Mediterranean cruise on the Queen Victoria: Part 3, Greece, Croatia, and Italy
Mediterranean cruise on the Queen Victoria: Part 3, Greece, Croatia, and Italy
Old Fortress, Corfu Read about our earlier cruise stops: Part 1 (Greece, Turkey) and Part 2 (Egypt).
After a day in port in Alexandria and another day at sea crossing the Mediterranean, we arrived in Corfu, Greece. We skipped the organized tour and spent the day wandering around town ourselves, visiting the new and old fortresses and enjoying a typically Mediterranean lunch in an outdoor cafe. Corfu, along with our previous Greek stop in Meteora, was featured in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only, my favourite of the Roger Moore Bond movies.
Across the red roofs of Dubrovnik One more stop before the end of the cruise: Dubrovnik, Croatia. Situated on the Adriatic, at its height Dubrovnik was a naval power rivalling Venice. The historic old town is protected by magnificent city walls, and a common excursion is to walk along the top of the walls all the way around the city. It’s quite a hike, and mom was sore by the end of it, but the memorable views make it well worth the effort. Dubrovnik was heavily bombed during the civil wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s but is now fully restored. You can see which buildings were bombed by comparing the old, pale red tiles with the new, brighter red tiles.
Mom and dad at St. Mark's Square, Venice Our cruise was to terminate in Venice. But bad weather struck again and derailed our plans: this time, fog. We sailed to within 10km of the port of Venice, but heavy fog prevented us from safely navigating through the lagoon and down the narrow inlets between the islands of Venice. We sat at anchor for half a day waiting for the fog to lift, but to no avail, and after dinner the captain set sail for the nearby port of Trieste. While I’d been to Venice a few times before, my parents never had, and I was worried that they would not get a chance to see it before taking the train down to Rome. We managed to squeeze in a few hours wandering around Venice, including the essentials: a ride on the canals, St. Mark’s Square, getting lost in the back streets and canals of Venice, and of course eating gelato.
My parents set off for a few days in Rome and I got on board the first of many planes to take me back to Australia, with barely enough time in Brisbane to unpack do laundry before going to Korea for a couple of conferences.
Check out all the pictures from the cruise in this gallery.
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Mediterranean cruise on the Queen Victoria: Part 2, Egypt
Stebila family at the Pyramids of Giza Read the first part of this travelogue here.
After sailing through Greece and Turkey, we spent a day at sea and crossed the Mediterranean to the port of Alexandria. For me, Egypt was the highlight of the cruise. I’d been to all of the other countries (and continents) on the cruise, but never to Egypt (or Africa). What traveler doesn’t imagine visiting Egypt and seeing the only remaining wonders of the ancient world, the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx?
Pyramids of Giza A few weeks before our cruise, we received word from the cruise line that the tour we had originally booked was no longer available due to security concerns. Our original tour included a visit to Giza for the pyramids and sphinx, as well as the archaeological museum in Cairo. That museum is located right on Tahrir Square, the site of Egyptian pro-democracy protests for the past year. Not a great place for tourists. As a result, we had to change tours and substituted a visit to the museum for a cruise on the Nile.
It’s a long bus ride from Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea to Cairo and Giza, first along the chaotic roads of Alexandria and then through the mostly uninhabited desert. Giza is a suburb of Cairo and the city comes right up to the plains on which the pyramids are situated. Our first stop was a scenic outlook with a great view of the pyramids, one that countless tourists before me have visited. I really like the picture above that I took from that outlook. Though most would seek a photo with a blue sky, I love how the clouds darkening the sky above the pyramids contrast with the sun lighting the plains from off-camera. I thought about Photoshopping out the vehicles on the road, but decided that I actually liked them there; they provide a sense of scale, movement, and contrast the ancient pyramids with modern transportation.
Pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure I was the only passenger on our bus who wanted to go inside a pyramid, but the tour guide graciously let me go while everyone else on the bus had to wait (I was under strict instructions: 15 minutes, max!). I went inside the smallest of the three pyramids, the Pyramid of Menkaure. I descended, hunched over, down a long, narrow, low-ceilinged staircase and then made a few turns and further descents before reaching the burial chamber. It’s not decorated, and archaeologists say it was never decorated. But it’s still amazing to be underneath that much rock. I was chased by a mummy but made it out safely.
Sphinx and the Pyramid of Khufu The Sphinx is located just a few hundred metres from the pyramids. It’s much smaller than the pyramids, and in a pit below ground level, so you’re practically at eye-level with it when you see it head-on. In case you’re wondering, the reason that the top of the pyramid in the picture at right looks different from the rest of the pyramid is that the top is the preserved original limestone covering. The whole pyramid was originally covered with a smooth limestone finish, but this valuable and portable stone was gradually stolen and only the most inaccessible bits remain.
We were scheduled to depart Alexandria that evening, but while at dinner the captain announced that the port was closed due to high winds, and as a result we would be unable to depart that evening. In fact, we spent almost the next whole day in port and departed about 24 hours after our scheduled departure. This meant missing one of our ports of call in Greece — Olympia — but my folks and I were not too upset as we had visited Olympia in 2005 and were not planning on taking an excursion this time around. On our extra day in port we couldn’t go ashore as the ship had already cleared customs and immigration for departure, but the Queen Victoria is such a lovely ship that an extra day on board was quite enjoyable. We went for afternoon tea, took in a lecture on British architecture, and I took a yoga class. Before I knew it, it was time again for dinner. Though I am not a particularly seasoned cruiser, Cunard seems to have far better food than most other ships, each evening’s dinner equal to a fine dining experience.
These blog entries seem to get longer and longer… our journey continues in another post…
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Mediterranean cruise on the Queen Victoria: Part 1, Greece and Turkey
Queen Victoria docked in Corfu In November, I met up with my parents in Europe for a 12-day cruise on board Cunard’s Queen Victoria cruise ship.
Monastery of the Holy Trinity Our cruise started in Athens and set out sailing around Greece until we reached the port of Volos, from which I took a tour to Meteora in central Greece. Wind and weather have eroded massive rock pillars from the hillside; near the end of the middle ages, monks begin building monasteries on the isolated peaks. More than 20 were built, though only 6 remain today. The tranquility sought by the few monks and nuns still living in the monasteries is regularly broken by pesky tourists.
The theatre of Pergamum Our next port of call was Kusadasi, Turkey, which is not to far from the old Roman town of Pergamum (Pergamon). Set atop a hill, Pergamum was famous for its altar to Zeus and for its theatre, one of the largest of the Roman empire.
Hagia Sophia We sailed through the Aegean Sea into the Bosphorus Sea and to Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul. I visited Istanbul in 2010, but my parents had never been before, so I was assigned the duty of being their tour guide through what-was-Constantinople. 
Interior of the Hagia Sophia For me, the highlight of Istanbul is the extraordinary church/mosque/museum, the Hagia Sophia (“Holy Sophia”). Constructed by the Roman emperor Justinian in 537, it is a masterpiece of Roman architecture, a massive open space covered by an enormous dome. It astonishes me that such a large building could have been built so long ago.
Blue Mosque When Constantinople was conquered by the Turks in 1453, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, though it has since been turned into a museum showcasing both its Christian and Muslim history. As you can see, many mosques are now patterned after it, including Istanbul’s famous Blue Mosque, just down the street. 
Dome of the Blue Mosque It’s called the Blue Mosque because the tiles decorating its interior are atypically blue, as you can see in the picture at right.
Our story continues in Egypt in a future blog post…
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A weekend in New York City
At the end of December I visited New York with my friends Joe and Lesley. I previously wrote about our experiences on New Year’s Eve in Times Square. This post discusses the rest of our time in New York
Lower Manhattan I flew from Detroit to New York on a tiny jet. Our flight into Laguardia flew right over Brooklyn, with a fantastic view of Manhattan out the left hand side of the plane, and I was lucky enough to have a window seat on that side.
Brooklyn Bridge at night In retrospect, it seems like all we did in New York was walk and stand in line. We must have been on our feet 8 to 12 hours a day for 3 days straight. On our first day, we headed down to Lower Manhattan, visited the World Trade Center site, took the Staten Island Ferry across and back, and then walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. We had dinner at Grimaldi’s, a very popular pizzeria in Brooklyn with a 90 minute line up out front. The subway ride back to our hotel at 11:30pm was an eye-opening experience; Joe thought it so notable that it should be on a “top 100 world adventures” list.
View along 42nd Street After standing in line for dinner, what better to do than stand in line for breakfast the next morning? We stayed just a block from what is apparently the best bagel place in New York, Ess-a-bagel. The line was a bit quicker — probably a 20 minute wait — and the bagels with any kind of cream cheese you might want (in my case, chocolate chip) were fantastic. I was smart enough to figure out that you could order online and pickup without waiting, which we did the next morning, bypassing the line and getting to our tasty bagels in an instant.
Angels heralding the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center Day 2 was spent in midtown Manhattan and around Times Square. The main event was seeing the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon. It won nine Tony awards this year. That evening, we wandered up Fifth Avenue at night, checking out the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, the Christmas window displays in the shops along Fifth Avenue, and the Apple Store cube at Central Park.
Empire State Building On the morning of the 31st, we headed to the Empire State Building for its commanding view of all of Manhattan. We made our way through line after line after line to eventually get up to the observation desk. We didn’t get to climb all the way to the top, but we did get to climb the last 8 flights.
Joe, Lesley, and I in Central Park After that, we headed up to Central Park, past The Dakota apartments, and through the park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In retrospect, walking around New York for a whole day before standing outside for another 5 hours for New Year’s Eve was not a brilliant idea. But as I previously wrote, we survived New Year’s, so it worked out in the end.
Central Park It was a short 3-day trip to New York with chaos — New York is apparently crazy with tourists at that time of the year — but we had a great time.
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New Year’s Eve in Times Square
Me in New York on New Year's Eve This past weekend I went to New York City with my friends Joe and Lesley. We went to New York to do some sightseeing, attend a performance of The Book of Mormon, and to go to New Year’s Eve in Times Square. I’ll write about the sights of New York a little later, but for now here’s a note about New Year’s Eve.
Chaos in Times Square on December 30 We wandered around Times Square a bit on December 30th and it was packed with people. Times Square is located at the intersection of two nearly-parallel streets, 7th Avenue and Broadway Avenue, with the cross streets being 42nd through 44th Streets. Times Square itself is like a bow tie between the two angled avenues.
1 Times Square The ball drops on top of 1 Times Square, a relatively short building at the south end of Times Square. In the picture at left, the pole that the ball drops down is visible, directly above the top Toshiba screen. It’s not a long drop, even though it looks like it is on TV. There’s a building directly behind it, so all the activity and the crowds happen north of the ball.
Ryan Seacrest on the main stage in Times Square For New Year’s Eve, there are several stages in Times Square. The main stage is closest to the ball and that’s where Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest is hosted. When we were in Times Square on December 30th after dinner, we caught Ryan Seacrest on stage rehearsing for the big night. He waved to us (personally).
Looking down 7th Avenue on New Year's Eve People apparently start lining up for New Year’s Eve around noon in Times Square. At 4pm the police start closing 7th Avenue and Broadway Avenue north from Times Square as people fill up the spaces. The crowd control is exceptionally well done. We arrived on 7th Avenue a bit after 7pm and got a spot between 55th and 56th Streets, but over the course of the next few hours the police gradually compressed people so that we eventually made it down to 53rd Street. Still 10 blocks north of Times Square and packed with people, and more people behind us all the way up to 59th Street.
In the picture above left, you can see the ball as a three-quarter circle halfway between the two upper-most video screens. The ball should actually be slightly higher and it moves up and down a little during the night, but it only drops basically from the bottom of the top-most video screen to the top of the next video screen. Not very far.
Surprisingly, there isn’t much going on while waiting for midnight. At 10 blocks up, there are no speakers, no screens, and no entertainment, so you have to make your own. You can see the big screens in Times Square, but only barely, so only occasionally could we recognize who was on the big screen. People partying in apartment buildings above us occasionally stepped on to their fire escapes to entertain us.
Happy New Year! They do countdowns to 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, 11pm, 11:20pm, and 11:30pm. And then the big countdown starts at 60 seconds to midnight. At midnight there are fireworks at both Times Square to the south and Central Park to the north. Confetti fills the air in Times Square, but not as far north as we were. And just like many New Year’s Eve parties as you start getting older, people started clearing out around 2 minutes after midnight.
New Year’s Eve in Times Square is certainly a unique experience. If I were to do it again I would probably go all out and stake out a place right in Times Square starting at noon, bringing a small folding chair and lots of things to entertain me. And right now I’m curious to watch a video of this year’s broadcast to see what was actually happening while we were on the street.
Happy 2012!
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World Tour
Throughout 2012, I’ll be running a new series on my blog called Douglas Stebila’s World Tour. Though I haven’t been to as many places as some, I’ve been to quite a few places around the world (38 countries and counting) so I thought would be nice to share some of the places I’ve been with you.
Every day, I’ll post a new photo from somewhere around the world. You’ll be able to find it on my special “World Tour” homepage, which you can get to by clicking on the shiny “World Tour” seal in the top right of the screen.
I hope you enjoy the tour!
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Elliptic curve cryptography on Google
Ten years ago, in September 2001, I started working at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, on a project to integrate a new form of cryptography, elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), in the web’s security infrastructure (the SSL/TLS protocol). There were several milestones along the way: the first contribution of our code to the OpenSSL and Mozilla projects in 2002 and 2003, publications describing our work in top security conferences, interoperability testing in 2005/2006, the official conclusion of the Sun Labs project around 2005, and the final publication of the standard defining the use of ECC in TLS in 2008. Our code can be found on literally billions of computers worldwide: in every version of Mozilla Firefox (type about:credits to see my name!), every version of Google Chrome, every version of the Apache web server, and on every Mac and Linux computer.
Google.com using ECDHE_RSA This past week another major milestone in the deployment of elliptic curve cryptography has happened: Google has enabled the use of ECC on its secure web pages as the default algorithm. (More precisely, the ECDHE_RSA_RC4_SHA cipher suite is the default cipher suite.) As far as I know, this is the first large scale site to enable ECC. Google has for some time been leading efforts on improving the speed and effectiveness of security protocols on the web.
If you use Firefox or Chrome, your web browser will automatically use ECC whenever you visit a secure Google page. The main benefit of this technology is that your data is encrypted using a temporary key, rather than a permanent key, so even if Google’s permanent key is compromised in the future, your past communications will remain secure (this is called “forward secrecy”). Elliptic curve cryptography is quite fast, so it can do this with adding very little computational burden to your computer, so you shouldn’t notice any performance impact from this enhanced security.
For more information, check out the official Google security blog post as well as more details from one of the Google engineers.
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Workshop on Usable Security 2012
I am on the program committee for the Workshop on Usable Security 2012 which will be colocated with the Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2012 conference. The call for papers is posted with a deadline of November 16, 2011.
