Our host in milano is a DJ so he had to go into Milan to work overnight and we had the whole house to ourselves. Tyson cooked a delicious meal and we stayed up late working on the computors and eating a six pack of ice cream bars.
The next day Tyson and I dragged ourselves out of bed early, ate breakfast and were ready to go by the time our host came to the house to take us to the railway station. We were quite proud of this accomplishment and even made it a few minutes early for our train. We slept on and off for the ride and then as soon as we got off we both had to make emergency bathroom visits at the nearest McDonalds. After the pressure was relieved, we went straight to a museam that was themed around fashion but it was quite boring since the fashion was from hundreds of years ago and there was more art than clothing. We enjoy art but at this point we were getting a bit tired of it. Next we went to another museam that used to house a very famous poet and artist. We visited his original rooms including a library that was covered in over 3000 books from his personal collections.
After this museam we went to an aquarium that was quite interesting. Again, the information was all in Italian but we could make some of it out and their was a wide variety of fish and marine life to look at. Almost everything to do in the area closes between noon and one oclock so Tyson and I decided to have Farsi lessons. For the last four years, Tyson has been trying to learn Farsi on and off. Unfortunately every time we forget to practice for a while, we have to start from square two all over again. So we practiced conversations for a while in the lovely park in the sunshine. There were many people outside enjoying the day.
Of course we had to spend some more time walking around the duomo watching people and exploring the shops. You cannot stand still for half a minute in the area without being approached by people selling corn for the birds, bracelets for tips, taking photos for cash and so on. The sales staff do not let go easy either, they stand there and force their products on you. It can be annoying at times but then there are other times when it is interesting and fun. That day, two of the guys selling corn for the birds got into a heated argument and started throwing fists and kicks. This is a serious business and everyone has their own territories and boundaries.
We tried for part of the day to buy a camera but the one place that we found a reasonable one, the shop staff were not helpful at all. They would not even let us try out the camera, so they were expecting us to guess that we will like how it works. And if we do not like it? Tough luck because there are no returns. So we thought it would be a risk to buy something with no warranty that we have never tried or touched from a place where the people could not care less about customer service and will not exchange the product. Luckily the camera that our host had given us was working decently. The double A batteries were dying and did not last very long at all and we do not have a cord to upload them onto a computor but those are minor details at this point.
In the afternoon, we went to China Town to shop a bit and try to look for someone to unlock our host's phone that he asked us to fix for him. There was a lot of very nice clothes but almost all the shops only sold in wholesale and the ones that would sell individually, would not let me try on their clothes. Unfortunately I do not have the body type where everything will fit me so that rule did not work for me. We still spent some time walking around there, looking at the very few camera shops. We tried to find a cord for our camera but everyone told us it was too old and they do not carry anything that can help us.
We walked back to the grocery store by the metro station and bought dinner. We bought Italian panini bread, cream cheese, two large bags of potato chips, two cups of pudding with whipped cream, a bottle of pop, a box of peaches, and a lot of batteries. We walked to the meeting spot we had set up with our host to grab our bags off of him. This way we did not have to spend two hours taking the train back to his place, it worked out great because he was dj'ing in town again.
We caught the train to Genoa at around nine oclock. We ate cream cheese and chip sandwhiches, peaches and puddings while we watched a movie. Near the end of the movie I realized that we should not have had enough time to finish a whole movie before we got to our destination. So we unplugged our earphones and sure enough we were at our stop, very lucky. At the train station in Genoa we had, of course, not planned for a place to stay over night. We arrived after eleven at night and we slept at the train station. It was odd because we seemed to be the only two people there at that time of night but our options were quite thin of places to go and we had no internet access. We were confronted by the police and we thought that we were going to be asked to leave but they just told us to watch our things carefully.
The next morning we awoke to the sounds of the busy train station. The spot that we had found was kind of out of the way of the main traffic area so we were able to doze in and out of sleep for awhile because no one could really see us. We left to the cruise terminal to check in right away and make sure that we weren't late.
The ship we took is called the MSC Simphonia. It is one of the smaller ships that MSC has holding around twenty five hundred passengers. It is equipped with at least four pools, basketball and tennis courts, six bars, two restaurants, two buffets, and a theatre, these are only some of the places we used. This "small" ship was actually so big that we did not have enough time to explore the whole thing in eight days. We took advantage of the buffet lunch almost immediately following the mandatory safety drill. We loaded our plates with the delicious food, not all healthy, but hey calories do not count on vacation. Thankfully there is also a gym on board to work off some of the food. It felt so good to run after not working out for almost a year. Tyson hit the weights hard...he's so buff....
After burning some of the calories from lunch, we celebrated by hitting the dinner buffet before our evening a la carte meal. For every meal, we have options of several different buffets including ones that are entirely pizza, pastas, grilled foods, desserts and more. Or there are also fancy plated meals that we have to dress up for and have assigned seats. Usually we attened the buffet breakfast and lunches and then for dinner we ate both. On the first night, our eyes were much bigger than our stomachs and by the time our main course, during the plated dinner, came we had already loosened our belts a few notches. After we finished stuffing our faces for what seemed like the tenth time that day, we explored the ship and found a "Grease" party. The entertainment group on the ship is a great bunch of staff. We got to know them all quite well through our time there. They had different games, classes, events and shows going on all the time throughout the day and night.
The second morning of our cruise, I woke up ten minutes before the alarm in anticipation of the breakfast buffet. We ate hearty again because we were going to Rome for the whole day. The breakfast buffet is a big part of our day, they have waffel and pancake stations as well as any other possible breakfast food imaginable. We packed a small lunch in our bag and headed to the train. The cruise sells excursions on the boats that cost at least ten times as much as the tours you can find on the street, but we heard that it was very easy to catch the train into the city and see the sights on our own so we took the chance. We met a nice father and daughter from France who were also on our cruise who were doing the same thing as us and they helped us map out how we could see Rome in one day. We were worried that we were the only ones wandering out on our own, but there were hundreds of people doing the same thing. The cruise sold tours anywhere for 80-120 euros per person for the same thing that we did for 12 each.
The train dropped us about five minutes away from the Vatican City. This is the smallest country in the world and also the home of the Pope. For us, it is the 34th country we have visited this year. The cue to enter the Vatican and the Systine Chappel would take an entire day to wait in so we had to take photos from the outside. Of all the places in the world we have been, we have never seen so many tourists as we saw in Rome. The entire city is crawling with visitors but we still enjoyed our time. We saw all the famous sights that you see in movies and in pictures but there is nothing like seeing it in person. Unfortunately our camera ran out of battery but once again the kindness of strangers prevailed. A couple from the US saw that we were stuck and gave us baterries so we could finish taking our pictures.
Our final boarding time after our visit in Rome was at seven so we had to make our way back to the port earlier than that. The train from the port to the city of Rome took just over an hour so we had to be careful of the time. We realized that we had been over charged for our train tickets so we had to rush to the train staion in Rome and tell the company what had happened. The first person we spoke to was not being very helpful and actually told us "its not my problem it's yours" Tyson started to raise his voice at her and we had to ask for the manager who wasn't much help either. As we were almost late for the train we had to leave the office and hurry to our platform with no refund. On the way, a kid started to walk in front of us in the same direction as us. When we jumped on the train he asked us for money for showing us the way to the train. Tyson laughed and told him to move along. The child insisted we pay him but when he realized he was getting nowhere he eventually left.
We both ended up falling asleep on the train ride and woke up shortly before our stop. We had to rush back to the shuttle bus that would take us through the port back to the ship. After a quick shower we went down to the theatre for the evening show. It was a musical about Italian culture with dancers and a very talented opera singer. The show was very well put together and lasted an hour which gave us enough time to make a stop at the dinner buffet before our plated dinner. We realize that attending both dinners makes us fatter than the average people on the ship, but we are officially backpackers and this gves us the right to take advantage of such opportunities. We learned from the night before so we did not take nearly as much food from the buffet the second time and had planned to order less food from the dinner menu. Our server seemed insulted by our small order and insisted we try the appetizer and the second main dish. Our server at the plated dinner is a guy from Indonesia, we have the same server and the same people at our table every night. It is a nice idea because we have gotten to know him and the others quite well. The theme for the dinner was Italian and for dessert the servers paraded around the restaurant holding delicious cakes that turned out to be soaked in Rum. After trying the cake, we thought it tasted funny so we asked what it was cooked with and found out.
After dinner we went to one of the bars with two girls from Switzerland that we eat dinner with every night for the Mr. Italia competition. This is not exactly what we thought it would be. The competition started with about twenty old men and Tyson dancing around while the staff picked out three contestants. They had the three men make a pizza and then dance around in womens clothing. A far cry from my expectations of hunky Italian men. After the competition, we finished the night with dancing at the night club which is on the top floor with a gorgeous view of the ocean.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"
The next day Tyson and I dragged ourselves out of bed early, ate breakfast and were ready to go by the time our host came to the house to take us to the railway station. We were quite proud of this accomplishment and even made it a few minutes early for our train. We slept on and off for the ride and then as soon as we got off we both had to make emergency bathroom visits at the nearest McDonalds. After the pressure was relieved, we went straight to a museam that was themed around fashion but it was quite boring since the fashion was from hundreds of years ago and there was more art than clothing. We enjoy art but at this point we were getting a bit tired of it. Next we went to another museam that used to house a very famous poet and artist. We visited his original rooms including a library that was covered in over 3000 books from his personal collections.
After this museam we went to an aquarium that was quite interesting. Again, the information was all in Italian but we could make some of it out and their was a wide variety of fish and marine life to look at. Almost everything to do in the area closes between noon and one oclock so Tyson and I decided to have Farsi lessons. For the last four years, Tyson has been trying to learn Farsi on and off. Unfortunately every time we forget to practice for a while, we have to start from square two all over again. So we practiced conversations for a while in the lovely park in the sunshine. There were many people outside enjoying the day.
Of course we had to spend some more time walking around the duomo watching people and exploring the shops. You cannot stand still for half a minute in the area without being approached by people selling corn for the birds, bracelets for tips, taking photos for cash and so on. The sales staff do not let go easy either, they stand there and force their products on you. It can be annoying at times but then there are other times when it is interesting and fun. That day, two of the guys selling corn for the birds got into a heated argument and started throwing fists and kicks. This is a serious business and everyone has their own territories and boundaries.
We tried for part of the day to buy a camera but the one place that we found a reasonable one, the shop staff were not helpful at all. They would not even let us try out the camera, so they were expecting us to guess that we will like how it works. And if we do not like it? Tough luck because there are no returns. So we thought it would be a risk to buy something with no warranty that we have never tried or touched from a place where the people could not care less about customer service and will not exchange the product. Luckily the camera that our host had given us was working decently. The double A batteries were dying and did not last very long at all and we do not have a cord to upload them onto a computor but those are minor details at this point.
In the afternoon, we went to China Town to shop a bit and try to look for someone to unlock our host's phone that he asked us to fix for him. There was a lot of very nice clothes but almost all the shops only sold in wholesale and the ones that would sell individually, would not let me try on their clothes. Unfortunately I do not have the body type where everything will fit me so that rule did not work for me. We still spent some time walking around there, looking at the very few camera shops. We tried to find a cord for our camera but everyone told us it was too old and they do not carry anything that can help us.
We walked back to the grocery store by the metro station and bought dinner. We bought Italian panini bread, cream cheese, two large bags of potato chips, two cups of pudding with whipped cream, a bottle of pop, a box of peaches, and a lot of batteries. We walked to the meeting spot we had set up with our host to grab our bags off of him. This way we did not have to spend two hours taking the train back to his place, it worked out great because he was dj'ing in town again.
We caught the train to Genoa at around nine oclock. We ate cream cheese and chip sandwhiches, peaches and puddings while we watched a movie. Near the end of the movie I realized that we should not have had enough time to finish a whole movie before we got to our destination. So we unplugged our earphones and sure enough we were at our stop, very lucky. At the train station in Genoa we had, of course, not planned for a place to stay over night. We arrived after eleven at night and we slept at the train station. It was odd because we seemed to be the only two people there at that time of night but our options were quite thin of places to go and we had no internet access. We were confronted by the police and we thought that we were going to be asked to leave but they just told us to watch our things carefully.
The next morning we awoke to the sounds of the busy train station. The spot that we had found was kind of out of the way of the main traffic area so we were able to doze in and out of sleep for awhile because no one could really see us. We left to the cruise terminal to check in right away and make sure that we weren't late.
The ship we took is called the MSC Simphonia. It is one of the smaller ships that MSC has holding around twenty five hundred passengers. It is equipped with at least four pools, basketball and tennis courts, six bars, two restaurants, two buffets, and a theatre, these are only some of the places we used. This "small" ship was actually so big that we did not have enough time to explore the whole thing in eight days. We took advantage of the buffet lunch almost immediately following the mandatory safety drill. We loaded our plates with the delicious food, not all healthy, but hey calories do not count on vacation. Thankfully there is also a gym on board to work off some of the food. It felt so good to run after not working out for almost a year. Tyson hit the weights hard...he's so buff....
After burning some of the calories from lunch, we celebrated by hitting the dinner buffet before our evening a la carte meal. For every meal, we have options of several different buffets including ones that are entirely pizza, pastas, grilled foods, desserts and more. Or there are also fancy plated meals that we have to dress up for and have assigned seats. Usually we attened the buffet breakfast and lunches and then for dinner we ate both. On the first night, our eyes were much bigger than our stomachs and by the time our main course, during the plated dinner, came we had already loosened our belts a few notches. After we finished stuffing our faces for what seemed like the tenth time that day, we explored the ship and found a "Grease" party. The entertainment group on the ship is a great bunch of staff. We got to know them all quite well through our time there. They had different games, classes, events and shows going on all the time throughout the day and night.
The second morning of our cruise, I woke up ten minutes before the alarm in anticipation of the breakfast buffet. We ate hearty again because we were going to Rome for the whole day. The breakfast buffet is a big part of our day, they have waffel and pancake stations as well as any other possible breakfast food imaginable. We packed a small lunch in our bag and headed to the train. The cruise sells excursions on the boats that cost at least ten times as much as the tours you can find on the street, but we heard that it was very easy to catch the train into the city and see the sights on our own so we took the chance. We met a nice father and daughter from France who were also on our cruise who were doing the same thing as us and they helped us map out how we could see Rome in one day. We were worried that we were the only ones wandering out on our own, but there were hundreds of people doing the same thing. The cruise sold tours anywhere for 80-120 euros per person for the same thing that we did for 12 each.
The train dropped us about five minutes away from the Vatican City. This is the smallest country in the world and also the home of the Pope. For us, it is the 34th country we have visited this year. The cue to enter the Vatican and the Systine Chappel would take an entire day to wait in so we had to take photos from the outside. Of all the places in the world we have been, we have never seen so many tourists as we saw in Rome. The entire city is crawling with visitors but we still enjoyed our time. We saw all the famous sights that you see in movies and in pictures but there is nothing like seeing it in person. Unfortunately our camera ran out of battery but once again the kindness of strangers prevailed. A couple from the US saw that we were stuck and gave us baterries so we could finish taking our pictures.
Our final boarding time after our visit in Rome was at seven so we had to make our way back to the port earlier than that. The train from the port to the city of Rome took just over an hour so we had to be careful of the time. We realized that we had been over charged for our train tickets so we had to rush to the train staion in Rome and tell the company what had happened. The first person we spoke to was not being very helpful and actually told us "its not my problem it's yours" Tyson started to raise his voice at her and we had to ask for the manager who wasn't much help either. As we were almost late for the train we had to leave the office and hurry to our platform with no refund. On the way, a kid started to walk in front of us in the same direction as us. When we jumped on the train he asked us for money for showing us the way to the train. Tyson laughed and told him to move along. The child insisted we pay him but when he realized he was getting nowhere he eventually left.
We both ended up falling asleep on the train ride and woke up shortly before our stop. We had to rush back to the shuttle bus that would take us through the port back to the ship. After a quick shower we went down to the theatre for the evening show. It was a musical about Italian culture with dancers and a very talented opera singer. The show was very well put together and lasted an hour which gave us enough time to make a stop at the dinner buffet before our plated dinner. We realize that attending both dinners makes us fatter than the average people on the ship, but we are officially backpackers and this gves us the right to take advantage of such opportunities. We learned from the night before so we did not take nearly as much food from the buffet the second time and had planned to order less food from the dinner menu. Our server seemed insulted by our small order and insisted we try the appetizer and the second main dish. Our server at the plated dinner is a guy from Indonesia, we have the same server and the same people at our table every night. It is a nice idea because we have gotten to know him and the others quite well. The theme for the dinner was Italian and for dessert the servers paraded around the restaurant holding delicious cakes that turned out to be soaked in Rum. After trying the cake, we thought it tasted funny so we asked what it was cooked with and found out.
After dinner we went to one of the bars with two girls from Switzerland that we eat dinner with every night for the Mr. Italia competition. This is not exactly what we thought it would be. The competition started with about twenty old men and Tyson dancing around while the staff picked out three contestants. They had the three men make a pizza and then dance around in womens clothing. A far cry from my expectations of hunky Italian men. After the competition, we finished the night with dancing at the night club which is on the top floor with a gorgeous view of the ocean.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"
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