Marseille

Today was an early start for me. I woke up at 6:30 and headed up to get breakfast, then get ready for the day. By 8:15, I was on the shuttle bus from the port of Marseille to the Vieux Port. Walking around for an hour and a half, it became clear to me that Marseille was not at all meant as a destination for tourists. In a way, that was refreshing though, as you got the sense that people actually lived there, something that couldn’t be said of the numerous small resort towns I saw in the past week.

At around 10:30, we decided to take a bus up to the top of a hill overlooking the port where Notre Dame a la Gare is located. It cost 7€ round trip per person, but they provided us some commentary along the way, which was helpful and made it worth it. It took about 30 minutes to reach the Church. In the past week I have seen a lot of spectacular churches, and this was no different. Its location overlooking the entire city was out of this world.  

Besides a few souvenir/perfume/soap shops, there wasn’t much for tourists to do in town. We each bought things for people back home, then went to lunch at a café along the port. I had moules frites in a cream sauce, which was a very good value. For the first time in my life, I legally ordered a beer, a Hoegaarden White Ale.

Soon after lunch, realizing there wasn’t much else to do in the time we had remaining, we headed back to the ship. I watched True Grit in the room, and then went up to the top of the ship to read. Really exciting stuff. Dinner tonight was excellent as always. Tonight’s was prime rib and duck, I think. Honestly, all of the dinners have begun to blend together. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned them in detail before, but the family we share the table with, an Italian bunch from Toronto have turned out to be really friendly and enjoyable.

Tomorrow we are in Barcelona all day and night, which considering our other options (apparently Monte Carlo, Marseille or Sea) is good.

We would have gone to Valencia, Spain tomorrow, but apparently it would have been too far of a trip back to Barcelona from there and we would not be able to disembark in time. Looking at a map and with that I know about the geography of the region, I would say that Marseille-Barcelona (which was what was originally scheduled) would be just as far if not further than Valencia-Barcelona. C’est la vie.

I will write up my final thoughts on the cruise when I’m on the flight from Madrid to Philadelphia. It is 9 hours long, so I’ll need something to keep busy,

I’ll write tomorrow night from the ship for a final time recapping the first of two days I’ll spend in Barcelona.

Goodnight,

Matt

Today was a lazy day at sea, so it will get a lazy entry. I woke up at 10, ate eggs, then went back to the room to take pictures of the Sardinian coast from my balcony. I then attempted to do laundry, which came to a total of $7.50 a load. That almost makes the $15 laundry service worth it. That took about two and a half hours total, since I had to wait a long time for machines.

At some point during the day, we went through the strait between Corsica and Sardinia, which was narrow, exciting and full of sailboats. I began to get ready for the “formal night” around 5:30, wearing just a shirt and tie because all of my blazers are in Bethlehem. Dinner for me was duck and lobster tail, an odd combination, but a delicious one nonetheless. After dinner, I was a good sport so Emily and I got pictures taken. My dad at this point was buying some pictures that were taken earlier on the cruise in more candid locations.

We learned the plan for the rest of the cruise today, too. Tomorrow, we are going to be in Marseille, France (which we learned earlier in the day). We are going to Barcelona a day early now, since no other ports were available for a boat the size of ours. I’m not sure how I feel about this. We are able to treat the ship as a hotel for the night, and they will run shuttles and excursions as if it were a destination port. But, hearing the amount of people that booked hotels in Barcelona for the days after the cruise, I have the feeling that it will seem as though the vacation is ending early. I would have much preferred to visit anywhere else, honestly. Nothing against Barcelona, I’ve stayed there for 2 weeks before and loved it, but I came on board expecting to go to seven ports and am getting six. It is not Carnival’s fault, but given the stereotypes I have of Spanish labor, contingencies should be in place for this situation. I did not get even the slightest hint that that was the case throughout the day.

Either way, I’m looking forward to Marseille tomorrow.

I’ve got one more souvenir to purchase.

I’ve already iced my shins tonight, so its bedtime.

Have a good night,

Matt

Update

Here’s the deal: Mallorca’s longshoremen and transportation employees are striking, so the entire port is shut down. We’re skipping it tomorrow and we’re headed to Marseille, a day early. We’ll spend one day there. From there, we don’t yet know where we’re going to go. We’re too big for a lot of ports, and this normally isn’t much of a problem, since they could just ferry us into port from off shore. But we’re too big for that to be done efficiently. So at this point, my money is on us going to Ajaicco, Corsica, or Genoa, Italy on Saturday. Either of those would kick Mallorca’s butt. Other (less attractive options) include going back to Monaco, going to Barcelona a day early and spending an extra day at sea.

There are different unions in Barcelona, so it doesn’t appear that we’ll have any problem getting off the ship and into the airport, which is good.

Sicily

We arrived at Messina at 7:00 AM to little splendor or excitement. A second tier Sicilian city, I wasn’t too excited to be here. I had some of the worst hash browns of my life in the main dining room for breakfast and it was 9 before I left the boat.

The plan for the day was to take a train into the town of Taormina, a posh resort town about 50 kilometers outside Messina. However, I didn’t have a map and could not find a single sign pointing us to the train station, so we ended up taking a cab there. The cost, more than 100 euro was outrageous. However, this price was for (we thought) a round trip. We were wrong. More about that later. The taxi driver, who spoke as little English as I do Sicilian, drove more recklessly than a teenage boy the first time he’s trying to impress a girl. It seems that fact throughout Italy is that traffic laws don’t really exist. As yesterday’s guide Lello said,  “traffic lights are just meant for decoration”.

Luckily, we made it to the Taormina alive and let the driver know we would be done around 2:30. He left back to Messina and we walked into the town. Like most things I’ve seen so far over here, it was a really handsome town with a ton of shops and restaurants lining the streets. I got the opportunity to take a lot of pictures, including some of the active volcano Mt Etna.

I decided that coming to Italy and not eating pizza was just stupid, so for lunch, I ordered a pizza with spinach, mozzarella and ham. It was delicious. One thing I noticed while sitting at the restaurant was the diversity of people in the town.  I heard Italian, Spanish, French, English and German it roughly the same proportions.

After walking around for a little bit more, we headed to the pickup point we agreed to with our driver. Waiting for around 15 minutes, another cab driver comes up to tell us that our guy has had car trouble and can’t make it up to Taormina, and that he’ll take us back instead. I would have felt a little awkward about this, but since he identified our original driver as “Giuseppe”, I believed him. As we got into this man’s cab, another family from the cruise ship climbed in. This was a family from Staten Island, so I got along with them well. After the 45 minute drive back, we both realized that this driver wanted to get paid a full fare from each of us. Being that this is Sicily, land of the Mafia, we agreed to his terms, as ludicrous as they were.

After leaving Sicily, we headed toward the Island of Stromboli, in hopes to see some volcanic activity. We lucked out. Pictures were difficult to capture as we were moving at 15 miles an hour about a mile off the coast and it was dark, but I got a few that convey what was happening.

Tomorrow is a “fun day at sea”. I will take tomorrow to take pictures of the ship. More than 5000 people are currently aboard, including crew. It is truly a miniature town.

As I predicted at the beginning of the cruise, 20 is proving to be an awkward age on here. Thank god I have this and the gym to take up a lot of my time.

Goodnight.

-Matt

Capri/Sorrento/Pompeii

Hi.

Today, like always, I was up early and got an unhealthy portion of eggs and orange juice. By 7:00 we were all ready to head down to the theatre, where we were to get organized for the day’s ship-organized excursion titled, “Capri, Sorrento and Pompeii”. If you’ve never been on a cruise before, an excursion is a completely planned itinerary that the ship puts together, packages it under a cool name, than prices it about 100% above cost. While I may be exaggerating a little bit on the last part, I’m sure you get the idea.

At the theatre, we were given a sticker and walked off the ship to find our guide who corresponded to the number on our sticker. Our guide, a 5’7” Pompeii-ite  called Lello, played up the fact he was Italian to a laughable degree. He called us his “family” the entire trip and used a thick accent that seemed to fade away as he got further along into a lengthier sentence, but he seemed to truly care about us, which was very surprising to me. That’s enough about him; let me talk about what I did today.

From Naples, where the ship was docked, I got onto a hydrofoil destined for the Island of Capri. I had heard amazing things about it leading up to the trip which the main reason I chose to go on this excursion. The ride was short, about 40 minutes, but in that time it was like I was taken to a whole other planet. Leaving a legitimate metropolis, Capri proved to be the antithesis. Small, secluded, tranquil and lush in vegetation, I hopped on the cable car that takes you up the hill to the town of Capri from the port (of course the ticket was handed to me by Lello right before I went through the turnstile: there was little chance of error the entire day).

Reaching the top, I could immediately see that this is where the other half takes their vacations. Apparently Beyonce and Russell Crowe (yes, for those of you keeping score at home, that is two consecutive Russell Crowe mentions) are frequent guests to the island. Walking along the main street, designer boutiques surround you, none of which had any sales posted. I headed toward the backside of the island, where a park offered a gorgeous panorama of the rocky cliffs dotted with some hotels completely dropping off into the deep blue water full of yachts with helipads. Sadly, I forgot to pack my memory card today, and because a 4gb one was priced at 50€, I only have lower quality cell phone pictures.

I walked around Capri some more, trying to see as much as possible in the 35 minutes of “free time” I was given. I then headed back down the cable car, boarded a boat for Sorrento, and hopped on a bus in Sorrento that took me to lunch. It consisded of 3 courses: spinach and cheese cannelloni, a chicken dish that was startlingly lackluster, and the sweetest cantaloupe I had even tasted.

After lunch, Lello gave us a whole 45 minutes to explore the town of Sorrento. I thought that Sorrento was just a crappy pizza place in South Oakland that has $5 specials on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, but in reality, it is a really high end resort town. Lello made it a point that a cheap hotel in Capri cost upwards of 1000€ a night, whereas a similar quality hotel would only run you 600€. Still a little steep if you ask me. Regardless, the town was striking in its architecture, with everything colored in rich, deep earth tones. Apparently Sorrento is where the well to do Italians tend to head, so the women tended to all be somewhat tall, thin, tan and beautiful (something it shares with Seaside Heights, minus the height, thinness and beauty.)

I still have yet to find good souvenirs for people back home, and am getting a little worried at this point. I added to my laptop cover sticker collection, but everything else I’ve seen looks really, really tacky. Right now, my backup plan is buying a cured ham in the Barcelona airport.

From Sorrento, we got on another bus for the 50 minute drive to Pompeii. Once in the town, we entered the ruins. This is where Lello shined. Being an archeologist who has worked extensively on the area, he had an intimate knowledge of the entire city, from each building’s purpose to the drainage system of the city to how prostitutes advertised the location of their brothels when people were too far away to head their wolf-like howls. What I liked best about Pompeii, however, was the preserved casts of the people, seemingly frozen in time. I’d recommend everyone see Pompeii once, it really was amazing.

All in all, choosing to do this excursion was a rewarding experience that went along with the general theme of the cruise: effiecency. While I’m sure I would have liked to spend much more time in both Capri and Sorrento (Capri deserves its own vacation), given the time constraints and my lack of Italian knowledge, I definitely crammed the most into my 10 hours in Naples as possible.

This evening on the cruise ship, since Emily and my Dad both went to bed early, I went running after dinner. I looped 3 miles, the first timed at 7:10, the second at 7:42 and the third at 8:15. Yes, these were on a treadmill, but it is still a huge improvement on where I was at the beginning of the summer, barely able to run from the YMCA to Main St in Bethlehem.

I didn’t get to the casino last night, but one of these night, I’m going to let it all (read: $80 or so of my winnings) ride. Tonight won’t be that night however, as I’m tired. Messina, Sicily tomorrow.

I’m off to ice my shins.

Goodnight.

-Matt

Just a note about this blog up to this point:

I realize that the writing has been lackluster at points, but I do feel that the more I have been writing, the better it has become. I feel that doing this, even though I’m only halfway through has been more beneficial to me as a writer than any assignment or class I’ve received or taken in school so far. I don’t know if that is a good thing (better late than never) or a bad thing (if the best way to become better at writing is to just do it, why hasn’t anyone suggested this?). Either way, I’m not sure I’d do this if I didn’t have an audience, so Thank You.

PS: There are far too few opportunities to get protein on this ship at midnight. Cake and Ice Cream is abundant, but can a growing boy get some grilled chicken?!?

Capri

Sorrento

Pompeii with Lello (in white)

Roma

Hey there,

It’s about 9:00 here, I just got back from dinner and had an amazing day in Rome. The day started for me at 5ish, when I ironed all of my clothes, then went to eat breakfast and write a blog post on my day in Florence,  or something. Anyways, as 7:00 we left the ship, I had five different pictures taken of me with myriad different Romanesque characters, and then met up with our personal driver for the day, Gilberto.

The car for today was a 2011 Mercedes-Benz E220, which was very official looking. Leaving Civitavecchia, we began on what with traffic should be a 90 minute ride to the Vatican Museum, but we lucked out and did the journey in about an hour. Since we arrived early, our driver, who was fantastic, took us to a park at the top of one of the Seven Hills of Rome (it was named Jiancolo, maybe?) where we got a great panorama of the city and a little tour by the driver.

(Our driver kept apologizing up and down for speaking poor English—he was nearly fluent and had little reason to say sorry. What it made me think about however is the incredible double standard I’ve observed to exist in the past few days. People apologize up and down for being poor at a language foreign to them in their HOME country. Many times they have been completely understandable, but even in the other cases, they are more than willing (with the exception of ultra-snobby Monaco) to fight to communicate with you. I understand that the nature of their business, catering to the whims of tourists dictates this, but I’m not sure tourists to America are/would be greeted with the same friendliness I am here, which I’m sure serves to perpetuate the stereotype some foreigners have of the typical American basically being an arrogant cow-boy.  Please note these are not my feelings toward the staff here on the boat; they are friendly too, but they have much more incentive to be. If he got poor customer reviews, you can bet your last dollar my steward Pradeep would be on the next plane to Jakarta.)

At 9:00 we met up with our guide for the day, Francesca at the entrance to the Vatican Museum. Since we pre-purchased our tickets, we were able to bypass the insane line and enter right away. We stopped at a courtyard right away where she gave her speech on the Sistine Chapel (complete with her own copies of the fresco and ceiling) in a environment where we’d actually be able to understand it. Take note: Francesca was so efficient, I ‘m surprised she wasn’t German. Entering the actual gallery, we were given the choice of seeing a tour primarily focused on paintings or one on sculptures. However stupid it may be, all humanoid sculpture tends to blend together for me over time, so I chose the painting-centric tour.

I later learned that Francesca was had multiple degrees in French, English, Art History and Classical History. Needless to say, she was a dynamic human encyclopedia of anything Catholic and/or Roman. She knew the exact dates of each painting we saw, as well as fairly detailed biographies about each artist. Amazing. Out of all the works of art we saw in this museum, I’d have to say my favorite was the exhibition on Raphael. Now I’m unsure on what exact pieces I saw, but the versatility he displayed was incredible.

From the Vatican Museum, we headed into the Sistine Chapel, which was as crowded as it was striking. It was in my 9^th grade Western Civilization textbook where I first learned of the work of Michelangelo, but being a 14 year old kid, I was “too cool” to think it was anything special. I was wrong.  I correct words to describe it are simply not in my vocabulary, so my recommendation is if you want to appreciate it, you have to see it yourself. After the Sistine Chapel, we went into St Peter’s Square, where we saw the Papal balcony and got walk around for a little bit, getting a deluge of information along the way. We then went into St Peter’s Basilica, which, like the Sistine Chapel was beyond words. Within it, we saw the beatified Pope John Paul II’s (I don’t think coffin is the right word, but that’s what I’m going with) coffin, and got to see/learn about all of the chapels that comprise the Basilica. I’ll try to look through the pictures I took to jog my memory as to what else we saw here, it sure was a lot.

We met our driver outside St Peter’s Square, where we went to the top of Federal Hill, offering a great vantage point of the Ancient Roman Forum. Francesca knew the exact history of each solitary stone in the area (or she was an excellent compulsive liar). Either way, both she and the site were incredibly impressive. From here, we went on to the Coliseum, the first thing that came to my mind when I thought of Ancient Rome, probably thanks to Russell Crowe. In the interest of time, we didn’t get inside of it, but it was impressive enough from the exterior, around which we walked completely.

(Side note: I’ve seen 4 or 5 STUNNING Italian Policewomen here. American desperately needs help in this department. )

From here we toured a few more churches, seeing Michelangelo’s Moses (good, but David is better in my opinion) and St Peter’s Chains (wait, who am I to call something of Michelangelo’s “good”?? I still draw with stick figures for god’s sake), but at some point it all began to blend together. Nobody is to blame for this but myself, as I was hungry.  After lunch, we went to the Trevi Fountain, where per the tradition, we tossed 3 coins into it behind our backs. They say that if you do this, you are destined to return to Rome again. I sure hope this is true.

We took a few minutes to shop for souvenirs. I got a Roma bumper sticker to add to the collection forming on my laptop lid and my sister picked up an authentic Pope Benedict XVI Bobblehead Doll.

Moving on, we toured the Spanish Steps from the car, driving through the narrow alleys, looking super-official and stopping occasionally for Kodak Moments. I’m not sure that this is the ideal way to get a feel for a place, but given the ridiculous time restraint imposed by the ship, a 9:00 departure time, there was no better way to see the number of places we did.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I have to talk about the last stop on the tour: The Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. As the name suggests, this was located outside of city center, which made for a much more peaceful, serene church. There was an immaculately manicured botanical garden leading up to the entrance and once inside, you are greeted with an incredibly powerful scene. Marble surrounds you and the eye is instantly drawn to a brass structure in the center of the church before the alter, which is St Paul’s tomb. In Catholic art, Saints Peter and Paul are typically positioned close to one another, so it only seemed appropriate to see Paul’s tomb to finish off the day.

The drive back to Civitavecchia was largely uneventful, with the exception of our driver almost getting hit by another driver who failed to look before merging. Wanting to leave the situation in the dust, Giberto opened the Benz up, cruised at 180 km/h for 15 minutes and got us back to the ship in no time.

Looking back on the day, I learned that I could easily spend a week in Rome and only scratch the surface on what there is to do and see in it. I would prefer the cruise spent and extra day in Rome instead of wasting a day at sea or going to Mallorca. That being said, you can only play the cards you were dealt, and judging by the reaction of the Italian family we eat dinner with every night, we saw a week’s worth of Rome in 8 hours. For that I am glad.

I’m off to find some headphones as mine broke yesterday and then probably to the casino. I have $70 of essentially house money I’m going to flip into $7,000.

Gilberto looking over his car.

St Peter's Basilica

The Coliseum 

St Paul's Basilica

Wish me Luck,

Matt

PS: We went to the Pantheon, too. Pompeii/Sorrento/Capri tomorrow.

Pictures of Florence

Here are some pictures I took yesterday in Florence. They are of The Duomo, Ponte Vecchio and more of the Duomo.

Florence!

Good Morning,

It’s 6:30 here and we’re just pulling into port in Rome. Yesterday, we were docked in Livorno, dubbed as the “gateway to Tuscany”. We had to walk about a mile to the train station, where we boarded a train for Florence. Apparently the countryside was beautiful on this 1:15 trip, but being severely jetlagged, I caught up on sleep.

Arriving in Florence, we headed towards the Batteserio Duomo, a cathedral built in the 13^th century. You’ll have to see pictures to understand the massiveness of it, truly incredible when you realize it is some 800 years old and was constructed without modern engineering knowledge. We walked around the plaza surrounding it for a little bit, and then headed to the museum within which Michelangelo’s David is located (the name escapes me right now). We went on a hour long guided tour which enabled us to skip the long line to get in. The tour guide was certainly competent, although a little obsessed with the perfection of David’s hind parts.

After the museum, we walked around some more, sort of intentionally getting lost (hard to do in such a touristy area). We eventually decided to head to the Ponte Vecchio, the most famous Florentine bridge. I was hoping to get a nice panoramic shot of the city from this vantage, but was unfortunately wrong. Regardless, the city was incredibly photogenic, so I took many pictures.

We then walked back to the train station, got on an incredibly hot train, and headed back to the boat. For the first time, I felt that being on a cruise ship limited what I was able to see considerably. Florence, like Rome, cannot thoroughly be visited in half a day (with travel to/from the city factored in).

Back on board, I had a very lazy night. We went to dinner and I went to sleep at 8:30. Wow, I’m a loser.

We have a private tour in Rome today and the ship is now docked, so I have to go, but I’ll write and post pictures of Rome + Florence tonight.

Hope nobody got stabbed tonight at Musikfest,

Matt

Monaco/Nice

Hello,

I woke up today at 7:00 sharp, and ran up shortly after to the breakfast buffet, where I had an omelet that rivaled those of Market Central. Sitting at the table, I got to see some of the French Rivera, but more about that later. Back at my room, I sat on the balcony as we pulled into Monaco’s port, passing by countless heli-pad equipped megayachts.

At 9:00 we left the ship and set foot in Monaco, greeted by a modern cruise terminal, and began walking around the harbor to the AVIS rental office, about a half mile away. Once we got the car, we promptly left Monaco, heading down the Cote d’Azur toward the city of Nice.

The drive along the coast took about 40 minutes through what may be the most glitzy area in all of Europe. You were equally likely to see a recent model Ferrari as you would a Ford in America. Crazy. It took a while to find a public parking lot within Nice, but once we did, we ditched the car, and began toward the port (these towns were largely dependent on the fishing industry before the rich “invaded” and therefore are centered around their ports.) At the port, we walked around for two or three hours, then headed back towards the car.

The people of Nice were very friendly, at least in my experience, helping me find my way around and appreciating my efforts in French. I still understand it well, but I stink when it comes time for me to carry on my half of a conversation, which is incredibly frustrating. I’d really like to continue to practice since if you don’t use it, you lose it.

We went into what looked from the street like a typical convenience store, but it opened up into a full-scale grocery store. Ryan, I’m sorry to tell you that they don’t have Boo Berry in France. We each got something to drink here for the road and made our way back to the garage.

On the drive back, we stopped at an overlook above Villefranche, another Rivera seaside town. I took some pretty neat pictures from above, which I’ll upload to Facebook along with the other pictures I take in the next week or so.

(As a side note: The way to see any of these individual places is certainly not by car, but rather on foot or by moped.)

Back in Monaco, we dropped the rental car off and looked for a place to eat. Similar to the Spanish, the city shuts down in the afternoon, so finding an open restaurant was quite difficult. We ended up at a Italian place and were served by a very pretentious waiter who didn’t speak English (not a problem, I just had to order for my family) but when it came time to pay the check, he was too immersed in rearranging the seats to give it to us. I eventually just left, leaving my dad and sister at the restaurant, as I didn’t come halfway around the world to let some crappy waiter take away from my already limited time (it was also good to get out by myself for a while).

I walked up probably about 60% of the mountain Monaco is built into, stopping frequently to take pictures of whatever seemed cool. I then winded my way down to the Hotel de Paris, famously featured in many a James Bond movie. Here I met up with Emily and Dad and with about 1500 other tourists, just fawned over the cars that were parked in front. Simply put, if the sticker price was more than $250,000 there was at least one there. At the gift shop, I bought a Monaco bumper sticker for my laptop for 3€.

At this point, it was time to walk back to the ship and to eat dinner, which was a pork chop and duck tonight. On a scale of 10, I’d grade it a 6.3; better than what I could make, but still having room for improvement. After dinner, I changed and went up to the gym, which was packed, so I only ran for a half hour. My dad and sister went to the Welcome Aboard show tonight, but since it was advertised as being centered on “audience participation”, I decided to stay behind and went to the casino instead. On the 4^th pull of the slot machine, I won $80 on a dollar bet. I took 10 dollars of my winnings, lost it quickly, and went back the room by way of the photo gallery, which had a hilarious picture of a VERY happy Matt Hardman up close with a “Spanish Lady” (read: probably a Costa Rican Women in a Flamenco costume.) I’ll probably spend the money for it eventually, haha.

That leads us here, where I’m writing from the comfort of my bed. It is 12:45 right now, I’m tired, and I’m leaving for Florence tomorrow morning.

Goodnight/Have Fun at Musikfest,

Matt

Proof of My Winnings

Nice

An Alley in Monaco

Obligatory Artsy Self-Portrait

Hi,

I’m wiring from the room here on the ship, where it’s about 9 o’clock. I’m tired, so if this is somewhat incoherent, I’m sorry.

The plane from Philadelphia didn’t end up leaving until 5:00, about 45 minutes late. They brought us dinner about an hour in, which was a choice between a chicken dish and a penne pasta dish. I went with the chicken, and it was very mediocre. They gave me about 3oz of chicken, then 7 mini green beans, some jasmine rice and SPRING MIX. Does anyone seriously like that stuff? Give me some regular lettuce and I’m sold, but I can’t bring myself to eat what amounts to a few random leaves picked from someone’s garden. Enough about that.

Besides the Bulgarian woman sitting in front of me sans brassiere, the in-fight entertainment was provided by individual seat-back TVs. There was a very good selection of things to watch, and I ended up watching episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Simpsons and 24/7 Penguins/Capitals. I saw the movie Win-Win during this flight too, which would have been excellent if it were not for the distracting amount of verbal censorship. They also had 20 or so albums you could listen to, if you forgot an iPod or something, including a favorite of mine, Radiohead’s OK Computer. I found it funny that it was listed as “Classic Rock”, considering it was released in 1996. It makes me feel old.

The flight itself was very smooth, but since we were delayed leaving, we were late in arriving in Frankfurt. The plan originally was to have around a 2 hour layover there, but our flight landed at 7:25, putting our chances of making our 8:00 connection somewhere between slim and nil. Germany, a bastion of efficiency, moved us right along, putting us on an express-type bus to get through customs quickly. The customs agent looked straight from the Gestapo and had the personality to match. That’s beside the point, however, as we had 15 minutes to make our flight at this point. Running through what looked like a very nice terminal, we made it to the gate with a minute or two to spare, had our boarding passes printed by a cute German gal and boarded the plane without any problems. Thankfully, there was some sort of malfunction with the smoke detector that pushed out take-off time back 15 minutes, enabling our checked bags to make it on the plane too. What is the criterion for saying you’ve been to a country? A passport stamp? If so, I have officially been to Germany, having been there for all of 40 minutes, haha.

(This is a bit of an aside, but how useful is it to speak many languages fluently? It increases your utility exponentially, in my opinion.)

The airplane was spotless on the inside. I mean, immaculate. It really made me realize how crummy the condition of the two planes I was on earlier in the day was. The flight was short, about an hour and a half long, with half of that time spent over the Alps. Now I am not one to be particularly liberal in my use of adjectives, but the only way I can describe seeing the snow covered Alpine peaks reach up over the clouds in the morning light is beautiful. It really is a shame that I only have poor cell phone pictures of it. For breakfast, a pre-buttered roll/pretzel thing was served, which was delicious.

Arriving in Barcelona (who has a really cool, modern airport) was painless. We got our bags; I picked up some Euros from the ATM and then boarded a bus to the port where the ship was docked. The cruise terminal where we checked in was basically a greenhouse and uncomfortable, as I hadn’t slept in about 26 hours and clammy. When we got on the ship, our room wasn’t ready yet, so we went to get food, which all hit the spot. (I promise not to bore you with play by plays of every meal I eat.) We then walked around the boat, went back to our room and took an hour nap, which was desperately needed. At dinner, we sat at a table with a family from Toronto, who were very talkative, but friendly enough. I ordered a fruit plate for my appetizer, which I didn’t notice was splashed in tequila. Surprise tequila never is a good thing. I went up to the top of the ship and checked out the gym, which thankfully is very nice.

Tomorrow, I go to Monaco, where we’re renting a car and driving on the coast down the French Rivera, where the rich come to play. The ship is scheduled to dock at 9:00, so I should be able to get a decent amount of sleep tonight.

Speaking of sleep, I’m about to pass out here at the keyboard, so I’m going to bed.

Til Tomorrow, when I promise to have better pictures,

Matt

Philly!

The flight between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia was super smooth. I sat next to a 22 month old kid sitting on his mom's lap, giving him high fives nonstop for an hour.
In the airport we ate at Chickey and Pete's, where I ordered the lobster cheese steak. I expect to review the men's room on the plane because of this.
The flight is 45 minutes late, but hopefully we get going soon.
I'll write next from Frankfurt, at around 2:30 EST.

Breakfast/Pittsburgh International Airport

Right now I'm sitting at Gate 26, waiting to board US Airways Flight 3994. Boring, I know.

Breakfast today can be described in two words: High Octane. Mike didn't order it, but he got some really frou-frou coffee drink with whipped cream. We both subbed the pancakes out in our breakfast combo for two more eggs and I requested all of my meat to be Bacon.

Next stop: Philadelphia.

Day 1 - IHOP

Good Morning,

My good friend Mike O. was kind enough to drive me to the airport this morning, sparing me the soul-searching experience that invariably comes with riding the 28x. He would only drive me if one condition is met, however: that we eat an unhealthy amount of bacon and eggs beforehand.

To fulfill that request, we are going to go to the International House of Pancakes. This will also give me an opportunity to acclimate to being in a truly "international" setting, killing two birds with one stone.

Here we go.

Info About the Trip/Musikfest Parking

Hey there,

Tomorrow, I leave Pittsburgh for Philadelphia at 11am, Leave Philly for Frankfurt, Germany at 4pm, then leave Frankfurt for Barcelona at 2:30am our time.

From Barcelona my itinerary is as follows: 
Friday - Barcelona, Spain
Saturday - Monaco
Sunday - Livorno (Florence/Pisa), Italy
Monday - Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy
Tuesday - Naples, Italy
Wednesday - Messina (Sicily), Italy
Thursday - Fun Day at Sea (Yippie!)
Friday - Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Saturday - Marseilles, France
Sunday - Barcelona, Spain


All of this will take place from/in the Carnival Magic. This is what it looks like.

I then fly back to Pittsburgh via Madrid and Philly on Monday, and get back to work on Tuesday.

All in all, I'd say I'm excited to leave. I don't know if I'm exactly a "cruise person", but there is no more efficient way to see that amount of places I get to see in the time I have. I do know one thing for sure: it's going to make the rest of the summer fly by very quickly.

20 may be an awkward age on the ship. I'm not yet old enough to charge excessive amounts of alcohol for me and my 95 closest friends to the room but I'm too old to have things planned for me. We'll see if I'm right.

I'm entirely unsure how often I'll be able to update (read: I don't know how much internet costs), but I will do so as frequently as possible.

With all of that being said, the best/only way to get a hold of me until I'm back is via e-mail. If you want to use my parking space(s) for Musikfest, please let me know as soon as you can via e-mail and I'll make sure there's a spot open for you. My address is mhardman198@gmail.com.

If I think of anything pressing, I'll write some tonight, but otherwise, you can look forward to hearing from me in the beautiful Philadelphia International Airport.

~Matt