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