July 29, 2004
Paris,cdg
From the sublime to the ridiculous. Yesterday I was happily surfing from the comfort of my bed, today finds me standing at a lone terminal in Charles de Gualle, trying to while away the three hours that remain btween me and my flight in this desolate wasteland of a terminal. It has what is optimistically clled a "zone commercial" complete with promised wonderlnads of retaurants and bookstores, but the reality is more sparse. Anyway, in my defense, I would not normally be so desperate for internet that I would stoop to standing and paying for it, but my flights home are in chaos, and little internet research was called for to ease my troubled mind.
July 28, 2004
BMGF rebound
Today found me in Barcelona with one night to fill before my plane takes me, more or less, home. I couldn't really bring myself to pay good money for a hotel, so I had a look at my balance of Hilton points and decided that I could well afford to throw some of them at a hotel night here. Now, keep in mind that I've just spent two months in a tiny cabin in a bunk bed, without so much as a porthole for natural light. I arrived at the hotel, burdened down by luggage, tired and grimy and hot, and was immediately and apologetically whisked away to the executive floor, since, as a latent Diamond member, they had upgraded my free room to the executive level. I have a big comfy room, soft towels the size of bed sheets, slippers, and best of all, high speed wireless internet access. I had just settled down for my nap when a light tap on my door heralded the arrival of some complimentary chocolate covered strawberries, and just now, when I returned to my room after a pleasant shopping jaunt, I discovered a little portable radio, wrapped up in box with a card that said "with our compliments". The best part, though, is the big picture window, complete with visiting pigeon who pecks on the window and stares at me expectantly.
July 24, 2004
Accademia della Pizza
Yesterday was Naples, which, despite it's rather dodgy reputation, is actually one of my favorite ports of call. The people are friendly, they make excellent coffee, and there's the most amazing pizza place, which I couldn't for the life of me describe how to get to, but their prosciutto arugula pizza is out of this world. Of course, one could also go to Capri or Pompeii, or drive up the Amalfi coast, but really, this pizza is so good it sort of outshines all those places. Also, yesterday, we discovered a Neapolitan specialty at the Professore del Caffe, which is espresso with some sort of nougat whipped into it. It's fairly tasty. I've been doing a fair bit of espresso tasting over the last couple days, and I have to say, this one stands out.
July 21, 2004
Turkish Bath
Had a lovely day in Turkey yesterday. By now I've become acquainted with some of the shopkeepers in Kusadasi, so I spent parts of my morning sitting in the shade chatting with the leather guy, the carpet guy, the shoe guy, it's all very friendly and pleasant. My friends and I wanted to go for a Turkish Bath, but I'd brought my laptop ashore, so I handed it over to the carpet guy for safekeeping for a few hours.
It was a beastly hot day, so the bath was really quite an experience. We walked in and they handed us all towels, then after we changed, we went into a big hot room with a warm marble slab in the middle, and water and steam everywhere. It brings all new meaning to the phrase, "hot as a Turkish bath". Anyway, someone pointed out to me some little plastic bowls and a spigot of water, which one uses to splash cold water over oneself to avoid heatstroke. We sat on the marble slab, and up above in the domed ceiling are hundreds of little skylights, so it sort of looks like a starry evening inside. It's really quite lovely.
From there we went to the loofah room, where about 10 people were sitting around another marble slab waiting for their turn with the communal loofah man. It's really rather fascinating to sit around and watch everyone get scrubbed, then shampooed, and sent off to the soap man (who holds court on the other side of the marble slab). Once all the dead skin has been scrubbed away, you lie again on the slab, and the soap man covers you in bubbles and rubs you down, cracks your joints, slides you all over the marble, and finishes it all off by throwing a bowl of cold water over you. It's truly unlike anything I've ever experienced. Sort of like a spa day, only out in public, and using communal washrags.
July 16, 2004
Last Venice Until September
Venice is an amazing city - it never ceases to be beautiful. We've had three glorious days in port here, and I managed to get ashore for good parts of every one of them.
The first day we had coffee in St Marks. We knew it would be expensive, because we were sitting right next to the live music, and well, it's prime tourist territory. The coffee itself was no more than I might have paid for something really spectacular at Starbucks, it was the 15 Euro charge for "music" that startled us (particularly as one of our company had been sitting at that cafe all contract and never been charged - apparently it's now summer, so the music is more expensive). Anyway, in short, three cappucine came to 37 Euros. Eek. Still it was a remarkable experience - cloudless sky, perfect day, good coffee, lovely music, and .. Venice.
This day was capped off by a late dinner and drinking in some square near the Rialto. The streets are completely different at night, shadowy, quiet, empty - it's really stunning. Our shuttle stopped running to the ship at midnight, so we ended up taking the Vaporetto all the way along the Grand Canal home. We sat right in the very very front, and there is surely nothing that compares to the Grand Canal at night.
July 11, 2004
More Louie!
Well, okay, it's just one Louie picture, this is him relaxing with a Mythos beer and a greek salad after the Acropolis debacle. The other picture, well, if any of you have watched Fawlty Towers, this guy claims to be Manuel, I leave it to you to judge. At any rate, if it is him, he's now spending his days dressed as an ostrich chasing tourists on La Rambla.
July 06, 2004
Pisa
Braving train blockages (which kept me stranded in a stifling train for three hours last week on the way back from Florence) and bus strikes, I finally made it to Pisa today, which was lovely. Got lots of pictures of the tower, and oddly enough spent most of my time there with my back to the tower looking at glitter covered light up replicas of the tower in the souvenir booths, largely because that was the only shade to be had for miles. (That, and that's what all my friends were doing). Still, it's nice to have seen it. We then had a very congenial walk through Pisa to where we thought we could catch a bus back to the ship, only to discover the busses had gone on strike, whereupone we ran to the train station, caught almost the last train back to Livorno (and the ship), where the bus that would have taken us to our shuttle was ALSO on strike, so we had a bit of a walk back. At any rate, that justified another hearty snack in the buffet when we finally did make the ship. Tomorrow it's all lying by the pool.
July 02, 2004
Barcelona
I'm in the EasyInternet cafe that shares its space with a Subway Sandwich shop (not to be confused with the metro) and the smell of fresh baking bread is driving me mad, even though I just availed myself of the 24 hour buffet on the ship not even an hour ago. Anyway, once again all I've seen of Barcelona is the internet, but now that it's done, I plan to sit on La Rambla imbibing sangria and devouring tapas. Two more cruises until I'm in the Northwest again. Mind you, that's almost a month yet - I love 12 day cruising.
Not much new to report - spent the week sightseeing - saw Rome, Florence and Monte Carlo in three whirlwind days of long hot train rides to and from port. I now understand why the passengers are so exhausted at the end of the cruise. Next week I'm staying on board to lie by the pool.