The photos above include The Mamertime Museum where St. Peter/ Paul were held, Brendan and Cody racing their body chariots at Circus Maximus and The Teatro in Naples.
Greetings readers! Thanks for stickin’ with me. I’ve been update lazy so I apologize. We’ve also all had a brief bit of sickness on the ship with all of us having a touch of a cold except for Jenny. I thank my immune system of a horse since mine disappeared in like a day. I think I scare the shit out of my colds. They know not to stay around long because I’ve got shit to do by God!
Naples
Naples was a ball this week. Brian, Brendan and I walked to the richy shop part of Naples where you pass a lot of Prada, Gucci, etc. It’s just fun to look. We also went to our standby Presidente for pizza which was once again DELISH. The bill was a tad higher for some reason that we couldn’t figure out. We don’t ever want to be blackballed from Presidente so we shut up and threw our Euros down. The real fun happened prior to shopping and pizza though. We had another great off the beaten path experience that was super serendipitous in nature. We sat down outdoors to have a cappuccino at the beginning of our day at a great little café. We paid and went across the street to window shop at a shoe store. As we were walking away we saw the owner of the café and another guy who worked there gesturing to us to come back. Fearing we had left old receipts in lieu of Euros we walked back only to hear the guy who worked there ask us “Would you like to see the theater in back of the café?” Uh. Ok. Now you have to picture the most unassuming Italian café ever out in front. So he walks us into the back where there was a dark hallway. In having these experiences there’s always that moment of “This is it. My life is going to end at knifepoint in Naples”. Alas, the lights came on and there was the Teatro Santarazzo. A 300 seat opera style theater modeled on the Teatro San Carlo which is the big opera house in Naples. The Teatro Santarazzo is beautiful. All box seats, red velvet, and an excellent sized stage. The gentleman who worked at the café, whose name was Carmini, spoke great English and he had been working at the theater for ten years. We asked what kind of shows they did there and he replied, “Mainly Comedies”. We were flabberstunned! So Brian proceeded to tell him excitedly who we were and what we did. Who were some of the people that came from Second City, etc. To which Carmini replied “These seats are great, huh?” Or something similar. He either didn’t share our understanding of this serendipitous moment, or had no idea who John Belushi was. We offered to do a Dr. Know-It-All but he declined. (Jokes….. It was Spelling Bee.) We spent some time inside, took some pictures and thanked Carmini for his time. It was truly beautiful and such a cool think we would normally never get to see. The only thing we can figure out is that we told the owner we were from Chicago while we drank our coffee so he maybe thought we’d like to see something cool. I’m glad he asked.
Rome
This has been one of my favorite days so far. We nailed about 700 things in a day. I love Rome in this way because everything is so close! I need to put it in bullet points and consult our Rome guide because it’s so much.
In Rome we did the following things:
*Put our hand in the Mouth of Truth. Basically a Medieval Drain cover. It’s is supposed to snap its mouth shut on the hands of liars.
*Brian took us to an off the beaten path SECRET spot that I won’t ruin.
*Toured The Roman Forum Ruins with a oratory tour by Brian out of his Italy guidebook
*Walked on Circus Maximus where the Chariot Races took place. Basically a dirt track.
*Went into the Mamertime Museum where St. Peter and St. Paul were imprisoned and according to the ‘ol Catholic chestnut, baptized two prison guards with the water that they caused to bubble up in the cell.
*Visited beautiful Capitoline Hill which was designed by Michelangelo in the 16th century.
*Saw a guy dressed in a gladiator costume outside the Colosseum talking on his cell phone.
*Had fresh gnocchi because it’s what you do on Thursday galldarnnit.
*Visited San Pietro in Vincoli. Also known as St.Peter in Chains because it houses what are said to be the chains with which St. Peter was shackled in the Mamertime Museum (The day comes full circle bitches). It also has a pretty famous sculpture by Michelangelo which is Moses with horns.
Back to the train station and back to the ship! We really did it up this day.
I have a whole other day to talk about which is Florence where we visited the Uffizi Gallery. It’s basically the Louvre of Italy. I want to post this and I have to get ready for our show tonight. A quick Alberto update. He is still playing nightly in the outdoor bar upstairs. He also has some competition. There is another Flamenco guitarist and vocalist on board named Daniel. And when I say competition I mean if you were going to compare a handful of delicious cashews with a handful of squirrel shit, what would win? Daniel is probably in his mid to late thirties, and how do I phrase this, SMOKIN’ HOT. This guy should just wear a tee shirt that says “Back off, I’ll smolder your eyes out of your goddamn head”. It’s like having Sting and Burgess Meredith in a hot competition. Jesus. Again, poor Alberto, unable to catch a break. I promise more soon!
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