Once I finally arrived at the makeshift boat terminal and got the cardboard key for my cabin door (quite a feat as the port like everything else in Italy was chaotic, ramshackle and incomplete), I was extremely tired and just crashed out on the bed, watching as we pulled away for the dock toward Spain. Being on the boat for almost 24 hours gave me a chance to relax and take it easy. I wasn’t going to miss anything if I slept in or just lazed around in my room. As I was stuck for food options and hadn’t had anything decent apart from pizza in Rome, I decided to eat in the a la carte restaurant rather than the hamburger and chips buffet. The meal – seafood pasta and grilled fish (I was on the ocean) was delicious and washed down with a few glasses of a nice Pinot. The staff on the boat were helpful and asked where I was from when they realised I was neither Italian nor Spanish. As it turned out they were mostly Filipino and knew probably more about Australia than any of the Italians I had met. As I have been around Filipinos a lot throughout my lifetime I recognize the language quite well. The only other Filipinos I had come across so far were in the main train station in Berlin – a group of girls in their mid 20s (presumably students) with their mothers. I guessed the mothers were going home (perhaps to another part of Germany or the Philippines) – each was carrying about two or three boxes of Dunkin’ Donuts.
After dinner headed to the bar for a Margarita and to watch some BBC World news. Everywhere I had been since arriving in Italy did not have cable and all the programs were in Italian. The only Australian news I picked up was that yet more of Victoria was on fire – they seemed to suggest Melbourne was being threatened by the fires. I haven’t caught up with much local news – my quick hits of wireless have been used to download email and upload my blogs and photos. Hopefully I won’t return to find that the Public Service has been the target of a razor gang and I am unemployed. If this has occurred I may be offering tacky souvenirs for floorspace and offering to wash pets and cars(or even clean bathrooms – yick) to pay off the visa people. [‘One in a million’ – Bodyjar – this is one of my favourite Bodyjar tunes – I know it’s poppy but I love it].
I awoke as we passed one of the many Mediterranean Islands – unfortunately the windows on the boast were way too filthy to take snaps. I had my first call home and my first conversation longer than five minutes since leaving Sweden. Then they announced that we had to leave the cabin and wait in the bar (for more than two hours) until the boat arrived in Barcelona.
