Where have I been lately?

I could show you, but... well, I have hundreds of photos, but no great way to put them on here site yet. VERY soon.

The day before yesterday, we hit ROME. Civitaveccia, to be precise, but that's the "Port City" of Rome. An hour+ away by train, but there's no way I was going to miss Rome. And wouldn't you know it, one of our training classes (there are a LOT of them the first time you work on a ship) was scheduled smack in the middle of the day. Thus I found my way to our somewhat frightening Croatian safety officer's office to ask to be switched to an alternate day. I found someone to trade days with me, and off to Rome I went, accompanied by a few others from the entertainment department.

There is far too much to see in Rome in a day. Wasn't built in a day, can't be seen in a day. It would take me a day just the "Angels and Demons / Da Vinci Code" walking tour that we fell into on our own about halfway through the day.

What is there to see in Rome? Based on MY day, the ancient ruins beat all. The Colosseum. The 4 euro (that's a little > $5) bottles of Gatorade, 2.50 Euro Diet Cokes. The Vatican-can. The Oompa Loompas which guard the Pope. Didn't see the Pope or the Popemobile, nor the Popecopter, the Popecycle. Was not able to identify the entrance to the Popecave. There were plenty of statues in which to hide the button which reveals the poles which lead to the cave, though. Here's a poll: Which Pope did you like better, Michael Keaton or Adam West?

Anyway, Rome also had Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon, The amazing White Palace, and the Eternal Flame the Bangles sang about. No, really. And... such an amazingly difficult system of winding streets that even with a map it was difficult to find where we were at some points. If all roads lead to Rome, where do the roads IN Rome lead? Apparently they try to lead to themselves, which explains why ... well, by the time civic planning reached America, the system of laying things out in a grid had been worked out. Thank God.

Yesterday was Livorno again, or as we call it, "Li-BORE-no."

Livorno is a great place to catch a train to somewhere else.

It's an easy ride to Pisa, and Florence. We attempted to go to Pisa yesterday but the train schedule was all screwed up so we just went for pizza in Livorno instead. I was all set to have a catchy, hugely original entry title like "Pizza in Pisa" but alas, just kinda nasty pizza from one of the very few places not closed on a Sunday in Livorno.

I'm sure no one has EVER used that Pisa line, especially on postcards depicting "the leaning tower of .... PIZZA? OH that's whacky. The kids'll love it, Martha. .50 Euro? How much is that?"

This will I'm sure be an entry for later, but being in Europe and seeing other Americans behave in certain ways, you want to tell someone "I'm not with them. I am also American and we really aren't all like that."

Then you go and harass Frenchmen with talk of "where is the monkey?"

Today... Cannes. The day AFTER the festival ends. Bah!

By the way, I could really use some long-distance b-day cheer this year, and it takes a really long time for anything to get to us through the port agents. It may seem pathetic, but I could use cool stuff from America for my birthday. I'll be including the port agent address for St. Petersburg soon, because I seriously think it'd be a good idea to allow like thee weeks to a month.

If you help me out, I may bring you back something from Europea...?!?!?! Or not.

My luggage was ALREADY overweight.

Must run now.