A Long Story Short

Prior to leaving Chicago Brian also subletted his apartment like Brendan and I did. Through a slight miscommunication the subletter moved into Brian’s place a day earlier. The gentleman was cool, and left until Brian flew out the next day. When the gentleman left the apartment that afternoon, Brian went upstairs only to find this young lady, a box with more of these tee shirts, and another wig. It was all he had moved in so far. Brian had to spend the entire night preparing his apartment and packing with this young lady watching over him. Brian: “I’d walk into the room and I would jump every time”. It was never addressed. Thank you Craig’s List.

Update-a-tron

Sea Day = Update! I mentioned the other day that I tend to talk a lot about food and Alberto in this blog. To which Brian responded “That’s the good stuff!” True, it is. I guess my ability to remember a ton of history about the places we’re seeing is just hard for my brain. So, if you’re interested in finding out more about what we’re doing you can also check out Brendan’s blog at www.averybigship.blogspotcom. Or you can click on Cody’s blog in my links at the bottom. Brendan’s got a better brain for remembering the historical facts instead of just saying “Ay youze guys! Look at this purty church!” And it’s fun to get a different point of view from the same travelers.

New week! New cruise! It’s fun to start a new cruise with a new batch of passengers on board. It is Groundhogday-esque but it’s also nice to reload, especially if you feel like the last batch of people were a teensy bit weird. It’s so hard to explain unless you live in this floating home, but it’s just an overall feeling you get about the cruisers for the week. Last week was weird-ville 9000. This week feels better so that’s good. Except for the dirty bastard children. Cody put it best when he said “I feel like I have an English orphanage living next to me”. Hard knock life indeed! Last night was filled with the brats running up and down the hall screeching like ass monkeys. We’ve been threatening to just open the door and body check a few of them to put them in their place. Otherwise people seem relaxed and at ease.

Roma
This past week in Rome we visited an amazing church called Santa Maria Del Popolo. This church is featured in Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” which Brendan blew through in about 3 days. Mainly because it’s kind of a shitbomb and also it’s almost exactly like “The DaVinci Code”. The most striking things about these churches are the chapels inside the churches. They are usually mini alcoves that hold art, statues, or tombs of people buried there. These chapels are so saturated with gorgeous art that it would fill one church in the states, and there are usually about six chapels in one church in Italy. The picture above is from there and it’s one of my favorites so far. We found some delicious pasta after that and took the train back to the ship. On the walk back to the ship we stopped at a stand where locals sell giant slices of watermelon for 2 Euro. It was ridiculously delish and surely to become a post Rome treat.

Livorno
I already posted about Livorno, it was my relax day. The boys ? Not so much. Brian and Brendan almost “missed the boat” on Friday. Literally. Their train back from Lucca was delayed nearly an hour and a half. The gangway was to get yanked at 6:30pm and they checked in at 6:28! Not at all their fault, but terrifying nonetheless. Even more terrifying was me, sitting in the cabin when the security officer called to ask if Brendan was in the room, I said no, they had gone to Florence and I’m sure they would be back. As he was getting ready to say his next sentence and as I was getting ready to pee myself he said they were walking up the gangway. WHEW!

Cannes
No haircut for Melew this week. Every place wanted about 54 Euro and one place wanted 74 Euro ! NO siree. So I’m going to do some research on Nice this week and see what I can do about not looking like a Sasquatch. Brendan escorted a real humdinger of a tour in Cannes and I’m sure he’ll post the details on his blog, so I hung out with Cody and Brian. We ate a delicious lunch of Steak and Pommes Frites and went to a grocery store so Cody and Brian could slam a quart of real, decent milk. The milk on the ship is not very good. It’s always sort of lukewarm and ok for cereal, but these boys were jonesin’ for some cold ass calcium!

Ship Life
There is a crew party in Spinnaker Lounge this week. It’s a pirate theme with prizes for best costume. If it’s anything like Halloween, I’m sure we’ll see a bunch of whorish, “sexy” pirates come Thursday.

Alberto has not yet received his real, $4000 guitar. It is apparently still in Naples, which it supposedly has been for like 3 weeks. He has also been semi-demoted to playing on deck 13 and outside from 7-midnight. Poor guy cannot catch a break! My theory is that the cruise line is hoping two dolphins come and nab him overboard. Next he’ll be playing to the Engine Room guys from 2am-5:45am.

Cross your fingers because I’m hoping to escort a tour to the active volcano of Mt. Etna tomorrow in Sicily! If any grandmas from New Jersey give me lip I’ll sacrifice their bodies to the mountain. Ciao!

European Break-ation

Above are pics of the following: Penny, Louie (the yellow) and Roscoe (the black) napping together on the couch (Photo courtesy of mama melew). Me giving a marble lion the 'ol one two, and Brian taking a picture of a fountain. I like the scale of this one. That's a big ass fountain.

Well I’m doing something I didn’t think I’d do after a month in Europe. Taking a break. We’re in Livorno today and I decided to stay on, sleep in and do jack shit. I got up, wrote a bit, ate lunch, read The New Yorker front to back for 2 hours and now I’m here. I know all you people out there with day jobs are ready to strangle me. You’re in EUROPE! You jag! Why the rest? But I had to put the brakes on today as I felt my cranky-o-meter rising. All these trains, buses, cabs and hoofing it has resulted in mama needing a day alone. Sure there is a bit of guilt, but Cody, Jenny and Steve have also decided to stick around so that makes me feel better. Brian and Brendan are having a man day in Florence. OOOOOH! BOYFRIENDS!

Sitting in the atrium always makes me uncomfortable considering the close proximity to the reception desk. It seems like no matter what time of day it is, some guest is always up at the front desk bitching. I’ve got my headphones on, but I can see by the beleaguered look on the reception staffs face they are ready to kill the general public. As crew/entertainers we rarely have to go to reception, but the two times I’ve had to go I’ve sought out Helena. Helena owes me a few and is always kind. Why does she owe me a few? Because of my lax policies when she constantly comes to renew Season 2 of “The Office” to Jewelbusters during my shift. What is Jewelbusters you ask? It is the official movie rental store of the Norwegian Jewel Crew. Every Monday on our sea day we work this shift as a cast. There’s a pretty extensive library downstairs in the corner of the crew mess and it’s always fun to see what horror movie Engine Supervisor #3 is renting this week. Close to closing time Brendan likes to yell things like “10 minutes to rent videos folks and Terms of Endearment is still available!” The main rentals consist of action movies, Romantic Comedies for the ladies, and any nudity these sailors can get their hands on. It’s fun to meet a lot of crew you wouldn’t normally come into contact with and we get gift certificates to the restaurants that charge a cover for our time.

Alberto update. On Tuesday Alberto purchased a $300 guitar in Messina since his has still not shown up. We ran into him on the way back to the ship and he was strumming away. He played us a song and of course what we thought all along was completely true. HE’S F’ING AMAZING. He claims to be the third best Flamenco guitarist in the world and I think there’s no doubt about it. Of course someone this nutburgers has to be. His hands move like flamenco butter through those strings and it’s incredible to watch. So that night we all had dinner and made our way up to the Star Bar to watch him play. Again, what we thought all along was completely true. Even with a guitar, HE’S F’ING INSANE. His banter between songs were the ramblings of a true madman. The best of which was a song/poem/possible children’s parable Brian claims will still give him nightmares. He was gently strumming his guitar as he leaned into the microphone and said something to the effect of:

“No matter what you eat,
We are all the meat.
No matter what you eat,
We are all the meat…..”

I think this went on for a few more seconds, but I was too terrified to remember. Good to know that returning to his craft restores a sense of normalcy to his personality. Yikes !

Naples
Wednesday was Naples and we usually go out with the intention to eat, maybe wander for a bit and return to the ship since it’s show night. Finding a restaurant was a bit of a task. We had a few restaurants on a list from our pal Enzo (see earlier entry on Naples) and we had already eaten at one the week before. We tried a second restaurant he recommended but it seemed a bit expensive. So we tried to return to the restaurant Cody has first taken us to and it was closed. We are slowly learning there is no rhyme or reason to anything being open or closed in Italy. So we returned to the pizza place we had eaten at the week before. This place may just become a weekly delight for us since it is so amazing. It’s called “il Pizzaiolo del Presidente”. (www.ilpizzaiolodelpresidente.it) It has by far, the best Neapolitan Pizza/Pizza I’ve ever tasted in my life. I think we all sat there wondering why we would go anywhere else. And it is cheap as hell. This week we blew it out and also ordered three pizza frittas, which are giant deep fried pizzas stuffed with cheese, meat and spinach. I think we had 6 pizzas, 8 cokes and a beer and the total came to 44 Euros. It’s crazy cheap. Post pizza Brian and I ended up wandering around and doing a bit of shopping as everyone returned to the ship. He bought a tie at a department store blow out and I didn’t find anything. This tie was purchased after I encouraged him to purchase one that didn’t look like an 8th grade boy tie. We got gelato and I stumbled on a flavor called “Gelato Snack”. In the cooler it looked like chocolate gelato with bits of cookie in it. I ordered it with a scoop of Tiramisu gelato to boot. When I tasted the “Gelato Snack” I instantly knew something was deliciously awry. I only needed Brian to confirm it. What Gelato Snack really is, is Nutella whipped up into a frosting frenzy with bits of crunchy Ice Cream Cone thrown into it. It’s not gelato, it’s frickin’ frosting. It was barely cold and still holding its consistency. Good enough for me! Snack indeed.

A real quick note about Penny before I sign off. She’s doing great ! My mom says she’s a big ‘ol snuggler and is becoming a regular Esther Williams the way she’s swimming in the lake. I miss her mucho. Till next time !

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!

Pics !

We're kickin' it at an internet cafe today in Sicily so I thought I'd post some pics while the connection is good !

The first one is the cast in front of Pisa. The second is of Taormina which is an outdoor Greek theater here in Sicily. The third is of myself and Brendy in Taormina in front of the water. Enjoy !

The results are in guys !

Good for tourism I guess...

The Week In Review

Hey friends. Here’s a big ass update. Have fun! I still have no idea how to disperse these pics so above you have Brendan "Mail Mouth" Dowling and the cast on the Leaning Tower of Pisa mid-climb !

Naples
This is a fast ass city! Italians are scooting around you on scooters, which causes you to move yer scootin’ ass real fast. We started out by walking the city and browsing around. Kind of a new favorite hobby of mine in Europe. (PS: Who the hell am I, Elton John? How many people get a chance to actually have any “hobbies” in Europe?) I just love looking in at the stores. Maybe going in, maybe not. I haven’t bought much at all. Looking is so damn fun. We had lunch at a place Cody had eaten at on one of his prior jaunts into the city and it was top notch. For about 8 Euros a piece we had anti pasto (which included some delicious fried polenta), amazing pizza, and a bit of pasta. Again, if it wasn’t for the walking and finally getting myself to the ship gym I would be a giant piece of dough. How do these hot, thin Italian’s do it? I’ve also coined a new term for every lady in Italy: “Smoky F*ck Eyes”. Jesus. It doesn’t matter if it’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner. These ladies are hot! The guys are lookers too, but you really notice how made up the women are. Especially when I’m tooling around Europe in a skort, sweating like crazy.

Post lunch we split up. Steve and Jenny went shopping and Cody, Brian, Brendan and I ended up walking around in the Spanish Quarter of Naples. The next experience we had can only be described as one that I wished would happen every week. We wandered into a bodega like corner store where the boys decided to have a beer to refresh. The bodega was pretty bare. It looked like they hadn’t really replenished any of the shelves in a couple of weeks. We met the Italian gentleman who was working behind the counter named Enzo. Brian started conversing with him about Naples, Enzo suggested where we should eat, things on the map etc. Enzo had a few English words, but not many. The conversation led to Brian asking about a custom suit maker’s shop we had wandered into a few minutes before. Within minutes, Enzo had us out the door walking up the block to where? No one knew. We just followed Enzo, still in his apron. We enter a courtyard that looks like an apartment complex. Please note Enzo has just walked out of the store to take us here. Maybe he does this often, hence the empty shelves? He knocks on a door and in the house/suit maker shop are two older men in their 70’s and a woman in her 60’s. We walk in and there are cloth books on the table, a couple pieces of furniture and the other room is made for a tailor at work. But all in all it looks like we’re in this Italian house. Which I’m pretty sure we were. Enzo introduces Brian to the tailor who is actually a younger gentleman who comes out from the back. Through a bit of broken English and Italian, Brian looks at a cloth swatch but then finds out that the suits are 1500 Euro. No big surprise. There is a brief moment where Enzo tries to negotiate for Brian which was generous and hilarious considering he had just met us. The old people are just watching and smiling. It’s super surreal. And of course it’s cool but I’m 20% wondering if they’re about to kill us. But all told, the younger guy is a tad bit sleazy. He apparently goes to NYC every 2 months to check things out clothing-wise, yet he hadn’t heard of a famous custom suit maker that Brian mentioned. So we get a business card and Enzo led us out of the house. He chatted with Brian for a bit and basically told him the guy was too much anyways and that if he came back next week Enzo would take Brian to a few more places. We said “Ciao” to Enzo and walked away. After we had walked about 15 minutes, marveling about how fun it all was we see someone in our periphery jetting alongside of us on a scooter. It’s Enzo ! He yells at Brian to hop on and he’ll take him to a few more suit places. It’s hysterical. Brian thanks him kindly but says we’re tired and we walk back to the ship.

All in all a pretty perfect, very authentic-ly European day. That’s why I love that we’re in these ports so many different times. We can see all the tourist spots and amazing old buildings, but still have these jaw dropping experiences. Just from walking around, browsing, and Brian’s Italian skills. Rumor has it my great gramps is from Naples. I got his immigration information from my mom and I’m going to do a bit of research to see if we may still have any Vengo’s living in or around Naples. Wouldn’t that be great?

Pisa
Thursday was Pisa and boy did we do it up. This is a complicated travel day. Since Cody has done this route and Brian did it last year they already have a lead on how to get to where, etc. This is a huge help and so invaluable! Especially since doing everything on our own is much cheaper than going on one of the ship’s shore excursions. So from the ship we took a shuttle bus to a city bus, city bus to the train station, and train to Pisa. Whew. This was a hot ass day too, so we were chillin’ with the locals, sweatin’ our collective nuts off. It was well worth the sweat though.

The Tower was amazing! When you walk up to it you really can’t believe you’re looking at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We became even luckier when we scored tickets to climb the tower and go up to the top. Scoring makes it sound like some sort of lottery, but really we were just lucky we got them within a decent timeframe so we could make it back to the ship on time. We also found out later on it was closed to the public last year so we couldn’t have climbed it then. Double score! The climb is pretty easy and it’s so beautiful when you reach the top. The views of the city Pisa are worth the climb alone. The cast joked there would never be anything like that in the states. The railings are pretty open when you get to the top. No netting around it or anything. Still, what a damn thrill. I mean we were in the Leaning Tower ya’ll !

Ship Life
The shows have been great. Our 7:30 show is fun, but is always a big warm up for the 9:30. The later one there are a ton more people, they’ve napped, and they’re ready to laugh. I think 7:30 is still too early for people’s laugh-o-meter after getting back on the boat from Naples at 6 or so. Nevertheless they’ve been a ball. We also purchased the new Harry Potter book in Cannes on Friday so Brendan is tearing through that so I can read it next. I can’t wait!

The other performers are always an interesting lot, and this week is no different. His name is Alberto and he’s been hired to play Flamenco guitar in the Star Bar. Unfortunately Alberto’s guitar did not show up to Barcelona when he signed on, so he has basically been twiddling his thumbs till it arrives on the ship. We first met Alberto when we were playing Celebrity in one of the conference rooms one night. He’s about 5’3, 59 yrs old, and wears what can only be described as renaissance fair garb. A lot of black velvet and boots. He also has giant manicured nails. Giant. Cody has baptized him with the nickname “Wind Chime” since he is always wearing this giant, silver, chime-esque necklace. I think his third sentence in meeting us was “When’s someone gonna shoot George Bush”. His personal history has included things like playing with Frank Zappa and at one point in life he was busy “making drugs for high schoolers”. I mean who hasn’t? The next morning at breakfast he sat with us and shared a short story he’d been writing. It was a story about time travel where the main character travels back in time to have a sex change, sleep with his father and become his own mother. Does it stop there you ask? Nope. The main character then travels back to the present then travels back in time again to become his grandmother, comes back has another sex change and then travels back to become his own grandfather, etc. You get the picture. Oh you don’t? Wait till Alberto goes through every family member for you at breakfast. Then you will. Alberto then tried explaining something about how atoms work. Thank god I had coffee. Then the following night Jenny found Alberto filing his teeth with a ladies nail file at the bar in the main club on the ship. In public. At the bar. With a file…and...teeth. He said he was filing them into vampire teeth. Again, who hasn’t? So that’s Alberto’s tale. We’re hoping he gets his guitar real soon. I’m currently e-mailing McSweeney’s to see if they’ll publish his story. Till next time!