**awkwardly late post sorry about it**
Picture your best and oldest friends. The ones that saw you when you had your fat phase or your mouth full of metal braces. The ones who were with you when you got caught sneaking out and the ones whose phones contain so much blackmail of you, your congressional dreams can never be realized. Now picture those people with you in one of the most historic cities in Italy. Think about exactly how amazing and unreal that could be. Then understand that is exactly what I did for this port.
Two of my best friends from my hometown are studying abroad in the beautiful Florence and I got the opportunity to visit them this port! This was exceptionally exciting because our voyage originally wasn’t routed to Italy. We had to change the Itinerary when Ebola broke out in Western Africa. Although I still am disappointed I did not get to travel to Ghana and Senegal, I am overjoyed I got to spend a few days with two of my favorite people, Allie and Lara.
Unfortunately I had a field lab the second day, so that put a bit of a wrench in things, but it all worked out just hunky-dory anyway.
The highlights:
Day 1: Moroccan Stomach Virus (terrible), Wifi, Errands, Beach in Civitavecchia
Day 2: Field Lab to a Vineyard – wine tasting for school, The Reunion
Day 3: Sandwiches from heaven, Florence Market, Piazzale Michelangelo, Date with my Al Pal
Day 4: train to Florence and all aboard the MV
The dirty details:
D1:
I woke up bright and early as planned, ready for an entire day of being a tourist extraordinaire in Rome, but unfortunately ended up with my face in the toilet. It appears Morocco needed to give me one more parting gift. Besides losing a bit of weight, there was nothing glamorous about this stomach virus. Although I was nearly in the clear, I decided to forego Rome, as I have traveled there with my family, and opted for a more restful day in our port city of Civitavecchia.
After some rest, I willed myself to head into the city in search of wifi and stumbled upon one of my guy friends already in a café. I took care of a number of things online including course registration, booking an Amazon trip for Brazil, getting my now-monthly dose of social media, and some online banking. Please try to understand how precious wifi is and think of us kids stuck on the MV explorer next time you do a Google search in your spare time. I would KILL to just look something up on Google whenever I wanted… I digress.
When the rest of our friends made it back from Rome, we rendezvoused on the beach and took in the sunset with some vino tinto – minus me – stomach virus, remember? Although I was feeling much better. One of my friends and I both had field labs, so we started to head back earlier than everyone else because we had an on-ship curfew of midnight in anticipation of the morning lab.
Honestly, we probably would not have made it back in time, save for two Italian port-security men, who offered us a ride in the security car. During our ride back, they invited us out to the bars, but we politely declined, as we had to be back to the ship. Thank goodness chivalry isn’t dead in Italy.
D2:
Today we headed out in our European casual for a grueling and academically stimulating field trip to a vineyard. Yeah, sometimes I have to remind myself this is school and we have lots of real work to do. J But actually, the lab was quite interesting given the circumstances. My Entrepreneurship course, along with a number of others, had originally planned for a Field Lab in Ghana, so my professor had to scramble to pull together something remotely related to our class in Italy.
We ended up visiting an independent publishing house, an organic olive oil factory/ farm, and a lovely vineyard. We enjoyed delicious Italian pizza for lunch and we also got to taste some fruity red wine and freshly made olive oil.
After that, we hightailed it to the train station to head off to Florence. We took a short train into Rome and transferred to a bullet train north to our final destination. I had planned on meeting up with Allie – best friend ever – in the McDonald’s of the Florence train station. My SAS friends and I got off the train and ordered some food. As we finished, I still had seen no sign of Allie. We gave up after a bit and decided to head to our hostel and search for wifi to contact Allie and meet up elsewhere, then I saw two familiar faces jaunting towards me.
I immediately ran across the station and embraced both of my friends, laughing with a smile from ear to ear. Even now I grin looking back on my excitement. To my great pleasure, both Allie and my other longest friend, Lara, were there to visit me!! Originally, Lara had told me she wouldn’t be in town that weekend, so I just expected Allie. I am not sure how to convey how amazing and out of this world this was. Allie, Lara and I have been friends since the sixth grade. We still talk fondly of our awkward junior high fazes. To spend a weekend in Italy with them, where they live, for a stop on my travels around the world on a gigantic cruise ship, well… surreal is probably the best way to describe it. I felt as if it all was too good to be true.
I parted ways from my SAS friends for the night, in order to fully immerse myself in the company of my old friends. We excitedly caught each other up to date on the rest of our summers – we hadn’t seen each other since the 4th of July – and then about current goings on in our respective study abroad programs. I got to meet all of their roommates in their apartment and we all bonded over a bottle of wine – or several 🙂
Then, it was off to enjoy Florence, in a way only old friends can, at the local watering hole, Uncle Jimmy’s and then off to Karaoke at Red Garter. The highlight though, was getting Nutella croissants at a Secret Bakery. We walked into a dark alleyway and knocked on a door, from which a hand extended and traded us coins for croissants. It was magical and amazing! I believe there are four in Florence, but I could not tell you where or it wouldn’t be a secret would it? I can safely say this was one of my favorite nights of semester at sea.
D3:
We woke up bedraggled and exhausted, but still in awe of the fact that we were all together in Italy. Lara had to head off to catch a plane to visit her family in England, so Allie and I spent the day shopping and exploring Florence.
We got sandwiches at the best sandwich shop in the city. An Italian subway, but much, much better.
After tooling around the markets of Florence and getting one too many pieces of clothing at the many shops, we headed back to Allie’s apartment for a much-needed nap. We woke up feeling refreshed and decided to head out to Piazzale Michelangelo to watch the sunset.
We made it just as the sun began to touch the horizon and the view was absolutely breathtaking. Allie bought us a bottle of red and we sat with a few of my SAS friends that we had run into to take in the beauty of Florence as the day came to a close. As soon as the sun dipped below the skyline, the clouds that had began to loom opened up and rain poured from above. Everyone scattered, while Allie and I, Portlanders at heart, enjoyed the downpour and began the walk back to the city.
We enjoyed a fabulous meal at Yellow Bar. We split a caprese salad and I got gnocchi, my favorite.
After some delicious gelato at Edoardo we met up with the rest of my SAS friends at the hostel we had booked for the evening. We stayed at Euro Student Home, which was really a dreadful hostel, but it has a phenomenal location.
That evening we started at Shot Bar Café, where 1 euro = 1 dollar, and then headed to a club called FullUp. Both places were quite fun and, but like most locales in Florence, overflowing with Americans and tourists.
D4:
We all woke up, to the sad feeling we get every last day of port. Yes, we love traveling to new countries, but there are always things left to do whenever we depart. We stopped at a café for breakfast and then Allie walked us to the train station. Both Allie and I hate goodbyes, so we parted in front of the station. It was bittersweet, but we both know we will see each other in December.
I’m so happy I got to see my two loving friends. This experience made my time in Italy special in an entirely different way from other ports. It was also so refreshing to spend time with such old friends. I do love my SAS friends, but it is just a different bond. I still have a hard time comprehending I actually saw Allie and Lara in Italy, while traveling with my SAS friends is a regular occurrence. I appreciate both of these friends and I love them both differently, hence the title of this post.
That’s all for now, but stay tuned to hear about my 21st birthday in RIO!
paige gets around [the world] 