Day 24 – May 23, 2010 – Split, Croatia

The best thing about today was that I ran into our pianist/lounge singer Stacy on the tender over to Split today. I brought my laptop, determined to get me some free or real cheap FAST internet. He sat down next to me with his and told me where the best place to go was. I was so thrilled and upset as well that I hadn’t gotten out sooner! Still, I would get a couple MUCH NEEDED hours online.

I went and spoke with personnel today to confirm my debark date – June 26th I’ll be leaving the ship. I wanted to take this opportunity of being in Europe to see some more stuff before heading home. I’ve got great friends in Paris, whom I’ve been dying to visit, and it looks like I can just let them know that I’ll be going home a few days later than planned. Through a paperwork process, it should only cost me to get up to Paris from Venice and then they’ll fly me home from there. YAY!!! I’m sooo excited about that. I was in Paris in high school for 10 days and went around to the typical school group-type sites, which was really great, but I didn’t get to actually interact with Parisiens or see the nightlife in the city so famous for it. Time to go visit the Crew Welfare office and pick up one of their Rosetta Stone laptops to brush up on my francais!

I love getting people’s story about how they started ship work and what their likes and dislikes about it are. Stacy is originally from Memphis and has traveled the world his whole adult life as a musician/musical director. He’s lived in Normandy, France for the last 30 years as well and we talked lots about that. It was really a lovely time sharing the afternoon with my new friend at the internet café and catching up on some business stuff back home. Stacy plays almost every night in a place called Bar City – it’s a lounge in the middle of the Martini Bar, Champagne Bar, Wine Bar and Cigar Club (which is thankfully enclosed). I had no idea about this piano bar-style show that he does for about 3 hours a night, so I made plans to go see him there tonight!

Pieter and I had dinner at the Italian restaurant on the ship, La Cucina and had some really interesting and tasty veggie lasagna. They were out of pasta sheets and were using potato sheet s in the lasagna. I’ve never had, nor heard of such a thing, especially just being in Venice the day before, you’d imagine we’d restock on pasta of all things…. But as it was, I had a new take on lasagna that was very filling and yummy. Then we headed over to see Stacy play for the whiteheads, as Mom would say, haha…. It was so amazing, I want to go there every night! We sat for two and a half hours listening to him sing, singing along with his showtune sets, and learning all sorts of musical trivia and history along the way. It was really a lovely evening doing something not many of my generation understand or enjoy, but I completely adore. He was so sweet and even dedicated a song from Casablanca to me for coming out to support! Every Friday night is Name That Tune, so you better believe where I’ll be after the show!!!