Yesterday we got up early, ate, packed, said goodbye to Waggers, and were ready in plenty of time for the car would take us to the cruise terminal in Southhampton. The drive was uneventful, and the driver pleasant. As an aside, we really like the car service we’ve been using in England, Blackberry, and only wish we’d used it to get from Gatwick to the hotel, instead of the just as expensive and not nearly as comfortable train and taxi combo we used.

Once we got close to the docks, we ended up in a couple traffic jams. Each time, we thought it was because all three Cunard ships (Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Victoria) were in port, and leaving at the same time, plus there might be a few people come down to watch them. But our driver said no, and he was right – the first traffic jam was because of some construction, and the second was backed up traffic from a nearby shopping mall.

We were dropped off at Ocean Terminal, where the real traffic jam began. This is our second sailing on the Queen Mary 2, and our second embarkation nightmare. Though this one, really, wasn’t that bad – it just took forever. Last time, we actually had to stand in line (or sit, as eventually they distributed fold up chairs) for two hours in an un-airconditioned warehouse-like structure in Florida heat. This time, they gave us boarding letters (ours was ‘V’, and they were boarding ‘E’ when we arrived) and then we found comfortable seats in the pleasant, air conditioned terminal. We also had access to bathrooms and overpriced food. So, much better than last time, but still took over 2 hours to get through the boarding process.

All three ships were supposed to sail away together, but ours (QM2) was running way behind – in addition to general boarding pokiness, the ramp to the ship actually came detached at one point, further delaying the boarding process as they hooked it back up again. So the other two Queens, who apparently had completed their boarding in a timely manner, had to just sit around and wait for us.

We did finally get on the ship, and to our room. Lis read in Daily Programme there that the Band of the Welsh Guards would serenade our departure from the quayside. We thought that sounded cool, but looking at the timing of everything described in the program, it looked like we would be in our required passenger muster drill at that time, and miss it. All the timing of our grand departure seemed off, and I was worried, because I had been SO looking forward to it. Lis commented that we had switched roles, with me fretting about how it would all come off, and Lis occupying the “don’t worry, it will all work out” space.

We went to the buffet for some late lunch, then back to our room to wait for the muster drill, which had been pushed back from 4pm to 4:30pm to 4:45pm. Lis went out on our balcony (thanks, Sandra!!) to take some pictures, then hollered for me to come quick – the Welsh Guards were performing just below us. They were fun, and sounded good (not all marching bands do) – we watched them until it was time for our muster drill, which took place an hour late at 5pm.

Then it was time for our sail away, and it was the best. I love cruising because I love to be on a ship at sea, and my favorite part of any voyage is sailing in to and out of port. I especially love it if any other ships are arriving or departing at the same time, or any other local ships or people are around, as we all wave to each other. So this departure, with two other ships, and countless local ships, and people along the shore, and waving to everybody, and the ships sounding their horns back and forth, and music and British flags and a sense of occasion, was just awesome! We sailed along the English Channel, accompanied by our sister ships, for about two hours.

The QM2 started out in the lead, followed by the Queen Elizabeth and then the Queen Victoria, in single file. Eventually, the channel widened, and the ships fanned out so that they were kind of abreast, but not side by side. We travelled this way past a jetty full of people snapping pictures and cheering – I waved my little British flag and felt like a celebrity. Then, we slowed down, and the two ships came abreast of us (but at a fair distance, as the channel was quite wide now) and then passed us, and we followed them out to sea. The sun came out and illuminated the Queen Elizabeth, now in the lead, and eventually she and Queen Victoria went one way, and we went another, out in to the open Atlantic and toward home.

We have been much more active sight see-ers this vacation than we usually are; I think it’s because we knew we have all those days at sea coming up in which to recover. By the end of yesterday, though, I was feeling pretty worn out. Plus, we’ve got all our Cunard 175th Anniversary revelry on Sunday – I was thinking maybe I’d just lie low today. Then we turned on the news and saw that Kate Middleton had just had her baby. Well, we thought, we can’t be in London at the time of a Royal birth and just hang out in the hotel. We’re only three tube stops from Buckingham Palace, so off we went.

First, though, we made a little stop at the Vauxhall City Farm, which Lis had been wanting to see. Unfortunately for her, those kind of places can depress me if the animals seem cramped, as these did, so I didn’t want to stay very long. I told her to take as long as she wanted, and I’d wait outside. But, it’s not as much fun for her, knowing I’m hanging around waiting – poor sweetie.

Then, off to the tube – we are becoming practiced subway riders now. We got off at the Buckingham Palace stop (Green Park), and stopped to get some lunch before joining the hordes. It took us some time to find a place we both liked, and Lis was getting a bit grumpy. We finally settled on Caffe Concerto, which seems to be a chain here, as there were several of them. The food was good, but the service was pretty horrible. We seemed to have deeply offended the girl waiting on us (probably by being cheapo cheapskates, sharing a sandwich and ordering no drinks or appetizers), and at a certain point in the meal she simply washed her hands of us – she kept walking past our table, but never spoke to us again, and we had to flag down the manager to get and pay our check.

After lunch we joined the throngs headed to Buckingham Palace. It looked kind of daunting, but it really wasn’t – there were lots of people, but it wasn’t ever completely jam packed. Just enough to be fun. Once we got to the palace gates, we saw a long queue, and wondered what it was for. We followed it to its source, and found that it was people lining up to take pictures of the Royal Proclamation of the birth – which was a framed piece of letterhead stationery with a couple typewritten lines and some signatures (of whom, I know not).

What was funny is that there were a bunch of security people there keeping the rest of us separate from the queue and the proclamation – protecting the sacrifice of the queuers, I guess. I took a little movie of the whole thing, figuring a picture of people taking pictures of the Royal Proclamation was good enough. But Lis said “Let’s get in line.” Normally I go to great lengths to avoid lines, but, what the heck – we didn’t have anywhere to be, and how likely am I ever to be in London for a royal birth again – we queued up. Actually, it was kind of great to be in line, because we got to stand right up against the fence with unobstructed views of the palace, which was kind of cool.

When we got to the front of the line, the guy there was hurrying us along like crazy – “Hurry up, hurry up, take your photos, move it along, get the next five up here, make room, snap your photo and move along, let’s go…” – and the easel holding the proclamation was too far away for my (relatively crappy) phone camera, so mostly what I ended up with is a picture of an easel. But, whatever – here it is…

After our photo op, we wandered around for a while, but it got suddenly quite chilly, and we were still pretty tired, so we decided to head off in search of Cream Tea (tea, scones, clotted cream, and jam). What could be easier than finding tea in the environs of Buckingham Palace, right? Wrong. The Grosvenor Hotel was nearby (lovely hotel, by the way – very grand lobby) and they had High Tea (all of the above, plus sandwiches and cakes and assorted other goodies), but we didn’t want that much (or to pay that much – yikes!). We could go to the tea room near our hotel, but, as we learned yesterday, that would take a year. So we searched and searched. Eventually, I was over it and wanted to give up and go either to our tea room or just back to the hotel, but my girl is persistent. She had a bead on a place, and dragged me grousing and whining through the streets of London to Baker & Spice, on Elizabeth Street near Victoria Station.

Sadly, they didn’t have a proper cream tea (no clotted cream! The very idea <harrumph>!!), but their scones were good and their jam homemade, and the sit down was desperately needed by yours truly. Tea revived me enough for the walk back to Victoria Station and the tube ride home, but in the station Lis, who’d been wanting to pick up a couple things for tomorrow’s trip, wanted to stop at a Marks & Spencer’s. I completely balked at this – I had just exactly enough energy to get back to the hotel and not one drop more. I said I’d just head back on my own, but Lis balked at that – she didn’t want us to be separated (even though, as I’ve mentioned, we are total tube pros now). Luckily, she spied an empty seat on a bench, and we parked me on it so she could do her shopping.

We got back to our room just in time to watch the BBC coverage of Kate, William, and the new princess going home, which we watched while we ate the food we’d brought back from Baker & Spice for dinner. It was so hilarious to me – all the speculation of when they’d appear, and would they talk to the press, and would they be driven or would William drive, like he did last time, etc, etc, etc. And all the while, the crawl said things like “Breaking News: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to appear shortly” and “Breaking News: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have appeared” and “Breaking News: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their way to Kensington Palace” – this last accompanied by an aerial shot of their car (driven by William, as it turned out) driving to the palace, with occasional cut aways to instant replays of when they came out and got in said car. So adorable.

And then tomorrow our Cunard gala festivities – who knew things would get so exciting! 🙂

We are now on our second day in London. I’m hoping that Lis will cover getting here and our first day, and I’d like to skip ahead to some thoughts I had about our visit to the National Portrait Gallery. But first, I can’t help but include a word or two about our British Airways flight from Genoa, or, more specifically, boarding our British Airways flight from Genoa.

They called us to board in groups, by row number – we were in row 14. First, they called business class passengers to board, then they called rows 20 through 26. Since we weren’t in either of these groups, I didn’t pay much attention to the process – I was just dimly aware of movement. Then they called rows 7 through 19, so we gathered our stuff and went to board.

The first thing we noticed is that there was no proper queue – one line straggled in from this side, one from that side, all very haphazard, with the girls at the counter looking flustered and confused. After we got to the front of our “line” (actually a scrum of several people, with the girls choosing whom to serve next apparently at random) and they scanned our tickets, we turned to go down the walkway and board the plane, and almost instantly ran in to a huge queue of everyone who had gone before us – they hadn’t actually opened the doors to the walkway yet. So everyone was just standing there, and the queue was backing up in to the gate area. You’ll notice that the effect of this is that the business class people got to stand in line the longest.

After they got us all jammed together in this giant queue, they finally opened the door to the walkway, and we shuffled forward, still packed pretty tightly, but at least moving in the direction of the plane. THEN they called the people needing wheelchair assist, and threaded them through us to get them to the head of the queue – think ambulance working its way through a traffic jam. Wackiest boarding process I’ve ever seen. Crazy Italians (or crazy Brits…?).

Anyway, yesterday we went to the National Portrait Gallery, which I was excited about – I’d highlighted it as something I wanted to do when I was thumbing through a guide book before the trip. Lis wasn’t sure she was interested, but then when we made plans to meet our friends Ron and Trish, they suggested we meet at the National Gallery, and then after lunch suggested we go to the Portrait Gallery. So, yay for me!

Note from Lis: A few details wrong there. I WAS interested in the National Portrait Gallery and I was the one who suggested we go there after lunch. (Gots to get me my credit where it is due.)

We went first to the Tudor room, which I was interested in because I’ve recently read Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, and listened to several podcasts about the Tudors on The History Chicks, and we’re watching Wolf Hall right now on PBS. I was struck by how much the portrait of Thomas Cromwell looks like Tony Soprano, and by how not beautiful Anne Boleyn was – I thought the woman who captivated Henry VIII for years, to the point of overthrowing the Catholic Church, would be more stunning. I guess that just means her talents and wiles in other areas were even more impressive than I’d thought.

Later, we were in the 20th century room, and I came across a portrait of Princess Diana. I’d been seeing “No photography” signs all about, and was being respectful, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Diana, and so couldn’t resist – I pulled out my phone and took a surreptitious, blurry snap of the portrait (if you look closely, you can see my reflection in the glass, and my stealth, keep-the-phone-low pose). Then I turned around and noticed, right across from Diana, this amazing portrait of Queen Elizabeth in an intimidating, regal posture and a spectacular royal red cloak – surreptitious snap here, too. Later, I learned that the “no photos” rules only apply to specified portraits – ones with copyright issues – and so I probably could have taken legit, and thus better, photos. Oh well – I kind of liked feeling transgressive…

The juxtaposition of these portraits, with the queen tall and stately, towering over and looking down on a soft-focus, vulnerable Diana – it was really something. I wonder if they staged it that way on purpose.

There were many, many great paintings in the portrait gallery – so fun to see portraits of all these historical figures that I’ve read and heard so much about. My other two favorites were this great one of Margaret Thatcher that looked a lot like an old Soviet-era propaganda poster (ah, irony), and a sweet tableau of George VI, Queen Elizabeth (Queen Mum), Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) and Princess Margaret at home.

At the train station in Santa Margherita, as we were waiting for the train to Cinque Terre, Lis wondered if Roger’s government minder would be there. While we were talking, Iris said “Look! Those are police peeping over the wall! I think they’re keeping an eye out for pick pockets.” Lis said, “No, those are Dad’s new government minders.” And I pretended to take a selfie so I could get a (blurry) pic of them – someone needs to document all this government minding 🙂

Cinque Terre is a collection of five little villages (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore) perched on rocks overlooking the sea. They are extravagantly picaresque – at one point, on the train back to Santa Margherita, we looked back at one (Corniglia, I think), glimmering in the weak afternoon light against a stormy sky above a stormy sea, and it looked like a still from an animated Disney movie. Unbelievable.

Our original plan was to take the train to Monterosso (the closest one), and then visit each village via the ferry that plies them, and then take the train back to Santa Margherita from Riomaggiore (the furthest one). Roger and Iris wanted us to experience the villages from the sea – they say it is amazing getting to the towns that way. Riomaggiore, in particular, says Roger, is exhilarating because it is both stunning and scary, as the boat basically docks at a big rock, and then you walk a gangplank type thing to the top of the rock and up some stone steps (we went and looked at where this takes place once we were in that town – it looks like it would indeed get your blood pumping!).

But, alas – the seas were too rough, and the ferry wasn’t running. So, we walked along the (tiny) main drag of Monterosso for a while, enjoying the sights and formulating a plan B. We decided we didn’t have time to visit each village by train, as we had dinner reservations back at the hotel for our anniversary (Happy Anniversary to us!!), and didn’t want to worry about being late. Eventually we decided to take the train to Riomaggiore (I don’t know/remember the rationale for picking that one), and then go back.

At the train station in Riomaggiore, there’s this great stone wall full of pigeons fighting each other for roosting space on the occasional hooks jutting from the wall or small slits recessed in to it. We watched a few of these contests, and then headed in to the tunnel that lead under the hill to the main drag on the other side. These tunnels (there was another one in one of the other towns we visited – I forget which one) have fantastic acoustics, and so street musicians set up in them. This musician was a woman playing a flute, and she was playing “My Way.”

There were lots of people coming and going, and the music echoed through the tunnel, and Iris started singing, and then Roger joined her, and they sounded great in the tunnel, too. And then other people joined in, and then more, and then more, and so by the time we reached the climax of the song, practically the whole tunnel was belting “I did it myyyyyyy wayyyyyyy!” It was really a fun little spontaneous moment, courtesy of Roger and Iris and their lovely public singing 🙂

Once we got to Riomaggiore, we found a gelato place (of course!) and then wandered for a bit until it was time for the train back to Santa Margherita. For those of you dying to know – I prefer the chocolate (cioccolato) and hazelnut (nocciole) combo, especially if the chocolate is of the dark variety. Lis, on the other hand, is partial to coconut (cocco).

Once back in the hotel, we rested for a while, and then met Roger and Iris in the hotel bar half an hour before dinner, for aperitivi. The bar lays out a huge spread of nuts, home made cheese-it type things, olives, potato and tortilla chips, etc, when you get drinks. So we munched on those and then went in to dinner. The wait staff were very attentive, we had a lovely anniversary dinner, and then it was time for bed. A most pleasant anniversary and last full day in Italy!

It is now 2am in Santa Margherita, and, as I feared it might, my long lie in this morning has lead to insomnia tonight. So, I might as well put my sleeplessness to good use, and jump back to our day in Camogli.

We walked to the bus station, wending our way past hoards of people from a Costa cruise ship anchored somewhere out of sight, and boarded a bus for Camogli. Lis thought it was strange that we headed up in to the hills, since she’d thought we were headed to a fishing village, but then we started to go down the other side towards the water, and it all made sense.

We got off the bus and walked down a cobble stoned hill toward the harbor and a sort of quay with lots of shops and galleries and restaurants. Along the way we saw more of the wonderful old-world architecture that we’ve been seeing in Santa Margherita. What is great about this architecture, though, is that it is faux. When you look close, you can see that the buildings are flat, and that all the curliques and falderols are painted on. Usually, only the shutters and an occasional balcony are real – everything else is a paint job. They look great, though, and it strikes me as very efficient – simple to execute, easy to change the entire architectual style of a building. I approve. You can see some examples from Camogli and Santa Margherita here.

After wandering for a bit, we stopped at an open air restaurant, Xodo, for lunch. Iris and I shared a pizza, Roger had gnocchi with pesto, and Lis had a chicken schnitzel. Schnitzel is a big thing here, it seems, as I’ve seen it on almost every menu – once, I saw it described as Milanese style schnitzel, so I suppose that means schnitzel with an Italian twist…? Anyway, Lis seemed happy with her chicken, Iris and I enjoyed the pizza (though they brought it to us uncut, and with only regular butter knives available at the table, so we had a bit of a time wrestling with it), and Roger’s pesto gnocchi was the best gnocchi I’ve ever had anywhere, by far.

Soon after we sat down, Lis said, “Oh, look, there’s that same guy from yesterday.” Iris looked, and agreed that the man sitting on the sea wall in orange shirt and orange scarf was the same man they’d seen the day before in Portofino. “Maybe he’s your government minder, Dad” Lis said.

He stayed there the whole time we were at the restaurant, pretending to “read” his “book”, acting like he was taking no notice of us at all (as if). Then, near the end of the meal, Roger got up and left to use the restroom. Lis said “Look, he’s wondering where Dad went.” And, indeed, he had stopped “reading” and was craning his neck, looking around. He even looked a little anxious (as I suppose you would, if you’d lost your target).

After lunch we got up and walked off past our minder, who had returned to his “reading”, and I wondered if he would casually follow us. But, no – maybe he was afraid we had made him.

We wandered along the quay for a while. The great thing is that it wasn’t very touristy – we were mostly hanging out with Italian families enjoying their Sunday afternoon. There were lots of kids running around and playing, and lots of parents chatting and hanging out. It was really fun.

We stopped in a small art gallery, and while I imagine you are getting tired by now of our “We spoke Italian, we are so awesome, blah blah blah,” I must try your patience with one more story, because we are just so pleased with ourselves we can hardly stand it 🙂

We were looking at the paintings when a woman came in, and by the way she was attending to us, I could tell she was the artist. Now, normally, I get nervous about trying to speak another language, and I hem and haw and stumble. But, for some reason, this time I felt all confident and just launched myself in to conversation. I had no real idea of the proper gender of the words I was using, or which definite article to use with them. But I also didn’t care, figuring it was close enough and she would understand me, which she did. The other effect of this is that she could tell I wasn’t a native speaker, and so spoke slowly and used the few English words that she knew.

And so we had a whole conversation, where I asked if she was the artist, and she said she had painted all the paintings we were looking at, and I said I liked her work, and she said thank you, and I pointed to a particular painting and said I liked the colors, and she said (deploying her English here) that she had painted that one “softer”, and then I asked if she had painted another one I’d seen outside, and she said no, all those on that side were done by her friend (this one involved some sign language), and I said again I liked her work very much, and then we said goodbye. I think the fact I really did want to talk to her about her paintings accounted for my wild abandon, but it was great fun, and she seemed very pleased by both the compliments and the fact that we spoke in her language. I highly recommend learning some of the language any time you travel.

After this, it was time for some gelato, of course, and then time to head back. We took the train back, which wasn’t nearly as scenic, as the bulk of the route was a tunnel bored through the hills that separate the two towns. But, it also wasn’t windy, and was way faster, which was nice, as I was tired and wanted to rest for a while before dinner.

For dinner we headed out to La Paranza, the Michelin rated restaurant we had been unable to eat in the night before. This time, it was uncrowded and we got a table easily, and the proprietress made a big fuss over us. Roger and Iris had fish, I had pesto (lots of pesto on this trip, all of it molto bene), and I can’t remember what Lis had. Then we all had dessert, and I had a cappucino, and we were full to bursting and headed back to the hotel to call it a night. I will say, though, that Michelin rating or no, I didn’t find it any better than any other place we’ve eaten. Which I suppose is a testament to the other places, rather than a knock on the Michelin place…

Bear with us as we move back and forth in time. Though we haven’t written much yet about yesterday or the day before, right now I’m going to tell you about today. Right now it is 8:55 pm in Santa Margherita de Ligure and we are in our hotel room. We have a balcony that overlooks the sea and it has been a stormy day. We have the balcony doors open so we can hear the surf, one of my most favorite sounds in the world. There are also some birds singing, which I find curious and lovely. I’ve rarely heard birds singing after dark.

Last night was stormy also and we slept all night with the balcony doors open. There are great big wooden shutters that you can pull shut to block out some of the street noise – we are on a busy street and occasionally people congregate down below and talk, or there is the sound of an ambulance rushing by. Our shutters were closed but the door was open and the sound of the surf was wonderful. Mary went to sleep last night around 11 and I stayed up reading until 12 and then couldn’t fall asleep until 1. I woke up at what I imagined to be about 7 and went to the bathroom and was heading back to bed to check the time on my travel clock when the phone rang. That was strange! I wondered if there was some sort of emergency. “Hello?” I picked up my phone. “Buon Giorno!” said my father. “Oh my God, what time is it?” I replied. “Did you just wake up?” he asked? “It’s 10:30. You missed breakfast!”

He thought we should go to the aquarium in Genoa today and there was a train leaving at 11:something and the next one was at 12:something. I was barely awake and Mary was not awake, so I said I’d talk to Mary and call him back. I saw it was 10:20 something and I REALLY didn’t want to miss breakfast. I pulled on some clothes and went flying downstairs. Usually I attempt to communicate with the waiters solely in Italian, but this morning I said, in English, “I’m so sorry. I just woke up. Can I get some breakfast and bring it back to the room?” I thought this would be less of a problem for the waitstaff. But that is not the done thing here and they assured us we could still sit and eat. In my rush I had forgotten to bring my dairy digest pills so my options were quite limited. I had two hard boiled eggs and some rye krisp – quite the low calorie breakfast but that can hardly make up for all that we’ve been eating. I also hadn’t brought my phone but Mary had brought hers so I used her phone to text my Dad and ask if we could get the 12:something train.

We had time to shower and dress properly and then we were off to the train station in the pouring rain where we caught the train to Genoa (Genova). My father wanted us to get sandwiches in the train station but Iris wanted to sit down so we compromised by going to a restaurant across the street and getting sandwiches. The sandwiches were all pre-made and most of them included cheese and I preferred non-dairy, but Mary and I decided to split a salami and cheese on focaccia with Mary taking all the cheese.  That sandwich was molto delizioso and I was still hungry after eating my half. (It wasn’t loaded with salami.) Iris suggested I get chips but I wanted another sandwich and talked Mary and my father into sharing with me. I went up to the counter and began by saying, “In Italiano…” and I then attempted to do the entire transaction in Italian. I’ve been doing this everywhere I can. Yesterday the housekeeper came by and asked when to come back and I said, “Dietsche e tre” which makes no sense. Another housekeeper behind her said, “Three o’clock?” and I said, “No, one-o’clock.” Then I got back into the room and realized I should have said “tre-dici.”  So later I saw the housekeeper and said, “No Dietsche e tre, dici-tre!!” all proud of myself. She smiled.  You might notice that I still said it wrong. The housekeeper probably went to her colleagues and said, however you say it in Italian, “Goddamn Americans!”

Anyway, I was more successful with the guy at the counter – he understood me and seemed to enjoy speaking Italian with me – and he soon brought us a delicious schnitzel and tomato sandwich cut up into four pieces, of which I got two. Then a few minutes later he brought some focaccia with onion and said to me, “This is a present. It is a specialty of our region.” I choose to believe that I had charmed him and that was why he brought the present. When we left I said to him, “Nui piace molti!” Which means “We like a lot!” and he said something like ,”Thank you for the compliment,” and then he said, in Italian, that I speak Italian perfectly, a very sweet lie. Then the only other woman in the restaurant said to me, “Oh non lui” – which translates to “not him” which I took to mean, “Don’t believe him.” Did she realize she was saying I DON’T speak Italian perfectly? The nerve!

Next we got a cab to the acquarium. As we entered the acquarium so did two large groups of schoolchildren, which did not bode well. In fact there were even more schoolchildren inside. The place was overrun. It made the visit a bit more tiring, but it was still really great – the best acquarium I’ve ever been to, but I haven’t been to many acquariums. There were huge tanks with sharks and dolphins and frogs and turtles and alligators and tropical fish and coral and penguins.  You follow a route and can’t just wander back and forth so there was no way to escape the hordes of children, EVER. At one point a young boy came up to me and said, “Scusi, something something something something” in Italian.  I said, “Come?” and he repeated himself. I said, “No parlo Italiano,” and he got this big smile and said, “Scusi,” and sort of bowed to me and walked away. He was quite adorable, but I have no idea what he was asking.

We were pretty exhausted by the time we got to the end of the exhibits. I was thinking a nice glass of airborne would be just the thing. I saw a little display with samples of Ricola and a woman with an ipad asking people questions, and though everyone else moved past it, I was going to get me some Ricola, even if I didn’t speak Italian. She asked me questions in English and I attempted to answer in Italian. They were just marketing questions for the acquarium… where are you from? when did you decide to come here? do you think it costs too much? When we had answered all her questions, I snagged some Ricola – one was licorice flavored and the other was Sambuca – elderberry – which I popped into my mouth and I’m sure it greatly enhanced my immune system.

Iris and Mary were in the mood for coffee and pastry but there didn’t seem to be any good place at the acquarium or outside the acquarium, so we got a cab back to the train station and got the train back to Santa Margherita. By then it was after 5 and my Dad asked if we wanted to have an early dinner, which I very enthusiastically agreed to. We’ve been eating late – 7:30 or later and I definitely prefer an earlier meal. Not many places are open here for dinner before 7 or 7:30 but Dad knew of a place and I was very surprised when we went into a restaurant we have been passing all week, strangely named My Boyfriend is Out of Town.  I would not have chosen that restaurant, based on the name alone, but it was very good, maybe my favorite of all the places we’ve eaten.

One of the things that we never learned even though we did over 40 Italian lessons is how to say you’re sorry! However, I learned how to say it when a restaurant owner apologized to us a few nights ago for not having any space for us even though she had said we didn’t need a reservation. Since then I’ve used it a few times. As soon as we sat down at My Boyfriend Is Out of Town, I asked for directions to il bano (bathroom) and I actually understood one word of the response, which was LEFT so I turned left in the direction the waitress pointed and found the tiny one room unisex bathroom that most of the restaurants here have. When I returned from il bano the waitress came to ask if we were ready to order and my father said yes, but I said no, because I hadn’t even seen the menu yet and didn’t want to feel rushed. However, everyone was very hungry and once I had decided and there was no waitress, my father banged his knife on his glass, to which Iris exclaimed, “Roger!” and I exclaimed, “Dad!” The waitress came running and heard us admonishing him and I said to her, “Mi dispiace!” which made her laugh.

Our meal was fantastico. The bread was delicious, as was my insalata mista (mixed salad). The salads here come undressed and the only choice for dressing is the olive oil and balsamic vinegar they bring to the table. I kind of love not having to ask for dressing on the side because I think most American restaurants overdress their salads. Mary and I shared minestrone soup and trofie pesto. Trofie pesto is one of the specialties of this region and it is a spirally shaped pasta with pesto sauce. I have had it at least four times since we’ve been here and it is very good, but this was my favorite of all of them as the pasta was a little more al dente. The minestrone soup was very different. It was a pesto base with potatoes, green beans, celery, zucchini, mushrooms and carrots.  It was very delicious. We decided against dessert in favor of gelato at one of the many gelaterias. There is a gelato store approximately every 2 blocks in this town and we have visited many of them. It was hard to believe it was 6 pm and we hadn’t yet had any gelato!! Sadly, though probably my stomach would not agree, all but one of the gelato stores were closed and the one that was open didn’t look all that great so we came back to the hotel sans dessert!

Spoiler alert: Something bad happened on Grey’s Anatomy last Thursday.  Mary and I wanted to watch it but our Watch ABC app wouldn’t work in Italy and neither would our Xfinity TV app. So Mary got the brilliant idea to remote in to her desktop computer at home and watch Grey’s Anatomy from there. Back at the hotel after dinner, I sent our housesitter a text to let her know what we were doing in case she started hearing Grey’s Anatomy from Mary’s office. That might be a little alarming. Mary’s brilliant idea worked and may I just ask, are we the only two people in the world who are glad to see the end of that character?

It is 10 pm now and we have to catch a train at 10:15 tomorrow to go to Cinque Terre.  I guess we’ll have to set an alarm since that is before our wake-up time! So I am going to read now and try to settle down listening to the wonderful sound of the surf outside our balcony.

Mass this morning was molto bene – it was really interesting attending a mass in a foreign language. The readings and homily were a bit hard, as I don’t know enough Italian to have any real idea of the substance of them. But Italian is a lovely language to listen to, and the priest had a mellifluous voice, so it was still very pleasant. And even though I couldn’t do my part of the call and response, I always knew where we were (profession of faith, Lord’s prayer, etc). A morning well spent, indeed 🙂

Here are some links. The first is to a wikipedia page about the church. The page is in Italian – I looked for but couldn’t find an English version. However, if you open it in Chrome, it will ask if you want to translate the page. And the next is to some pics of our day in Camogli, a small fishing village about a half hour bus ride from here.

My last post ended abruptly and that’s because there was more to it that mysteriously disappeared when I added a photo of Mary’s Virgin Atlantic dinner, so here is the second half, second draft:

We arrived at the Sofitel Gatwick Airport around 11:30 am.  I had reserved a package that included a three-course dinner and breakfast. For an additional £30 we got an early check-in so we were quickly in our room. Our room had a view of the countryside as well as some of the airport and planes to the right. I had requested two twin beds because I figured we might each want our own space after the long plane ride. This was a good call. The only thing Mary wanted to do once we got to the hotel was sleep and that she did, immediately. The only thing I wanted to do was shower and I had a lovely relaxing one. I planned to then get into bed and sleep but I realized I was starving so I wandered over to the airport terminal. The Sofitel is connected to the airport so it was only a 5 minute walk. The first place I saw to eat was a place called Jamie’s, which was a coffee shop branch of a Jamie Oliver restaurant. I bought a huge sausage roll, a Greek Yogurt Parfait and a Greek salad for around £14. It was a lot of food and I figured I would eat half and then Mary could have the rest when she woke up. I brought it back to the room and ate every last bit except for a few olives and tomatoes in the salad. I guess I was hungrier than I thought! Also, the sausage roll and yogurt parfait were SO delicious!  Eating completed, I crawled into bed and slept until 5 pm. I could have slept later but I still wanted to be able to sleep that evening.

Everything I have ever read about jet lag has said to not sleep until the evening when you first arrive wherever it is you are going. I’m glad I didn’t follow that advice because I slept fine that night and was STILL tired the next day!

Anyway, we had a dinner reservation for 6:30 pm, which was the earliest the restaurant opened. The menu was pre-set. The entree choices were Confit of Gressingham Duck Leg, Pan Roasted South Bay Fish with Baby Capers, or Broad Beans Risotto. I’m not a fan of duck and the risotto sounded too rich, so I chose the fish, which the waiter said was salmon. The service was VERY slow. We had our appetizers, soup for Mary and salad for me and the waiter also brought us each an amuse bouche of tomato-pepper soup.  Then, as we were waiting for our entrees, the waiter came and said to me, “I’m very sorry, Madam, but the salmon has changed into Octopus.” He didn’t actually say, Octopus, I can’t remember the actual name of the fish, but I was amused by his phrasing and I imagined the salmon suddenly transforming into some other kind of fish. The new fish was some sort of whitefish and I was concerned that they might have to use a lot of butter to give it some taste. The waiter said he would check and then he came back and said, “The chef assures me that you will not taste the butter or know it is there.”

“But there is butter?” I asked.

“Yes, but very little, ” he said.

We eventually got our entrees and my first taste of my fish was of butter as was the taste of the greens underneath the fish. I didn’t even try the “butter mash” that was the third part of the entree. The meal was so rich I could only eat a few bites. Mary’s risotto was also quite rich. By now we had been in the restaurant for almost two hours so we asked to bring dessert back to the room. We both chose Pot Au Chocolate, which was a huge amount of chocolate mousse and also incredibly rich. I have such a sweet tooth but I couldn’t even finish the dessert. We very much enjoyed the Sofitel but probably wouldn’t go for the dinner package in the future.

We were asleep by 9:30 and up at 5 am so we could get breakfast and get over to the terminal for our 7:50 am flight to Genoa. The breakfast buffet was lovely. My stomach was still recovering from the meal the night before so I only had some fabulous Greek yogurt and grapes and I purloined a mini baguette for later consumption on the plane.

I will end with something Mary said at dinner, which seemed very poetic to me so we have turned it into a poem:

Sofitel Restaurant on 3 Hours Sleep

the sun is in my eyes and I can’t see anything. It’s like I’m the only person who exists.