this technique is called, but it looked like there were women in a Greek style carved into the outside of the building. We also came across a store called “Very Cheap” and I thought that was pretty funny, and a statue of a very stern looking man with a pigeon sitting on his head, which was pretty funny. It was then time for the first serious shopping stop. We went into a purse and leather goods store and I have to tell you that Marjorie loves purses, so she purchased a purse. It was pretty. It was black and white and it’s kinda hard to describe. It’s really pretty, though, and unique, and on we continued on our meander. We ended up bumping into the University of Barcelona and we went inside and took several pictures there and boy did it have the feel of a campus. Even though, of course, we were in a totally different culture, a campus is still a campus.

I have to say thanks very much to my two traveling companions because I’m sort of the geek who likes to go and visit other schools, even on vacation. Anyway, after leaving the University of Barcelona, we set out to look for the Gaudi Buildings and Antoni Gaudi was an artist whose work is very elaborate and it is from his name that the word “gaudi” is taken, so having never seen those we set out to do that. When we arrived at the first Gaudi Building, there was a small crowd outside taking pictures and it was immediately apparent why they are so fascinating. It’s really hard to describe. You can see the pictures here in the blog and I think I’ll let his work speak for itself. Say this, it certainly is distinctive. After we saw the smaller Gaudi works, we headed out to see Barcelona’s most famous sight and that is Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. That name means the church of the holy family and it was designed and partially constructed by the master architect who I mentioned before, Antoni Gaudi, and it later became his most famous achievement. He spent 43 years of his life working on this incredible project beginning in 1883 working until the day of his death on June 10, 1926. Gaudi designed it with the intent of creating a 20th Century cathedral using visual symbolism to express the many mysteries of faith. His plan had three facades symbolizing birth, death and the resurrection of Jesus. Work on the church continued after Gaudi’s death and it continues today. The current design is based on a combination of reconstructive versions of Gaudi’s original plans that were lost in a fire and modern adaptations. It was an incredible sight to see and I’m not sure the pictures that I have really capture it, but they at least give you a sense of the cathedral.

After seeing the cathedral, yikes, we were short on time! We had arranged for the front desk to call a taxi for us to take us to the cruise boat and we were about 10 minutes away from the time we were supposed to meet the taxi. There was a taxi stand around the cathedral, and we hopped in a taxi and directed him to hurry back to the hotel where our taxi was awaiting to take us to the cruise ship. We had to order a mini van to fit all of our luggage to go to the cruise ship. Our taxi driver was very gracious about our last minute arrival and cheerfully helped us load all of our luggage into the mini van taxi. Now I know some of you are wondering or “tisk tisking” at the fact that we had so much luggage, but in our own defense, our entire trip was 14 days, the cruise was a 12 day cruise which meant you needed day gear and nice attire for dining. There were also three formal dinners during the course of the cruise, so quite frankly that was a lot of stuff. Anyway, I just had to say that in our own defense. As I said, we liked our taxi driver, he was very cheerful. When we got in the cab we took it as a good omen when the music he was playing was a Barry White CD. We just cracked up laughing and then we sang all the way to the ship, so when we arrived at the dock we were in the best mood ever and the taxi driver got a nice fat tip and he even sang with us. It was a hoot! What a good omen for what our journey would be like.

Now if you might recall, I told you that we had trouble printing Marjorie’s sea pass, but that was no problem because she had completed the on-line process and she was sharing my cabin and so we were able to pull up her records and we were on the ship with our sea pass in no time. For those of you who haven’t cruised, the sea pass is a little card that serves as your ID card every time you get on or off the ship. It is like the size of the cards that hotel doors have, it opens your room door, and it’s also your charge card for everything on the ship. There’s no cash used on the ship, except in the casino, which really wasn’t our issue. You use your card to buy drinks or to buy whatever at the shops, so all you need on the ship is your sea pass. What happens is that when you register on-line, you register a credit card and everything you buy is charged to your credit card, so it’s kinda convenient, but you better not lose it. So, as I was saying before I digressed, we got on the ship very easily and then you had to wait for your luggage to be delivered so we decided to go and have a late lunch. We went up to the Windjammer Café on the 11th floor of the ship and is very casual dining with a buffet style dining area. I have to tell you that we tended to prefer the dining room and to have food served. One of the reasons is because the Windjammer Café tended to have a large number of young children and teens who reached and grabbed and also it tended to be really hectic when there were a lot of people up there. If you just sat down and had your lunch and ordered off the menu and had it served, that was a lot quieter and a lot nicer. Anyway, that wasn’t open, so we went to the Windjammer Café and we had a light lunch and we went back down to our rooms to explore the cabin and to begin to unpack our many, many outfits. I forgot to tell you that the name of the ship was the Brilliance of the Seas. It’s a Royal Caribbean ship and our cruise was a 12-day Mediterranean cruise.

After we got our suitcases and had finished unpacking, there was a sail away deck party and we went up for that and then we had to run downstairs and hurry and get our life jackets for the life boat drill. The lifeboat drill is pretty dreadful. It’s necessary, I understand it, but it’s always yucky. What you do is you go in the closet, you take out a life vest. Each cabin has life vests that are numbered with the number of the cabin and then you go up to the promenade deck, which on this ship was deck 5, and you stand in the sun while the captain reads the instructions for an emergency and how to get on the life boat. The other problem is that you have to wait until all the guests in your staging area show up and there’s always some folks who don’t show up on time for the drill and we have to stand there and it was pretty hot that day in that hot icky sweaty life jacket. I know that it’s important to do and had we needed it, we would be glad that we had gone through the drill.

After the drill we went downstairs, took showers and got ready for dinner and we had opted for what is called the “my time” dining which means that we could eat at any time from 6:30-9:30 p.m. We did that because the length of the excursions, which are the trips at the various ports, differ depending on what we were doing that day and we wanted the flexibility to change our dining hour. We went down to dinner and foodies you are going to kill me, but I did not keep records of the fabulous meals. Let me just say that at each meal, there were at least six appetizers, six entrees, six desserts, as well as salad and soup. It was fine dining indeed.

After dinner, we went up to the Pacifica Theater, the main theater on the ship, for a welcome aboard show and that was really fun. On the cruise ships, they have Vegas/Broadway style shows with dancing and singing, comedians, and magicians. We even had some hangul dancers. Every night there is a show and the first was sort of a welcome aboard review and it was a lot of fun. We really enjoyed it. Afterwards, we went up to the disco for the Motown hour and it was kind of lame so we left. There weren’t very many people up there and the music was not that great. We walked downstairs and went to the Colony Club, which was another one of the nightclub areas, and they had a karaoke kickoff and that was hilarious. We got to watch everybody sing karaoke and then we went back up to the disco for the 4th of July bash and there was champagne that night. That was a pretty full first day on the ship, and we went to our room to rest for the next day.

Here’s a little bit about the ship and what was available. There were a lot of venues for music and dancing, so for example, there was music by the pool with a group called the Tropical Duo, which was a steel drum player and a guitarist. There was a group called The Souled Out Show Band. We called them the SOLD, sold out because they were terrible the whole time. We didn’t go back to see them. Then there was a Graces High Society trio, which was a little string trio. There was always a dj on the discotec and there was something called the Venus Duo, which was a guy who played sax and a pianist, so there was something for everyone in terms of music on this ship and that wasn’t even everybody, but there was also a piano bar.

Hotel Duquesa

When we arrived in Barcelona, the customs line was dreadful. It was very, very long. We waited about 1½ hours just to get through customs and then when we got downstairs our luggage still was not there, so we weren’t too tickled about our Barcelona Airport arrival experience. We got our luggage, we went to the cabstand, and we had such big suitcases that we had to put a suitcase in the front seat! We tried to talk with the cabbie and we remembered enough simple phrases to signal our interest in Spain. We arrived at our hotel, which was the Hotel Duquesa de Cardona. It is a boutique hotel that was located along a maritime promenade in the gothic quarter, a five-minute walk from Olympic Park and one kilometer from Barcelona’s Las Ramblas Boulevard.

Carol checks in

We really liked the hotel. It was small, but quirky. There were only 34 guest rooms, so it wasn’t huge. You didn’t have to worry about running into a lot of people and the style is referred to as “mordeniste” with flat screen TVs, marble bathes, Turkish towels, mini bars, bathrobes and slippers, and high speed internet. We booked it because it was near to the pier where we would depart for our cruise. When we got to the hotel, we found out that Marjorie LaRue, our third companion for the cruise and one of the “Fabulous at 50”, had already checked in. We dumped our stuff, met with Marjorie, put on our tiaras and headed for a walk (although we didn’t wear our tiaras for our walk). We found a little bar and stopped and had sangrias, sausages, cheese and we ordered salad and the salad was different than what we expected. It was tomato, egg, tuna, green and red pepper, and olives. Nobody else in our group was very excited about it, although I thought it was pretty decent, just a little heavy on the oil from the tuna. We also had assorted meats, which were ham, salami and I’m not really sure what the other meat was.

After we had eaten, we walked along the docks where there were vendors selling jewelry, puppets, clothing and art. We popped for a second into the Museum of Catalonian History and took pictures all the way around.

Band Playing in the Park

We also saw a little band playing in the park. On the way back to the hotel we had worked up an appetite so we stopped at the Sailor Restaurant and had a fabulous meal alfresco. We had chicken paella, jambas, which are huge, shrimp. I had lobster piaya and green salad and we shared a pitcher of sangria. My favorite thing of all was the fact that they had chocolate mousse for dessert and boy, oh boy, was it yummy. Our waiter, whose name was Moisus, surprised us all after dinner with shots of schnapps. To Carol and Marjorie, he gave green apple, and to me he gave peach. Fortunately, the hotel wasn’t very far like two doors down and we headed back to the hotel to plan our next day’s outing and transportation, as well as to print Marjorie’s sea pass.

Lunch Counter

The sea pass allows you to expedite your boarding of the cruise ship. If you don’t print it out in advance, you have to stand there and fill out a really long form and all that and Marjorie had completed the process, but just not printed it. What we found out after several attempts to try to get it to print and then calling Royal Caribbean was that you couldn’t print the sea pass 48 hours before the trip. Before going to bed that evening, we called downstairs and asked the night clerk if there was a restaurant nearby for breakfast. Clearly something got lost in the translation because he brought us up a room service door hanger. But at the time I have to say that he was a little bit distracted by two lovely young ladies who were keeping him company down there.

Carol Gattis, one of my cruise buddies, and her husband Jim picked me up at my house to head to the airport for our departure on our Fabulous at 50 cruise. When we arrived at the airport, we saw a couple of people we know from the U of A community – Tené Green, an alum of the University of Arkansas School of Law and Rick Stockdell, the KUAF station manager with his wife Beth. We were so excited we could hardly stand it. We checked our luggage with the skycap who was excited with us, and it was all uneventful. We flew into Chicago and while we were on the flight we reread our excursions, our excitement building all the time. I have to say on the flight from Fayetteville to Chicago we did have Grumpy from the seven dwarfs as our flight attendant, but we ignored him because it was all good in the neighborhood.

Things picked up tremendously when we arrived in Chicago and were met by a man on the jet bridge who we came to know later was named Ron Whitaker, “Cynthia Nance?” he asked. I said, “Uh Oh.” “No,” he said, “it’s something good! Would you like to go to the blublublublublu (that’s what it sounded like, I didn’t understand it at all).” The next statement was, “I have a cart waiting.” Not knowing where we were going, but willing to go, we both said, “Yes!” and we hopped on his cart. He took us through the airport, at a pretty break neck speed frankly for the number of pedestrians, and we arrived at the Flagship Lounge. What a pleasant space it was. A woman checked us in for our flight and explained that there was a complimentary full bar, including champagne, light lunch, a quiet area, free computer room and access, and lounge rooms and reading material with a sauna bathroom. Ahhhhh . . . so that was where we waited for the 4½ hours for our flight from O’Hare to Heathrow.

The flight itself was fantastic. We had been able to upgrade to business class where we felt quite pampered. The flight attendants learned we were headed to the Fabulous at 50 cruise and had a lot of fun teasing us in terms of being the party row, which I have to say we really were. Each seat in business class was like a private vehicle with a control panel that did everything from operating the private TV screen to the phone and then moving the seat every which way you could imagine. We received a little travel bag with footies, an eye mask, toothbrush, comb and some other stuff I can’t remember. We also were given Bose noise reduction headphones for our listening and quiet pleasure. It was pretty awesome!

The food was outstanding. We each had a filet mignon served with risotto and mushrooms. The flight was late departing due to turbulence, but the pilot was able to make up time in the air. Breakfast was a cheese omelet with potatoes, sausage, juice and coffee. And though it felt like a guilty pleasure, but I was able to read Vibe magazine from cover to cover, along with the New York Times.

Heathrow airport was pretty crazy. We had to walk up, down, around, under, over and across to get to the next gate and then hop on a bus. It was noisy and busy and after wearing the Bose speakers that had been provided in business class, we felt a little bit of a noise overload. We walked around and took a few pictures in Heathrow. Our departure from Heathrow to Barcelona was late because departed from a makeshift area where we had to wait for people to exit from an different international flight before we could use the same area to board our flight. Once we were underway, we had a 2 hour flight to Barcelona during which we were served an unusual looking– and tasting– ham and cheese sandwich for a snack.

One of my most favorite things in the whole wide world started my day, bright and early Tuesday morning, and that is my annual mammogram. Those of you who have endured the pleasure of a mammogram understand what I mean, but that said, I know it’s very important to have it done. I’m also very grateful to have health insurance to enable me to do that, even though the process itself is not a pleasant one.

Afterwards, it was time to head back to the law school for a 10:00 a.m. courtyard meeting with the artist, Jesús Moroles, who was in town. Many of the folks who had worked to bring the courtyard to life attended the meeting as well, including Steve Marshall, Thad Kelly, Mark Dilday, Jason Huckleberry, Lynn Stewart, Dan Street and Dennis Wewers. The reason for the meeting was to discuss outstanding concerns about the landscaping, last minute adjustments to the lighting of the courtyard, scheduling the refinishing of the concrete, future shipments of granite, and furniture to complete the granite tables. I am gratefule that everyone was able to be there to attend that meeting so we could finish up those last remaining details. After the meeting, Jesús and I went to lunch at Mama Dean’s. That was a lot of fun. It was the first time I got to spend quiet time with him and we had a delightful visit over great soul food.

At 3:30 p.m. I met with Teri Stafford for our weekly development meeting, and I have to tell you folks, that Monday and Tuesday were very distracted days for me because the next day I was to depart for the Fabulous at 50 cruise–and boy was that in the forefront of my mind. I spent Tuesday evening taking care of last minute details, packing, looking through the itinerary again, and double checking for my passport. I wanted to be certain that everything was all set for my departure for the Fabulous at 50 cruise on Wednesday morning.

Monday, June 30, began with Pilates as usual. Later that morning there was a reception to honor outgoing Chancellor John White and his wife, Libby (but I missed it while meeting with Teri Stafford and Dean Beard). Yikes!

At 11:30 a.m. one of my favorite folks came over (those of you who follow the blog have seen him repeatedly) Mike Johnson, Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities. Jay Huneycutt, Director of Planning and Capital Programming at Facilities Management, joined us as well. Once a year they come over to walk around the building and to discuss problems or issues of maintenance of the building and grounds. We walked around the building and I pointed out a number of concerns I have, particularly in light of the upcoming building dedication. Mike was very gracious in promising to work with me to get a number of these issues resolved, as well as to perhaps put in some new landscaping, particularly on the Maple Street side of the building. It is looking a little bit decrepit, particularly in contrast with the new building. After the walk around, we went to have lunch at Taste of Thai and I had the Pad See Eu and Thai iced tea and that was really good, as usual. After lunch, I walked around the building to visit with my colleagues and to find out what was new with them.

At 4:00 p.m. I met with one of our alums, Lisa Kelley. She had expressed an interest in the academic support position that we’re thinking about. I think I’ve mentioned it before. As it turned out, we decided to be a little bit more deliberate in our approach to the position. Although it would be helpful to the students to fill it sooner rather than later, we thought it important to have more input from the faculty in terms of the duties and structure the position, so we decided to wait a little bit. In the meantime I very much appreciate Lisa coming in to talk with me about it on a hot summer day. Hopefully, we’ll have a better sense of our needs this fall.

The conference started at 9:00 a.m. with a welcome from John Harvey, the President of AALS and Dean at Boston College. He is a very gracious and warm person. Professor Mike Green gave a few introductory remarks as well, as the chair of the planning committee for the 2008 workshops for all three conferences: new law school teachers, new law school clinical teachers, and the workshop on the retention of minority law teachers.

The substantive program began at 9:15 a.m. with a plenary panel on “Promotion and Tenure: Getting to Yes.” The panelists were Dean Harvey, Tanya Hernandez of George Washington University, and Mark Niles of American University. They gave a lot of useful pointers to new law professors on how to avoid the pitfalls on the road towards tenure.

The next session was entitled, “Teaching: Strategies to Success.” The speakers were Adrienne Davis, Timothy Davis and Serena Williams. The panel description noted that are a few “born teachers” who are able to command the classroom and foster an environment that encourages student participation and trust without breaking a sweat. But for most of us, there are a variety of specific challenges to face in the classroom, particularly for minority and female colleagues. The three panel members talked about some of those challenges and shared their experiences, and ways that they’ve overcome classroom challenges to engage students.

The AALS sponsored that afternoon featured Blake Morant, Dean at Wake Forest University as the keynote speaker. He is one of the loveliest people in legal education. He gave a very inspiring and thoughtful talk about why it’s important for all of us to remain in academy. He reminded us of what our contributions could and should be to legal education and to society more broadly.

That afternoon I was on the panel with Prof. Leonard Baynes of St. John’s Law School. Our panel was entitled, “Service: Strategies to Success.” During our presentation, we talked about the fact that new faculty should be careful about being overwhelmed by their service commitments. We engaged in a role play in which I was the most unreasonable dean on the face of the earth, who was requiring Len, the young faculty member (who happened to be the only person of color) to take on way too many service obligations. Len’s response demonstrated how a new faculty member could gracefully shuck some of those commitments. We talked suggested that a new teacher who has been tapped repeatedly by the dean to the extent that it is endangering her scholarship, might have senior faculty members or the associate dean intervene. We also answered questions about the various types of service and how each might be valued. As with the other panelists we reminded everyone that all rules are local and it is important for ne faculty members to know their institution and their specific faculty’s view on all these issues.

The next panel entitled, “Scholarships: Strategies to Success” was presented by Mechele Dickerson of the University of Texas and Xuan-Thao Nguyen from SMU. They gave a number of helpful tips on scholarship, specifically how to pick a topic, various types of research when to think about a scholarship agenda, how to start the writing process, what to do if you are stuck, when to circulate a draft, and what about SSRN. It was quite a thorough presentation.

One of the later sessions of the day was a small group discussion on scholarship which was very helpful, because attendees could raise issues that they really didn’t want to talk about in a plenary session. The senior faculty members were assigned to the various small groups to offer encouragement and advice. Afterwards, we gathered again for the final talk given by Dorothy Brown, “You Can Do This.” She was awesome and rocked the house, leaving all of us feeling empowered.

It was an honor to present during the conference. It’s important work, and just as important for the University of Arkansas to be visible encouraging new faculty members of color and to be visible on a national legal education programs.

Thursday evening, Professor Green invited me to attend the reception and dinner for the New Law Teachers Workshop which created a great opportunity to hang with two of our new faculty members, Professor Brian Gallini, and Professor Elizabeth Young. I met Brian in the lobby for a drink before the reception because he had a prior commitment that evening and couldn’t stay for the dinner. We were having a pleasant conversation when a very strange man walked up, and well, you’ll have to ask Professor Gallini what happened next. Let’s just say that he got things straightened our.

Brian and I took off then to find Elizabeth and the three of us attended the reception together. I was delighted to bump into one of my favoritest professors from Iowa, Jim Tomkovicz. He taught me Criminal Procedure, and that was a tall order. Seriously, I become fast friends with Jim and his family and even babysat for them while I was in school. Fortunately, Jim’s research area intersects with Elizabeth’s and Brian’s scholarship interests and he agreed to be a resource for them. Elizabeth, Jim and I sat together at the dinner and had a delightful time. It was the perfect ending to a long day.

Friday, I had an early flight to Houston, Texas where we were having our first law school reception at the Texas Bar meeting. We didn’t learn about this opportunity until a little bit late, so unfortunately we weren’t able to join the other law schools on Thursday night when they all had their receptions. Next year, though we’ll be there with the other law schools on Thursday evening. Fortunately, the Texas Bar Association was gracious enough to allow us to host a reception for our alums on Friday. Teri Stafford met me in Houston for our reception.

As usual on the way to the airport I visited with my cab driver. The topic of the day was the change from zone billing to metered fares. My driver, as you might imagine had very strong opinions about the change and felt it disadvantaged people who lived at the edges of the zones. Many of them he said, were working people who took a cab to work, but now most likely would not be able to afford it. It was, as always an interesting discussion, and the trip to the airport went by quickly.

The Texas Bar meeting was being held at the Hilton Americas in Houston and we had a little bit of time after arriving to gather our thoughts and freshen up before our reception that evening.

[I need to digress here to say that the Regional Director from my sorority Polly Sparks Turner (who I mentioned in an earlier blog posting because she came up to help the sorority celebrate it’s 10^th anniversary of the chartering) lives in Houston, and when she learned I would be there she was amazing. She has a very good friend, Algenita Scott, who is very active in the National Bar Association which was having a reception the same evening. Thanks to Soror Polly, I was able to go from our law school reception the National Bar Association reception. Many thanks Soror Dr. Polly Sparks Turner for your thoughtfulness and for coming to our reception and for bringing Ms. Algenita Scott Davis, former president of the National Bar Association with you. What an honor to have them both as our guests. I also very much appreciate Algenita taking the time out of her busy day, prior to attending the National Bar Association reception, to come and meet me and to learn about the University of Arkansas.]

Teri and I were very excited about the U of A reception and we were delighted when a number of our alums attended including Mark Torian, Bob Middleton, Tina R. Green, Gary Holman, Cedrick Frazier and Charles Stewart. We gave them an update on the law school including the completion of the building, and also the upcoming academic and speakers programs, and ecouraged them to visit the law school. It was a wonderful, warm reception. Although we didn’t have as large a turnout as we would have liked, next year we’ll be visible with the other law schools. Then as people hop from reception to reception they’ll be able to stop in to learn more about the University of Arkansas. We’re looking forward to seeing many more of our alums. Also believe it or not, I ran into Rick and Clair Ramsay in the elevator. Rick is the outgoing President of the Arkansas Bar Association this year, and our alum. It was fun bumping into them at the Texas Bar meeting.

After leaving our reception, Soror Turner took me over to the National Bar Association reception. It was a fun event at which I was able to meet a number of lawyers, from around the country, who are active members of the National Bar Association. Although I am a long time member, I’ve never been to the annual meeting. Unfortunately, I had a conflict again this year again, I with SEALS, but I’m looking forward to attending in the future. In the meantime, it was just fun to hang out, to meet a number new folks, and to learn of upcoming the National Bar Association programs.

After that long week so it was time to head back to the hotel to get some rest. Saturday consisted of flying back to Northwest Arkansas and being grateful to be home.