Eataly

Now wonder why this country is called Eataly…the food never stops and the personal pizza is the larger than my head.  Please throw everything but the kitchen sink on mine.  August in Europe can be a little tough because the cities turn into ghost towns.  People leave on holiday, it’s incredibly hot out, they are on siesta or it might be a Sunday.  I tend to wander around quiet town centers wondering where all the people are.  And this store in particular just gave up all together.  They must be sold out of everything and their poor manikins are looking a bit embarrassed.  

And it’s not just in Italy Toulon, France is just as bad.  My friend and I took a ferry from the port to Toulon hoping to ride the cable cars up to the top of the mountain look out and were disappointed to find out that it was closed on Sundays.  So we drowned our sorrows in pastries and continued to meander the utterly closed down city.

BUT!  If you really want to visit somewhere that is vibrant and bustling go to Ibiza!  That place never sleeps and neither did I.  My teammate Tom and I shared fantastic tapas, listened to some fresh beats from a street vendor and prepared ourselves for a wild night ahead.  

Many of our crew was headed to the world’s largest night club called Privilege for their Wednesday night summer paint party.  I had no idea what to expect. I bought a cheap white dress wondering if it would look like tie-dye when I got home.  The club was packed with people, crazy fixtures hanging from the ceiling, nearly naked dancers, a main stage with DJ’s, and in insane amount of lights and effects.  And as for the paint staff were handing out bottles in groups of people following with video cameras.  But I was waiting for the big stuff.  The host on stage took out hoses of paint and hit the crowd.  The left side of the stage was covered in green and the right in pink.  The DJ’s would continue to play songs until the countdown on the screen said it was time for more paint.  And THEN just when you felt like you didn’t have a dry square inch on your body they let confetti drop from the ceiling.  Tom said that I looked like a pinanta that jumped into the pool.  I would concur with that spot on description.  It was a wild and amazing experience.

Back on board the ship other thing were growing wild like GI.  We have different levels of the health code on board and once there are so many cases of GI crew is not only restricted from guest areas if they are not working but we get to spend the day in these fantastic hazmat suits and disinfect the ship from top to bottom.  This was my very first experience doing so and after about 8 days of restrictions I was very happy to get back out of it.

My team changed immediately after my first 7-day cruise.  Here is Charlyn “Charky” Reynolds who I was reunited with for far too little time.  She is making a super cute murrine beehive covered with teeny tiny adorable sculpted honey bees.  Also included is a team shot with some of our auction pieces!  Getting right back into the swing of things.