Thanks Pals

Hi everyone!
First off thank you so much for all the support you have shown e-mailed and commented about Penny. Yeah. It still feels pretty awful. We think about that little troublemaker everyday and we miss her a ton. We’re doing ok out here, taking time when we need to cry and talk and relax. My mom is doing tiny bits better day by day too. I’m trying to talk to her as much as I can and at this point I kinda just can’t wait to get home and hug her.

Since we’re going through with the rest of this trip I think I’ll keep updating the blog. Since ‘ol shitty memory here wants an account of these things actually happening and I want to post pics too.

This is just a quick post to let you know I’ll update longer sooner about more ports. Venice was unbelievable and so far my favorite and we are leaving Ismir, Turkey as I type this.

Thanks again for all the love peeps. We have some great friends.

Here's some pics in the meantime. Myself,Cody and Brendan in front of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and a gondolier in Venice !

Sad News

Hi blog readers.
I think many of you may know by now Penny has left us. She was accidentally killed by a truck on my folks road yesterday. We are thankful it was fast, but horrified at what my mom has had to go through as she was alone when it happened.

It may not come as a suprise that Brendan and I are devasted as she was our life and little girl. It is nearly impossible to be so far away right now but we are going to stick out these last two months as there is nothing to be done at this point except grieve and console my mama. We are taking it hour by hour day by day. It doesn't seem very real right now.

I don't know how many pithy blog entries I will have in me but I may update this at some point. I may not.

Until then remember her as an amazing pup who was fun, cuddly, wonderful and so so loving. I am so thankful she had two months of paradise up at my folks place. I am even more thankful we had the chance to rescue the best pup in the world who got 15 months of hiking, the beach every day and lots of play time. Keep my mom , dad and Brendan and I in your thoughts. We need it.

Love,
beth

No more drama for my Mama please.

The photos above include an overview picture of the Herculaneum Ruins, Brendy in the Vatican Museum and Montseurrat !

Last of the seven day cruises! I can’t believe it. We’ll visit all these places at least once more, except for Sicily. So I am celebrating that today by buying cookies at the Oviesse grocery store and going to the internet café. Thank you Italy!

Well let me start out by giving props to the Melewski family because it’s been a bit of a harrowing week. First off and a little less extreme, Louie the yellow lab was attacked by a wolf last week in the woods. He’s totally fine, but of course a bit scary for my parents. Unlike Penny who has to be walked on her leash, Roscoe and Louie get let out to go to the bathroom off their leashes. Well they must have caught the smell of ‘ol Wolfie because my folks heard the dogs barking pretty crazily across their driveway in the woods. My dad went to check it out and Roscoe was the only one who came out. Louie was in the woods with 8 wolf bites but the wolf ran away when he saw my dad. My mom said after the vet trip though and some antibiotics he was fine the next day.

Then this past Tuesday night my dad went to walk down the road with the dogs (just the labs) at about 4:30pm and was missing until about 11am the next day. Again, he’s fine, but it was crazy. Right now up in the great north woods all the flora is so overgrown he just got turned around and couldn’t find his way out. My mom called the sheriff about 8 or 9ish and it sounds like the whole town was out looking for him. People brought ATV’S, there were sheriff’s dogs, some dude with some crazy ass parachute bicycle that flew over the woods and my mom and Penny. At about 10:30am the next day he made it to the road with the dogs and a guy gave him a ride home and knew who he was immediately. My dad was all over the police blotter, the Rhinelander news and Iron County papers. I finally talked to my mom on the phone yesterday and she told me dad was more embarrassed than anything else when he came home to find his house swarmed with people. He was totally fine, the pups slept next to him very close in the woods and everyone just wanted some food and a good bath. My two favorite things: He was carrying his 38 Caliber Pistol on him because of Louie getting attacked a week prior. Yeah DAD! I’m glad. No more wolfie attacks! Second: The news article said he was disoriented. My mom said that the only reason they said that is when the paramedics asked him what day it was he said “I don’t know. But I usually don’t know what day it is”. Yeah RETIREMENT! I’m thankful he’s safe. Thanks to everyone who looked too. I was so happy that my mom had Penny and her friend Pat who stayed the night with her. It made me miss home and wish I was there.

Naples
Onto the European adventures! We conquered Herculaneum on Wednesday and had a whirlwind tour. This was of course post-Neapolitan-pizza eating. We aren’t fools. We took the train in Naples (a hot, dirty mess of summer) and got to a small town called Portici. All was quiet in Portici and we had no idea where the hell we were going. So after walking another half hour and getting some directions from shadeball locals we made it to the gates of Herculaneum. Herculaneum is basically the lesser known Pompeii. It was also rocked by Vesuvius exploding in 79AD and claims to have more preserved buildings. We saw lots of cool mosaics and many well preserved buildings. We basically had to fly through this thing because we had about a half hour. We saw the highlights and really had to bust ass back to the train. It was pretty neat to see but I wish we would have had a little more time.

Rome
This Thursday Brendan and I went to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum. It was amazing. Holy shit (pardon me pope.) this was a rockin’ day. We got there about 11am and on Brian’s advice were going to wait until a bit later to try and get into the museum. Sometimes the line can reach up to 40 minutes because so many tours go in the morning. Well we ended up trying to get in line early (at least we thought) but we ended up in the Basilica line instead. No problem! It was beautiful. I mean these Catholics know how to put on an art show. We saw Michelangelo’s Pieta and the guy working behind it to change a light. Don’t worry; his ass is in my picture. Post Basilica we went around the block to the Vatican Museum and from line to getting into the actual museum we only waited like 15 minutes! It was amazing. Again, these Catholics know how to get a collection started! The Sistine Chapel is everything you think it will be. I think it is my favorite thing I’ve seen so far. It almost brought me to tears. It took him four years to finish it. ONLY FOUR! Man I couldn’t even finish college in four. (I.e. not at all.) It’s really amazing. The Vatican Museum is truly room upon room of insane art. Leading up to the Sistine Chapel is more amazing art. There’s a Rafael room and hallways filled with statues. Then you walk into more amazing art and see some more art. ART. ART. ART. Then the final nut punch of the Sistine Chapel and The Final Judgment. I loved it.

France
Nice! I wanted to get up early so we could get on the train to Nice and get to the flower market. The new routine is getting a giant yellow apple from the market and stuffing my mouth with a delicious Nutella crepe. Both of these dreams came true. I then left the boys and did a bit of shopping. I’m hitting the mark of needing new toiletries so I’m doing it before we hit these 12 day cruises. It’s fun to cross your fingers and hope you’re buying the right conditioner in Italian or French. I’ve been lucky so far. Also dropped some more bones at H&M. Beth, you ask, why spend money at some store you can shop at in the states? Because European women in these specialty boutiques are all a size 4. Yikes! Come on ladies. Eat some Crepes.

Spain
We went to Montserrat this week. Montserrat is an amazing Mountain in Spain about an hour and a half out of Barcelona by train. It is probably the best mountain view I’ve seen next to the Continental Divide Train in Colorado. It’s incredible! There was a little hiking to be done once we got to the top and that reminded me of Colorado too so that was a ball. I also have to give props to most of the trains here in Europe. Clean, on time, mostly air conditioned, little monitors in the station letting you know when the next train comes (always under 5 minutes) and little signs in the train with lit up dots to tell you what stop is next. Man the CTA is archaic compared to Europe. Especially with all the CTA junk that’s been going on lately. Let’s go Chicago; take a page out of the European book! Get it together!

Ship Life
*Good news America. European kids are just as assily behaved as American kids. Most of them should go back to school next week and I think our number of kids goes down from like 400 to 30. Praise Jesus.
*Alberto is gone. I never got a picture. Although the last tale I heard is that he had a breathalyzer test here on the ship and failed. This was after he apparently was trying to scale the security wall in Messina. They gave him a warning and then he was gone. He has been replaced by a new Flamenco guitarist named Pepe De Jose. This sounds like a borderline racist Spanish name you might use in an improv scene.
*The New York Conservatory for the Arts was on the ship last week. It’s basically a high school song and dance school. They did three shows in the Stardust and we caught the last one on Saturday. It wasn’t as Guffman as I thought and they did various selections from Broadway musicals with deep fervor and aplomb. I was pissed they were lip synching though. Mostly because I was looking for microphones for half the show and lamenting that their sound was leagues better than our show. The worst moment came at the beginning when they did a song I thought they had written. It was pretty cringe worthy and cheeseball. Nope. It was from Disney’s High School Musical. Holy shit is this thing bad. I mean I guess if it’s getting kids to enjoy musical theater more and get off the smack great. Buy yourselves a copy of Cabaret instead kids. It’s better than this fluff phenomenon.
*Finally, Michael Vick deserves to have every dollar he’s made shoved down his throat and then pulled out his ass. Then dip him in some Lawry’s seasoning salt and throw him in our neighbor’s yard back in Chicago with the three German Shepherds. The Falcons are some major Puss-boxes if they keep this jackass. Let’s grow a pair guys.

I feel like Andy Rooney on two Amstel Lights tonight. Till next time!

Ketchup

Above: Cody and Brian underground, Me at Mt. Etna and the Palio boys !

Catch up time indeed! Stories to tell! Still no haircut! Europe is still a delight and I can’t believe we only have 2 weeks left of the seven day cruises. At dinner tonight we were talking about what we’d like to get done in these various ports and it’s so much! After the seven day cruises we move to the 11/12 day cruises which include Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Croatia. We also have an overnight in Venice that will be pretty amazing. It’s hard to believe there’s more to come.

Florence/Uffizi
A week and a half ago we went to Florence to visit the Uffizi Gallery which is Italy’s greatest gallery. This thing is insane. So was the trip there and back to Florence. Again, Florence is a real prickly pear because it is two buses to the train and then the train for an hour and a half. We got there just fine and since we bought tickets in advance we didn’t have to wait in line which was helpful. We did show up a bit late for our reservation but it all worked out. This day was also a ball because we were accompanied by two of the youth counselors on the ship that had spent some months living in Florence. They were also the lucky winners of two tickets to the gallery since Steve and Jenny didn’t make it. We ate at a great place beforehand called “Mama Gina’s”. I enjoyed more Gnocchi and everyone else had an amazing lunch too. After a little red wine buzz we headed over to the gallery. Again, we saw so many mind blowing historical pieces of art it was overwhelming. Things you see your whole life in posters, shitty album covers and the opening montage of “Desperate Housewives”, you can’t believe you’re seeing the real thing. I bought the guide for 10 Euro and was glad I did because it really pointed out the greatest hits and some fun facts. Here were the highlights in more bullet points. Some of these titles might not mean much if you can’t see them, so if you’ve got a sec Google them to take a look.
* The Birth of Venus and Primavera by Botticelli
* Annunciation by DaVinci
* Musical Cherub by Fiorentino
* Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist by Michelangelo
* Diptych of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Francesca
* Medusa by Caravaggio
It was pretty intense and we did the whole thing in a little over two hours and we still felt like we had time to see everything. When we went to get the train we realized looking at the board the train left a little later than we thought. Still, no problem, we still had time. Until we got to the train station in Livorno. We got cocky and thought we had enough time to take the bus to the town center where we’d catch a cab to the port and boat. Well we took the bus and ended up in the square in Livorno at about 6:10 or so. All aboard is 6:30. We still thought we were ok. Until we told the cab driver the wrong port. Livorno is a HUGE shipping port with about 6 different ports. So we had to turn around, bust our ass through traffic and we got there at 6:40. YIKES ! We didn’t get reprimanded which was good and there were still passengers boarding so that was also good. Again, too close for anyone’s liking. Garg.

Nice, France
I blew 97 Euro at H&M and we ate Dim Sum. YEAH! Sometimes you need to get back to basics.

Messina
I escorted my first passenger tour in Messina! We went to Mt. Etna, an active volcano in Sicily. I think I’ve learned a few things about escorting I can now share. One: go somewhere where the bus only stops once. That way you don’t have to wrangle the animals as much (Brendan had a semi-shitfire on a France tour with like 4 stops and an obnoxious family from Jersey). Two: Escorting is boring. I like hanging out with my friends. It’s sort of snooze-a-tron to go someplace by yourself and not have anyone to share it with. I was glad I did it, but I think I’d rather do stuff with my pals from here on out. The volcano itself is pretty cool and we got to stand in one of the craters (see picture on top). Of course it wasn’t completely without incident. We had to stop on a very steep part of the mountain because a poor 12 year old girl was about to hork since it was a very twisty turny road up. I was right with her because I have a tendency to get a little car sick myself. No horking happened even though the guide looked at me a bit strange when I offered her a plastic bag I had in my purse. It was from a muffin highjacking scheme that didn’t happen at breakfast. I’m always concerned about when I’m going to eat again because the crankometer goes up if I don’t. I was able to enjoy a delicious croissant at the top of the volcano. The other thing that happened is that two people were almost 15 minutes late back to the bus. One of my jobs is to count heads once people have arrived back to the bus. Well, Paula the guide and I kept counting 36. We left Messina with 38. The tourist part of Mt. Etna isn’t that big so I offered to run to the bathroom and see if any ladies were still waiting. Nope. No one there. We count again, still 36. We run up to the other bathroom, no one’s there. We get back to the bus to count a third time and here comes dumpy drawers Dad and his son slowly entering the bus. Sigh. Come on people. 11:40 means 11:40 !!!

Naples
There was a holiday in Italy this week so a lot of things were closed. Including Presidente, our favorite pizza place. We did find another one that was pretty close and that Cody even blasphemously stated he might like better. Fool! The ghost of Presidente is going to strangle him in his sleep some night. It was a great meal though. It sparked a debate about how hot the stone ovens get to cook the pizzas and for how long since they always come out so fast. We found out that they only get cooked for 60-90 seconds at about 475 degrees Celsius. After guessing how hot that was Fahrenheit (guesses ranged from 1000 degrees, 6 inches and 8 degrees Kelvin) Brian and I realized we have no idea what the conversion is. We’ll keep guessing, it’s more fun that way. We also took a fun tour of the Naples Underground. Naples basically has two million square meters of empty space composed of tunnels and cisterns which included a pretty cool Aqueduct and a part of a Greek-Roman theater. I am currently typing this from the brochures we received since I couldn’t understand a damn word from our buxom young tour guide-ess. The best part of this is the dark skinny passage you get to go through only with candles because there is no light. At one point we let the group go ahead of us and we all blew out our candles. It was terrifying! The ceiling is very high but the passage is only about 3 feet across. We ended up getting separated from the group with our hijinx but the fun scare was well worth it.

Siena
We rented a car again (the exact same car we got a month ago) on Friday and packed the kids up to go to Siena which is another delicious Tuscan town. I drove again and finally have the hang of these roundabouts. We did it sans GPS so we were pretty proud of ourselves. If Italy is good at one thing it’s signage! We were excited to go to Siena on this particular day because on Thursday the Palio had occurred. The Palio is Tuscany’s most celebrated festival and it is a bareback horserace that started in 1283. It’s an intense race that is viewed by thousands crowded into Siena’s piazza. The jockey’s represent ten of Siena’s districts and the winner is rewarded with a silk banner. It was a real humdinger finding parking but it was great to be there the day after it had happened. We witnessed a great parade with all dressed in the winner’s silks (see pic above!) and got a couple of great souvenirs. There Duomo is also killer. Because of preservation the floor itself is only on display from the end of August until October so it was a real treat to see it. It is an inlaid marble floor that is incredibly beautiful. We made it back to port with a half hour to spare!

Ship Life
In France on Friday I purchased a pretty intense Paint-by-Number that I’m looking forward to starting. If anything makes me happier it’s OCD art projects! Give me a million tiny circles to fill in and I’ll be satiated for days. In response to my hobby Brian said, “You and the Unabomber”.

Brendan is currently sitting across from me typing up his article for the crew newsletter entitled “10 Movies You Should Be Renting”. I hope rentals increase for “An Officer and a Gentleman” next week!

I’ve been paying 7-8 Euros for “The New Yorker” every other week because we’re so starved for news/human interest stuff out here. Fox News is the only thing we get besides a little BBC and CNN. After I saw the Fox headline “What’s next for the 6 trapped miners?” a couple nights ago I almost punched my TV. What do you think is next for them Fox? Maybe they’ll all get that undergrad they’ve been wanting for so long? Get a grip you jags.

Penny is doing great and we miss her terribly. We’ve been on a dog petting kick here in Europe. My mom sent me a pic of Penny sniffing a picture I had given my mom as a gift, but the picture had been in our apartment for awhile. My mom says she smells it all the time and I almost cried. I miss my little girl!

A European Cold is More/Less Fun Than a US Cold

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!

Pics Are Easier Than Reading

Hi boaty fans (aka: my family. hee.)...I promise a written update in the next two day or so, probably tonight. But I want to post some pictures while I'm in this super ass fast internet cafe in Messina !

As you can see it was a big Roma day last week with the ruins from the Forum and all. I can't wait to blog about it soon !

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.