Villefranche (mostly)

After going on a couple of tours in in the surrounding area (Monaco, Nice, Cannes) I finally took a day just to walk around the little port town of Villefranche-sur-mer.  It really is a remarkably beautiful place - I can see why the Cote D'Azure (blue coast) of the French Riviera is so popular for vacations.  I spent the day just wandering the streets and shopping in the open markets with a new friend of mine - Julie, an art auctioneer. I bought a few more antique French books (I'm not trying to start a collection...I just have a thing for old books), plus a couple old coins and other fun knick-knacks.  Julie and I stopped for some ice cream at a local cafe before walking all the way to the other side of town to check out the beach, which her Floridian roots told her was too cold, and my Californian ones told me was the perfect temperature.  Both of us spent a lot of time beachcombing for neat rocks and shells - turns out we're kindred spirits in that regard. :-)  At one point on our way back we accidently found ourselves in some historical underground street, which was pretty cool - I'll have to look it up and see what I can find out about it.  Most likely it used to be the ground level, but centuries of new buildings eventually covered it. Pretty cool, anyway, whatever it was.  I had a really nice, relaxing day - it was fun to just enjoy small, charming, Villefrenche with a friend.

Today we all had big plans to take the train to Rome together since we don't play until late tonight, however an impromptu safety training squashed our plans.  Instead of exploring more of the Vatican museum, I had to spend an hour right in the middle of the day listening to a Greek officer speaking in something that he thinks passes for English, telling us how to stand in our staircases during the guest drill.  Basically the point of the meeting was to punish us for some people who I guess had skipped the drills in the past.  We were all quite annoyed at having to be there....but what can you do - that's ship life.  Hopefully nothing comes up next time we try to go to Rome.  

Barcelona!

I've been fighting a cold the past few days and therefore haven't been as active as I wish I would have been.  Today especially - we were docked right downtown in Barcelona (a first!) but I slept in and wasn't motivated to get off.  I mostly just want to make sure I'm careful and don't make myself more sick by trying to do to much.  But the day turned out well - I had a surprise opportunity to get a spa treatment - they have started using demos on embarkation day for teeth whitening, so I got to do that.  (I know you'll say I don't need it, Mom and Chelsea...) I was excited to do it - especially since its a $200 treatment....yikes!  My teeth are now officially 4 shades lighter - at least thats what the lady told me. :-) But just in case anyone's wondering, its not very fun to have done - I felt like I was at the dentist. (Bleh.)  She said that I could keep being the demo every cruise and by the time I leave my teeth will glow in the dark.  I think that sounds like fun.  I might do it again - we'll see.  

Thus begins a new cruise.  This one will be quite busier than the last one for us.  Last cruise we had only 2 guest entertainers, this cruise we have 4, and the cruise is one day shorter.  So no nights off this cruise (unless someone makes a giant mistake, lol) and a lot of shows to play.  They are all new entertainers for this contract, but all entertainers whose shows I've played in the past.  I'm looking forward to playing the violinist Nicola Loud's show again for sure.  And we'll end the cruise with the entertainer whose show was the very first I ever played on ships - Mario D'Andrea.  Fun stuff.  This cruise is also the end of an Era in a way, because next cruise we'll have a new Cruise Director (boss of the whole entertainment department - basically he defines our workplace: we're all praying for a nice, competent one).  We'll miss Damian - he was really a great guy and did a fantastic job, plus he was very relaxed and easy to work for.  Tonight he made an offstage announcement to introduce himself ("And now, please welcome your Cruise Director for the next 10 days and nights - Damien from Canada!!!!") and then walked out on stage.  So that the crowd wouldn't figure out he was the one introducing himself, he made the announcement in a Texan accent (my suggestion!) the first show, and then a shockingly accurate Jamaican one for the second show.  I seriously even had to ask an AV tech if it was actually him because it was so convincing.  Anyway, we'll miss him!!