Sunday, August 29, 2004

I'm back!! Yes I have returned from my long and noble journey that took me all the way round that area of promise, the Mediterranean. I.e. - a cruise. It was bloody fantastic. Went to Tunis in Tunisia, Rome, Florence and Pisa in Italy, obviously, Toulon in the South of France, and Barcelona, Espania. When we went to Toulon, we were supposed to originally be going to Monaco, but the night before the sea conditions were too bad, so we had to go to Toulon instead, which was a bit gutting. Tunis was great. We visited a Souq, which is an indoor market type thing to us non-Arabics. Never been stared at so much in my life before as I was by the Arab blokes in there. Apparently its because I;m blond and blond people are rare to say the least there. The attention was fun at first, but eventually started to get a bit old. Oh the hardship! I was really excited about going to Rome. I visited the Colliseum - the very same one from the film Gladiator. Unfortunately, I failed to spot Russel Crown or Joaquin Phoenix amongst the crowds. Also visited the Vatican and went inside St. Peter's Basilica. In there you can find the dead body of a former Pope. Let me explain. He died about a hundred years or so ago, and for some reason which I can't remember as I may have drifted off a bit at that point of the tour, his coffin was opened a few years ago, and it was found that his body was remarkably preserved. The Catholic guys in Rome decided it was a miracle and he is in the process of being deified as a saint. In the mean time, his body, all dressed in robes and with his face and hands covered by alabaster masks so you can't see his flesh, is diplayed in a glass casket. Obviously, I went to have a look. Now not actually being a Catholic myself (I'm C of E technically, but not actually a practising anything), I was just fascinated by seeing the body. It didn't really enter my head that he was once the holiest man on Earth, until, that is, an Italian bloke next to me kissed the marble barrier, crossed himself and then prayed. Felt a bit humble, and unCatholic, to say the least, but as I'm not Catholic hopefully its forgiveable.

Florence was absolutely amazing. Without a doubt the best city I have ever visited. In Pisa I obviously had to do what had to be done - have my photo taken "holding up" the leaning tower. Actually though, all the buildings around the tower were a bit on the slanted side. Whoever payed to have them all done really should have been given their money back.

In Barcelona my only aim was shopping. All I can say, is that that mission was more than accomplished.

The ship was fantastic too. A different type of show every night and I got to dress up in the evenings for a psh dinner. God I sound like a holiday brochure. Never been so nackered in my life though. Bed every night at one and up every morning at about six to go onshore. Also, I'm not as brown as you would expect considering wherever we went it was so bloody hot. Thing is, as a lot of the time we were either in a Muslim or strictly Catholic place, knees and shoulders had to be covered.

All in all though, I had a bloody brilliant time. Jealous anyone?

1 Comments:

  • At 12:30 pm, Blogger Marie said…

    Obviously very jealous except that I *hate* boats, so in that respect not jealous at all. Anyway just posting to say welcome back, and not sure if you've been on SA recently so you might not know that Channel 5 is about to repeat the whole of Sunset Beach (from Monday) - thought I'd better let you know as I know you don't want to miss out!

     

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