Messing around in Messina

Sicily
8:30 AM

I think it is Tuesday but all days feel the same since everything is routinized. It is a sunny day outside our stateroom as I type this and we are in Messina until 1 PM. We have not seen Lyle and Marlene yet so we are waiting a while before we go ashore. There was not any excursion that we wanted to do there is Mt. Etna I think and a Greco Roman theater but we will just wander the village. Yesterday abroad the ship went quickly. I did rest in the morning after playing with this computer and finally got a photo to go.

For lunch I had a bratwurst from the grill in the pool area and then participated in the basketball shooting contest……If you participate in various contests you win “dam dollars” which are redeemable for logoed Holland America merchandise which says “dam ship”. I did not make a basket from the foul line in three chances but ended up with two dollars.

I played a little poker after that and my bad luck continued ran into a flush with same guy as usual when I paired both card of big slick (A, K,) At 4:30 Charlotte and I went to the movies and even got a complimentary bag of popcorn. The movie Nights of Rodanthe which some of you know was partially filmed in North Topsail Beach. In fact the last scene of the movie may show our house as it is taken from the end of Seaview pier near our house panning the shore line but they tried to wash out the background because the book was set on the Outer Banks much further north in an old Inn. The movie with Richard Gere and Diane Lane is good but since we both read Nicholas Sparks book, we agreed the book was better.

A quick change for the formal dinner after the movie. Before dinner the Noordam dancers and singers did a “Ballroom Blitz” show with lots of dancing and many costume changes and yes used the stage lifts again. The dinner was billed a Farewell Dinner and the first ten day cycle of the Mediterranean Adventure ends tomorrow. We all choose the same menu jumbo shrimp cocktail, five onion soup (creamy) and Surf and Turf (filet mignon and lobster tail) for dessert there was a parade where the culinary staff parade in after marching the baked Alaskas around. I think it was the best meal I have ever had from start to finish. I did spill a cherry from the cherry jubilee topping for the dessert on my dress shirt. ( I have another I rented two but they say it is good for only the first cycle…Marlene says they lodged a complaint that we booked one cruise for 20 days not two ten day cruises)

After dinner Charlotte and I went to see time filler called “The Marriage Game” held in the queen’s lounge. You may recall the old TV show; anyway they selected a honeymoon couple married two weeks, a couple married 28 years and were looking for people married over 50 years. One couple declined and we were chosen base on our nearly 42 years of bliss. So there we were couple number 3……..Guess what we did very well missing only 1 and ½ questions out of 8. Two hundred Holland America passengers now know the story our first date, my worst habit, and Charlotte’s bra size to name a few categories. The question we missed our “magic moment” I said was by the fireplace on Timber Lake Drive in Louisville and she said it was in Peru….but there have been a lot of them and this cruise certainly ranks among them. We won a bottle of champagne and we will let you know about more magic.

It is supposed to shower today but we hope it holds off. Still no Snow’s…..I will go make something happen and finish this post later. Avedeverci….

The noon whistle just blew in Messina and back at town center the clock tower should be moving a few animals around like a cuckoo clock. Well Lyle and Marlene had been going
To breakfast when we were coming and we must have passed in the elevators. We set out from the ship and walked down the pier to shore and into town which is of course along the shore line. Since we did not take a tour we just wandered around and took snapshots and some should be very nice. The town was damaged by an earthquake in 1908 I think so many of the building are from right after that period.

The last thing on our Messian agenda was to try some Italian pastries….so we pursued cannollies for a couple of blocks and finally found a small bar that had pastries. The proprietor finally understood what we wanted and went into the room behind and started filling pastry shells with a refrigerated filling out of a plastic tub. It took a while for him to make them, then we asked him to put them in bag (with sign language since he understood little English…..I think he wanted to go to New York City which he said was “Bella” which I think means grand or great. Anyway he placed them on a tray we bought six and placed parchment paper over them wrapped them with decorative paper, tied the package with a blue ribbon and then placed it in a bag. Lyle carried them for the 15 minute walk back to the ship.

Upon checking in we decide to go up to the Lido cafeteria where there is coffee all day. We opened the package and each had a cannolli….wow another best I ever had experience.

So now we wait for the 1 PM disembarkation. In a talk we listened to yesterday Captain Scott told us that it is a tight run back to Civitavecchia the port for Rome where we got abroad a short 9 days ago. Many passengers will be packing and getting ready to leave the ship at 7 AM when we dock many going directly to the airport………but we will have another 10 day adventure along the shores of the Western Mediterranean.