So I’m sitting here at a café in Naples sipping an espresso typing away on my laptop. Sounds romantic right? Have you ever been to Naples? I’m drinking the worlds strongest coffee hoping that it will overpower the smell of urine wafting towards me from the nearest planter. Naples is not the cleanest city to say the least. The coffee shop (the only coffee shop I’ve found so far with internet… sporadic at best) is situated under an overpass/bridge and everything is that same concrete/pollution grey except of course the urine soaked fake flowers in the planter to my right adding a little orange and green to the otherwise humid darkness. So I figured I’d suffer through and finally up date this blog, filling everyone in as to where I’ve been, what’s happening, etc. Its only been three or four months, so how much could have possibly happened right? Ha ha. I wont be filling you in on all the details but I’ll hit the big ones.
I’m wrapping up my six month stint on Solstice and am still enjoying myself although I think my body is starting to feel it. For the first time in my life I slept all day. I think I’m a bit tired.
I have two cruises left. The next is the Atlantis charter. This consists of 2450 gay men and a smattering of lesbians onboard for nine days. The ship in their own entertainment, cruise director, and DJs. Parties last all night and… here’s the kicker… We’re headed to Egypt. Dude, I get to see the pyramids… and no one is going to hit on me. It’s going to be awesome. We’re going to try our best to keep all the shows as family friendly as possible, maybe throwing in a rocket ship or light house in there every once and a while for fun. Hopefully, if I’m not too exhausted I’ll actually write something. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up because I live under the disco which apparently will be running around the clock.
The cruise after that is normal. I’ll be packing and getting everything ready for Eric to take over when he gets onboard and trying to see everything I haven’t seen at any of the ports. In theory I disembark the ship on the 18th and fly out of Rome back to Corning on the 19th where I will be greeted hopefully by someone picking me up (any volunteers) and a place to stay (anyone have a couch?) I’ll be in Corning for about 10 days… then off to Africa.
Yep, I’m going to Africa. Just bought the ticket yesterday and damn, Africa must be far away cause they done charged me a lot. It’s 27 hours of travel time, I lose a day there and a day on the way back. I’m headed to S. Africa to visit a friend I met onboard in Durban, then we (his dad, brother, and another friend) will be flying to Nairobi, Kenya, to then fly to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.
Dude… I’m gonna hike Kilimanjaro. In case you didn’t know, it’s the highest mountain in Africa.
Yeah.
… then at some point I head back to Johannesburg and bum around in my usual style for a few days. Corning, ship, repeat.
So, at the moment I’m exhausted, facing a week of gay men partying above me 24 hours a day and attempting (not to successfully) to train to climb a really tall mountain. Yeah. I’ll let you know how it goes. So far most of my training has been focused on buying miscellaneous gear for the hike. Not such an easy task when you factor in the $.08 per minute I pay for a not particularly reliable internet connection. Or I have the option to wander the streets of various ports carrying my open lap top and looking lost. Believe it or not this sometimes works… other times it results in muggings (not yet thankfully though… but Naples is a bit on the rough side) But this has been the perfect excuse to buy a new coat in bright green with more features than my car. I’ll never pass up the opportunity to discuss the pros and cons of pit zips, 800 fill, DWR and having things seam sealed.
So… I’ll keep walking up the stairs to work everyday (10 floors, not too bad) and walk around the pool (a whole 1/8 of a mile) Unfortunately, there isn’t much opportunity to train at altitude seeing as I live 10ft above sea level…
And for those of you in SD I’m planning on being home the last week or so of October so we’ll all have to get together then and I can share my wacky stories of my weird and wonderful life.
Hopefully more to come soon. And if anyone is interested in accompanying me on this hike, let me know. The more the merrier.
Oh yeah… and I’m not kidding if anyone in Corning wants to lend out their couch.
