Busy Bees

Hello from the sea! All aboard the train to recap-ville. The pictures above include Brendan at the Rome barber, Brendan the statue in Naples and Cat MAN !

Naples
We went to the Archeological Museum of Naples on Wednesday. This was a real treat. I can’t say I learned too much because a lot was in Italian. Yet their collection is pretty amazing. We also were allowed into the Secret Chamber which was the Erotic Art collection. Meow! We saw a ton of cool mosaics from Pompeii, a million marble statues and a collection of old amber and other jewelry that we spent way too long on.

Rome
I referred to this day as “Haircuts, bones and gnocchi”. We went to the Capuchin Crypt on Thursday which is a crypt/cemetery that honors thousands of Capuchin Friars. How you say? By displaying their bones! It’s amazing. There are 6 crypts with real bones arranged into sculpture and art. There are also a bunch of mummified friar corpses in there too. There was no picture taking so you’ll have to Google it. It was spooky and a ton of fun. Onto haircuts: Our first week in Rome we had seen this amazing barber shop on the corner of some street. It had a picture perfect Italian barber in his early 70’s. On Thursday the boys made it happen! It was haircuts for all. The most extreme being Steve, who had a lot of bushy hair. So much so one of our workshop participants asked Steve post-cut if he had been wearing a wig in the show on Wednesday. All the boys look dapper and clean. Silvano the barber did a kick ass job. After that we had to get some gnocchi on “Fresh Gnocchi Thursday” so we found another amazing restaurant to get our potato dumpling fill. Delish.

Florence
We took the train into Florence on Friday. Why you ask? Because we had an appointment with a little sculpture I like to call Michelangelo’s “David”. Florence itself is real neat. It is like a smaller Rome. Brian had gone on line the previous week to reserve tickets to see David because traditionally the line is out the door and around the block. The heat has not lifted in any of the places we’ve visited so we were also happy to have those reservations and not be in line, melting. We went right in at 1:30 and holy cow! There he is! It is truly breathtaking. It’s also all about presentation. The Academe itself is a pretty great museum, but they’ve framed David in such a beautiful way. He’s right under a giant glass ceiling that lets in a ton of natural light. He’s at the end of a big hallway so it’s pretty much the first thing you see when you get in. There’s also plenty of room to check him out even though there are a bunch of other people doing the same thing. He’s really amazing. You can’t believe that someone actually sculpted this. It took him three years to do. Only three. Are you kidding? I can’t even get a haircut in a time span of four months. His hands were my favorite. His one hand is just resting perfectly against his leg. It’s so crazily real and relaxed you can’t believe it’s made of marble. Bravo Michelangelo! The rest of the museum is great. They have a bunch of sculptures Michelangelo stopped working on which was neat to see since they are in mid-sculpt. They also had the plaster model of “The Rape of the Sabine Woman” which we had just seen the original of maybe an hour before. It was a great day.

France/ Barcelona
I feel like I haven’t given any time to these ports in my blog. These are kind of catch up/ wander around days for us since we’ve exhausted ourselves from our Italy travels the days prior. This week in Villefranche we hung out at the beach and did a bit of swimming. It was a tad rocky though and ‘ol sensitive feet here missed having some sand to stomp on. It was still refreshing to get in the water considering how hot it is. And the fact that we’re in FRANCE. Last week Brendan and I came back to the ship early and decided to go to the pool. We lasted about 5 minutes considering the pool felt like salty, hot, piss-filled bathwater. It was awful. So needless to say we were happy to get into the French Rivieran Drink !

In Barcelona we walked around both this Sunday and last. We stopped at a Tapas place we had eaten at the first week which was delicious. We hung out at the mall for a bit and then went back to the ship. La Rambla is the main walkway in Barcelona where there are a ton of booths, flower stalls and crafty things for you to buy. There are also a bunch of street performers. The cast favorite who was turned on to us by Cody is a delightful man we’ve named “Cat Man”. Cat Man is a full grown, semi-paunchy man dressed in a black cat suit, cat make-up and has a very strange high pitched cat whistle he blows. His home is a giant painted garbage can. As far as we can tell, if you give cat man a 20-50 cent Euro he’ll peek out of his garbage can, paw at you, and make a whistling noise. Sometimes if you stick around long enough he’ll scare the shit out of some real white bred gals from the USA by chasing them 3 feet down La Rambla. This is where the real show is because the girls always scream their damn heads off. I’m sure Cat Man pulls in like 20 thousand Euros a year doing this. I need to get a garbage can.

Ship Life
Alberto still doesn’t have his guitar. He was last seen pawing at the ice cream cones about a half hour ago, and slumped down in a booth in the crew bar watching a Harry Potter movie they were playing last week. Someone help this man. Brian’s new theory is that this Alberto killed the REAL Alberto at the airport and is just getting 6 weeks of a free cruise and crying about his “guitar”. Hm. We’ll see.

I’m debating whether to get a haircut in Cannes this week. This hair is out of control. We’ll see how much my high school French can carry me. I may end up with “Crepe Head”.

Brendan and I both finished Harry Potter! Sad that it’s over but the book was amazing. I stayed up until 2am on Thursday to finish it even though we had to be up at 7am. Partially because I was terrified someone would ruin it for me in the audience. I was super nervous in the show Wednesday night that some jagoff was going to yell the ending of the book as a suggestion for one of our improv games. Thank God the only suggestions we get revolve around Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Come on people.

Finally, Brian purchased the greatest book in the world this week. It is an English Slang translated into Italian book. The better way to picture it would be like this. Imagine a movie where the lead character is Italian, moves to the USA with only this book to teach him English and through this book and this book only says a bunch of crazy sometimes racist things! This book has now made me cry with laughter on a number of occasions. I love that some Italian overheard these words and thought they were American slang. Some phrases are helpful, most are just ridiculous and racist. Here is a sampling:

Bozo Explosion: A chain of crazy, usually disappointing events. Example: “Well Marcy forgot the Power Point slides, James’ computer didn’t work and Amy was late to the presentation altogether. It was a real Bozo Explosion”.
Goozle: A lot of something. Example: “That girl’s family has a goozle of scrilla”. (Please note that this exact sentence is used in the book. Some of the words have example sentences which are even better. )
Burp the Worm: To Masturbate. No example needed.
Chinky: Derogatory Chinese term. Is derogatory mentioned in the Italian translation? Nope. The example in the book says “I don’t like to eat that Chinky food”.
Lapjack: To steal someone’s laptop.
Lord High Fixer: A computer whiz of the utmost ability. Example: “Yer Windows 98 is down? You better take it to Lord High Fixer on the 5th floor”.
Mexican Breakfast: A speedy breakfast of a cigarette and a glass of water.

I’m hoping to bring these back to the states. If you’re reading this, use a goozle of these words in your next conversation for me, ok? Until next time!