The Mediterranean Cruise Chronicles: Part V (Rome)

After the mess of things in and coming out of Florence, it would be a new day in Rome from Civitavecchia. We took a train (that was awfully reminiscent of the Hogwarts Express) into Rome and set for the smallest sovereignty in the world, Vatican City. My second time (first time about six years ago), Mike's first.

We were approaching the square when an Iranian man stopped us to enlighten us with a "good deal" for getting into the Vatican.

"Look at the line--it takes two hours to get into the Vatican. For 45 euros a person, I can get you in in five minutes. All you have to do is pay the office," he told us. 

"Where's the office?" Mike and I asked.

He pointed one way and we told him we would look for it on our own. As tourists, at that moment we didn't feel like trusting anyone. So into the round "square" we went.

But we didn't get too far. Our egos were defeated by the mystery "office"--wherever it was--and with about five hours to see everything we wanted to see in Rome, Mike and I decided to go back to the man.

Within about ten minutes we ended up at this remote building, where we paid the 90 euros, put on round stickers about half the size of a dime (to show we were part of a tour), and then joined a group of clueless tourists out front.

"Your tour will start at 11:15," the Iranian man told us. It was 11:00.

He left and we waited. 11:20 came around and out appeared a tall obese man with a cane and sun hat. Sweating lard, he looked on the brink of cardiac arrest.

And that's why it didn't, after all, take five minutes to get into the Vatican's back entrance. In fact, it took about half the time it would normally take to get in. After following Jabba the Hut, he handed us off to two men who--for Pete's sake (See what I did there? We were at St. Peter's Basilica. Har har...)--couldn't figure out the ticket situation. Back and forth we were led in the ticketing room, and Mike and I were about to call it quits, call the bank for a refund, and head to the Colosseum. Again, we were on the clock.

But then Jabba signaled us toward the security line, where we finally got the paper. A ticket rip and audio tour guide later, we were finally on our way. It was, like, 12:30/12:45.

"Meet me at the top of the stairs; I'm going to take the elevator," Jabba said.

I saw a sign reading "Cappella Sistina -->" and said to Mike, "Hey, let's just get outa here and head that way." So we ditched the tour and eventually found ourselves in the Hall of Emperors, on the way to La Cappella Sistina.

Mike got a kick out of this part. Schooled in Greek and Roman mythology, he identified many emperors and gods without referring to their labels. He did this and photographed the statues while I asked around for La Cappella Sistina.

"Bippity boppity...bippity boppity..." A security guard instructed me in Italian, moving his hand every which way.

When we were done with the Hall, we found that the line did exactly that. My memory from six years ago could not recall such a monster.

"It's hard to believe that a cult put this all together," said Mike as I dragged him through the ridiculousness. It seemed we were being herded to Slovenia. The only indication that we were close was a sign in a narrow hallway tsk-tsking me for wearing inappropriate attire. Thankfully, because of the same mishap in Pisa Mike kept my jeans and his jacket in his backpack. I tied the jacket around my waist and wrapped the jeans around my shoulders. Yeah, I got stares, but I was radiating American individualism badassness.

A million years later, we met the entrance of La Cappella Sistina.


To be continued...

The Mediterranean Cruise Chronicles: Part IV (Pisa and Florence - Continued)

(Continued...)

Mike and I were relieved to be on the train to Livorno; however, it had a secret up its sleeve and we didn't know it until too late. We were relaxing, waiting stop after stop, and then started to get suspicious. We should have seen the sign for Livorno by now... Worried, Mike marched to the front of the train to ask the conductor when we would arrive at our destination. About five minutes later I saw Mike running back in a panic.

"GET OFF!" He shouted.

We rushed off the train and watched it leave.

"What's wrong?!" I asked.

"He said we were supposed to get off at Pisa and then take another train to Livorno," Mike said.

Wait, the ticket says "Livorno," the train's marquee said "Livorno," but it wasn't supposed to take us to damn Livorno?!

Oy.

We didn't know where we were, the next train wouldn't arrive until much later, and we were low on cash. The station was empty and the ticket window was closed, so we had no one around to help us...except for a cabbie outside.

"Porto Livorno?" We asked a lady who could barely speak English.

"Si, si," she said.

"How long?" I pointed to my wrist to emulate a watch.

"Eeeehh, forty/forty-five-a minute," she said with little confidence. We had roughly that much time before the ship closed off to late passengers.

What else could we do? We hopped in the cab and asked her to stop at a bank on the way.

For being in a "hurry," she drove about 70 KPH (kilometers per hour) on the freeway. We drove by nearly every stop we had seen on the train.

"What time-a be there?" She asked.

"Six-thirty," we told her. It was around 5:50 PM.

She shook her head, stressed. "Mama mia! There are-a two porto; which?"

Good question.

She told us the two in her bippity-boppity tongue and we guessed one of them.

"It is-a that one?" She asked.

"We're not sure," Mike replied.

She didn't understand that response, so I shrugged my shoulders from the back seat. Body language became very useful on this trip since it's something all humans have in common.

"Mama miaaa!" She said again.

6:25 PM came around and we made it to a port.

"That's the ship!" Mike said.

I looked out the window. "Mike, that's Carnival, not Norwegian," I said, disappointed.

"Which-a ship?" The woman said, confused.

"Norwegian," we told her.

"Nor-a...?"

Mike wrote it out for her. He spelled it as "Norwegain."

"No, no, no--" I began.

"Oooh, Nor-veh-jun!" She said.

Phew.

Then next to the Carnival ship we saw Norwegian. We drove closer and noticed it wasn't Norwegian "Spirit."

Oh no... 6:28 PM.

"HELP-A ME!" The lady panicked.

Mike and I freaked out as well. We saw a man working a booth and asked him how to get to the other port. He told us and we made our way to the other side, doing our best to memorize his directions.

And boy, was that a route! 6:37 PM came around and we started to lose hope. We began warming up to the idea of meeting the ship in Rome, which was the next scheduled excursion. A very expensive one.

But then...we saw the right ship. We sped toward it. 6:38, and the ramp was still open. Waving our hands out the windows to signal our arrival to the crew, we hoped they would let us on. They saw us and weren't in any hurry to pull up the ramp. Thaaaaank goodness.






We got out of the cab and thanked the woman profusely. The fare, however... 200 euros.

The Mediterranean Cruise Chronicles: Part III (Pisa and Florence, Italy)

Day V


17 June 2012, Porto Livorno

Mike and I were ambitious and aimed to cover two cities--Pisa and Florence, an hour apart from each other--and make it back to the ship by 6:30 PM. A bus at the port brought us to another bus stop at the Livorno City Center, where we learned we had to take another bus to a "Stazzione" ("Station"), where we would--guess what?--hop on a final bus to the Leaning Tower, Cathedral, and Baptistery. We quickly learned that, unless one rode in a cab, transportation in Italy was usually not a straight shot and very unreliable. Its inefficiency (and other things) made it no wonder that the country was falling apart.

Pisa

But the small town of Pisa had big things to offer. As cliche as it sounds, upon entering the area where all three structures stood, my heart stopped. This visit had been on my bucket list for some time and was worth the 15 bus rides. Mike and I gawked at the buildings' white splendor, thinking that those who hail from Pisa (and Italians in general) must be very proud. I decided to splurge on a bit of cell phone data by sending my dad a Father's Day picture.

We paid for admittance into the Baptistery, where one finds Nicola Pisano's pulpit. For art history buffs, I believe the pulpit was made during that awkward Medieval-Renaissance interchange, when artists began to consider proximity differences (so all subjects in an artwork, regardless of position, wouldn't all be the same size). (*Conclude nerd moment*) The cathedral was free and we entered; however, the tower's interior was off-limits until 1 PM, making us sad people because we had to get to Florence.

It was hard to leave, but Mike lured me out of there with the word "gelato." The Stazzione was a two-mile walk from the tower, so on the way we stopped at a gelateria for Mike's first-ever cone. The flavors were godly and nothing could compare.

Florence

From Pisa we took a train to Florence, where we had three hours to see the unique Florence Cathedral and then Michelangelo's David at the Galleria dell'Accademia. Searching for the Cathedral first, the sun beat on us hard as we sifted through all the buildings that made the structure barely visible overhead. After some time, we found the Cathedral using Google Maps again, which was more spectacular that expected (the Cathedral). Embellished in what I describe as "Candy Land colors" and Tuscan rectangles and stripes, the Cathedral was humongous--too humongous for a wee person like me to circumnavigate in under five minutes if I took my time. I kept pausing and cocking my head up at its height, especially at the dome expertly designed by Filippo Brunelleschi during the Renaissance.

Then Mike brought me back to Earth with a reminder that we had two hours before catching the train back to Livorno. We didn't have time to go inside the Cathedral, so we snapped a few photos of the outside and began our quest for the Galleria. Upon finding the building, we were "warmly" greeted by a long line blanketed by searing hot sun rays. It was unlikely we were going to make it inside, but we tried. After a few minutes the line moved a few feet and then stopped. Twenty minutes later, nothing. Mike and I kept checking up ahead every other minute thereafter and were continually disappointed. Then we were really miffed when a large tour group entered the building without difficulty. That's what the wait was for.

It was no use. With a little over half an hour to catch the train, we reluctantly thought "Maybe next time" and left the line in a hurry. On the way to the Stazzione, we were confronted by the city's narrow streets, tall buildings, and people-sheep. At one point we were lost and a student activist approached us.

"Scusa!" She said.

We jumped, feeling inconvenienced by her presence.

"It's-a okay; I'm-a good girl!" She said.

"Can you tell us how to get to the Stazzione?" Mike asked.

Thankfully she gave us instructions in decent English. We told her sorry we couldn't help her and continued on our way, changing gears to a slow and then fast jog. We made it three minutes early, panting.

While walking off the fear, I began to feel something behind me. I turned around and found an atrocious man with a lion's mane uncomfortably close to me, staring me in the eye. Natural instinct told me to hide behind Mike, which I did, and the hobo tried following me. I guess Mike's shielding me angered the guy, prompting him to harass us further while speaking perverse Italian. Getting all up on Mike, with me still behind him, the hobo's body language became even more threatening.

"Dude, I don't speak Italian!" Mike said, frustrated.

Two seconds later, the hobo finally stopped and motioned to leave, muttering offensively under his breath.

Mike and I looked at each other. Oy.

The train arrived and we boarded, exhausted.

To be continued...

The Mediterranean Cruise Chronicles: Part II (Getting on the ship, France)

Day III


15 June 2012, Barcelona Port

After two nights in Barcelona, it felt strange "beginning" our real vacation, which was a 12-night Mediterranean cruise. A nice cabbie transported Mike and me from the hotel to the port. We checked in three bags, got in line--the first of many this trip--and after I overheard a woman at the counter asking guests for their passports, I asked Mike, "You have your passport, right?"

He checked the money belt. He checked his pockets. He checked his backpack. He checked my purse.

Yeah, Mike left it in the luggage.

So, he scrambled out of the building to track down the man who wheeled away our bags while I kept our spot in line. Over time, I had to let others go ahead of me. A plump British woman with spectacles and bad teeth asked me, "You deci'ed no' to go?" I briefly explained the "Tale of the Runaway Passport" and she replied, "Well, he kin'a needs that!"

After nearly an hour, Mike returned and I was able to breathe again.

"Found it?" I asked.

"Not yet. I just wanted to give you my things in case I...don't make it."

Just kidding; he didn't really say that.

"Not yet. Not a single person out there speaks English; it took forever for them to understand me. Here's our change so I don't have to take it out for security again." We couldn't communicate via phone unless we wanted to sell our kidneys for the minutes and texts.

He left and I let more people pass. The line was beginning to abridge, and so was our time to get on the ship. This wouldn't be the last time we had this kind of trouble.

Finally, about 20 minutes later he returned with a passport. And it was his passport.





Relieved, we checked in ourselves, entered the ship after taking those silly boarding photos, and found our room. It was tiny, dark box, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was a tiny, dark box that happened to be vibrating like a hundred epochal 5.0 earthquakes. In other words, $600 bought us a shaking box right next to the ship's elevators. It also bought us beds with stained pillows.

"Great, I'm not going to sleep for 12 nights. I'm going to complain, and if they don't listen to me then I'm going to start a campaign involving social media, word of mouth, and a good lawyer," Mike said infuriatingly.

So he complained to the ship's Guest Services: "It feels like the room is attached to a Saturn V." (One cannot expect more from someone with an Aerospace degree.)

Luckily, after the ship set sail we got upgraded to an unoccupied $800 room two decks above the shaker. This box was quiet, had clean pillows, and had our luggage.

--------------

After settling, Mike and I decided to send off our first batch of postcards. Walking around the ship looking for a Post Office-type place, I asked a random Filipino man working a bar, "Is there some kind of 'Post Office' on the ship?"


"What's a 'Post Office'?"


"Like, a place to mail things."


"Oh... I don't know... Ask Guest Services."


So we asked a lady at the front desk about mailing postcards, and our ears bled at the sound of the postage costs.


"(Blah blah blah)...$1.50 in Greece and $2.00 in Italy."


"So, we won't mail anything in Italy," Mike replied with some humor.


Except for Pisa and Venice, Italy would not be our friend on this trip.


Day IV


16 June 2012, Toulon, France

We didn't expect much in Toulon since we read reviews of its minute fame in tourism. And that's exactly what we got: not much.

Well, Toulon was alright. A bit dirty, but alright. At first we followed a path recommended by the port's tourism center, which was nice, but Mike and I were itching for a little improvisation. We set for a really, really long hill under the hot European sun.

An hour into it and discovering nothing worth our while, Mike finally produced Google Maps on his iPhone. We weren't too far from a gondola that would take us to a restaurant at the top. But I was two weeks out of CrossFit shape and the hill was getting steeper by the step. I was becoming a grumpy pants.

But the thought of French cuisine kept me going. Many burned calories and bullets of sweat later, we made it to the top. At the restaurant, no one spoke English and we didn't speak French. And although I could understand the French words better than the Spanish ones on the menus in Barcelona, my skills failed me at this restaurant.

We ordered something, though. We kind of randomly pointed at menu items and went with those. Mike told his friends on Facebook, "I have no idea what I just ordered." That was after he accidentally said "Gracias" to the server.

The food wasn't bad. Whatever it was.

Following the meal, we returned to civilization at the bottom, mutilated a Nutella crepe (OMG), and returned to the ship. Still unaccustomed to the European clock, I slept almost 15 hours.

The Mediterranean Cruise Chonicles: Part I (Spain)

Day I

13 June 2012, Hesperia Towers Hotel, Barcelona

I hadn't gotten nauseated on flights in a while, but recently--and for whatever reason--my motion sickness has been taking a horrible turn. Landing in Barcelona was one of those painfully long descents and a "sickie's" worst nightmare. And unfortunately, that package of "natural" anti-motion sickness tablets I bought at Heathrow in September 2010 somehow made their way out of my purse. (That's a nice way of saying my dumb arse removed them when I underwent the purse de-hoarding process prior to the trip.)

Following the flight and a 25-minute tardy shuttle service to the hotel, we actually arrived early to our check-in. I vegetated on the lobby's very low and awkwardly-designed couches while Mike explored the city afoot. I was nearly asleep when the voice of a Spaniard woke me saying, "Hello, sohrry, your room es ready."

Hesperia Towers is a five-star hotel, very close to the airport, and a seemingly popular place for business meetings and negotiations--needless to say, it had an extremely modern feel, both inside and out. (*Promotion alert*) Although the food was obnoxiously expensive (though, good quality), we got this great deal by booking it through Priceline using Mike's family's frequent flyer miles. I was always suspicious of the frequent flyer program, but I couldn't complain about two free nights in Barcelona.

Not much else can be said about this day. I was escorted to the room and fell asleep before Mike showed up and followed suit.

Day II

14 June 2012, Barcelona City Center

After surrendering to locating the invisible Metro, Mike and I discovered a free shuttle service to take into the City Center for exploring the wonderful city of Barcelona. On the way there we observed that, aside from a few tree breeds, Barcelona looked a lot like Southern California. Didn't we just fly 14 hours to leave California?

Also, aside from learning that the price of most non-alcoholic beverages in Barcelona--and many other parts of Europe--is an arm and a leg cheaper than water, the City Center was beautiful, clean, and full of peaceful tourists and residents admiring the day's clear skies. Through all the narrow streets we stumbled upon a gazillion churches before finding Barcelona's main "Catedral," whose entrance fee was six euros a piece (roughly $15 total).

We paid, entered, and well...yay, it was a "Catedral"--a really big building full of religious stuff, like holy water, which Mike touched, hoping his skin wouldn't burn off for being a non-believer. (It didn't, but the water might have fizzed a tad.) We tried to break into--er, open--the confession booths, and even found stairs leading up to the area above the altar. We went up, photographed the view, and on the way down I slipped very charmingly on my arse, thanks to my cheap sandals from Old Navy. (Some would say pay-back's a bitch for disturbing religious property.) And that slip was the first of many.

After that, we walked around a lot and ate. We found the edge of the city (the port), where there were military buildings and a giant lobster. The restaurant where we had lunch played American music videos, and I kept having Mike look up from his food so he could gag at the sight of Rihanna and the Black Eyed Peas.

Anyway, we had a nice time being slightly mischievous. We returned, slept a lot, and looked forward to embarking on our cruise the next day.

Next trip...

12-night Mediterranean cruise (plus an early hotel stay in Barcelona)

http://bit.ly/LqGcyl

Dates
12-28 June 2012

Ports
Barcelona (Spain), Toulon (France), Livorno (Florence and Pisa, Italy), Civitavecchia (Rome, Italy), Naples (Italy), Mykonos (Greece), Istanbul (Turkey), Izmir (Turkey), Piraeus (Athens, Greece), and Venice (Italy)


(I'm curious to find out the state of the EU at the time of departure...)

The Scotland Chronicles: Conclusion

Wednesday, 14 September 2011 @ 11am - This is going to be my last post of the trip, for I will not have time to update my blog before I leave for the airport tomorrow morning.

Yesterday was mostly an uneventful day because the ocean was COVERED with white caps (an indicator of bad seas), so we spent the day updating the dolphin databases. But last night we had a Spanish dinner, and that's when things got a little too silly. Because our personalities were being eaten up by spreadsheets and fin photos, we made a game out of everything, including our food.

For example, we had a Spanish potato omelete for dinner (Apparently that's dinner in Spain.), and I guess it's a British custom to leave the last piece for whoever might want it. No one wanted it, so the director came up with an idea to pass the last piece around, with each person cutting it in half until the whole thing disappears. We were eventually cutting invisible crumbs.

After dinner, one of the other volunteers had a couple containers of brown and white face masks. So we decided to do some "face painting" (The director thought I should do some "foot painting" on my 'hobbit feet' because I have the smallest feet in the group. He was highly amused by them during the trip.) and took a group photo.

Today we're going over whale rescue techniques--we will use a fake blow-up Pilot Whale for practice--and the rest of the day is dependent on how we feel since the sea isn't looking good again.

Tomorrow at 11:30am (eight hours ahead of LA) I fly out of Aberdeen to London Heathrow (I will never forgive my mother for booking this flight because I can't STAND that airport.), and then I have a three-hour wait till I take off on my 11-hour flight to LAX. I look forward to seeing friends, family, and my favorite couch.