June 27, 2008
So today was the last leg of our Italian cruise segment. We previously stopped in Naples, which was pretty good and had some really nice views of the landscape and scenary. It’s definitely like what you see on tv and in the movies. Our next stop was Rome, which is really remarkable and I LOVE the city. It’s rich in culture and treasures and I’m sure it’s like being in a big city in the US where you just have to spend a couple of days exploring all the sights, but at the end, you won’t even have hit all of them. And lastly, we’re in Florence.
Now Florence is north of Rome and is probably known for its museums and art. Oh, there’s also shopping as well and believe me, if you happen to stop by this city, be prepared to bargain and bring your wallet as you’ll spend big time for the best names in fashion: Gucci, Dolce, Prada, etc. Unbelieveable!
We started our private (non-NCL) tour by heading off to Pisa. The drive wasn’t that bad, except the bus ride was slightly bumpy. The traffic was cooperative and there wasn’t any problems…again, except for those bumps that we hit along the way. We saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa and it’s truly a sight to see. Ran into a lady who tried to pickpocket my auntie’s waist bag. First incident of trouble on this trip and seeing that we’re at least half-way through, that’s promising that we’ve had a trouble-free trip so far. Good stuff.
After walking back to the bus, we headed over to Florence and saw the world famous statue of Michaelangeo’s David. Unfortunately they wouldn’t allow photography there so I couldn’t get any pictures, but if I did…I’d be a happy guy! We snagged a bite to eat at a nearby local trattoria and had some incredibly delicious spaghetti and pizza. Then it was off to stop by the shopping district and see what bargains could be had. When we could find none (or didn’t buy anything), we stopped for a gelato and headed back to the boat.
I’m slightly disappointed that we weren’t able to spend more time at the art museums or galleries or even checking out more sightseeing stuff. We primarily stayed in the center of town the entire day and while Florence is nice and looks very similar to New York City, it might not be the city I’d visit again often. Perhaps once in a while but I’m thinking that once you get to see everything, there’s no point in going back? I dunno…
I’m sorta sad too that we’ve left Italy even though we’re going to go back after our cruise - this time to Venice and Rome. More pictures to be taken!
Quick recap of last night before I wrap up this post…the food was pretty good for dinner last night. I actually can’t remember what I had for dinner last night believe it or not. They all kinda merge into one big blur after a while. But I did manage to catch the semi-final match between Russia and Spain in the European Cup. Soccer has not been a great sport to watch and I find it deadfully boring, but you will not believe the fans and enthusiasm on this boat for the Spanish team. I’ve taken some video and it’s insane! The little kids are more enthusiastic about this sport that the rest of the adults and they were chanting and cheering the entire time.
After the match, I stopped by the ship’s Spinnaker Lounge to catch the adult-only improv performance by Second City. I saw their act two nights ago and it was hilarious so I expected comedic genius this time around. Unfortunately I was proven wrong. I wasn’t really entertained and often times I wanted the skits to end. They were all improv and dreadful. But now that’s over…heading off to another “show” happening tonight. What will it be? Who knows…it might just be something to kill some time.
Next stop: Nice in France! Au Revoir!
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June 26, 2008
We came pretty darn close today though to visiting a bunch of sites in Rome. The Norwegian Gem docked at the port earlier this morning and we caught our private tour drivers around 8:00am. We decided not to go through the NCL shore excursions and I can’t complain. I actually like these private tours where it’s only your family. Yes, you probably don’t get to see a bunch of exclusive stuff like with NCL excursions, but in Rome, we had two (yes, count ‘em) private drivers that gave us a tour of the city. They picked us up in Mercedes Benz minivans and drove us the 1 hr 30 min drive to the city.
The first stop was the Coliseum. It was astonishing and quite packed. I thought it was pretty amazing even though you basically need to just see it from one side and that’s it. But we wound up staying about an hour there. Rome is a pretty cool city and I’ve noticed that scooters and motorbikes don’t give a darn about the road rules. Everything is basically fair game. So if you actually ever drove in Rome, you are quite the daredevil, but they do have nice cars! After the Coliseum, we pulled over to look at the Circus Maxiumus. No big thing…just a big patch of grass. Snapped a couple of pictures and that’s about it. It continued like this for a while and mostly it’s all scenic shots. You’ll need to check out the pictures I took from Flickr to help see what I did.
Perhaps the coolest thing I got to do was head over to the Vatican and check out the museums, St. Peter’s Square, the Basilica, and even the Sistene Chapel! Oh damn…that place is awesome. Yeah, I’m not religious and obviously not Catholic or Christian…whatever…but the history and the art work in these places are astonishing. When will you ever have a chance to be in the Vatican anyways? Our awesome drivers managed to get us a cool (and hot) tour guide named Julia. Wow…and they have this system where they give you mini-communicators so they talk through headphones and you have an earpiece that you hear what they’re saying. Cool…and you’ll need to wait for the pictures.
Anyways, back on board. About to ship off to our second to the last port of call: Florence. Should have plenty of pictures to take there. Tonight should be fun with another Second City event and also the semi-final soccer match between Russia and Spain. This boat should be going insane.
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June 25, 2008
So I’m here in Naples now and enjoying the wonderful scenary and much more. Had a delicious lunch in Soronto and in Almafi with some great views of the Mediterranean Sea. If I had a place to visit, I’d definitely choose coming to Naples again. The tour guide was most enjoyable, but the only downside of doing this tour is the bobbing and weaving your bus will have to do along Almafi as you go from village to village as the roads are simply too small to have an easy turn or manuver. It sucks and I think I got a slight bit carsick, but now I’m over it so no biggie.
We’re going to set off to Rome tonight and that’ll be an adventure. This is the first time we’re not going through Norwegian’s shore excursion group so hopefully that’ll be more enjoyable. I think I’ll enjoy it because it’s a private tour…only for my family and I so I won’t have to deal with other people that I don’t really talk to - not that I don’t like ‘em. They’re great people…
After my last blog post yesterday, I noticed that they were playing the Nintendo Wii on the big screen plasma wall tv and the NCL guy was trying to show four kids how to play it. There was this Irish kid who thought he knew everything about the Wii and its games and the NCL guy (with a heavy French accent) was disputing it and eventually seemed to loose his patience and cool with this kid. Unfortunately the player 3 control stopped working and the NCL guy was telling this Spanish kid to relax and not worry. NCL guy restarted the game and set it to three players and somehow the Irish kid thought he wasn’t playing anymore. Funny thing was that the NCL guy told Irish kid to put his controller down (which he did) and then held out the controller that the NCL guy had. Irish kid thought he meant the controller he had just put down. Well this comedic act continued for a couple of times until NCL guy grabbed Irish kid and gave him the controller he had and said “Do you understand my English?” and once Irish kid knew what NCL guy is talking about, you should have seen his face. It was like “Oooh…duh!” Quite amusing…
Anyways, I’ve finished my tour of Naples and I’m quite happy with the pictures. But what I’m concerned about is the fact that I’m without any souveniers. No tangible objects to return back home with and share with friends and family. How sad. I’m not totally upset, but still uncertain about whether I should actually go buy some souveniers and jump on board the tourist bandwagon and subscribe to the souvenier philosophy that wherever you go, you need to buy a souvenier. It sucks…but I think I have some time left. Perhaps when I’m in Rome, Florence, or Venice? I guess I’m accustomed to the fact that pictures have become suitable for this shtuff?
Alright. Running out of minutes on this plan. Need to get more *ugh*, but dinner’s approaching and there’s a Second City comedic act tonight so I’ll go catch that. Gym later on and that’s about it.
Next stop…Rome!
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June 24, 2008
A creature of habit, I’ve been checking my e-mail regularly (or at least once a day) during my vacation. I just can’t help it. It’s my own idiosycracy! But I’m surprisingly running out of minutes and this may be my last post for the next couple of days simply because the damn Internet plans are so expensive. But as a result, I won’t be able to upload photos because I’ll probably waste all my time trying to figure out which photos to take, rotate, etc…and it’s going to be a real pain in the butt.
Anywho, so we’re in wonderful Malta today. Just got finished a great tour of the island nation and its three main cities. No complaints here, but it is really hot! Yeah, that’s right. It’s hot…the weather said that it’s about 82 degrees F but someone forgot to tell the weather that as we walked around outside for four hours and nearly baked. I swear I have raccoon eyes or something now. Well that or I’m at least sunburnt on my arms. Dammit…but it was a great tour and I’m pretty astonished at how Maltese people are living - did you know that they offer their students free tuition in college and also they speak english and maltese? That’s awesome. I really need to learn how to be fluent in another language. All the times I learned a different language (e.g. Spanish or Chinese), I never thought that I would be actually using it and lo’ and behold, in the past couple of years, I’ve been to Europe (ie Spain) and China/Hong Kong. Hmmm…pattern?
Side note: Just saw a grown man wearing speedos…ewww…
But I digress. Last night we ate at one of the dining rooms and I enjoyed their succulent Beef and Onion Brochette. It was tender and oh-so delicious. I highly recommend it. So far, the dinners have been superb and I believe tonight we’re going to try their steakhouse on board. We then caught their on-board performance troupe and what’s funny is that that night’s entertainment theme revolved around “World Music”…except the costumes were somewhat “worldly”, but the music wasn’t truly of that region. The Africa portion was from an artist from the US and the Asian portion was Mulan’s theme song originally sung by Christina Aguilera! How is that Asian?! Okay, someone needs to tell them what really they need to sing. But the act was pretty good aside from that major false advertising. One other thing though…they need to remind people about the flash photography since no one really paid much attention and you could see flashes from cameras go off every other minute. Hilarious!
Actually hit the gym on the boat for the first time in a while and it was a pretty good workout. Can’t say that it was the best, but at least I worked off some of the food from the last couple of days. I’m sure with all this walking and sweating, that I’ll be able to throw that in and lose some weight.
But I guess I better go. I only had abuot 45+ minutes on this damn Internet plan and I still need to check my other e-mail. D’oh…so I’ll jump on a little later this week (I hope).
Next stop? Naples!
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June 23, 2008
Well we’re finally on our way and I’ve broken the one rule that I have on this trip…don’t check work e-mail and that’s exactly what I did. We set sail last night from Barcelona on our way to Malta and I jumped on the computer to check my e-mail…not my WORK e-mail, mind you, but rather my personal one and also so I could upload my photos, which unfortunately turns out to be impossible because they don’t want us to upload our crap onto these computers. So I went ahead and checked up on my work e-mail (out of habit) and violated the cardinal rule of a vacation…dammit!
Fortunately the world didn’t come to an end in the 3-4 days since I’ve been away and there’s only one real fire to put out so reluctantly, I had to e-mail my boss and a couple of other people and bite the bullet. It sucked…and believe me, I’ve been really mulling it over, along with some other things going on over the past couple of days. Reflection time, yeah…I know.
But back to the cruise and enough about work! I’m on-board the Norwegian Gem setting sail for a seven-day cruise throughout the Mediterranean. It’s an enjoyable ride and there are plenty of people on this ship. The cabin that I have has a wonderful view and the food is absolutely delicious. We started out our visit to the ship with a buffet lunch…mmm…it was pretty good save the fact that the hamburger was pretty dry and the chicken was somewhat salty, but the dinner was delicious! They have several different restaurants on board the Norwegian Gem, ranging from having Asian Fusion to Italian to Teppanyaki. Nice assortment, but if you wanna go hit up the dining room, then by all means…they have good food too. Just last night, I had the Potato with Fennel soup for an Entree and continued with the Chicken Breast with Mashed Potatoes before wrapping it all up with some delicious vanilla ice cream. Yumm…and late night room service is pretty awesome too!
The rest of the ship is pretty quaint and cozy too with a BIG screen tv mounted on the wall. Rather, it’s a projection screen that’s in the main lobby of the damn ship! Okay, I had never seen a soccer match in Europe before, but with all these “crazy” Europeans on the ship watching Spain versus Italy in the EuroMatch Quarterfinals last night, it is unbelieveable! You gotta see the videos that I took…and as soon as I find a computer that’ll let me upload via USB, then no worries, but until then, you’ll need to take my word for it.
Anyways, had an enjoyable first night on the boat and there’s plenty more to see…they have a pretty cool night lounge with pool, casino games, dance floor, awesome chairs, dart boards, and big screen tvs. They’re also supposed to have a Wii event here or something in the afternoon for about 1 1/2 hours. Should be interesting. Gonna try and snap some videos of the thing too. Haha…but today will be a pleasant day at sea…I hope.
Next up? Malta! Bon Voyage!
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