Earlier still

UPDATED, REORDERED, and REWRITTEN.

This is a vague summary of my recent travels. It leaves out many, probably most places. Especially France... but based on recent history even the French hate France.

It doesn't have the "Great" or the obvious pictures of famous landmarks, mostly. Just these I picked browsing around at 2-3am one morning. As far as the great, juicy stories of ship life and other stuff that happened... well, buy me a drink.

Cut to Morocco, very early in the adventure. Our first real adventure of the journey, actually... our tour of Casablanca with a tour guide whose "limo" broke down 3/4ths through the day. I have those pictures as well. He offered us local mint tea and whiskey morocco, yet we were all sure we'd be killed. I wish I could go back and do this day again. The last day in Casablanca, not long ago, involved one of the craziest open market/bazaar experiences ever. Amazing. Is it wrong that I get almost as excited about really good, cheap DVDs as I do about the local color?

Vanessa and I drank a lot of coffee in Europe, and Africa, and etc... we made this really romantic (or sickening, depending on how you choose to see it) vow to have coffee and a kiss in every new city. We had our first and last cups of coffee on the continent at this little shop in Malaga. Ah, symmetry.

In Bilbao, Spain, this was about the only remarkable thing - the Guggenheim Museum. Of course, it had a big, floral dog.

Barcelona, Spain - The Sagrada Famila, which is the single most beautiful building I've ever seen in my life. Makes the Vatican look like Wal-Mart... or at least Target.Evening in Portofino, Italy... Some of the best dining anywhere... and there's this little place off the expensive main harbor (which is basically all Portofino is) that served amazing food and homemade wine that I'll wager none of the pricier places could match. Apparently many film stars of the 50s and 60s made Portofino their vacation of choice, and it still caters to the very very rich. Vanessa and I ate there first with our ship's computer guy, Wayne, and then again on the last night we hit Portofino. I wish I could remember the name - but I could show you how to get there. This was also our first port in Italy, and it'd been Vanessa's dream for many years to finally see Italy. When we stepped off the tender, her eyes were just dancing...

From high above the ship in Sorrento, Italy, home of Cafe Ciao - where we agreed that we enjoyed the best meal we've ever had, which we shared with Valerie and Richard from the ship. When we went back a second time, on our own, it wasn't as good - so we agreed we'll just cherish the first memory and we never went back.
I have no picture, but there's a place called Gilli in Florence, on the main square, which has the best hot chocolate you'll ever have. You can't even imagine this hot chocolate, honestly, in your wildest dreams. Your feeble intellect can't fathom its goodness.

When in Rome (or Vatican City, at least)... do as the Oompa Loompas do.
Yeah, they're elite, highly trained, yada yada... they're highly trained Oompa Loompas. We went all over Rome in one day, running everywhere, ending our day at Vatican City.

We are apparently attempting to stop the tower from succumbing to the gravitational forces incumbent on the photo and falling directly onto us. This is in Paris, obviously. Actually, it says something that Vanessa is holding up the Leaning Tower and I am cowering behind her.

Santa Margherita, Italy, where you have to be a real man to eat even their smallest calzone. And more coffee.

Everything in Denmark exists at a 90 degree angle to the rest of the world. Crazy, but true. This is me, standing outside the Royal Castle of Denmark in Copenhagen. I was thinking about the whole Hamlet tour from however many years ago before being reminded that the play occurred at Elsinore castle, which isn't in or near Copenhagen.Vincent Vega was right, it is legal in Amsterdam. Rigorous random drug testing onboard, though.

I posed for disgustingly touristy pictures in beautiful places like Santorini, Greece, where you've either got to take a disturbingly steep cable car or a donkey ride to get up and down. We did both - car up, donkey down. I have so many great pictures of both of us in places like this - so many memories!

Dover England... I'm on a castle. Heh. See? Disgusting and touristy. I bought a Mr. Bean doll to take my place in these kinds of pictures after I became fed up with seeing my goofy self in them. Those'll be on the site later.

If you've ever worked on a ship, you'll know why my discovery of this snacky treat was funny. If not, ask me.

Kusadasi, Turkey... my favorite beer in the world is no longer Guinness, but this elixir from Turkey. Vanessa caught this photo as I am obviously not conscious.The Bazaar in Kusadasi. After Russia, Turkey, and Morocco, haggling is our new favorite sport. We'd be out some days and see open markets and excitedly say, "Look! More crap!"

Vanessa is a much better haggler than me. Sometimes she would go up to vendors just to haggle.

This is in Yussipov Palace, in St. Petersburg. Unlike the Alamo, there is a basement at Yussipov Palace and it's where Rasputin was killed... er, they STARTED trying to kill him there... in the room I took this photo of, with the creepy wax people.
Below: More St. Petersburg... Me outside McDonald's, the sign that held the key to my earliest understandings of reading the Cyrillic alphabet... The Church of Spilled Blood (or Resurrection depending on the person you ask)... Vlad and Katya, who were my connection for DVDs and whose child I put through school with my purchases. You wouldn't believe what Vlad makes - it would be nice enough in the US, but in Russia it's a fortune... That sign says "Unona" and it's outside the huge St. Petersburg electronics "black market" where I bought, for example, a Russian "customized" PS2 for some thousand rubles... Vanessa had already been to St. Petersburg a year previous and knew a lot of her way around, as well as some Russian to get us started. That helped.

Red Square. Moscow. Russia. Earth. Sol System. M1. Kremlin Clock Tower, St. Basil's Catherdral, and a woman who stands in Red Square singing the entire Styx catalog for thrown change every day except Sunday. Part of that is not true.On the door to one of the major buildings of the Kremlin, they put up this handwritten sign. This more than anything makes me realize how strapped their government must be. Seriously, it's scotch taped to the glass.

Inside the Kremlin walls - that's the cathedral where nearly every Tsar was crowned, Including Tsar Alexander I, II, and III, Tsar Peter I, II, and III... but not including Tsar Wars Episodes I, II, or III as they were deemed quite enjoyable but not as good as the originals.

Interesting story about this statue: It's in Moscow, and it's the "Peter the Great" statue. To go to Moscow, we had to agree to escort a tour. We hate tours - we preferred to explore on our own - but our tour guide was asked again and again what the statue was and wouldn't explain much. Finally I found out many Russians hate the statue, and why: It was intended as a gift to the United States some long time ago, a Christopher Columbus statue. For some reason, the US declined it. The Russians said, "Fine, then, we'll keep it, and call it Peter the Great instead."

There are monkeys and great giant eagles right outside Red Square. This is us and a monkey. Why? For the same reason we held a bear in St. Petersburg. Because we could.

In on of our regular Baltic ports, standing outside an unfortunately named castle museum giftshop in Tallinn, Estonia (city that is home to the best English language cinema in Eastern Europe).

Our cast enjoying a night out during our Porsche charter. Naturally, we're eating Tex-Mex in Palma, Mallorca. From left...SJ, Della, Brad, Valerie, Jonathan, Vanessa, and some dufus.

Happily in the USA at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. I had to steal this vehicle to get home, thanks to the fiasco that was our last few days on the ship, but here I am safe and sound.