OK, Ok, so that may not in fact be how you spell "cruise" in german, but honest to goodness, the german language rose about 25 points in my book when I heard that.
Now, why exactly would that be in my vocabulary? Excellent question! Let us explore.
For my spring break (which has been for the past 10 days, classes have just restarted this morning) I met up with my parents and brother and went on a 7 day cruise around the Western Mediterranean (another word I swear I will never learn to properly spell). To begin with, it was wonderful to see my family, I'm pretty bummed that my sister couldn't come out and join us, but what the hey, it was still a good time.
The cruise itself left from Savona, Italy, a small town near Genoa in the northern part of the country. There is one train station, two or three small hotels, the dock, and one Mr. Kabob, where one can purchase the glorious food known as Doner kabobs. It's a glorious revolution that needs to come to the states. Now. However, when dealing with our fantastic contact at the travel agency, hereon referred to as Suzy Sunshine, she was convinced that the cruise left from Genoa, so that is where we booked our hotel, our trains, our flights, and all other important bits and pieces to travel once we returned. The day before, we discover that the boat does not, in fact, leave from Genoa, but from Savona, a 40 minute cab ride away. It was definitely not one of the more pleasant moments in our lives. We had a lovely dinner in Genoa, wandered around for a little bit and saw a few sights, then packed our bags and went to bed so we could be up and out by noon the next day with no problems. This we did, and one 120 euro cab ride later we were at the correct port. The boat itself was gigantic, the Costa Magica, an italian cruise line that is most likely one of 2 boats to run trips this early in Europe. I was just about jumping out of my skin with excitement, I've never had the pleasure of taking a cruise before, and I was pretty psyched to see what they were all about.
Once on board, we checked out our rooms. Geoff's and mine was on the inside, so sadly no window or deck for us. This proved to be a bit of a problem later on, we would sleep like rocks and probably could have passed out for a good 15 hours if given the opportunity. My parents had a cabin down the hall from us with a balcony. It was fairly nice, I have nothing to compare it to, but every room had a tv with one english speaking channel, the British News Skynews, which repeated itself every 15 minutes. Goody.
There were several pools on board, as well as several hot tubs, bars, a casino (which I got to use but lost a good 15 euro on), and a waterslide. Unfortunately it was too cold to really enjoy any of the outdoor water features or the deck, but the inside was quite lovely as well.
Once we left Savona we headed for Naples and Pompeii, along with a quick detour to Sorrento. Unfortunately, there were so few English speaking guests onboard that they had cancelled the English guide for the Pompeii tour, so the four of us were slid in with a German, Spanish, and French tour. Needless to say, we spent most of the time wandering around on our own, with me explaining the bits and pieces that I remembered from 3 years ago. Thank you random fact memory. After Pompeii we had about 45 minutes to walk around Sorrento, which was a shame because it was beautiful and had a lot of shops that we would have loved to wander around in (specifically my mother). Afterwards, we hopped back on the train to head back to the boat. There was a Ventriliquist that night, which was actually pretty funny for the first puppet, but since he had to repeat every joke in 5 languages, it became old really quickly and we decideed to call it quits for the night. We ended up in one of the bars listening to someone try and sing "Hit the Road, Jack", but instead of saying "And don't you come back no more no more" they were singing "And WON'T you come back no more", which, effectively, defeats the entire purpose of the song. Also they sang "Lovely day" as "lonely day". It was an experience.
The second day was spent in Palermo, I wasn't feeling particularly well, for some reason I had had chills the night before and while we were walking around during the day I could have sworn the entire world was rocking from side to side. Later that evening I went down to the doctor on the ship to ask him what I should do, he took one look at my throat and slammed me on antibiotics. Apparantly I had something very similar to strep throat, which was really just a blast.
After Palermo we stopped in Tunis, Tunisia in Africa. I missed this day because I was really sick and slept for most of the day. I went up on deck once and took some pictures of camels. That was all I experienced.
We then headed to Palma De Mallorca, which was absolutely beautiful, although it was a bit chilly. I would definitely go back again when it is warmer, there are lots of beaches and the part of town closest to the water is absolutely picturesque. We also went to a Vegas style show later that night, which was a lot of fun. The only problem was that we were sitting at a table with a family from Denmark and a couple from France, so there was no real way to communicate verbally. There was a lot of gesticulation. Also, during the preformance there were several acts of Flamenco dancing, and I'm pretty sure I want to pick it up or at least learn some type of dance. It just looks like a lot of fun, and I love the hispanic/spanish dancing traditions.
Barcelona was the next stop, and I actually really liked it a lot despite the fact that it's a big city. This was the day that Geoff didn't feel too well, and took the taxi ride from hell back to the boat. We went and saw the Casa della Segrada familia, which is a really funky looking church that I have yet to make up my mind if I like it or not. There is one part of the façade that I really like a lot, it has these really modern cubic scupltures of scenes from Jesus' life. The main entrance, on the other hand, I was less than thrilled with. Ever spire looks like it's wearing the chiquita banana lady's hat. Also, the metro system in Barcelona is simply fantastic, and I would love to go back and get a better idea of what it actually is like to be there.
Lastly, we stopped in Marseilles. It was freezing, but beautiful. There was a very pretty church at the top of one of the hills that I simply adored, and it had a fantastic view of the city and harbor below. Sadly, I did not get a crepe, which is what I wanted more than anything else.
Once we returned to Savona, my parents and I returned to Siena. I showed them around the city for a day, and they got to meet the director of the program over here and my host family. Playing the interpretor was difficult, but on the whole I think I did an ok job of it. I was pretty sad to see them go, I went through a pretty big swing of homesickness yesterday, but I got to talk to all the people that I miss the most, which was wonderful.
I can't wait to finally be home again with you all!! It's not that I'm not having a good time here, I am, but there are little comforts that I miss on a daily basis, and I can't wait to have them back. Just two more months, althought they will certainly fly. This weekend I'm heading out to see the one and only Fabulous Brooke in London, then we head to a vineyard, Venice for 5 days, Florence for a weekend, Rome, Assissi, Arrezzo, Padua, Capri, Pompeii, Naples, and Mike and I are heading to the Cinque Terre for a weekend. All in all, I'm psyched about everything that's going on, and I can't wait to show everyone all of the pictures (which, hopefully, will be on facebook sooner rather than later. I think I have about... 400 to put up. I wish that was an exaggeration...)
Miss you all, a presto, tutti!
No comments:
Post a Comment