Day 1 - Milan, Italy:
First, we found our hotel, and then went to grab a bite at a Doner place because it was late and that was all that was open. After that, we slept so we could have plenty of energy for the next day.
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| Hotel San Francisco, but not in California |
Day 2 - Milan, Italy:
We got up bright and early and had a delicious breakfast at the hotel, consisting of plenty of delicious meats, cheeses, and breads. We then headed off to the Duomo, which is the main cathedral in the city. We paid a small fee to go up to the rooftop since the rooftop tour in Cologne was so enjoyable, and spent around an hour up there taking pictures and enjoying the view of the entire city around us. We then walked over to the nearby shopping area and took some peeks into the expensive Italian clothing and accessory stores like Prada and Armani. We then went to the Van Gogh museum in hopes of seeing the original "Last Supper," but were disappointed to find out that you had to make reservations two weeks in advance :( Oh well, we got some nice pictures in front of the cool looking building that contained the painting. After that small disappointment, we got a delicious lunch at some Italian place that had the best iced coffee I've ever had. Next, we went to a castle whose name has slipped my mind. 'Twas pretty awesome, as most castles are, but the best part was the back yard. It was a huge field with ponds and green grass and a carnival and people throwing frisbees and an arc de triomphe on the other end. We walked through the park and went up to the arc to take some pictures and whatnot, and then headed back to the Duomo for mass. When we got out of mass we were surprised to find a huge party raging on in the main square. It turns out it was women's day, and we were standing on the edge of a huge battlefield of little kids throwing shaving cream and flour and such at each other. Our first instinct was to relocate into the middle of the fighting, and so we did. After getting caught in a few shaving cream/silly string crossfires, we made it to the statue in the middle of the square and were able to get a great look at all of the carnage. After we had our fill, we went back to the area near our hotel and found a place to eat. We ended up at a pretty expensive place but decided we'd spend the money anyways because YOLO. They served us a 5 course meal that consisted of delicious things that did not make it to my long term memory. After we paid our rather large bill, we went and bought a couple of Italian wines to sample back at the hotel, because when you are in Italy, you must try some Italian wine. It was all good and made us super sleepy, and so we crashed shortly afterwards.
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| Prada store - no price tags means its too expensive |
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| The Duomo towering over the Women's Day party |
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| A girl who just got confetti'd by a little kid |
Our third day consisted mainly of the travel from Milan to Savonna where we got on our cruise, so I won't talk too much about all that. Aside from the cool coastal scenery towards the end of the drive, it was just like any other long bus trip. I will, however, take this segment to blabber on about all the going-ons of the cruise ship, instead of dividing them up among all of the different days. First thing after we found our room and moved in our stuff, we had to participate in a mandatory safety drill to make sure we wouldn't die if the ship ran a ground like one of the Costa cruises did last year (we were on a Costa cruise >.<). After that we went out on deck and looked at the port city and took some pictures and all of that good stuff.
This is where things will get disorganized because I stopped recording cruise-events in chronological order, so I'll just list everything I wrote down and that'll be that... We decided to take the stairs as much as possible cause exercise is good. We had a bunch of medium fancy dinners at which we ordered a whole lot of food since we had already paid for it and wanted to get our moneys worth. Also it tasted good, duh. In the evenings they had a pizza shenanigan at the buffet, so we hit that up and got tasty pizza almost every night around ten. We went out on deck and night a few times and froze our <insert body part here> off, but it was still nice because the Mediterranean is pretty and all. We went by a few of the fancy clubs and enjoyed watching old people dance to Frank Sinatra type music that is a bit too.... not good for my tastes. We hung out in the casino some just because we could, but we never actually gambled because the minimum bet for the only game I actually know, blackjack, was 5 euros, and thats a bit steep for a poor college student like myself. On each night, there was a performance in the main performance room that was made for performers to perform in. We went there and saw a cool circus guy who made awesome shadow puppets and did other interesting things as well. We also saw a couple of dancing/singing performances, and a comedian who was good at juggling pingpong balls with his mouth. We watched a soccer game one evening before we got our pizza, yay Fussball. On two of the mornings we took dance lessons which was superhard for me cause my coordination level is still 1. On our day at sea, we tried to relax in the hot tub but it had been taken over by obnoxious 8 year olds that we throwing stuff at each other, so that didn't last very long. We had two fancy dinner nights where we got dressed up and ate slightly fancier food than the other night. We built an awesome fort in our room, and I finally watched Frozen, which was good, but not as good as the female world hyped it up to be. Sorry for using the word "we" so much, I cba to make this a creative writing piece.
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| It would appear that I didn't take too many cruise pictures, but here's Melissa dancing with our waiter! |
Day four was a pretty hectic one, but still enjoyable. It was our shortest day in a port, so we had to rush to make it to our desired destination, Pompeii. We got off the boat and hurried to figure out their public transportation system. After about an hour of question asking, bus riding, and train surfing, we arrived at the ruins. A sad truth that we learned in Milan was that Italians tend to be lazy and close up shop around 3 in the afternoon. We arrived at Pompeii at 3:15 or so, and were unable to take the tour through Pompeii. Luckily, there was a path around the city that we could take advantage of, and we were still able to see plenty of the city. On the other side, we found a bunch of street vendors selling various odds and ends, including male genitalia with wings for good luck (lulwut?). We ran into a group of girls from Penn State who happened to be in the same place at the same time but not even on our cruise, so that was a fun coincidence. After we had our fair share of haggling with the Italians, we rushed back to the boat and made it just in time for departure.
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| What's left of Pompeii |
For our fifth day, we went in with no plan and just went where our impulsive decisions lead us. We walked up what appeared to be the main road and saw some cool looking buildings, and a ways up a cool looking church or museum, I'm not exactly sure. I discovered that Sicily is known for its Canolis, so I went to a bakery and got one and it was mmmm-tasty. We walked around some more and drank some Rose and had a merry ol' time.
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| David getting the ladies at a cool looking building |
For our day in Africa, we decided we would pay the moneys for an excursion with the cruise, mostly because there was a travel warning for Americans in Tunisia and we didn't want to get killed, or worse... expelled. It was definitely a good choice because the boat docked in the middle of nowhere and I have no clue how we would have gotten to the places we saw on our own. So we hopped on our bus with a bus driver named Toto, yes, Toto, like the band that wrote the song "Africa." and he drove us into the main part of the city. We disembarked and our tour guide whos name has escaped me lead us to the Medina, which contains the main mosque of the city. It was pretty cool beans. Our guide then described to us the meanings of the different carvings on the doors of buildings. Apparently every door in the city is different, and each carving tells a lot about the person living there, including their family name, and what good the produce. Next we went to a perfume/cologne shop where the owner handmade all of his scents, many of which he produced for big name brands like Hugo Boss. I bought one called "Sabato" that I'm only supposed to use on Saturdays because apparently it will make the ladies flock to me and want some "bonga bonga." Next we went to the Souk, which is the covered market place near the center of the city. There we saw thousands and thousands of extravagant pieces of jewelry made of gold and silver. We went to one shop where they made and sold Tunisian carpets, which were all quite large and apparently took over a year to make (they were handmade by women without using a pattern). In the same shop they sold many other things, and I almost bought a sweet looking assassin dagger that I was able to barter down from 140 euros to only 40. After the Souk, we took the bus to Carthage, which is now the Beverly Hills of Tunisia, with each house costing anywhere between one and five million euros. We got to see the ruins of the ancient Roman baths and I even managed to take a "bath" in a small puddle. Shortly after that, we saw the huge aqua-duct that supplied the baths with water, and then returned to the boat. Before getting back on the boat, a grabbed a piece of Africa to take home with me, because I figure there's a pretty good chance I'll never get to go back.
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| Cool rooftop architecture in the Souk |
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| Ruins of the Roman bath in Carthage |
I covered all of this in Day 3
Day 8 - Barcelona, Spain:
We met up with Branden, Brandon, and Matt at the Christopher Columbus statue (they had been in Barcelona all week), and headed towards the Sagrada Familia along one of the main pedestrian roads. On our way, we stopped by a marketplace and bought some freshly squeezed juice; I got a mix of chocolate, coconut, and banana! We then took the subway the rest of the way to the Sagrada, and were completely wowed as soon as we stepped out of the station and saw the cathedral. After taking bunches of pictures we went inside and were completely wowed even more.
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