A lot of things happened on our second day of Cairo, but perhaps the most important thing is that we rode camels and I witnessed firsthand the horror of domestic violence. It happened when we got to the Giza Plateau. Since they had already been to the Pyramids, Cody and Brian separated and went to see if they could tour the inside of the second one, a separation that ended up proving financially disastrous for me. Beth and I walked towards Cheops’ Pyramid and were soon approached by a couple of guys on camels. When you go to the Pyramids, you’re bombarded by merchants offering you anything from postcards to papyrus scrolls, beaded caps to Coca-Cola. Guards will beckon you over and tell you that where they are standing gives a great view to take a picture, and then expect a tip when you pull out your camera. We had gotten pretty good at tuning all of these wallet-siphons out, but Beth had earlier said that she wanted a picture with a camel, so we allowed these guys to stop us.
What was only supposed to be a picture standing next to a camel soon turned into Beth on top of a camel wearing one of the guys’ headdresses. I, as the photographer, was soon relinquished of the camera, wearing a headdress of my own, and being told to get on a camel. I had no choice in the matter. The camel rose hind-legs first, so that I was pitched forward at a forty-five degree angle, squeezing the camel saddle with my thighs and hanging on for dear life. But then the front legs were up to, and we were on a pleasant ride in front of the pyramids.
The whole ride took probably three minutes, and it was kind of fun to be on a camel in Egypt. They took a ton of pictures of us and for a moment, I was able to enjoy the rocking motion of the camel, the warm sun, and the beautiful view. They took us down an alley (the only alley in the wide expanse of desert that stretches in front of the pyramids) and asked if we wanted to end the ride there or continue. We opted to end it, and Beth’s camel was led off around the corner. As I watched her disappear from view, I realized I was also watching the disappearance of the last reasoning force that stood between me and the camel guys. I was let off the camel, with the same terrifying near-topple forty-five degree pitch, and they immediately started asking about payment.
Let’s just get this out there: I paid them way too much. You knew that even before you started reading this. If you know me at all you know that of course I didn’t stand up for myself and say that a three minute camel ride is in no way worth X amount of dollars. But in my defense, and I know this is a weak excuse, there was a scene of semi-horrifying camel abuse taking place while contract negotiations were going on. It started with my camel, who had been kneeling down after he had let me off, falling down on his side as if all he really wanted to do was take a nap. Now I’m not an animal behaviorist or a zoologist, but I don’t think lying down on its side is an indication of overall camel health. His owner didn’t like this, and flicked its belly with a switch while telling me to pay him in Euros and not Egyptian dollars. When the camel kneeled back up, the owner hauled off and punched him in the snout. Let me repeat that last part: he hauled off and punched the camel in the snout. When I close my eyes and replay the scene in my mind, which I do probably once a day, there is one of those punching sound effects that foley artists add in boxing movies, making the whole thing more upsetting. But at that point, I had just seen a camel get socked and it was hot and I didn’t know where Beth was and I just wanted to get away, so I gave them the money and walked away.
As a side note, I have no idea how much I paid them. I forced myself to forget the exact amount because I knew I was just going to obsess about it and I wanted to enjoy the rest of my time in Egypt. But if you estimate what you think a ridiculous amount of money would be for a three minute camel ride, it is probably in that ballpark.
Beth and I were soon reunited (she had paid well less than half of what I had, the little barterer), and Cody and Brian joined up. We took more pictures, ones that we didn’t have to pay for, and then got back on the bus back to the ship.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Cairo, Part 1
On the last cruise, when we docked in Alexandria, the cast all went on a crew tour to Cairo. Here we got to go inside pyramids, tour the Cairo museum, visit the Giza Plateau (with and without laser light show), and ride a camel. I will attempt to recount it.
Our day started at 7 am when we boarded the bus that would take us to Cairo. We were introduced to our tour guide, driver, and armed escort. Our tour guide was Hannah, our driver’s name was Ahmed, and I never caught our armed escort’s name because I was too distracted by the submachine gun poking out from the back of his suit jacket. Let me repeat that last part: a submachine gun poking out from the back of his suit jacket.
The ride took about two and a half hours, and Hannah spent most of the time on the microphone telling us the history of Cairo and a brief rundown on the major Egyptian dynasties. It was a little dry, and I admit that I kind of drifted in and out of it. She spent a lot of time stressing the difference between Neferiri and Nefertiti, as well as the fact that Ramses had 35 wives and 150 children, a fact to which the rest of the crew responded to maturely and appropriately.
The big stop of the morning was the Archaeological Museum of Cairo. Here we got to see everything that you associate with mummies and Egypt: Tutankhamun’s burial mask, his sarcophagus, figurines left in the tombs, jewelry, and of course, actual mummies. I feel like from my two visits to Capuchin Crypts and the mummies we saw in the Vatican Museum, I’ve seen my fair share of preserved corpses this summer. But the Cairo Museum pulls out all the stops and refuses to let you walk through its cavernous rooms jaded, as if you’re somehow too good for a mummy exhibit. My favorite was the room devoted to animal mummies. They had cats, dogs, gibbons, and a gigantic crocodile that was pretty terrifying (and made me rethink Tomi DePaola’s depiction of Bill in his “Bill and Pete” series).
Later that evening we were taken to the Papyrus Institute. Hannah told us that since it was government-run, it was one of the few places where you could buy actual papyrus paper. Apparently a lot of the street vendors try to pass of banana leaf paper as papyrus (if you have bought papyrus paper in Egypt and it has turned brown and you can not see the cross-hatchings of the leaves, you have been swindled). While papyrus paper is something I have never had an opinion about, after being told that I was at its epicenter and seeing a halfhearted demonstration of how to make it, I had Paper-Fever. I bought a couple of gifts and Beth bought a small picture for our apartment. It’s of a goat and a bull playing chess. When I asked her what its mythological significance was, she said, “Who cares? It’s a goat and a bull playing chess.” Paper-Fever had infected us all.
From there we went to a laser lightshow at the Great Pyramids. I remember somewhere else in this blog saying something was one of the best shows I had ever seen, but the light show easily supplants that other, now forgotten, show. It was narrated by a number of British actors. I was never able to figure out who they were, but it was as if the cast of “Clash of the Titans” was genetically spliced with the cast of the Harry Potter movies to create an elite race of Uber-British Actors. I’m not exactly sure what “stentorian” means, but I know it perfectly describes the voices that narrated this show.
The best part of the show was that it projected a face onto the Sphinx, so that you could see what it looked like thousands of years ago, when his face was intact and painted. They also projected animated depictions of how the pyramids were built, burial ceremonies, and wedding ceremonies. I loved every minute of it.
From there we went to a dinner cruise on the Nile. This spring, in preparation for going to Egypt, I reread one of my favorite books from childhood, “Death on the Nile.” Therefore when I stepped on our barge, I was kind of expecting that our fellow dinner guests would include a glamorous heiress, a jilted lover, and an American insurance agent posing as a hapless tourist. Not only were none of those people in attendance, but also the riverboat was parked next to a paintball court and our scenic views included a TGI Fridays. The captain did wave me down at one point and let me sit behind the steering wheel and wear a captain’s hat, so that made up a little for the lack of international intrigue. But since I had a hard time dealing with the reality of an armed escort with a submachine gun poking out of his suit jacket, perhaps I should be grateful for an uneventful evening.
Our day started at 7 am when we boarded the bus that would take us to Cairo. We were introduced to our tour guide, driver, and armed escort. Our tour guide was Hannah, our driver’s name was Ahmed, and I never caught our armed escort’s name because I was too distracted by the submachine gun poking out from the back of his suit jacket. Let me repeat that last part: a submachine gun poking out from the back of his suit jacket.
The ride took about two and a half hours, and Hannah spent most of the time on the microphone telling us the history of Cairo and a brief rundown on the major Egyptian dynasties. It was a little dry, and I admit that I kind of drifted in and out of it. She spent a lot of time stressing the difference between Neferiri and Nefertiti, as well as the fact that Ramses had 35 wives and 150 children, a fact to which the rest of the crew responded to maturely and appropriately.
The big stop of the morning was the Archaeological Museum of Cairo. Here we got to see everything that you associate with mummies and Egypt: Tutankhamun’s burial mask, his sarcophagus, figurines left in the tombs, jewelry, and of course, actual mummies. I feel like from my two visits to Capuchin Crypts and the mummies we saw in the Vatican Museum, I’ve seen my fair share of preserved corpses this summer. But the Cairo Museum pulls out all the stops and refuses to let you walk through its cavernous rooms jaded, as if you’re somehow too good for a mummy exhibit. My favorite was the room devoted to animal mummies. They had cats, dogs, gibbons, and a gigantic crocodile that was pretty terrifying (and made me rethink Tomi DePaola’s depiction of Bill in his “Bill and Pete” series).
Later that evening we were taken to the Papyrus Institute. Hannah told us that since it was government-run, it was one of the few places where you could buy actual papyrus paper. Apparently a lot of the street vendors try to pass of banana leaf paper as papyrus (if you have bought papyrus paper in Egypt and it has turned brown and you can not see the cross-hatchings of the leaves, you have been swindled). While papyrus paper is something I have never had an opinion about, after being told that I was at its epicenter and seeing a halfhearted demonstration of how to make it, I had Paper-Fever. I bought a couple of gifts and Beth bought a small picture for our apartment. It’s of a goat and a bull playing chess. When I asked her what its mythological significance was, she said, “Who cares? It’s a goat and a bull playing chess.” Paper-Fever had infected us all.
From there we went to a laser lightshow at the Great Pyramids. I remember somewhere else in this blog saying something was one of the best shows I had ever seen, but the light show easily supplants that other, now forgotten, show. It was narrated by a number of British actors. I was never able to figure out who they were, but it was as if the cast of “Clash of the Titans” was genetically spliced with the cast of the Harry Potter movies to create an elite race of Uber-British Actors. I’m not exactly sure what “stentorian” means, but I know it perfectly describes the voices that narrated this show.
The best part of the show was that it projected a face onto the Sphinx, so that you could see what it looked like thousands of years ago, when his face was intact and painted. They also projected animated depictions of how the pyramids were built, burial ceremonies, and wedding ceremonies. I loved every minute of it.
From there we went to a dinner cruise on the Nile. This spring, in preparation for going to Egypt, I reread one of my favorite books from childhood, “Death on the Nile.” Therefore when I stepped on our barge, I was kind of expecting that our fellow dinner guests would include a glamorous heiress, a jilted lover, and an American insurance agent posing as a hapless tourist. Not only were none of those people in attendance, but also the riverboat was parked next to a paintball court and our scenic views included a TGI Fridays. The captain did wave me down at one point and let me sit behind the steering wheel and wear a captain’s hat, so that made up a little for the lack of international intrigue. But since I had a hard time dealing with the reality of an armed escort with a submachine gun poking out of his suit jacket, perhaps I should be grateful for an uneventful evening.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
G.I. Joe!
With this new itinerary, we (meaning everyone on board the ship) are more susceptible to catching gastrointestinal viruses. This has caused a couple of changes. We are no longer allowed to serve ourselves in the buffet lines (to limit the spread of germs caused by thousands of people picking up the same barbecue chicken tongs). Also, when you walk down the hallways there is sometimes an unpleasant odor best described as “Stinkydipe” (a term coined by my godson when his younger sister was born and he was subject to an onslaught of dirty diapers. I think its correct usage is as a swear substitute, like “Oh, stinkydipe! I left the keys on the counter.” Or “That’s such stinkydipe that we have to come in early for a meeting.” Or just, "You are stinkydipe.") So far the cast has managed to remain healthy and the rumor is we get to feed ourselves starting next cruise.
Mykonos, or My Big Fat Greek Scooter Adventure
The day after Izmir we were in Mykonos. We decided to rent scooters, an activity for which everybody else was seemingly well-equipped. Beth is licensed to ride a motorcycle, Cody had rode 4x4s during previous visits to Mykonos, and Brian had even taken the time last year to rent a scooter in Chicago, so as to prepare himself for the Greek Isles. I, however, brought nothing to riding a scooter except my lack of hand-eye coordination, spotty driving history, and adolescent belief that nothing bad will happen. We were also with Jack, a friend of ours from the Broadcast department. I don’t know if Jack has ridden scooters before, but he is from just Philadelphia, so I assumed he had excellent automotive skills.
After a brief tutorial on how to operate a scooter, conducted mainly in Greek and broken English, we were off. Now, while Mykonos is a charming resort island, it also is not stuck in the eighteenth century. It’s not like we were sharing the road with Zorba and his trinket-laden donkey. As I zipped into speeding traffic (still not sure how to control the speed of the scooter, so the scooter moved about three seconds ahead of my body), I was reminded of word problems about accelerating masses, the laws of motion, and my own mortality.
I managed to survive the first street and subsequent turn, but faltered when I had to navigate a rotary. I was stopped at the corner and had to make a left turn. When I started the scooter, I accelerated too fast and turned the handlebars too sharply, so that a second later I was comfortably on the ground, my scooter on top of me and the fender of an oncoming car in front of my head. I got my scooter up, assured the very nice people in the car that I was fine, and continued on.
I’ll be honest, the first fifteen minutes of driving the scooter I thought I was in over my head. The curves seemed to sharp, the hills too steep, my body suddenly felt vulnerable to the slightest wind, and I was sure I would be sent toppling over the rocky Grecian hillsides. But there was no turning back, and I vowed that while I was battered, I was not beaten. We soon stopped at a Citibank and Starbucks (they were two stores in the same complex, I don’t want you to think the bank-coffee store combo is an example of gross overseas synchronicity). One of the dancers and her boyfriend were at Starbucks and gave me the Mocha Frappucino that had been incorrectly made for them, much in the same way you give a three year-old an ice cream cone after they skin their knees. But, just like the three year-old, I was easily placated and ready to hit the road.
After that, my confidence increased exponentially and I developed a love for the open road. Or, rather, the open road at twenty-five miles an hour while gripping the handlebars and keeping your eyes glued to the road, no matter how many times Beth points out the “adorable” goats or “breathtaking” coastline. I might have been confident, but I wasn’t stupid.
Our first stop was to Ilya (sp?) Beach for lunch. A bunch of the male dancers had rented a car and were there as well and we all ate together. After lunch we all went to the beach, the dancers changing into their European-cut swimsuits and we changing into our more figure-covering ones. We walked over to where the dancers had set up camp, but realized it was in the epicenter of the nude section of the beach. Most of the clothing-optional advocates were well-fed middle-aged men, reclining in what Cody termed “Venus of Urbino” poses (these are the kind of jokes you make after you visit the Uffizi Gallery). We ended up setting up shop a discreet distance away.
After a quick swim, we hopped on our bikes and with a cry of “Wild Hogs Forever!” were off to our next stop, Paradise Beach. This site was where the majority of the crew had gone. When we arrived most had been there for a couple of hours and the scene looked like an outtake of a “Girls Gone Wild” video. The Spa Girls were doing cannonballs in the kiddie pool and one of the Principal Singers was standing on a table and drunkenly gyrating to “Umbrella.” The Russian Gymnast had taken control of the DJ’s microphone and was ordering everyone to “make some noise” and be “party people.” Then he would get up on the pool table and, with cigarette in mouth, do a handstand that morphed into a version of the worm. I watched just long enough to make sure there weren’t any career-ending neck injuries and then went with the others to a quieter section.
We stayed for a few hours and then drove back to town. When we returned the bikes I had to pay forty bucks for the broken reflector and scrapes on the side (or, as Cody called them, “fireworks”) incurred by the crash. But by that point, I had caught the scooter bug, and was swaggering around like a miniature Peter Fonda. Plus, the clerk told me my damages were nothing compared to what she usually sees (probably because of their incredibly lax rental policy). We are going back in four days and I can’t wait.
After a brief tutorial on how to operate a scooter, conducted mainly in Greek and broken English, we were off. Now, while Mykonos is a charming resort island, it also is not stuck in the eighteenth century. It’s not like we were sharing the road with Zorba and his trinket-laden donkey. As I zipped into speeding traffic (still not sure how to control the speed of the scooter, so the scooter moved about three seconds ahead of my body), I was reminded of word problems about accelerating masses, the laws of motion, and my own mortality.
I managed to survive the first street and subsequent turn, but faltered when I had to navigate a rotary. I was stopped at the corner and had to make a left turn. When I started the scooter, I accelerated too fast and turned the handlebars too sharply, so that a second later I was comfortably on the ground, my scooter on top of me and the fender of an oncoming car in front of my head. I got my scooter up, assured the very nice people in the car that I was fine, and continued on.
I’ll be honest, the first fifteen minutes of driving the scooter I thought I was in over my head. The curves seemed to sharp, the hills too steep, my body suddenly felt vulnerable to the slightest wind, and I was sure I would be sent toppling over the rocky Grecian hillsides. But there was no turning back, and I vowed that while I was battered, I was not beaten. We soon stopped at a Citibank and Starbucks (they were two stores in the same complex, I don’t want you to think the bank-coffee store combo is an example of gross overseas synchronicity). One of the dancers and her boyfriend were at Starbucks and gave me the Mocha Frappucino that had been incorrectly made for them, much in the same way you give a three year-old an ice cream cone after they skin their knees. But, just like the three year-old, I was easily placated and ready to hit the road.
After that, my confidence increased exponentially and I developed a love for the open road. Or, rather, the open road at twenty-five miles an hour while gripping the handlebars and keeping your eyes glued to the road, no matter how many times Beth points out the “adorable” goats or “breathtaking” coastline. I might have been confident, but I wasn’t stupid.
Our first stop was to Ilya (sp?) Beach for lunch. A bunch of the male dancers had rented a car and were there as well and we all ate together. After lunch we all went to the beach, the dancers changing into their European-cut swimsuits and we changing into our more figure-covering ones. We walked over to where the dancers had set up camp, but realized it was in the epicenter of the nude section of the beach. Most of the clothing-optional advocates were well-fed middle-aged men, reclining in what Cody termed “Venus of Urbino” poses (these are the kind of jokes you make after you visit the Uffizi Gallery). We ended up setting up shop a discreet distance away.
After a quick swim, we hopped on our bikes and with a cry of “Wild Hogs Forever!” were off to our next stop, Paradise Beach. This site was where the majority of the crew had gone. When we arrived most had been there for a couple of hours and the scene looked like an outtake of a “Girls Gone Wild” video. The Spa Girls were doing cannonballs in the kiddie pool and one of the Principal Singers was standing on a table and drunkenly gyrating to “Umbrella.” The Russian Gymnast had taken control of the DJ’s microphone and was ordering everyone to “make some noise” and be “party people.” Then he would get up on the pool table and, with cigarette in mouth, do a handstand that morphed into a version of the worm. I watched just long enough to make sure there weren’t any career-ending neck injuries and then went with the others to a quieter section.
We stayed for a few hours and then drove back to town. When we returned the bikes I had to pay forty bucks for the broken reflector and scrapes on the side (or, as Cody called them, “fireworks”) incurred by the crash. But by that point, I had caught the scooter bug, and was swaggering around like a miniature Peter Fonda. Plus, the clerk told me my damages were nothing compared to what she usually sees (probably because of their incredibly lax rental policy). We are going back in four days and I can’t wait.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Ephesus Part Two
We then drove to Ephesus, which many of you might remember from a little book called the Bible where St. Paul writes letters to the Ephesians. We took a tour of the ruins of Ephesus, which contained the site of one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, the Temple of Artemis. We only realized this a week or so after the tour, because the guide never mentioned it, and if it hadn’t been for a dinnertime conversation where we realized that we didn’t know all of the Seven Wonders we never would have realized that we had been standing on the path of greatness.
In all, I really enjoyed the ruins. There was an amphitheatre where St. Paul supposedly addressed the Ephesians. They didn’t like what he had to say and you could also see the rocky outcropping where he allegedly fled after they ran him out of town. There was also a library in the town square, right next to a brothel. Our guide explained how there were signs on the way to the town from the port, so that sailors would know the location of both places. The signs had a series of symbols indicating that if you didn’t have enough money for one, you could spend a few hours at the other. Yeah, our guide had all SORTS of tidbits about the whorehouse, but ask her to mention one of the Seven Wonders and she clams up like she’s revealing a state secret.
One really entertaining aspect of the trip was the complete indifference to any of the tour guide’s information the people from the gift shop had. As soon as she would bring us to a new place, they would scatter and perch on the nearest rock, column, or ruin and pose provocatively for pictures. Sometimes these poses involved a hand saucily placed on the hip, or a jaunty thrust of the hip. Other times the poses were more elaborate, arms outstretched between two columns and a smoldering gaze thrown in the camera’s direction. Still other times the poses would be simple, left leg in front of the right, hip cocked, and arms shrugging as if to say, ”Can you believe little ol’ me ended up here?” I should also point out that both male and female shop employees engaged in the posing, and showed little interest in the hundreds of tourists who crowded around them trying to take pictures of the ruins they were blocking.
From the ruins we went to a leather outlet. The fifty or so crew members on the tour were given glasses of iced apple tea and ushered into a small building lined with rows of chairs and a makeshift runway. The lights were lowered, techno music started pumping, and an honest to goodness fashion show was under way. The first model, a petite woman, was very cute and people applauded and discreetly whistled as she modeled a leather jacket. The second model was a bit older and more severe looking. She modeled a tassled jacket that was met with polite applause. Then the third model - the male model - entered and all hell broke loose.
Imagine the best-looking man you know in your everyday life. Now imagine his best friend. Now imagine the best friend’s sophomore year roommate and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the Turkish male model looked like. He was a pretty average looking guy (and I don’t mean to be critical but he had the formations of a gut), but he was greeted like he was Pamela Anderson visiting an army base in Iraq. All the gift shop employees (again, both male and female) screamed, pointed, and fanned themselves whenever he walked onstage. You could tell it had an affect on him, because each time he walked onstage he blushed a little and smiled sheepishly as if to say, “Are you familiar with what attractive people look like?”
But the shoppies went nuts every time he appeared. The guy I was sitting next to held up his camera when the severe model made her fifteenth entrance. He brought the camera up as she made her walk down, as if to get the perfect angle. When she got to the lip of the stage, three feet from where we were, he snatched his camera down and screamed, “Not for you, sweetie!” and then cackled hysterically with his friend. I thought I was stuck in a deleted scene from “Carrie” and looked around for escape routes in case the severe model’s telekinetic powers were unleashed.
But the shoppies’ enthusiasm for the model made the show go by a lot faster than it otherwise would have. Saying that, the show was still probably ten minutes longer than it should have been. I have no idea if the leather was nice or not. We were offered a sixty percent discount and the jackets were still out of my price range, yet none of them would have looked out of place on a TJ Maxx clearance rack. When we were set free in the store I made my way outside in the hopes of scoring some more iced tea. There was none left, so I got back on the bus, sated by my first fashion show (and unwitting visit to one of the Seven Wonders).
In all, I really enjoyed the ruins. There was an amphitheatre where St. Paul supposedly addressed the Ephesians. They didn’t like what he had to say and you could also see the rocky outcropping where he allegedly fled after they ran him out of town. There was also a library in the town square, right next to a brothel. Our guide explained how there were signs on the way to the town from the port, so that sailors would know the location of both places. The signs had a series of symbols indicating that if you didn’t have enough money for one, you could spend a few hours at the other. Yeah, our guide had all SORTS of tidbits about the whorehouse, but ask her to mention one of the Seven Wonders and she clams up like she’s revealing a state secret.
One really entertaining aspect of the trip was the complete indifference to any of the tour guide’s information the people from the gift shop had. As soon as she would bring us to a new place, they would scatter and perch on the nearest rock, column, or ruin and pose provocatively for pictures. Sometimes these poses involved a hand saucily placed on the hip, or a jaunty thrust of the hip. Other times the poses were more elaborate, arms outstretched between two columns and a smoldering gaze thrown in the camera’s direction. Still other times the poses would be simple, left leg in front of the right, hip cocked, and arms shrugging as if to say, ”Can you believe little ol’ me ended up here?” I should also point out that both male and female shop employees engaged in the posing, and showed little interest in the hundreds of tourists who crowded around them trying to take pictures of the ruins they were blocking.
From the ruins we went to a leather outlet. The fifty or so crew members on the tour were given glasses of iced apple tea and ushered into a small building lined with rows of chairs and a makeshift runway. The lights were lowered, techno music started pumping, and an honest to goodness fashion show was under way. The first model, a petite woman, was very cute and people applauded and discreetly whistled as she modeled a leather jacket. The second model was a bit older and more severe looking. She modeled a tassled jacket that was met with polite applause. Then the third model - the male model - entered and all hell broke loose.
Imagine the best-looking man you know in your everyday life. Now imagine his best friend. Now imagine the best friend’s sophomore year roommate and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the Turkish male model looked like. He was a pretty average looking guy (and I don’t mean to be critical but he had the formations of a gut), but he was greeted like he was Pamela Anderson visiting an army base in Iraq. All the gift shop employees (again, both male and female) screamed, pointed, and fanned themselves whenever he walked onstage. You could tell it had an affect on him, because each time he walked onstage he blushed a little and smiled sheepishly as if to say, “Are you familiar with what attractive people look like?”
But the shoppies went nuts every time he appeared. The guy I was sitting next to held up his camera when the severe model made her fifteenth entrance. He brought the camera up as she made her walk down, as if to get the perfect angle. When she got to the lip of the stage, three feet from where we were, he snatched his camera down and screamed, “Not for you, sweetie!” and then cackled hysterically with his friend. I thought I was stuck in a deleted scene from “Carrie” and looked around for escape routes in case the severe model’s telekinetic powers were unleashed.
But the shoppies’ enthusiasm for the model made the show go by a lot faster than it otherwise would have. Saying that, the show was still probably ten minutes longer than it should have been. I have no idea if the leather was nice or not. We were offered a sixty percent discount and the jackets were still out of my price range, yet none of them would have looked out of place on a TJ Maxx clearance rack. When we were set free in the store I made my way outside in the hopes of scoring some more iced tea. There was none left, so I got back on the bus, sated by my first fashion show (and unwitting visit to one of the Seven Wonders).
Sunday, September 16, 2007
The House of the Blessed Virgin
Our ship has repositioned and we are on a brand new itinerary. Today we were in Izmir, Turkey. The ship offered a special tour of the House of the Virgin Mary and the ruins of Ephesus at a special rate, and you better believe Beth and I took advantage of the financial discount.
The day started by meeting in the crew bar. There really isn't much to report about this part of the day, except that all of the gift shop employees took a million pictures of each other and Alexia, one half of a singing duo, has laryngitis.
We got on the bus and drove to our first stop, the House of the Virgin Mary. Or should I say, the Alleged House of the Virgin Mary. I didn't catch the full explanation since my earpiece was cutting in and out, but apparently in the 1700s, a German woman claimed she received an image in a dream that that site was where the Annunciation had happened. Again, I could only hear every other word, so I apologize for not giving you the full story. I am going to look this up on Wikipedia.
Okay, so I just checked out the Internet, and the house is supposedly where the Assumption happened, not the Annunciation, so that is a big difference. St. John is believed to have brought Mary to Ephesus after the crucifixion because it was a safe city, and here she supposedly passed her final years. Also, the German woman who had the visions was a nun named Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich who had never even been to Ephesus. A priest in the late 1800s found the site and realized it matched her descriptions, and that was backed up by the cultural tradition of many local villagers viewing the site as a shrine of Mary. The Catholic Church has not named it as such but they have named it a Holy Place and Pope Benedict visited here during his visit to Turkey last November (Beth informs me that there was a rosary from his visit on display, but I did not see it. I did, however, see a nun carrying a guitar walk around the site, and got excited that she was going to burst into a rousing rendition of "Dominique.")
So all in all, it was a very enjoyable visit, although some people (aka Beth) were unimpressed by the site’s lack of historical veracity. I will continue the rest of the tour description in a later entry, for tomorrow, Brendan “Four Car Accidents Before His Eighteenth Birthday” is driving a scooter on Mykonos. Seems like a good idea.
The day started by meeting in the crew bar. There really isn't much to report about this part of the day, except that all of the gift shop employees took a million pictures of each other and Alexia, one half of a singing duo, has laryngitis.
We got on the bus and drove to our first stop, the House of the Virgin Mary. Or should I say, the Alleged House of the Virgin Mary. I didn't catch the full explanation since my earpiece was cutting in and out, but apparently in the 1700s, a German woman claimed she received an image in a dream that that site was where the Annunciation had happened. Again, I could only hear every other word, so I apologize for not giving you the full story. I am going to look this up on Wikipedia.
Okay, so I just checked out the Internet, and the house is supposedly where the Assumption happened, not the Annunciation, so that is a big difference. St. John is believed to have brought Mary to Ephesus after the crucifixion because it was a safe city, and here she supposedly passed her final years. Also, the German woman who had the visions was a nun named Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich who had never even been to Ephesus. A priest in the late 1800s found the site and realized it matched her descriptions, and that was backed up by the cultural tradition of many local villagers viewing the site as a shrine of Mary. The Catholic Church has not named it as such but they have named it a Holy Place and Pope Benedict visited here during his visit to Turkey last November (Beth informs me that there was a rosary from his visit on display, but I did not see it. I did, however, see a nun carrying a guitar walk around the site, and got excited that she was going to burst into a rousing rendition of "Dominique.")
So all in all, it was a very enjoyable visit, although some people (aka Beth) were unimpressed by the site’s lack of historical veracity. I will continue the rest of the tour description in a later entry, for tomorrow, Brendan “Four Car Accidents Before His Eighteenth Birthday” is driving a scooter on Mykonos. Seems like a good idea.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Penny
Beth and I got some sad news last week. Our dog Penny was hit by a car and killed in Wisconsin. It was tough news to get and made us feel far away from everyone that we loved. It was absolutely an accident and no one’s fault, and we felt awful that Beth’s parents had to be the ones to deal with everything and that we couldn’t be there with them.
Penny was the best dog. She forced us to go out and appreciate Colorado in a way that we wouldn’t have without her, and we had so many fun adventures in the too-short time we had with her. I don’t think there’s a way to talk about losing your dog that isn’t a cliché, but we really were so lucky to have her for the time that we did and we will miss her a whole lot.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Goofus Visits the Vatican
Last week Beth and I went into Rome armed with the intention of going to the Vatican museum. Brian had advised us to wait until noon to get in line because that would minimize our wait time. But when we walked into St. Peter's Square at 11:15 we figured we would get a head start on our day and fell into the line that was in front of us. I'm not ready to say that the following is a trait of Europeans and not just a general rudeness that descends on tourists in generals, but the lines to all of these religious sites and museums are teeming with the pushiest people I have ever been around. It is pretty common to spend the ten minutes before you see a Renaissance art masterpiece with the hands of an elderly woman pressed into the small of your back. Beth and I have been pretty gracious the first six weeks of our time over here, but we are slowly losing our patience. I now walk extra slowly the moment I feel hands on my person, and she has used her defensive blocking skills from her JV basketball glory days (Here we go, Lady Popes!).
We made it through the line in record time and were pretty pleased with ourselves. Our elation was short-lived, however, when we realized that we had been in the line for St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum was a mile away. But my motto has always been, when life gives you Basilicas, make Basilica-ade. We spent a half hour walking around and got to see Michelangelo's Pieta up close, as well as Bernini's statue of Pope Alexander. Fun fact: one of the women in the frieze in front of the Pope - I think she is supposed to represent Faith - has her foot on a globe and a look of mild annoyance on her face. If you look closely, there is a small nail extending from the globe that is digging into her foot. The nail is sticking out of England, and the lady's facial expression is supposed to represent Pope Alexander's frustration at not being able to unify the Anglican and Catholic churches.*
After we got out of the Basilica we walked over to the Vatican Museum. Again, luck was on our side and we only had to wait twenty minutes before we were inside. The museum is another prizefight experience where you keep getting socked by masterpiece after masterpiece. Mummies! Ancient Greek busts! Whole apartments painted by Raphael! I had only realized the night before that going to the Vatican Museum meant seeing the Sistine Chapel (see the title of this entry), so I was especially excited. Brian had told us that you see signs pointing you to the Chapel the moment you walk in, and likened it to the signs for Ruby Falls (or, for my sister, South of the Border). Our guidebook said that even if you walked past all the other works of art and went straight to the Chapel (undoubtedly breaking the hearts of art historians everywhere), it would take a half hour. So by the time we even walked through its doors, our heads were a little woozy from seeing things we had previously only seen in books up close. But we rallied and spent about forty minutes there, going back and looking at favorite panels and consulting our guidebook for more information (two more fun facts about “The Last Judgment”: the flayed skin that St. Bartholomew is holding is Michelangelo’s self-portrait, and the donkey-eared imp helping load the poor souls onto Charon’s skiff is modeled on a contemporary of Michelangelo’s who criticized Michelangelo using nude models.)
And finally, another reason for the title of this entry and another reason why I shouldn’t be so smug about Dan Brown: I didn’t realize until I read “Angels and Demons” that the Sistine Chapel was where the cardinals met to elect a new pope. I think everyone got a big kick out of me hanging up my campaign posters under some of the less significant frescoes.
*Please take any art/history/art history information I dispense with a huge grain of salt. I got the above info by eavesdropping on the free Basilica tour given by an enthusiastic American college student.
We made it through the line in record time and were pretty pleased with ourselves. Our elation was short-lived, however, when we realized that we had been in the line for St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum was a mile away. But my motto has always been, when life gives you Basilicas, make Basilica-ade. We spent a half hour walking around and got to see Michelangelo's Pieta up close, as well as Bernini's statue of Pope Alexander. Fun fact: one of the women in the frieze in front of the Pope - I think she is supposed to represent Faith - has her foot on a globe and a look of mild annoyance on her face. If you look closely, there is a small nail extending from the globe that is digging into her foot. The nail is sticking out of England, and the lady's facial expression is supposed to represent Pope Alexander's frustration at not being able to unify the Anglican and Catholic churches.*
After we got out of the Basilica we walked over to the Vatican Museum. Again, luck was on our side and we only had to wait twenty minutes before we were inside. The museum is another prizefight experience where you keep getting socked by masterpiece after masterpiece. Mummies! Ancient Greek busts! Whole apartments painted by Raphael! I had only realized the night before that going to the Vatican Museum meant seeing the Sistine Chapel (see the title of this entry), so I was especially excited. Brian had told us that you see signs pointing you to the Chapel the moment you walk in, and likened it to the signs for Ruby Falls (or, for my sister, South of the Border). Our guidebook said that even if you walked past all the other works of art and went straight to the Chapel (undoubtedly breaking the hearts of art historians everywhere), it would take a half hour. So by the time we even walked through its doors, our heads were a little woozy from seeing things we had previously only seen in books up close. But we rallied and spent about forty minutes there, going back and looking at favorite panels and consulting our guidebook for more information (two more fun facts about “The Last Judgment”: the flayed skin that St. Bartholomew is holding is Michelangelo’s self-portrait, and the donkey-eared imp helping load the poor souls onto Charon’s skiff is modeled on a contemporary of Michelangelo’s who criticized Michelangelo using nude models.)
And finally, another reason for the title of this entry and another reason why I shouldn’t be so smug about Dan Brown: I didn’t realize until I read “Angels and Demons” that the Sistine Chapel was where the cardinals met to elect a new pope. I think everyone got a big kick out of me hanging up my campaign posters under some of the less significant frescoes.
*Please take any art/history/art history information I dispense with a huge grain of salt. I got the above info by eavesdropping on the free Basilica tour given by an enthusiastic American college student.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Montserrat
On Sunday, Cody, Beth, Brian and I took the train out of Barcelona to Montserrat. Montserrat refers to a mountain range that has jagged (or serrated, see "seurat") peaks. A monastery is nestled in there as well. Its name might be Montserrat as well. I am not sure, as I remained willfully ignorant about both the mountains and the monks.* It took about an hour and a half but once we were there, I felt like the long travel time was totally worth it. The view was beautiful, and after a week of visiting congested tourist spots, it felt great to be in a tourist spot where the tourists were more widely dispersed.
When we got there, the other three were starving so we stopped at the Montserrat cafeteria. I didn't feel particularly hungry, but that didn't stop me from getting a plate of grilled vegetables, croquettes (Spanish for deep fried cheese balls), and a large serving of a flan-like pudding. We took a funicular up to a trail (the St. Joan's funicular for those of you who might visit Montserrat), and hiked on its trails for about an hour and a half.
We arrived back in Barcelona with plenty of time to make our all aboard time. Unfortunately, the port bus that takes us back to the ship had slowed down its service, so we had to take a cab. When I've taken a cab back to the ship in Italy, I've felt like I was in a Loony Tunes episode, since the taxi is often on its side wheels for most of the ride, all in an effort to get you back to the ship on time. This driver took a more leisurely approach, and stretched a seven-minute drive to twelve, so we had to book it up the gangway. I was the last crew member checked in for the day, and still had forty-seven seconds to spare, so I felt pretty good about myself.
When we got back to the ship I saw Al, a guitarist who had encouraged us to visit Montserrat. I told him we had been there and had had a great time.
"Did you hear the boys choir?" he asked. "They sing at one on Sundays."
I told him we hadn't, and admitted that we hadn't even visited the monastery. Al took a deep breath, as if he had just been told that a loved one had died or that his son hated flamenco music.
"What, may I ask, did you do up there?" His face was getting a little red. I sometimes have a hard time taking Al seriously, because I think he looks a little like Eugene Levy doing a character. His Levy-similarities increase the more upset he gets. "That's like going to the Miss Universe Pageant and not looking at the girls! I mean, you seem like a nice kid, but come on!"
I told Al that I had liked Montserrat so much that I wanted to go back and assured him that I would visit the monastery when I did. That seemed to placate him a little, but he has eyed me suspiciously every time he has seen me since.
*After checking Wikipedia, I learned that Montserrat is host to the Benedictine Abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat. I also learned that Montserrat is featured in the “Lionheart” video game.
When Bad Things Happen To Good People
Sometimes terrible events happen in one's life and your first reaction is to pretend that they did not happen and blithely go about your business. But that would be unfair to you, my blog readers, who have an expectation of learning about all the aspects of my experience on this ship, warts and all. So it is with that in mind that I tell you a week ago last Friday, I lost my camera. We had rented a car in Livorno and driven to Siena, about an hour and a half away. It was a bit of a bozo explosion because Siena had had their big horse race, the Palio, the night before, and things were still in full swing. The Palio consists of a horse from each of the city's seventeen (I think) neighborhoods running a race around a track in the city's center. The races last approximately ninety seconds. Each neighborhood is represented by a brightly colored flag, usually with some kind of barnyard animal upon it. If you are one of my eight-month old nephews and do not want to know what you are receiving for Christmas/your first birthday, you might not want to read the next sentence. They had a lot of these flags for sale and I bought several.
Our time there was a bit rushed, just because it took us such a long time to find a parking space. But we were able to walk through the town's cathedral, which had a statue by Michelangelo inside, and then eat a fantastic meal. We also ran into a parade by the winning neighborhood. The parade consisted of a bunch of junior high age boys in yellow and white tights and plumed hats drumming and waving their neighborhood's flags. Some of them had pacifiers in their mouths, the significance of which we were never able to figure out. All of them looked mildly hungover. I got a ton of great pictures of them, some of which Cody complimented (which is high praise indeed because he is a gifted photographer), but they were all for naught since I lost my camera. But imagine, if you can, a bleary eyed thirteen year old half-heartedly waving a gigantic flag with a certain je ne sais quoi that somehow captures the entire human condition. Then you will kind of have an idea of the kind of pictures I took.
I'm not sure where I lost my camera. It was definitely in the car on the drive home, so it either fell out at the gas station where we unsuccessfully tried to fill up the tank, or the next people who rented the car stole off with it, or it was snatched up by some ferret-eyed passenger who noticed that I failed to pick it up when I put it through the ship's x-ray machine. Whoever has it now, I hope they appreciate pictures of teenage parade revelers and elderly Sicilian women.
Our time there was a bit rushed, just because it took us such a long time to find a parking space. But we were able to walk through the town's cathedral, which had a statue by Michelangelo inside, and then eat a fantastic meal. We also ran into a parade by the winning neighborhood. The parade consisted of a bunch of junior high age boys in yellow and white tights and plumed hats drumming and waving their neighborhood's flags. Some of them had pacifiers in their mouths, the significance of which we were never able to figure out. All of them looked mildly hungover. I got a ton of great pictures of them, some of which Cody complimented (which is high praise indeed because he is a gifted photographer), but they were all for naught since I lost my camera. But imagine, if you can, a bleary eyed thirteen year old half-heartedly waving a gigantic flag with a certain je ne sais quoi that somehow captures the entire human condition. Then you will kind of have an idea of the kind of pictures I took.
I'm not sure where I lost my camera. It was definitely in the car on the drive home, so it either fell out at the gas station where we unsuccessfully tried to fill up the tank, or the next people who rented the car stole off with it, or it was snatched up by some ferret-eyed passenger who noticed that I failed to pick it up when I put it through the ship's x-ray machine. Whoever has it now, I hope they appreciate pictures of teenage parade revelers and elderly Sicilian women.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Angels and Demons
I apologize for the lack of updates. I was struck down by a cold that slithered through the cast two weeks ago and so the blog took a hit as well. I will try to recount the different fun things we did the past two weeks, in no particular order.
My friend Christine's father recommended that I read Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" in order to get a fast and easily digestible overview of Rome. I'm glad I did, because it gave us some fun places to go to that I otherwise wouldn't have known about. A few Romes ago, we visited the Chigi chapel in the Santa Maria del Popolo Church. According to Dan Brown, Rafael designed the chapel and then Michelangelo decorated it (also according to Dan Brown, it is teeming with Illuminatus symbols, but I'm not sure if that's intentional or not). But the chapel itself is beautiful and, according to our guide book (although Dan Brown would undoubtedly agree) one of the more secular chapels in Rome. The four seasons are portrayed on the ceiling, as well as the astrological forecast for one of the men buried there.
The Popolo plaza is incredibly beautiful too, and we got to wander around that for a while. Dan Brown chose not to have any elderly cardinals murdered here, so I don't have any historical information on it, but we were all taken with the fountains.
My friend Christine's father recommended that I read Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" in order to get a fast and easily digestible overview of Rome. I'm glad I did, because it gave us some fun places to go to that I otherwise wouldn't have known about. A few Romes ago, we visited the Chigi chapel in the Santa Maria del Popolo Church. According to Dan Brown, Rafael designed the chapel and then Michelangelo decorated it (also according to Dan Brown, it is teeming with Illuminatus symbols, but I'm not sure if that's intentional or not). But the chapel itself is beautiful and, according to our guide book (although Dan Brown would undoubtedly agree) one of the more secular chapels in Rome. The four seasons are portrayed on the ceiling, as well as the astrological forecast for one of the men buried there.
The Popolo plaza is incredibly beautiful too, and we got to wander around that for a while. Dan Brown chose not to have any elderly cardinals murdered here, so I don't have any historical information on it, but we were all taken with the fountains.
Teatro Sannazaro
Two weeks ago in Naples, Brian, Beth and I stopped at a café to get a cappuccino. We were on the Via Chiaia, and it was great to sit outside because the street slopes downwards so you sit at an angle, like you're gently rocking back in your chair. At one point a smiling woman came towards me making eye contact, and I was nervous that there was some Italian custom I didn't know about concerning sitting with strangers at outdoor cafes. She was pleasantly plump and well-dressed, but I think she might have been homeless because when the owner of the café saw her he came out and shouted at her, shooing her away. This was all done in Italian, so I'm not sure that she was definitely homeless, she could have been an ex-girlfriend of the ex-owner's for all I know. She good-naturedly shouted back at him and moved away from our table, but lingered after he went inside and approached another table and beseeched them with questions. Again this was all in Italian, so she could have been asking for money or to go out on a date in order to make her ex-boyfriend jealous. We will never know. When the owner saw her talking to a new table, he came out again, this time brandishing a small kitchen knife. He shouted some more, she shouted back, but in the end she walked away.
We paid our bill and crossed the street to look at some shoes for Brian. When we came out of the shoe store the café owner was standing outside, waving us over. We thought we must have messed up with the bill, and not wanting to get stabbed, we crossed back. He had a big smile on his face and asked us a lot of questions in Italian, which even Brian couldn't make out. But then another guy who worked in the café came up and said, "He wants to know if you would like to see the theater in back."
Up until this point I had been under the impression that this had just been a simple café. But when we followed the owner and the new guy, whose name turned out to be Carmini, to the back and through a marble hallway, we discovered that the café was merely the front of a beautiful theater, the Teatro Sannazaro. Carmini told us that the theater was modeled after Teatro San Carlo, which is Napoli's opera house. I can't remember how old the theater was, but it was used as a brothel after World War II and then renovated and turned back into a theater in the fifties.
Carmini was a great host, answering all of our questions and continuously apologizing for his English, which was flawless. He told us that he had worked for the theater for ten years, and they mainly do comedies, as "comedy is in the blood of the people of Napoli." Beth and Brian took a ton of pictures (don't worry, I left my camera on the ship that day), we talked some more with Carmini, and then left, content with our unexpected adventure in Napoli.
We paid our bill and crossed the street to look at some shoes for Brian. When we came out of the shoe store the café owner was standing outside, waving us over. We thought we must have messed up with the bill, and not wanting to get stabbed, we crossed back. He had a big smile on his face and asked us a lot of questions in Italian, which even Brian couldn't make out. But then another guy who worked in the café came up and said, "He wants to know if you would like to see the theater in back."
Up until this point I had been under the impression that this had just been a simple café. But when we followed the owner and the new guy, whose name turned out to be Carmini, to the back and through a marble hallway, we discovered that the café was merely the front of a beautiful theater, the Teatro Sannazaro. Carmini told us that the theater was modeled after Teatro San Carlo, which is Napoli's opera house. I can't remember how old the theater was, but it was used as a brothel after World War II and then renovated and turned back into a theater in the fifties.
Carmini was a great host, answering all of our questions and continuously apologizing for his English, which was flawless. He told us that he had worked for the theater for ten years, and they mainly do comedies, as "comedy is in the blood of the people of Napoli." Beth and Brian took a ton of pictures (don't worry, I left my camera on the ship that day), we talked some more with Carmini, and then left, content with our unexpected adventure in Napoli.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Princess Grace and Me
I escorted my first tour on Saturday. Since we work on the ship, we are eligible to sign up to go on tours for free, we just need to keep track of the passengers and fill out a brief sheet at the tour's end. I had signed up to do this a couple of times before but had been unsuccessful. But Saturday my fortune changed, and I found myself assigned to accompany the tour going to Monaco, Monte Carlo, and the view from Eze.
I should start out by saying that I have been fighting a cold for the past week and Saturday it had reached it's apex. But I wasn't going to let my stuffy nose and mild cough disrupt my enjoyment of the day. I woke up at 6:15 am and got ready. I was anxious to make a good impression to the Shore Excursion people so they would know I took my job as escort seriously, so I wore a blue polo shirt and khaki pants. Even though the day was a little warm for pants, I thought my mild discomfort was a small price to pay for a job well done.
We got to the bus and I introduced myself to the tour guide, a poised Italian woman named Franca. She could have been 41 or 78- I have no idea. She had a sophisticated demeanor that not even her regulation-issued white polo shirt could hide, and I imagine she was mildly annoyed at having to lead a tour since it disrupted her morning routine of sipping bellinis and seducing the local tennis pro. As part of your tour escort duties you are supposed to get on the bus microphone and introduce yourself to the group and explain that you're there to make sure everyone gets back on the bus on time. However, due to a mixture of my general malaise and an onset of shyness, I decided that an introduction wouldn't be really necessary. Franca seemed to have everything under control, I reasoned, plus other former escorts had told me that they didn't always introduce themselves. This lapse in escort duties proved disastrous later on in the day.
Our first stop was at Eze, a medieval village that is now primarily used as a high end shopping spot. Franca explained that we would depart the bus, use the bathrooms in the parking lot, walk up the paved hill to Eze for shopping, and then meet back at the bus in one hour at 9:45. As I followed everyone to the bathrooms, I noticed a group of women break apart from the group and go back to the bus. Was I supposed to follow them, I asked myself? Would that be an invasion of their privacy? How big can this Eze place be, anyway? Assuring myself that my duty was to the group and not a rogue band of tour rebels, I followed everyone else up to the bathroom.
Franca led everyone up the driveway to the entrance of Eze. Eze itself has maintained all of its old world charm for the past several hundred years, and is a series of cobblestoned streets that gently roll upward to a beautiful view of the French Riviera before looping back to its gated entryway As I watched the group head inside for picture-taking and perfume-buying, I noticed the rogue three women were not among the numbers. Not wanting to be any more remiss in my escort duties than I already had been, I walked back down the hill to see if I could find where they had ended up.
They were at the bottom of the hill. And they were pissed off they had been left behind. And they were from New Jersey. It was three generations of confusion: the pear shaped grandmother, the bleach blond mother, and the winsome innocent daughter (therapists who deal with alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional families would describe her personality as "the peacemaker"). I was greeted by a symphony of bleatings. "Wheah did she go?" "She said she would waaaaait for everyone!" "I don't appreciate being left behind in a foreign country." I quickly shepherded them up the hill, which looked like the slope of K2 now that I was accompanied by a sixty-four year old with an apparent cardiac condition. She took frequent stops, clutching her chest a la Redd Foxx, and would say things like, "I don't think I can make it. My heart is racing! This isn't good for me."
Thanks to the Herculean efforts of the granddaughter, who offered cold water and would hop up the hill to demonstrate the ease of its ascent, we were finally able to reach the entrance of Eze. But the charming village had now transformed into a deserted ghost town, its rambling streets a confusing labyrinth. The tour group was nowhere in sight, which was met by further honkings from the goose brigade. Leaving the grandmother gasping at a scenic overlook, I offered to run up one of the streets to see if I could find the rest of the people. This trip proved fruitless, as did the next one, but on my third try I ran into a Spanish ten year old who was hopping down the steps who pointed me in the right direction. Now sweating lightly myself, I brought the three women back into the fold, blithely lying every time the grandmother asked if there were a lot more steps.
When the grandmother laid eyes on Franca, she pointed a trembling finger at her and, in a tone usually reserved for witnesses at the Nuremberg Trials, shouted, "You! You said theah would be time for us to go the bathroom!" Franca, ever poised and a little confused as to what this newfound member was talking about, smiled and replied that yes, there were bathrooms right around the corner. Two minutes of heated accusations followed, where they never mentioned the fact that they had returned to the bus, but they were finally won over by Franca's charm (and perhaps my mantra-like ramblings of "I'm sorry, it was my fault") and went off shopping. I went up to Franca, expecting her to be angry at me, but instead she rolled her eyes and hissed, "You come on this tour to see Eze! Not to use the bathroom!"
Eze itself was nice. I walked around and took a couple of pictures. A couple from Florida asked me to take their picture by the sign of Eze's luxury hotel. They had been sitting in the front seat of the tour bus and, when I had walked on, had read my nametag and barked, "Brendan! Where in the United States you from?" When I said Massachusetts, the guy said, "Yikes! I'm sorry!" He probably would have clapped me on the shoulder and offered to buy me a rum runner if I had still been within arm reach by that point. But now I was struggling to use their digital camera, which I could not for the life of me figure out, and they were having a further laugh at my expense.
"So, Massachusetts, huh?" the guy asked. "What's Billy Buckner up to these days?" I should point out this is probably where I probably hit rock bottom that day: unable to operate a standard digital camera and forced to talk about sports. Somehow, I was able to remember who Bill Buckner was (I should mention here that I have not lived in Massachusetts since 1998 and if you held a gun to my head and told me to name three members of the Red Sox starting lineup, my brains would be splattered on the back wall), and I mumbled something about "probably still letting balls go between his legs." The camera miraculously worked at this point and I took their picture. The woman threw a satisfied look at her image on the camera and said, "I just saw this place on 'Lifestyles on the Rich and Famous.'" At this point I realized both of these people were stuck in 1986 and left before they tried to sign me up for Hands Across America or engage me in a debate on the merits of New Coke.
At 9:42 I walked back down the hill with Franca. She got on the bus, and after a quick head count of passengers, realized there were three people missing. I got off the bus and started to run up the hill to retrieve the lost sheep, and quickly ran into the three New Jersians, sauntering down at a pace best described as leisurely. They seemed surprised that I had been looking for them and in no hurry to pick up the pace when I told them that everyone else was on the bus and waiting for them. The grandmother responded to this information by pulling a bedazzled red tank top out of a paper bag and telling me she just had to buy it because "you can't get stuff like this in the States."
They asked me what I did on the ship, and were totally surprised that I had been in the show they had seen on Wednesday. "Oh, yeah!" the mother exclaimed, "You were up there with the blond haired girl and the girl who looks like that lady from 'Cheers!'"
I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Beth has blond hair, so I knew she was safe from the "Cheers" comment, but I was worried that this woman was crazy enough to think that Jenny looked like Rhea Perlman. "Shelley Long?" I asked.
"No," the woman answered, her eyebrows clenched together as if she was trying to remember a complicated scientific equation.
"Um, Kirstie Alley?"
"Yeah! That's it! Kirstie Alley!" The woman pointed her finger at me excitedly. I didn't have the heart to tell her that Kirstie Alley was now best known for her alarming weight gain and not her "Back to School" days of foxiness. Even though I'm pretty sure the woman hasn't watched television in the past fifteen years, I did not relay this comparison to Jenny.
When we got back to the bus a lot of the passengers had plead mercy to the mounting heat and decided to wait outside. A hatchet-faced woman in a white tank top was smoking a cigarette by the bus' entrance. When she saw the missing passengers, she threw down her cigarette, squashed it with her foot, and shouted at them, "C'mon, let's go!" The New Jersians did not take kindly to this, and the grandmother asked who she thought she was telling them to hurry up? The woman said they were fifteen minutes late (it was ten o'clock by this point). The New Jersians were unphased, and the mother squawked, "We were told ten o'clock!" I had to admire her quick thinking and utter disregard for the truth. It temporarily shut up the smoker, who muttered, "Well, how come all of us got here at 9:45?" But the New Jersians ignored her, and clutching their postcards and red tank tops, strutted onto the bus.
Our next stop was Monaco. I think we got there riding the same road that Princess Grace was driving on when she died. I'm not sure, because I was trying to dry the profuse amount of back sweat that had accumulated on my shirt from sprinting up a cobblestoned French street in ninety degree heat. Plus, I was having trouble understanding Franca when she was talking. Her voice took on a hushed and reverential tone when she told the story of Princess Grace's death: how Princess Stephanie couldn't legally drive outside of Monaco and so the two switched places outside the principality's limits, and then the road's sharp curves proved too much for her. All the passengers seemed caught up in her story, even the woman who seemed to think Grace Kelley was most popular for her films where she danced alongside Fred Astaire.
When we got off the bus, I decided I wasn't going to let history repeat itself and always remained an arm's length away from the New Jersians. This caused me to basically repeat everything that Franca told the tour group, as the older generations of the group were engaged in actively not listening to anything going around them. I think by the end they must have thought I was some Prince Rainier superfan, as I seemed to have an endless supply of knowledge about his family, including but not limited to which mansion was Stephanie's and which was Caroline's, how to tell if Albert was in the palace at any given time, which grave was Prince Rainier's and which was Princess Grace's, and the significance of Princess Grace's epitaph: "Gratia Patricia."
Later when I was looking through some old postcards the grandmother came up to me. Since it's the 25th anniversary of Princess Grace's death (another fact the family was impressed that I knew), her family has released a series of postcards of old publicity shots from her movies.
"Have you found any with William Holden?" she asked me.
I told her I hadn't and she sighed.
"He was my favorite," she said. "He still is. I watch all his movies and it's like he's still here."
She smiled sadly and went back to rifling through postcards of famous movie stars, now long gone. She ended up with one of Grace Kelley and Dizzie Gillespie and I picked one of the royal family in 1981. I got the New Jersians safely back to the bus on time, but a middle-aged couple decided to be ten minutes late so no one really noticed.
We then drove to Monte Carlo and spent about a half hour there. Monte Carlo was kind of lost on me, because to truly appreciate it you have to have one of the following: an insane amount of money, a mild gambling addiction, and an appreciation of foreign sports cars. Parents would have their kids line up next to the Porsches and Ferraris parked outside of the casino and discreetly take their picture. I walked around aimlessly and took pictures of the fountains, but after that I didn't really know what to do. I ended up taking a picture of an expensive necklace in the Bulgari window, but felt foolish when people from the tour walked by and shouted, "Get it!" I wish I had had the wherewithal to tell them I was scoping the store out for my jewelry heist.
The drive back was done in quiet, except for the family from New Hampshire sitting next to me who documented each car dealership we drove by (for the record, their oldest daughter is mad at Saab right now for the poor repair job they have done on her car). We arrived back in port, I said goodbye to my new best friend Franca, waved goodbye to the New Jersians, and returned to the ship to wash off the layer of salt from my body.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Our visit to Florence where we saw David!
Two Fridays ago we went to Florence in order to see David. Brian had bought us tickets online, which enabled us to bypass the line that stretches down the block. The Friday travel days are a little tricky, as they require us to take a shuttle from the ship to downtown Livorno (free), then a bus to the Livorno train station (one euro), and then a train to our final destination (12.60 euros this past Friday). Also, none of these steps are exactly intuitive for the first-time traveler, as you have to buy your bus tickets at the unmarked newsstand across the street from the bust depot. We (and by we, I mean Cody and Brian, who I always refer these people to) end up serving as Unofficial Livorno Guides to the passengers, sweaty and confused and with a slightly dawning sense that they were duped by whoever told them that getting to Florence would be "easy," who are dropped off on the square with us.
Since we weren't scheduled to see David until 1:30, we wandered around Florence a little bit when we got off the train. We passed through the square and spent a long time looking at the statues and the duomo, acting out our favorite scenes from "A Room With A View."* After much picture taking and Helena Bonham Carter-impersonating**, we wandered through the side streets and somehow ended up at the Borsolino shop. I say "somehow" but inevitably with Brian we end up at some high end store where all of the sudden you find yourself thinking that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if you dropped 900 Euro on a handmade suit. I don't mean this last statement to come across like I'm complaining, it's just that I'm highly susceptible to parting with my money, especially when the beseecher is an elderly Italian tailor waving a cigarette and measuring tape. But this place was great! Borsolino, for you philistines who don't know, is the company that makes high-end fedoras worn by the likes of Al Capone. They also sell shirts, which were on sale before the fall line comes in. Each of the guys bought a shirt that makes the wearer look like a million bucks.
Then we went and grabbed a slice of pizza at one of the pizza joints dotting the Floretine square. It wasn't great, but it was cheap, which was what we were after.
Then we got to see David, which was tremendous. I had looked up a few facts about the statue on the internet the night before, so I felt equipped to give a tour. I talked about how the statue was carved from a flawed piece of marble, was started by somebody else forty years before Michelangelo got the commission to do it, the pseudoscience of art restoration, the crazy guy that attacked the statue with a hammer in 1991, and how Michelangelo chose to depict David not in the typical pose of action, but rather in the moment before or after he killed Goliath (the director of the Accademia and I both think it's the moment before, but feel free to have your own opinion). Swept up in Michelangelo-fever, I purchased a copy of "The Agony and The Ecstasy" for 11 euro. I am thirty pages in, and already my understanding of the great master has deepened.
The ride back was uneventful, except we shared the crowded bus ride home with a hateful family from Pennsylvania. The college-age daughter had studied abroad in Florence before and was acting as tour guide for the rest of her gene pool. She was annoyed at everything: her mother's inability to move down the aisle, her younger sister's refusal to sit on the small ledge of the seat taken up by the younger sister's boyfriend, the elderly Italian women who continued to push their way onto the bus at each stop, the low rush numbers for Kappa at Lehigh, and how "the jackass" sitting in an aisle seat was oblivious to her urgent need for him to move into the empty window seat to his left, even though she never made any attempt to communicate with him. We escaped at the Livorno square and parted ways- we to our ship, they to their unhappiness.
*We didn't really do this, but I wish we had
** We didn't really do this, either
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Our Third Time in Rome, or Roma If You Want To
Third Roma
Today we went to Rome for the third time, armed with a simple mission of visiting the Capuchin Crypts, getting haircuts, and eating gnocchi. We were able to accomplish all three.
The Capuchin Crypts are located in the basement of a church connected to a Capuchin monastery. The crypts themselves are ornate tableaux of the skeletons of several friars surrounded by sculptures comprised of four thousand skeletons. There are bone chandeliers, bone wall clocks, pelvic bone wall hangings, kneecap bone wall hangings, fingerbones, feet bones, every kind of bone formation possible. You leave wishing that you had paid more attention in any anatomy class you've ever taken. In the third and last room, there is a sign that says (and I'm paraphrasing, here), "What we are, you will become, what you are, we once were." Then they all come to life and chase you out into the street.
After we had emerged (unscathed) from the crypts, we made our way to the other side of town for our haircut. First we stopped off at the Citibank Roma, which is only notable in that we had to use one of the European Bank Entryways. When you use an EBE, you enter through one set of automated doors, are briefly trapped in the No Man's Land between the doors you just entered and the doors that separate you from the ATM, and then wait for the first set of doors to close before the next set opens. The whole operation heaves through in jerks and fits, and you spend your time thinking that either your body weight hasn't offset the automation device or that you are going to be trapped in the small airless vestibule and turn into a Capuchin Crypt member a lot faster than you had expected. I like it because it makes me feel like I'm a 1978 bank robber.
Our group of six divided in half to take cabs over to the Barbieri. Cody, Beth and I were driven by a quiet female cabdriver with a tattoo on her forearm. I think we talked about the office job of a mutual friend. Brian, on the other hand, spent his cab time getting his driver to take a detour through Villa Borghese, recommend a barber, and tell them where one can get second-hand tap shoes in Rome. These are the kinds of things you can do when you speak the language.
When we got to the barber he was busy shaving a client. We basically saw the whole thing, and the shavee went in looking like he had spent a few hard nights out on the town and emerged a Titan of Industry. We debated getting them ourselves, but talked ourselves out of it because we thought that we didn't have enough growth to warrant the straight edge razor and because we had spent the time recounting Great Straight Edge Razor Moments in Cinema (Mississippi Burning, The Untouchables, The Color Purple, etc.)
All of us got haircuts and all of us emerged looking like a million bucks. The barber, Silvano, began the cut by liberally applying talcum powder, then he trimmed our hair. Following this, he had you lean forward into a sink and vigorously washed your hair. We thought this was a great turn of events, because it got rid of all the stray hairs that normally cling to your neck and ears following a haircut. All during the wash, water is rushing down your hair and face and neck, and your nose and chin is burrowed in the crevice of the sink, and Silvano says things like, "Agua caldo! Refresco?" and you think, "Yes, Silvano, it is refresco." He then doused the hair with hair tonic and you left the barber chair looking like a better, more 1950s version of yourself.
From there we went to lunch, at a restaurant Brian had discovered last summer. The meal was delicious. You could throw your shoe and hit a delicious meal in Rome, so I won't bore you with the details. But it was really good. Really, really good.
Our third trip to Naples
Third Napoli
Today we walked to the Archaeological Museum of Napoli. The museum is fantastic, with a lot of artifacts from Pompeii, incredible art from the height of the Roman Empire, and imposing marble statues of your favorite Greek gods and goddesses. I, however, have a preternatural gift for bypassing all of the stuff you want to see in a museum and instead spend my time in the rooms containing all of the boring stuff. My forty-five minutes in their Amber Exhibit was no exception.
The museum also has a “Secret Room” containing its erotic art collection. You have to sign up to go in, and no one under fourteen is permitted without an adult, so I was really expecting it to be the best thing ever. Instead, it’s a room decorated with lots of large-phallused statues and tasteful depictions of satyr-nymph love. I found myself stuck behind a mother trying to model a healthy attitude towards sexuality for her two pre-teenaged children. I think she was on safe ground until her kids collapsed in a giggle fit in front of a painting of a lusty fisherman getting more than he bargained for after an encounter with Hermaphroditus.
After lunch we walked to Spaca Napoli, a neighborhood Brian had frequented last year. His friend Enzo (who I will have to write about in a later entry) had recommended a restaurant here last week, and we spent another afternoon eating a meal of a lifetime. The restaurant might have been called Pizzeria de Presidente (Clinton ate here at one point, and they have the pictures to prove it), or Pizzeria Trattoria, or Pizza Place, there was no clear signage. I split a Pizza Tarantina (anchovies, capers, and olives) with Jenny and it was delicious. The owner told us he was opening a location in San Diego soon, so look for it.
Today we walked to the Archaeological Museum of Napoli. The museum is fantastic, with a lot of artifacts from Pompeii, incredible art from the height of the Roman Empire, and imposing marble statues of your favorite Greek gods and goddesses. I, however, have a preternatural gift for bypassing all of the stuff you want to see in a museum and instead spend my time in the rooms containing all of the boring stuff. My forty-five minutes in their Amber Exhibit was no exception.
The museum also has a “Secret Room” containing its erotic art collection. You have to sign up to go in, and no one under fourteen is permitted without an adult, so I was really expecting it to be the best thing ever. Instead, it’s a room decorated with lots of large-phallused statues and tasteful depictions of satyr-nymph love. I found myself stuck behind a mother trying to model a healthy attitude towards sexuality for her two pre-teenaged children. I think she was on safe ground until her kids collapsed in a giggle fit in front of a painting of a lusty fisherman getting more than he bargained for after an encounter with Hermaphroditus.
After lunch we walked to Spaca Napoli, a neighborhood Brian had frequented last year. His friend Enzo (who I will have to write about in a later entry) had recommended a restaurant here last week, and we spent another afternoon eating a meal of a lifetime. The restaurant might have been called Pizzeria de Presidente (Clinton ate here at one point, and they have the pictures to prove it), or Pizzeria Trattoria, or Pizza Place, there was no clear signage. I split a Pizza Tarantina (anchovies, capers, and olives) with Jenny and it was delicious. The owner told us he was opening a location in San Diego soon, so look for it.
The first week, kind of OR We Were Beverly D'Angelo Oce, And Young
How the trip started:
We got on the ship two weeks ago but it feels like two months. Our producer and director were on the ship the first week, and the first few days were taken up with rehearsals, which really took away from the whole "seeing Europe" thing. But then the show came and we were finally able to concentrate on the matter at hand: seeing Europe like we was Beverly D'Angelo.
Our first stop was Rome. We all took the train in from Civatecchia (about an hour away) but split up once we got there so that we could be more powerful. Beth, Brian and I got off at St. Peter's Square and the adventure began. Rome (or, as I call it now that I've traveled in Europe, Roma) is a prizefighter city: it keeps socking you in the gut with increasingly breathtaking views. We saw the columns of St. Peter's Square first (which I think is where they filmed the climax of "Charade," where Walter Matthau is shooting at Cary and Audrey. I'll try to keep the movie references to a minimum. I realize the Beverly D'Angelo thing was cheap and unnecessary. I just liked how "we was Beverly D'Angelo" sounded and I thought it was a hipper "European Vacation" reference than "Chevy Chase" or "the Griswolds." It's probably not even grammatically correct but the squiggly line under "we" disappeared when I changed "were" to "was." I've said too much.) We stood in the center where all the columns line up, looked at the Pope's balcony, looked at the line for the Vatican, and then moved on.
Our next stop was, I believe, at a restaurant that Brian had tried to eat at repeatedly last year, but had been unsuccessful. He read about "Alfred and Ada's" in a magazine that touted it as one of the finer things in life, and was determined on eating there. We walked by at eleven (which we foolishly deemed as too early to eat. Wasted youth!), and Alfred, an elderly man sporting a short sleeve white dress shirt and smoking a cigarette, was standing outside. We would find out later that seeing Alfred in daylight is like seeing a unicorn making out with a phoenix. Brian conversed with him in Italian and left under the impression that they were closing for siesta but would be open later in the afternoon. Like the deceptive unicorn, Alfred later proved himself to be a liar.
We then walked over to the Piazza Nuvona (I might have the order all mixed up, but trust me, we went there). The PN has three fountains, one that was under construction, but even mounds of scaffolding can't hide that kind of beauty. Brian walked into what he thought was a tourism office but was actually St. Agnes' Cathedral in disguise, so we spent some time walking around there. I later found out that the Cathedral was built on the spot where St. Agnes was believed to have been martyred. Also, my friend Jon later told me that the Piazza Nuvona was where the word "fornication" comes from. Roman prostitutes used to hang out under the PN's arches, and the Latin word for arch is fornix, and thus a new word was born. So the day was educational as well.
Our next stop was the Pantheon. This might have been my favorite sight. My knowledge of it is limited to a few sentences in a guide book, so forgive my gross oversimplification, but it is the oldest still standing building in Rome. It was built as a Pagan temple to all of the gods and then the church co-opted it for its own uses, so now there is a lot of beautiful Renaissance art in there as well. It is also where Raphael is buried.
When we were ready for lunch, Alfred and Ada's was closed, all signs of activity obliterated. Dejected, we wandered into a nearby shoe store, as Brian is also interested in getting made to wear shoes in Italy. The name of the store escapes me, but its owner, Daniela, could not have been kinder to us. She laughed at our jokes, let us look at our shoes, and even brought us into the back room to show us the Berlitz CD and workbook she's using to learn English. She recommended her favorite restaurant, Campanas, and we quickly headed over. I left the store in such a haze of good feeling that I thought that spending three hundred fifty euros on shoes might not be the worst thing.
And as for Campanas, everything I want to write about it is a cliché. Did the food melt in your mouth? Yes. Did the house wine taste like the nectar of the gods? Absolutely. Will I now obnoxiously say, "This almost tastes as good as the real stuff I ate back in Italy?" every time I visit an Italian restaurant in the states? You bet.
On the train ride back to the ship I sat across from two passengers, one of whom might have been the acclaimed Iranian-born actress Shoreh Ahgdashloo. I had a lovely conversation with her about how it's hard to get good help in the states, and that's why she now lives overseas.
We got on the ship two weeks ago but it feels like two months. Our producer and director were on the ship the first week, and the first few days were taken up with rehearsals, which really took away from the whole "seeing Europe" thing. But then the show came and we were finally able to concentrate on the matter at hand: seeing Europe like we was Beverly D'Angelo.
Our first stop was Rome. We all took the train in from Civatecchia (about an hour away) but split up once we got there so that we could be more powerful. Beth, Brian and I got off at St. Peter's Square and the adventure began. Rome (or, as I call it now that I've traveled in Europe, Roma) is a prizefighter city: it keeps socking you in the gut with increasingly breathtaking views. We saw the columns of St. Peter's Square first (which I think is where they filmed the climax of "Charade," where Walter Matthau is shooting at Cary and Audrey. I'll try to keep the movie references to a minimum. I realize the Beverly D'Angelo thing was cheap and unnecessary. I just liked how "we was Beverly D'Angelo" sounded and I thought it was a hipper "European Vacation" reference than "Chevy Chase" or "the Griswolds." It's probably not even grammatically correct but the squiggly line under "we" disappeared when I changed "were" to "was." I've said too much.) We stood in the center where all the columns line up, looked at the Pope's balcony, looked at the line for the Vatican, and then moved on.
Our next stop was, I believe, at a restaurant that Brian had tried to eat at repeatedly last year, but had been unsuccessful. He read about "Alfred and Ada's" in a magazine that touted it as one of the finer things in life, and was determined on eating there. We walked by at eleven (which we foolishly deemed as too early to eat. Wasted youth!), and Alfred, an elderly man sporting a short sleeve white dress shirt and smoking a cigarette, was standing outside. We would find out later that seeing Alfred in daylight is like seeing a unicorn making out with a phoenix. Brian conversed with him in Italian and left under the impression that they were closing for siesta but would be open later in the afternoon. Like the deceptive unicorn, Alfred later proved himself to be a liar.
We then walked over to the Piazza Nuvona (I might have the order all mixed up, but trust me, we went there). The PN has three fountains, one that was under construction, but even mounds of scaffolding can't hide that kind of beauty. Brian walked into what he thought was a tourism office but was actually St. Agnes' Cathedral in disguise, so we spent some time walking around there. I later found out that the Cathedral was built on the spot where St. Agnes was believed to have been martyred. Also, my friend Jon later told me that the Piazza Nuvona was where the word "fornication" comes from. Roman prostitutes used to hang out under the PN's arches, and the Latin word for arch is fornix, and thus a new word was born. So the day was educational as well.
Our next stop was the Pantheon. This might have been my favorite sight. My knowledge of it is limited to a few sentences in a guide book, so forgive my gross oversimplification, but it is the oldest still standing building in Rome. It was built as a Pagan temple to all of the gods and then the church co-opted it for its own uses, so now there is a lot of beautiful Renaissance art in there as well. It is also where Raphael is buried.
When we were ready for lunch, Alfred and Ada's was closed, all signs of activity obliterated. Dejected, we wandered into a nearby shoe store, as Brian is also interested in getting made to wear shoes in Italy. The name of the store escapes me, but its owner, Daniela, could not have been kinder to us. She laughed at our jokes, let us look at our shoes, and even brought us into the back room to show us the Berlitz CD and workbook she's using to learn English. She recommended her favorite restaurant, Campanas, and we quickly headed over. I left the store in such a haze of good feeling that I thought that spending three hundred fifty euros on shoes might not be the worst thing.
And as for Campanas, everything I want to write about it is a cliché. Did the food melt in your mouth? Yes. Did the house wine taste like the nectar of the gods? Absolutely. Will I now obnoxiously say, "This almost tastes as good as the real stuff I ate back in Italy?" every time I visit an Italian restaurant in the states? You bet.
On the train ride back to the ship I sat across from two passengers, one of whom might have been the acclaimed Iranian-born actress Shoreh Ahgdashloo. I had a lovely conversation with her about how it's hard to get good help in the states, and that's why she now lives overseas.
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