Rick Rambles – A blog

Barcelona 2010-07-15
Well almost…  the ferry was 4 hours late and so are we.  It is bad enough to be on a ferry for 20 hours, but when it is that late, than wow…  I have been hangin with the fin’s and that has been ok.  They keep talking to each other in Dutch so I can’t understand…  jake came to my room this afternoon and invited me to join them.  That was nice…  I hope Barcelona is fun.  I don’t know where I am staying.  I booked three days because traveling on Sunday is a bad plan.  I am going to whoop through the rest of Europe as fast as I can and hopefully make dean’s party July 31.  We will see.  Not having internet sucks by the way.  I don’t know what I would have done without my phone…
So we arrive in Barcelona in a port very much like the one we left.  Cargo and isolated…  they call 4 taxis for 12 people…  I did have the forethought to enter the number of the taxi co into my phone…  the taxi took us to the train station and dumped us there…  so we were once again on our own for trans port.  Fortunately I had my phone with the email and directions to my hotel.  I shared a taxi with two girls from Australia.  They are the third group of Ausi’s that I have met so far…  we dropped them at a hostal and then I finally got to my hotel…  it’s no Ritz, but it will do.  There is a  24 restaurant right across the street so I was even able to eat, bonus.  The place even has books!  I need a new one and now I have one.

Livorno 2010-07-14 Destination Barcilona…
What a mess…  ok, not that bad, but a lot of waiting.  I could not get ticket on-line and the schedule was not in the Europass timetable BUT I figured it out…  I got to Livorno from Pisa fairly early to make sure u got a berth…  so I was at the ticket office at 13:00.  Turns out that the ticket office does not open until 17:00.  I tried to get tickets in town but no one had a clue or could understand me.  The good news is that I helped a greek guy find a train to roma and 3 women how to use the kiosk.  Interesting.  So I wandered around the train station looking for a taxi…  finally I bought a bus ticket that some nice people thought might bring me to where I needed to be.  Turns out I needed to be in the commercial port of Livorno.  We are talking container ships and trucking.  No nice restaurants, no bars, no nothin’
I decided I need to venture back into civilization because I have no cash, not a good thing.  So first I walk to the beach, because if you feet are starting to hurt you should schlep you back pack a few kilometers to check out the beach and the sail boarders.  I venture into a private beach club after the topless beach… not-so-good… there was some sketchy trailer type building and a rusty fence.  I go in but do not stay.  In English I am pretty good, but decide to try to stay out of trouble in Livorno, Italy…
I wander across bridges and the country side.  I finally see a restaurant , they are closing, but she tells me that a bus should come… fortunately I still have the bus pass from the train station where I took the taxi…  are you following?  So I get on the bus hoping for the train station, but a very nice girl tells me go get off where there is a big church and I can good food and money…  HELLO, this place has more churches than you can shake a pope at… but somehow I get off where she recommended.  I find an ATM and get a bite to eat.  I attempt to get the bus back to the port, but am again clueless.  I can’t even figure out buses in the US, never mind in a language that I don’t understand…  I grab a cab, yeah!  But alas you does not understand where I want to go …  did I mention that it is really hot…  the second cab had a clue and fortunately I geo-tagged a picture so that clinched it.  I got back to the ticket office and met 2 Finish guys.  They too were going to Barcelona.  They had tickets that they booked on-line, but the 30% discount did not apply…  what up with that?!??!  Anyway, I got my ticket and my birth and now have to wait 5 hours for the ferry…  there might be a chance I could have planned this better but the Fin’s tried and ended up in the same….  Wait for it… boat…  so I have been back and forth twice now and know the ropes.  They too did not get money or food for the wait.  I told them I would watch their stuff while they went back into town.  They did not want to wait for the bus so I gave them the number for the taxi… you may wonder why I had the number for the taxi… because I asked for it.  A number I will never use again, but it was helpful to them.  So they went into town and I sat and guarded the luggage.  They said that they would be ½ an hour.  I believed that I laughed out loud at them.  Two hours later they show back up with food and drink for me.  By this point I have a nice chair, a nice view and a pillow under my butt.
I watch the people come and go and most of them have questions.  My question is why do you have a tourist passenger ferry office in the middle of shipping…
So I just sent the boys off to the beach.  I already visited it and don’t need to get all sandy and salty.  I am again in charge of everything…  they know that they owe me :>  only 2 hours left to wait… back to my book..
“Final Theory” by Mark Alpert.  It is pretty good and unfortunately, pretty gone.  I will need a new book.
Oh yeah, I got a hotel room in Barcelona using my phone.  Gotta love it!

Roma 2010-07-12
First of all the people that I have met so far.  There was the doctor from mass, there was a nice Australian couple.  There were three co-ed’s from England, another group of guys from Australia and a bunch of people from the states.  NYC, LA, and others.  The Marriott tends to attract a lot of Americans… I think I need to branch out.
Today was hot.  I sweat a lot, but I did the hop-on hop-off thing again.  I hopped off at St. Peters Square and climbed MANY steps to the copula.  It was the very top of the cathedral and the steps were the nastiest steps I have ever stepped on.  You have to see those pictures.  The  wall in the stairway are actually tilted and the last set of steps actually have a vertical rope hanging acting as a hand rail…  it was cool.  Going down on the ancient steps…  if you slipped, you would keep falling a very long time.  One of the  American, Marriott people told us on the bus that some woman actually had two inch heels doing this…  not to smart!
After some refreshments I hopped back on the bus and had to do the Coliseum.  I did the audio tour so I could move up in the line.  The audio tour was not good.  It was not clearly marked; it took me forever to find the steps.  Oh well, it was pretty cool.
I was really smart today.  I geo-tagged the picture of where the bus dropped us off.  This way I was actually able to find it all by my self…  good thing because there is no one here to help :>
I booked my train to Pisa using the kiosk, I took the metro several time and did not get lost once.  I am going to Pisa tomorrow at 13:00.  I took the faster train.  I am not sure if I will stay overnight or not.  I found a small hotel 400 meters from the tower so it is an option.  I still am not sure how to get from Pisa to Barcelona via ferry.  I like the ferry for some reason.
I was goofing off and watching volleyball in the lounge and not blogging… oops…
Time to pack and drag all of my stuff around tomorrow.  I am not sure if I will sight see or maybe hang at the pool for a while…  tough call…