Italy Tomorrow!

Today was a gorgeous day at sea!  Everyone had a Global Studies exam this morning that was 100 questions of matching and pretty easy.  We didn’t have Global Studies class this morning because of that so I go to sleep in a little.  My other classes were also really relaxed since we arrive in Italy tomorrow!  I did my reading out in the blazing Mediterranean sun this afternoon and survived without a sunburn – I was excited!

I also went on a bridge tour today where you get to see the front of the ship with all the controls and stuff.  The 3rd officer gave us the tour – he is from Croatia (same as the captain) and was really cool and let us look out with the binoculars and sit in the captain’s chair and all that fun stuff.  It was really cool to see the electronic map/gps chart that they have as well as all the equipment where they do old-fashioned mapping in case of a malfunction.

Tonight we had our pre-port meeting for Italy where we learned about all the fun cultural stuff that is different from America.  They gave us a paper with common phrases in Italian and a sentence to show a taxi driver that says “please take me to [name of our port]” in Italian.  At least we can sort of pronounce/understand a little Italian.  Things will probably get pretty interesting when we get to some of the countries speaking Arabic.

As far as plans for Italy, the ship docks in Ciavitavecchia and I will be taking a train to Rome where I will meet up with the rest of my family.  It will be so fun to swap stories about our European adventures so far!  I will spend 3 days in Rome then 2 days in Naples before leaving again on the ship.  I think that’s all for now – I’ve got lots to pack and an early start tomorrow!