What’s Going On: Late June

One of the things I love the most is travelling. You can easily see that in my Instagram and in my Pinterest board of dream holidays. I love to share my travel pictures. I love to learn about different cultures and try new things. Every holiday I make it a point to try new things. That’s living life to the fullest. Last week I was on a cruise that sailed out of Southampton, England and went to two ports in Spain, Gijón and Bilbao; St Peter Port, Guernsey; and Paris. The cruise ship was the newest Royal Caribbean ship, Anthem of the Seas.

The ship itself was incredible and had some features I’ve never seen before on a cruise ship and it changed things about cruising. Instead of one main dining room and other alternate dining locations, there were multiple main dining rooms, each with a different menu and a different cuisine. There were bumper cars, a roller disco, a trapeze, a bar staffed by robots that would mix your drinks, a live escape game, The North Star – a capsule that lifts a group of people high up in the air, giving them 360 degree views, and a skydiving simulator. I had plenty of time to take advantage of this due to the sea days.

I’ll give you my take on the ports one by one:

Gijon: This was a nice city. There were some nice beaches. My family got some churros, but I only had a bite of one of them. I mostly walked around and I went inside a cathedral. It was a bit too cool to go to the beach and it started off a bit cloudy, and turned sunny. I wasn’t on a shore excursion for this port so there’s not much for me to report.
Bilbao: I got to go to the Guggenheim Museum. This museum was a game changer for the city because it went from industrial to attracting tourists. The museum itself attracts over a million visitors a year. The architect of the museum is Frank Gehry. The museum is shaped like a ship. Depending on the way the sun shines, the museum either looks gold or silver. Outside of the museum as part of the city’s deal with The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, there are sculptures outside that are available for the public to see, such as The Tulips, The Puppy, The Dancing Ladies, The Spider, and the fog that comes out every hour on the hour for 3 minutes. Inside there was a sculpture called The Matter of Time. Most of the art wasn’t my style or my favourite kind, but there was some nice artwork. I found a lot of the art to be pretentious and not my cup of tea. Whatever floats your boat (had to say that because the museum looks like a ship). The rest of the time I walked around the city and it was very nice.
St Peter Port, Guernsey: This was lovely and I would say it was my favourite port. The people were very friendly. My family went on a speedboat ride and we got to see seals and puffins around the nearby islands. It was a lot of fun. There were some gardens and I got to see the outside of Castle Cornet. I even went inside the library and I got to see a newspaper from 1874. The library looked very cool inside and was like I stepped into a time machine. It’s definitely a port I want to return to and I would recommend visiting Guernsey.
Paris: I have been to Paris before, but around Christmas time. I loved Paris and I was happy to be back there, this time in the summer. I got to take my parents and my brother to The Eiffel Tower (no time to go up it though), Arc de Triomphe, Champs Élysées, Notre Dame, and The Louvre. Five and a half hours wasn’t enough to spend in Paris and you’d need 3 days minimum to really see the city. The weather was lovely and I had a great time seeing these sights again.

Other things going on: I’m watching Steven Universe and Orange Is The New Black. I’m enjoying both shows. I’m leaving for Chicago on Friday and it will be a long road trip. I start summer school soon and this will be the last year of summer school provided everything goes according to plan. I’m turning 21 in August and so far I have no plans for my birthday, but it’s still a month away so maybe things will change. I’m not sure how often I’ll be posting new things on the blog, but I want to make sure it’s at least fortnightly. I want to focus on my final year of university and finish strong.

As far as future plans for the blog go, I am looking for submissions and information about rock bands from Europe. Continental Europe that is. I’ll be focusing on Britain later and I made a post about Irish rock bands earlier. If you want to check that out, click here. What I want to do with The Diversity of Classic Rock is talk about music from all over the world and include everyone. Some countries will get their own posts because there’s a lot of rock and pop musicians from there such as France, Germany, Sweden, and The Netherlands. The thing is I would really appreciate any help pointing in the right direction with researching bands from Europe. Please feel free to send an email to crazyonclassicrock[at]gmail[dot]com! Drop me a line if you want to write posts for the blog and help in any way or if you want to just chat! I’m always happy to talk. If you’d like to write a post for the blog, feel free to contact me and tell me your ideas and what you have in mind! I love hearing ideas from my readers.

Thank you everyone for the support! I’ll hopefully be posting the next Diversity of Classic Rock soon!

I know you wanted to see pictures, so here are a few good pictures. Stay tuned on Instagram! I’ll be posting pictures there as well.