A Random Five post [022] — Venice to Athens via the Black Sea [Bulgaria] — Feline Friday

.

My Five things for happenings update, the cat and more cruise pictures

One: This, cat, a Hawaiian band member is the drummer. One of the chefs on our 2013-Venice-to-Athens-via-the-Black-Sea cruise made this cat from a pineapple.

You can see all of the band members, two of the chefs, and my Hawaiian shrimp salad here.

Below I will show pictures from our cruise that I took while we were stopped in Bulgaria.

 

 

Two:  Visiting with the cousins ~~ Saturday, October 19, we had planned to visit my cousins (link) in Nebraska for a couple of days and then visit my sister in Iowa during the week.  But we didn't go (link to my prior blog post about that). 

 

But the next weekend we did visit Mrs. Jim's cousins in Louisiana.  Above is Mrs. Jim with her 93-year-old cousin, Mary.  Mary still drives and she teaches her ladies' Sunday school  class every Sunday. 

 
On Sunday after church we did see more cousins, Dorothy who moved from Houston and SOME of the others.
 
One gave us this flower from her bush.  She calls it a Confederate Rose.  Mary took some blooms and also a couple of cuttings.
 
You may know more about Confederate Roses than they do.  I don't think they are real roses. (Wikipedia says, "Hibiscus mutabilis, also known as the Confederate rose or the cotton rosemallow, is a plant noted for its flowers."

Three:  Eating is good in our family.  Mrs. Jim loves the fancy food on our cruises.  One of her, and my, favorites is the Princess Coffee Club.  We make one card last a whole cruise or more because with the card the special brews are "free".  That sure beats the machine stuff.
 
Next is KP frosting the cupcakes she and Mrs. Jim had made.  The whole family loves chocolate.
 
Finally is the "Special" board in one of the British pubs we had visited.  I had a baked fish pie which was not on the menu.  Sorry, no picture.

  

Four:  I read this yesterday:  "Upwards of 30,000 (African) elephants were slaughtered by poachers in 2012 — the largest number in decades. Despite a 1989 global ban on commercial ivory trading, the last five years have seen a dramatic surge in poaching that threatens to wipe out the roughly 500,000 elephants still living in Africa, experts say."  (Read more here) 

Five: Our Bulgaria stop on the cruise.  First on our list was to go to the beach in Bulgaria.

The beach is on the Black Sea.  Neither Mrs. Jim nor I had been on the Black Sea before, let alone putting our feet in.  You will see below that I only put my finger in.

KP was leading the way.  We rode over to the beach and back in this little train.

    

 

For this port we had to tender. That meant for us that we must ride back and forth to the ship in the life boats. That is kind of fun every now and then.

- - - - - -

 Fine print stuff:

==> I am linked up today with Nancy at A Rural Journal. She conducts her "A Random Five" blog hop there. Click that link to read other "A Random Five" posts or to join in with your own.

==> For more Feline Friday cat pictures, you can to Sandee's blog here. Or go to Steve's at http://burntfooddude.us/ as he is the author of this meme.
==> Click on any picture for a larger size and a better view.