2004 Europe

ms Noordam & Garabaldi Jump Carrier, Civitavecchia, Italy



May 8 – Ahhhh, A day at sea! Woke up fairly early and went to breakfast. Not much planned for the day. I’m catching up on labeling my picturess and writing this narrative. There’s a disembarkation speech this afternoon for those leaving the ship in Rome. The purser told me that only 40 people are staying on for the next cruise. Another performance by the Noordam cast this evening. KC gets another chance to sing her favorite style, Jazz/Blues. Tomorrow all our tablemates leave the ship and we get a whole new set. This has been a very different table. Bernard and Sheryl (below), a retired judge and his wife from Iowa, and Bella and Linda (below), a Roma from Hungary and his wife, and of course us. The Iowans could not be more Iowa. Bella, the Roma, could not be more gypsy and his wife could not be more East Coast. It makes for an unusual table dynamic. The Iowans don't get to say much, Bella regales us with stories of his exploits with the police and other authorities (very entertaining), the Linda talks so softly that Diana and I can't hear her very well. It's a riot. They are all very nice people and we enjoy them, it’s just that the mix is so diverse it can be distracting trying to shift gears.



May 9 – You can tell that the cast is getting used to each other and more comfortable with the shows because they keep getting better and better. In last night’s show, Jazzmatazz, they sing blues and jazz songs from several eras. KC got to sing part of Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy’, a song very suited to her voice. It was great! The captain says we will be at the port of Civitavecchia by 9PM this evening but they won’t put the gangway down until about 6:30AM to begin disembarkation. Sure enough, when we got to the room after the show, we were already at the pier.



True to his word, at 6:30AM passengers were heading to Rome and home. We’re staying on one more cruise so we didn’t have to pack last night. I got up at 7AM, started two loads of laundry and went to breakfast. As usual on days when we don’t have to be off the ship early, the Princess slept in. In fact, by the time she was up and moving, breakfast was over and the laundry was done. It is tradition that I do the laundry when we are on ships. The laundry I used was on the upper promenade deck just inside the doors to the deck that runs completely around the ship and they have all the wooden deck chairs. After I put the laundry in the dryer I sat out on the deck, watching the former cruisers scurry for their transportation to the airport.



Once Diana was up and about, we rode the free shuttle provided by the port to downtown Civitavecchia. It’s a smallish city and it’s Sunday so everything except cafes, cyber and other, is closed. We stopped at a small snack shop and Diana had some pizza for breakfast. If we had just walked a little further, the railway station café had much better-looking pizza. They had pepperoni pizza in combination with several things I couldn’t identify. Some sort of veggies and who knows what else. The pizza that caused me to video the pizza counter was most unusual, cheese, sauce, hot dog slices and French fries!! I’m not kidding, I have the video. I was filming sub-rosa so I didn’t want to take a still pic.



We were trying to get some Euro, but we couldn’t find an ATM that would work. Apparently they turn them off on Sunday. Italy, what a country. We finally found one that worked right at the port building. I guess maybe that’s a ‘tax free’ zone and not subject to the usual rules.



Our new tablemates are a couple from Calgary, Canada, Mary and Seldon and Father John, a chaplain at St. Paul’s Hospital in Dallas. Everyone seemed very friendly and outgoing. We spent some time discussing the ins and outs of Beautification and Canonization. You never know what will come up at dinner. I told Father John that I was one third of the way to getting my 3 miracles to qualify for the process. All my high school teachers said it was a miracle I graduated much less complete college and pass the CPA exam on the first sitting. Come to think of it maybe I already have the 3 required miracles.



Well we’re passing the Stromboli volcano tomorrow morning early and I want to get up just in case the thing is going off. See you later.

(c) 2004 Rod Longenberger