Note: Civitavecchia is pronounced like "Siv-vit-ah-vek-kee-a". It is a port on the West Coast of Italy, about an hour or so from Rome.

The airport looks and smells like Hong Kong's. Warm Pollution.

We noticed that there were a lot of old people on our bus that would take us from the airport to the ship. I noticed that the cars were very small. Since we arrived very early, and they needed more time before the people were done cleaning our rooms, we were taken on a mini-tour through Rome.

We stopped at the Basilica di St. Peter.

There was a very old gypsy begging (the one wearing black).

My sister bought postcards. We didn't have Euro coins so the nun wasn't very happy about having to give so much change (from a 10 Euro bill). The Basilica was quite beautiful. There are four of them in Rome, I think. And all of them are owned by the Vatican. That means it's like the United Nations. If you want to mail something from the Basilica, you must use a Vatican stamp.

We also saw old ruins around Rome, including the Colosseum and a public execution ground. All this was from the bus, hence the crappy photos. It's so weird to be driving along on the freeway, and over to your right is the Colosseum.

From top to bottom, the Colloseum, Ruins, and Public Execution Ground, and a Monument. The last one would have been a cool photo (the sky) if not for the weird angle my camera was at.

On the freeway (to Civitavecchia, where the ship was), I saw Lucent Technologies building, a car whose model was "Panda-750", and then... a graffitti spray painting of "EURODANCE". Reminded me of the DJ.

Additionally, in California, I mainly see rectangular hay stacks. In Italy (and in other parts of Europe), they were... cylindrical bales!

Also, gas stations are just turn outs of the sides of random streets - much like the weigh stations on the freeways in the US that let you turn out to the side a bit before returning to the main road. There would be one or two pumps there. And that was that. No huge station taking up a chunk of space on a block.

Civitavecchia / Exploring Ship / Food

Arriving in our rooms, I noticed that there was a mushroom tile between my sisters and my room and my mom's. (My mom was sharing the room with one of her friends, Rose, whom we met up with there).

Wow, I was impressed. I didn't know this was what a cruise would be like. I mean, I figured I'd get maybe a cot to sleep on crammed with other people. And the boat would float. That's about it.

Instead, I discover that there are 12 decks accessible from inside and a top mini-deck from the top. But only decks 4 and up are for passenger use. And deck 4 is just the infirmary and an exit.

There was a library, lounges, bars, casino, photo center, a fitness center, a spa/beauty center, a sauna, 2 little pools, little jacuzzis, an internet cafe, casual dining, formal dining, and a formal formal seafood restaurant on board. One thing I did not understand was why deck 8 was called the promenade deck when deck 7 (lower promenade deck) was the one where you could go walk around on (and 1 lap = 0.25 mile). The internet cafe let you have internet access via satellite at $0.75/minute!! I decided to forgo internet for 2 weeks instead.

Badly taken photograph of the library

Deck 4 was the A Deck. We lived on Deck 5, Dolphin Deck. Deck 6 was called the Main Deck - but really had nothing but rooms for guests. Deck 7 and 8 were, as mentioned before, Lower Promenade and Promenade Decks, respectively. Deck 9 was Upper Promenade Deck. You could sort of walk around the back end of the ship at this level if you went through the fitness center. But there wasn't that much room. I forget what Deck 10 and 12 were. Deck 11 was Lido Deck - because that's where the Lido Restaurant was.

So... we decided to check out Lido - casual buffet style eatery. I wasn't hungry. I was just sleepy. But I did order a vegetarian pizza for my sister Cassandra. (Pizza's were all 1 person portions). I myself had some Cream of Broccoli Puree, frozen raspberry yogurt, garlic mashed potatos, honeydew.. and a bite of that pizza.

It wasn't long before Mr. Creepy Dance Guy (ok, that's not his real name - I forgot his real name) approached our table, introducing himself as a dance host. Now the thing is, this guy has some social issues he hasn't quite worked out yet. After the introductions and small talk (he was from Hawaii and would be a dance host - the ship had two of these so women had someone to dance with since not that many men are fond of dancing), he just WOULDN'T LEAVE! The conversation ended. But he hung around, eating his ice cream very slowly and grinning at us. Just picture this: Old, spindly asian guy, can't stop grinning, and wouldn't leave. Just kinda shifted his weight back and forth and occasionally walked from one side of our table to another.

Somehow, we made it out alive (he left after a long while) and we decided to take a look around Civitavecchia before the ship set sail. There were Gelaterias everywhere! But alas, I was in no mood for Gelato. Besides, I was looking only for Hazelnut gelato. But I did not know the word for hazelnut in Italian. I vaguely sorta remembered it in French but was not sure. I almost got one (Nocciolato or something) at one Gelateria but since the owner didn't understand the word "nut" and we didn't want to risk getting an icky flavor, I gave up having gelato in Italy. My mom was mainly looking for Chocolates while my sister Francesca was mainly looking for Busted (the UK band) stuff.

Returning to the ship, I watched us undock and head out to open waters before I went downstairs and fell asleep. I fell asleep in less than 5 min, lying in a rather uncomfortable position - on my back, across the width of my bed, with my legs hanging over the side and onto the floor and my head nearly off the otherside of the bed. So I was basically sleeping in the upside down U position - the "and" in set theory notation.

In the afternoon, there is a cover/bed spread. This is what it looks like at night - a chocolate treat on the pillow too.

Before I knew it, it was dinner time - a 5 course meal. Nearly every night would be like this. My first three courses had mushrooms in it.

1. Farfalle with Shitake Mushroom - I'd never heard of pasta as appetizer before
2. Soup - Cream of Mushroom - half one color, half another
3. Spinach Salad... it had mushroom in it
4. Eggplant Enchilada over risotto. So good! Instead of the usual tortilla thing, they used thin slices of chinese eggplant
5. Banana Flambe - I'd never heard of, or eaten any sort of Flambe before. This was 3 banana slices in some warm alcoholic sauce with a scoop of vanilla ice cream

Kid Group / Club HAL

There was this dorkily named group called "Club HAL" (Holland America Line - the name of the cruise company) which was supposed to provide activities for those under 18 because many of the normal activities (dancing, fitness center, casino, drinking, sauna, pool) either had a requirement of 18 years of age or just would not be as appealing.

So I joined my sisters to check this group out. There were two - one under age 13, and one between 13 and 17. The organizers, in their 20s, were not very nice. But at least they left us alone. And then.. high school typish drama ensued with so and so trying to grab attention first and so and so trying to be funny and later.... so and so having a crush on so and so and so and so hating so and so and all her friends. Additionally, after awhile, a bunch of them decided they needed ice cream - NOW! So everyone ran upstairs to the ice cream bar, despite some of us knowing that it was closed at this time of night. What happened was a stampeded of crazed teenagers. And I was shocked at how rudely some of these kids demanded ice cream. I don't know if they are spoiled brats or what. Sheesh.

That's when I decided... it's lame enough that a 20 year old wants to hang out with these 13-17 year old kids. It'd be even worse to have to put up with high school drama again. So... I never went to those activities again. I'd hear that there were a few 19, 20 year olds on ship - mainly older siblings of the teen group. But.. they never identified themselves, and I never felt bored.

There was a girl who had ADD/ADHD, one from Washinton, IL, and some from Pomona, CA. One good thing was that I got laughs when I told the "Holy Water Joke" - which I learned in 2nd grade. :-)

St. Tropez, France