Sunday, May 5, 2013

Oh, Happy Days!!!!


Hi friends! Sorry I haven’t updated in awhile, I had a bit of a scare with my computer. It would turn on but the screen stayed white and it was making a clicking noise like it was trying to work but couldn’t. I still don’t know what the cause was but it seems to be working a bit better, fingers crossed.

So backing up, April 22nd -23rd was our overnight in Barcelona, Spain. The first day we walked to La Sagrada Familia, a gorgeous church that will take the next 40 years to complete because of the detailing on the structure. We also made it to Can Mila, one of the many interestingly shaped buildings in the city. There were a lot of amazing shopping and artwork on Las Ramblas, the famous main street. It was insanely crowded because, as we discovered later, it was a holiday. It was Sant Jordi (Saint George), their equivalent of our Valentine’s Day. The fable begins a long time ago, when there was a dragon that was terrifying the town with it’s ferocious attacks. The town struck up a deal with the dragon that they would sacrifice one townsperson every so often, if the dragon would leave the rest of the town in peace. This worked for a while until one day; the Princess’ name was drawn for the sacrifice. The king was very upset but what could he do? He had to keep the peace for his people. So the Princess was sent to the dragons’ lair. George followed her and killed the dragon, bringing the Princess back unharmed and saving the town. The tradition of Sant Jordi is for men to buy their female loved ones a rose and the woman buy their men books.

Meghan, Brit and I stopped into a cute restaurant for a very nice meal and drinks before heading back to the ship. Later that night, we met up with Erin and took the shuttle to the center of the city. From there, we took a taxi to Opium, the club our crew friends were all meeting at. However, we are used to the American way of life, so we thought getting there at 11:30p was late, but the club wasn’t even open yet! We decided to wait at the bar in a restaurant called Carpe Diem. The bartender was really awesome and we hung out chatting with him for quite a long time. We headed over to Opium and learned you had to pay 20 euro to get in! That included one free drink but still!!!!! We decided to try the club right next to it called Shoko, and got right in. It was very crowded and a lot of fun, dancing with my girls. We stuck out like sore thumbs because not only did we look American, we could actually dance! So guys would try to dance with us but we would all grab hands, yell “ABORT!” and run to another spot on the dance floor. It was ladies night, fellas!

The next day I got off with Meghan and Brit. There was a really cute bakery we stopped into for breakfast. I love the tiny espressos they give you in Europe. We walked to the Magic Fountain, a beautiful building with a waterfall and a fountain in a square. The fountain is only on at night but it was still worth the visit. We witnessed some great Spanish policeman work as two cops chased after two men running with bags. As the chase ensued, fans, hats and other popular souvenirs fell to the ground. My guess is they were selling stolen goods. The cops caught one of the guys as he tried to go down the stairs. You go, po po!  I saw the football (American soccer) stadium and we stopped for some delicious tapas (I had a cheese and potato omelet on bread) before going back to the ship.

Palma de Mallorca, Spain was our next port. This was a tiny town so Erin, Freddie, Rachel, Ann and I took our time meandering around. We started at a coffee shop for a cappuccino and some snacks. The main attraction of the city was their church so we walked there next. It was such a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun walking around this nice city.

Our next port was supposed to be La Goulette (Tunis), Tunisia however we were not able to go. The captain told the ship that this port is very difficult to sail into and the weather conditions that day made it too dangerous to attempt. :(

We did make it to Palermo, (Sicily), Italy on April 27th. Ann, Rachel, Erin, Brit, Meghan and I got off to wander around, but our main mission was food and drinks. I had another AMAZING plate of gnocchi, this time with marinara sauce. I’m definitely a happy camper eating all this delicious Italian food in Italy.

April 28th was Naples, Italy. Naples was surprisingly disgusting. I was expecting it to be beautiful after seeing Eat, Pray, Love. I think they were very selective on where they filmed because it was trashy with trashy men yelling things at us. Ann, Brit, Rachel and I wandered around trying to figure out where to go. We ended up chasing after a guy with a coffee tray, because if he was headed back to his coffee shop we could get internet and do some research. We caught up to him and ended up having delicious coffee at his place. They were all so nice to us. We decided to take a train to Sorrento, a resort. After having a hilarious trip to the station; bobbing thru the traffic of people and cars, trying to remember what country we were in so we could ask directions, we finally made it and hopped on the train. Sorrento was absolutely beautiful. We had an amazing lunch at a country club on the edge of the cliff with a stunning view of the water below us. We saw Mount Etna, the volcano, in the distance on our train ride back to Naples. 

The next day was Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy, our homeport. Our mission of the day was to see as much as we could. We started by taking the train for about an hour to the Coliseum. We discovered that our train tickets also doubled for Metro tickets so we were able to get around a lot faster this day. The Coliseum was really cool to see and imagine the ancient gladiators. One day I would like to come back and walk around inside. We took the Metro to the Trevi fountain where I threw a euro coin and made a wish, another life long dream accomplished. :) The Spanish steps were near by so we walked to that square and took a lot of pictures of the beautiful architecture and flowers.

Stay tuned for my update on our Greek ports, possibly my favorite place in the world! <3>

1 comment:

  1. I'm glad the computer seems to be working better now. When can we see some pictures on the blog?!?

    ReplyDelete