leave the gun...take the cannoli...

one thing i learned about myself while travelling is that i’m not very good at geography or history. i’m sure the knowledge was there at some point, i just lost it somewhere along the way. i won’t bore you with stories that prove this fact like how i didn’t realize that egypt is on the continent of africa or that pineapple and coffee can come from costa rica. i fully admit that in some ways i am the typical egocentric american, not paying attention to things outside my sphere. but, i am also an american that loves learning how other cultures live. one piece of advice i would give to someone visiting another country…don’t be afraid to eat where they eat, ride public transportation and just roam the streets. i firmly believe that this is how you fully SEE the culture.

on the morning of April 25^th i woke up in naples, italy.

which is coincidentally one of my favorite things about cruise life…waking up in a completely different country. i admit that I didn’t do a lot of research before this trip. i wish i had. i left the ship knowing very few things about the city i was entering. i wish i had known more.i really only knew what my tour book and/or someone told me such as...naples (napoli to the locals) is where pizza was invented. our goal for this day was to eat pizza, a margherita pizza (sauce, cheese and a bay leaf) to be exact. and we did. and it was fantastic!

the people living in napoli are called neopolitans.i actually learned this fun fact after returning to the states. i wish i had known it while i was there, because i love it!

napoli is the home of mt. vesuvius and pompeii, the town that vesuvius buried in 79 AD. pompeii was accidentally rediscovered by a british guy in 1592.

some of my favorite memories from my time in napoli…

as we were wandering the streets we stumbled upon this mall. yes, you read that correctly, this is a mall.

in a corner of the mall we found this pastry shop, where we found cannoli's. a cannoli is a pastry filled with a mixture including ricotta cheese and they are wonderful!

i just love this picture...just a vender hangin' out with his stroller full of goodies. i think the colors are fantastic?

a cruise ship life for me...

cruise ship life is the life for me. i loved almost every aspect of it. i loved the diversity of the crew. i loved the food…it was amazing! i loved that once you were on the ship you never had to spend another dime if you didn’t want to. and, i loved that you could be as busy or relaxed as you wanted to be. there was something going on every moment of every day and it was up to you to choose if you joined in or not.

every night there was a big production show. these shows generally consisted of singers, magicians, dancers, a comedian, etc. there were also lots of lounge singers and a variety of live music around the ship throughout the day. so, for a music lover like myself it was pure heaven. the very first show was “The Jersey Boys”, four boys singing the songs of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. and, they were fantastic!

i firmly believe, and this is only my opinion, that there is a proper and improper use of falsetto. in fact, as much as i have been and always will be a fan of new kids on the block…Jordan Night abuses the falsetto on a pretty regular basis. just because you CAN do it, doesn’t always mean that you should. with that said, the guy portraying Frankie Valli in this quartet has what i consider to be the most proper use of falsetto i’ve heard in a long time. in the middle of the performance Jessica leaned over to me and said, “his falsetto is SICK.” and, i agreed.

since we all have the right to our own opinions, i’ll let you decide for yourself…

here are some of the other happenings on the ship…
this was my home for 12 days...royal caribbean's navigator of the seas.
the village people showed up for disco inferno night and the policeman started a conga line.
as i said, the food was fantastic. this was a dessert sampler...amazing!
they really do make animals out of the towels they leave for you. and, if you leave your sunglasses laying around, sometimes they'll accessorize.

when in Rome...

i just returned from the vacation of a lifetime. at least, that’s what one of my co-workers calls it and i’m of a mind to agree. i spent twelve days on a cruise ship, with three friends and about 4,000 other people, touring several ports in the mediterranean. i set out for the airport early the morning of the 22nd with two prayers…please, God don’t let eyjafjallajökull, the icelandic volcano, trap me at the JFK airport. and, please, let me find Jess easily in the rome airport. i learned something about myself that day while sitting and waiting for a connecting flight. i had secretly, somewhere in the back of my mind, been expecting something to keep me from this trip. i would double check my tickets, sure that i somehow had the date wrong or the wrong destination. surely i wasn’t really going to rome, italy to board a cruise ship. i somehow expected for someone along the way to say, “nope, not you Beckie. you don’t get to have experiences like this.” surreal, that’s the only way i can describe it.

and, it’s still surreal, even now, after the fact. i’ve been back home for about four days and it now feels slightly like a dream. if i didn’t have the pictures to prove it, i might think i wasn’t really there at all. i’m trying desperately to keep it fresh in my mind and to process what i’ve seen and experienced. it will probably come in patches and out of order, but i’m going to do my best to share my adventures, starting in rome…

three things i love about rome…one…gelato, which is much more than ice cream ever could be. my favorite was cappuccino, which somehow tasted like chocolate and caramel with the tiniest hint of caffe. it was like a creamy frappuccino that you eat with a spoon. i would buy it from the lady in the termini train station because it was the cheapest (2.60 euros for two scoops) and the best. although, it might have been the price that made it the best because i can’t say i had any bad gelato, just expensive.

and, two…the way italians say “Ciao Bella.” (translation: hello/goodbye beautiful). i firmly believe that every woman should have an italian man say this to her at some point in her life. in fact, if i could get a recording that i could play on repeat i would be in heaven. there’s a reason italian is referred to as the language of love…it’s beautiful.

three…the buildings. i have hundreds of pictures of random buildings. i can’t even tell you what they are, i just liked the look of them. maybe i missed my calling as an architect. i don’t know, but i loved looking at those buildings with their little green shutters. so, i chose a few of my favorites to share. some i’m sure will be very familiar…

the colosseum

part of the roman forum (next to the colosseum)

st.peter's basilica in vatican city

one of those cool buildings i was talking about

fontana di trevi (aka...the trevi fountain) and, of course i threw my coin in and made a wish along side the other tourists. fun fact...the coins in the fountain are collected every day to help feed rome's homeless.

rome has several bridges that cross the Tiber river. this one was my favorite...the statues along the side represent the stations of the cross. and, they're beautiful.