First Things First

We woke up at 6am to find out that our next president will be Barak Obama and we could not be happier. What a wonderful feeling to know that we will have a president that we can be proud of. Yes, we can!

Okay, begin blog....
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Malta, Naples, Citavecchia, Lucca and Villefranche - week one

Hi Everyone,

Well, we’re just starting our second week. The first week on the ship was very hectic but fun too.

The first day we got on the ship we were very tired. We had a glimpse of Barcelona from the shuttles windows but we had no energy to go into the city itself. So we settled in on our first day and went to dinner for Mike’s birthday. The dinner was excellent but I felt like I was going to fall over onto my shrimp and swordfish and begin to snore. We both slept about 12 hours that night. 12 hours. That’s a lot of sleep. Unfortunately it didn’t really refresh us but left us feeling still jet lagged.

The next day was a sea day. We didn’t meet for rehearsal until 1:30. Rehearsals went well but we didn’t get onto the stage until the next day. That night I had a horrible time sleeping. I got like 3 hours.

We were in Malta the next day - Malta is beautiful! It’s an ancient walled city and the sail in is really spectacular. As you come into port you have Valletta on one side and on the other you have Sliema. The water is a brilliant blue and the walls of the city are a light blonde stone. It looks like the city grows out of the stone. The city has the look of a Byzantine city with a lot of Italian influence. Malta is an independent country and their languages are English and Maltese. We didn’t have time to wander around but we did have time for coffee and lunch. Always time for coffee - a cappuccino! After lunch I purchased a Maltese pastry - a puff pastry pretzel thing covered with almonds, dark chocolate and more almonds. It was great.

We had some time on the stage that day. The show was coming along but had a lot of work left to do. We had the night off and I used some of that time to study.

Naples was our show day. Naples day is also known as Wednesday. We didn’t get off the ship but we took some photos from the ship. I’ll be posting photos later when I have access to fast internet so for now just words.

The rehearsals went very well that day but it did feel like we were doomed to never get a full run through. We kept getting interrupted by different events on the ship. But, you know, that’s part of living on a ship....there’s always stuff going on. This was a big week for crew events - they had the Miss Norwegian Gem contest and they had a big Halloween party. I didn’t go to either because I was busy trying to sleep and failing.
FYI - Miss Indonesia was crowned the first Miss Norwegian Gem.

We did manage to get a run through in and then we were excused to get ready for the show. We did the show and it went great. The crowd loved it and we felt very proud of our work. We all look forward to doing this show for the next four months.

That night I slept barely at all. Barely at all. Suckville.

The next morning was the planned cast trip to Rome. We just weren’t up to it. I woke up after about 3 hours of sleep and felt like crying. So I stayed in bed. Larrance went and made our apologies and we ended up hanging out in Citavecchia with our friend, Mike. There’s not a lot to Citavecchia. It’s a cute, quiet town. We had coffee, looked at the open market, got pizza (of course!), took photos, petted an Italian dog, had more coffee and returned to relax before our first improv show. The show went great. We have a great cast. Lots o’ fun.

The next day we were in Livorno which is close to Florence. Instead of going to Florence we went to the medieval city of Lucca. Lucca is a walled city with lots of great buildings, sculptures, and piazzas. To get there we had to take a shuttle to the bus, take the bus to the train station, stop for cappuccino, train to Pisa, switch trains to go to Lucca. Lucca is beautiful. I want to go back there when it’s not raining so we can ride bikes along the ancient wall and sit out on the piazza. Since we couldn’t do that we had hot chocolate (more like liquid chocolate mousse) inside. Beth, our producer, took us out to a great lunch at an Italian restaurant. What did you have for lunch? I’m glad you asked:

We had a plate of local appetizers - prosciutto ham, gombatelli (cured fat on bread), salami with fennel, chicken liver pate and some other meat. I tried everything. I ate all of the ham and the pate. All of it!

Next I had a savory tart with ricotta and mushrooms in a chick pea sauce. I ate all of it including the plate. BAM!

Then came my main course of handmade tortellini with ricotta, zucchini and tomato. Larrance had a Luccan soup made of onions. We ate all of that - double BAM!

For dessert I had pear cake with warm vanilla cream and Larrance had chocolate mousse. We ate all that - doubla BAM!

We also drank wine and of course more coffee.

Yeah, it was good. Yum.

We had our final improv show - the adult show. It was a fun show but I was TIRED. Not much sleep and lots of adventure makes Jen dull.

The final day of the cruise we are Villefranche. Villefranche is on the French Rivera. We were pretty tired. So we got up late went and had savory crepes, cappucinos and some water. Then we wandered the quaint, quiet and beautiful Villefranche. A lot of stuff was closed but it was so fantastic. The town is built into the mountainside and parts of the city are very old. So most of the walking is up narrow stairwells that open onto landings that have little gardens or private home courtyards. We finished our trip to Villefranche with the purchase of some perfume....for me.

I finally slept that night - a normal night’s sleep.

We said good-bye to our director - TJ, our producer - Beth, and her assistant - Monica that night. The next day we were in Barcelona. It was raining like sheets of rain with high winds. So we woke up for breakfast at 8:30 then went back to the room for an after breakfast nap. We woke up around 10:30am and got up to go out into Barcelona.

Barcelona is really amazing. Big, beautiful, fast, colorful and friendly. It was still raining but we walked all of La Rambla (markets, shops, restaurants). Then we got a map and started wandering. We found our way into the Roman Necropolis, The Gothic part of the city, lots of funky shops, and an incredible pastry shop. We had some amazing pastry - little almond lemon marzipan cookies and we shared a crunchy chocolate tube filled with chocolate mousse. OH WOW YUM.
We also located, for future use, the Picasso museum and the Archeological museum (see the underground city!).
We also drank cappuccinos and wine. We must have walked forever. I think I would have taken more photos but it was raining so I only took 70. Again, I’ll post them later.

Today is the sea day again and we’re starting all over. Tonight we’re celebrating Rance’s birthday. Tomorrow we’re in Malta again - we’re going to try and see the neolithic ruins and a bunch of other old stuff.

Hey, Europe! Keep it comin’!

Biiieeeee!

Jen