A Myriad of Magnificent Musings

The Why I have not been Writing Regularly Razzamataz

2009-11-22T08:10:00.005+01:00

In one of the oddest periods of my life I followed our school debating team in a support role. I sat in the mini bus earnestly on long trips and during the debates I had an official capacity. I was the bell ringer. Bell ringing is not for the faint hearted and through my time I learned this important fact.

The best debates are one sided.

So gather round and read why I have not been writing very much. What must happen before I can and the very little that has been.

There shall be no interjections, no points of order and no bell ringing other than my own.

Well as I forebode we did not start our trip to the Maldives on the 20th of November. This is disappointing but the scary thing is it is impossible to tell when we will be leaving.

We do have one line in the sand. The Dubai yacht show in March.

Add hotel fatigue to my list of fatigues. We are not living on board at the moment. Hotels are nice for a change but living in the same one for a month wears thin.

Given the situation of the still being built Yacht we are not really allowed to do much on board at the moment. Thankfully our inventive superiors find us tasks to do which stave off suicide.

In the last weeks I have engaged in.

Carpet cutting
3m hook hanging
Bicycle seat clamp installation
Roster board painting
Plan measuring
Ikea table building
Box transporting
Towel counting
A lot of sitting looking attentive and keen

Suicide is probably a bit harsh. We are making the best of a bad situation. Things will get a lot better when we move on board.

Until then I have the guilt of not updating my blog as frequently as I would like to. Have you written humorously about counting towels?

Travelling is a great way to find things to write about. Witness Rome. Unfortunately trips to Rome eat up a lot of money. Money that I should be saving for my retirement.

Drinking heavily is a time honoured creative kick start. Unfortunately escalating feats of stupidity have led me onto my annual month long detox before Christmas sobriety scooter. Good to know things are the same in both hemispheres.

I know from the past when I get to this low point in the sine wave of creative endeavours things start to happen.

So things start happening!

Please.

Ding Ding.

Rome in a Day and When we was In Rome

2009-11-15T09:02:00.003+01:00

You do not know how ecstatically happy it makes me to mash those two very popular sayings together and commence with this commentary from the depths of the eternal city.

Our journey to Rome was not without scandal. Our usual touring party had two extra members selected on merit. A Swedish national (Uncle Phil)who can do a semi convincing impression of a Roman Gladiator and a Croatian Princess whose pigeon Russian would prove useful.

While waiting at the Viareggio train station. We drank six coffees and assorted condiments at a café. We took it upon ourselves to plug my laptop in to watch movies. The café owner was mortally aggrieved at this remedial action and promptly told us off. Three members of our touring party proceeded to deface a sugar container and liberate a glass and spoon from the tyrannical café.

The train journey was thankfully smoother. Uncle Phil is a keen riddle player and stumped us for a good portion of a trip with a combination of mind bending puzzles.

First impressions of Rome is that it is a busy place. The locals are used to the swelling rise of tourists that swamp the place and they have developed a variety of natural defence mechanisms that I will share with you later.

Personally wanting to contrast Rome with Naples we soon made ourselves to a McDonald's. I can say with some authority that the McDonald's opposite the Roma termini station is the most corrupt, devious and down right dangerous place I have been in. There was a constant stream of dodgy looking characters who would enter, scan for targets and then stroll menacingly outside to confer with other unsavoury types. I took some solace in the solitary security guard until I spotted him greeting several of these gangsters in turn with welcoming arms. I was also impressed with the staff members who have seemed to twist and mangle the tried and trued formula of fast foot into something truly Italian. Well done.

Scurrying to our Hotel, we slept soundly with the promises of Rome bouncing in our heads. Our hotel room was quite nice. It was certainly better than our travelling partners who were happy to announce that their bidet came with an assortment of hair and they may have had a dead mouse decaying somewhere in their room.

Starting off early is a must in Rome. We were on the road by 8:00am and made our way to the Vatican city and St Peter's Cathedral. Our timing was impeccable having no queue to speak of we were soon marvelling at the largest church in the world.

Pausing beside this statue Uncle Phil took time out from his busy schedule to give a small Swedish lesson.

Leaving the square behind we headed off to engage in a lengthy queue amongst the other tourists and wait patiently to see the Vatican museum. One very large and possibly important lady pushed in front of all of the queue. I do believe my doppelganger may have yelled at her.

The Vatican museum was good. Although I must confess a little museum fatigue. I wonder how much of ancient Egypt is actually left for me to see when I get there. It seems a lot of it is in Italy, France and the UK.

There was an interesting room full of animal statues.

This sacrifice depiction had a scorpion attached to a very compromising part of the bull. Uncle Phil may have had a photo taken with it and could have been chastised by a very matronly Italian madam.

The long walk to the Sistine chapel was accentuated by various facades, mosaics and elaborate art works.

The Sistine chapel was very busy. We did get to share in some of the neck straining effort that Michelangelo must have laboured through. The chapel had an impressive array of ushers making what could have been a very enlightening Swedish lesson impossible.

From the Vatican Museum it was a quick jaunt across town to the Castle St Angelo.

By this time our intrepid and somewhat ill gang decided it would be best to eat and put our feet up for a while. We were all suffering the effects of the cold I wrote about here.

We found a magnificent Argentinean restaurant.

Ristorante Argentino can be found on Via Cavour 315.

Sated and less weary we made the pilgrimage to the Colosseum. A world heritage site, the Colosseum is well, colossal. For the thrifty people who intend to visit Rome on a budget we have a tip. The Colosseum is actually a lot more impressive from the outside.

If you do venture inside there are plenty of nice photo opportunities and this excellent quote to be found.

Outside there is an abundance of locals dressed as gladiators ready to pose for photographs with you and charge the earth for it.

There is also a lot of people who enjoy tooting car horns. I do not know if this is common place but it is inane.

`
With the loss of our solitary map we decided to circumnavigate the Roman forum looking for an entrance, this proved largely fruitless. Daylight was diminishing as was our vigour. After a session of information gathering we decided to take a walk to an interactive movie venue which amongst other things promised a seat inside a theatre.

There were some technical difficulties at the theatre and we were given a generous discount and offered to visit the souvenir shop first. Uncle Phil took it upon himself to fit himself in the garb of a gladiator and scare us with his Gladiator face.

An interesting event to record would be dressing a hero in gladiator gear and sending him to fight the Gladiators outside the Colosseum. I wager the fighting would be very amusing.

Naturally dressing up as Romans is not something you do every day. So we all got in the spirit of things.

I am naturally a Senator. Uncle Phil was not keen on carrying my fasces of office. I do not know why.

Special thanks to Maria who acted as an ad hoc Russian tour guide for some random Russians on our tour.

I am naturally a Senator because during the interactive movie which included a fight inside the Colosseum I fell asleep.

It was now dark. Retiring to our hotel was on the cards. But not before we discovered a very Roman behaviour in the subway. It seems nobody in Rome has grasped the core concept that people need to get off the subway carriages before you can enter one.

A bout of hotel card playing commenced and a very tired quartet slept soundly until Sunday morning.

Sunday was our last day in Rome. Our by now somewhat ragged and slightly haggard ensemble decided to visit the Spanish steps and the delightful fountain Trevi.

Yes that is water in the background. No that is not a tourist at the end spoiling my masterpiece.

After some mild shopping, people watching and sporadic fits of laughter it was decided we should eat again at the Argentinean restaurant.

Never mess with Success!.

The other diners meals were middling compared with the heights of the day previous. But I managed to order prime pork cutlets on a bed of mashed potatoes with prunes and and apple sauce. Divine.

What followed is the only disappointing part of our trip. Our group was split by gender. The girls went to organise an earlier train ride home as we were all feeling pretty rotten. The boys were to bus to the Colosseum and spend a couple of hours at the historic forum.

I am sad to say that Uncle Phil and I deviated wildly from the forum and were soon being ferried through previously unheard parts of Rome and there was not a tourist in sight. We were happy to burrow into a handy underground terminal and emerge at the train station albeit a bit sheepishly.

In closing, Rome is a fantastic destination. It deserves more than a weekend. Its charm is in its slightly chaotic exterior. It is both ancient and childlike at once. I would like to go back when I am feeling better. It is surely more beautiful at night.

Crew Bio #1 Uncle Phil

2009-11-13T07:27:00.001+01:00

With not much travelling on the horizon for the immediate future I thought I would write a series of illuminating and hopefully funny mini biographies on the crew on board our new Yacht.

Filip or Uncle Phil is the person I spend most of my time with. He is the other Deckhand so we naturally work together. He is our youngest crew member and without sounding like someone who reads a lot of football magazines he is a lot of fun to hang out with.

Some interesting facts about Uncle Phil.

He is a self professed Ski bum/ Yacht bum.

His eyes pop out of his head when talking about Swedish meat balls.

He likes to snus

We were both given lucky charm nuts by our local restaurant. We promptly ate Phil's one over some beers. We didn't know it was lucky at the time and it tasted like shit.

He would make an excellent bicycle mechanic or Ikea assembler.

He loves Europe but often prefaces other nationalities with expletives.

He likes to tout Sweden as the origin of all worthwhile inventions, pop culture and art of merit when he is bored.

He seems to be quite photogenic.

I don't think this will be the last you read about Uncle Phil.

The Season of Horror

2009-11-10T21:55:00.004+01:00

A growing sense of unease has been building over the last couple of weeks. It has been getting cold. Daylight hours have been shrinking. I have bought gloves unwittingly and confess to hiding behind placards to stave off devilish winds.

This morning I arose to an uncomfortable sensation in the back of my throat. I have gone two years without a Winter bug, I do believe Winter has caught up with me. This was not part of the plan.

My arch nemesis snow has draped the perfectly good looking Apuan Alps ruining my now familiar panorama.

I blame snow and the grey skies for making the water look murky as well.

I did not sign up for this. I do not know what I signed up for or if in fact I did sign anything but it surely is not this.

I blame the change of seasons for a gradual slow down in my blog production. I blame not being near my Scorpio kith in the season of Scorpio for feeling suitably restless. I am angry and to this end.

I am going to Rome.

For the propellor heads

2009-11-06T11:44:00.003+01:00

There is an article in the latest Yacht report about the ship yard and Yacht that we are working on.

I have hastily scanned them and you can view them here.

Roma Article

Please excuse page two. I think the office was rolling.

The extra observant amongst you might notice that Roma was in the very same dry dock my last Yacht spent a couple of weeks in.

My first crew bio will be up this weekend. Ciao.

The Italian Hair Job

2009-10-31T18:01:00.006+01:00

It has long been a belief of mine that the greatest differences noticed travelling are observed during the most mundane of tasks. With this in mind I ventured off in search of an Italian hair cut. For over a year I have proudly cut my own hair in the fashion that suits a warmer clime. Unfortunately all of the blue sky and olive oil in the world can not hide that it is getting colder in this part of the galaxy.

I had vaguest of directions to find a hairdresser. This suited me just fine and I meandered towards my goal through the streets of Viareggio until I saw a ladies hairdresser and then a more manly coiffure. Once again I was struck by my less than rudimentary grasp of Italiano but luckily the scissors finger sign is universal. The hair dresser also knew one universal word. Ok. He motioned me to sit down and I sat down on a wide bench to soak in the male bastion of resistance that is a barbers shop.

The hair dresser was busy. He was an accomplished shaver and was also running a betting league or other testosterone induced syndicate. Routinely men would come with envelopes of cash and he would provide them with tickets or letters which I could only guess at the function of.

At one end of the bench was a small shrine to the football team Juventus. Various team photographs, autographs and mementoes were arranged above a large stack of football magazines. I have made a habit of reading Italian news papers in the faint hope my subconscious will learn Italian. After reading a couple of football magazines and looking at the pictures I fear prolonged reading would render me homosexual.

Feeling odd it was with a jump that I was ushered into a seat for my hair cut. The hair dresser took the very clever initiative of unzipping my jacket and folding it down upon on itself and fitting me with a large cuff before placing on a sheeny robe.

Again we used sign language to describe my hair style and it agreed upon with two thumbs up. The hair dresser was an artisan. He quickly shaved the sides of my head with two different electric razors. He then prepared a razor and set about tidying up the edges.

The only scary part was my face. Throwing caution to the wind he shaved across my eyebrows and set about going inside my nostrils. I did not have time to even make a British cough of disapproval it was was over so quickly.

Soon after the hairdresser snipped the top of my head. He was a very energetic snipper. After agreeing my haircut was good, he took the time to style my hair and spray my entire head with some perfumed water concoction which I have never smelt or seen the like of.

The price was right. The hair cut was good and I had something to write about.

It is not every day you get your eyebrows shaved and you are awake to see it.

My nostrils do feel a bit violated.

Busy Busy Busy Busy

2009-10-28T18:44:00.004+01:00

There was an internet story of sorts written by myself that may have lead to rumours spreading I had set sail for the Maldives and was therefore out of internet coverage and I was never to be heard from again for at least twenty days.

Let the records read the following.

I have a new Wife. Well I don't actually have a new Wife but when you spend three months away from your spouse and then start living in a hotel and working together its as good as having a new Wife. I am sure Anna would agree with my sentiments. In fact I would go as far to say if you fancy having a new marriage for at least a week try doing what we did.

Mileage may vary between marriages. Please wear a seat belt.

Our new Yacht is far from finished. Remember my bold map and plan? Well this was before I had actually talked to the crew for any length of time or looked at her seriously. The Yacht is very solidly built and sea worthy but the Devil is truly in the details. Her sister ship is almost ready to sail and started being built six months before Roma therefore...... we might not be going anywhere in a hurry.

This is ok. I have new crew to learn about and more importantly write about....because we have a large crew and our Captain is all for socialising I am learning a great many things. If you want to get inside someone's head go ten pin bowling!

On Monday night we made the somewhat enthusiastic and tragic mistake of going ten pin bowling after drinking quite heavily. We descended upon the Viareggio bowling alley like a pack of half drunken alcoholic wolves. Bowls were hurled and a curious cacophony of German, Swedish, Croatian and Nouveau Zealandish swear words and bravado was heard ringing amongst the white pins falling. I look forward to sharing mini biographies of our crew. I just need to take some clandestine photos with consent of course.

There is also the rigours of learning to look busy again with new people. Because our Yacht has not been signed over to its new owner and we are not living on board we are not particularly welcome on the Yacht as it is swarming with work people. In fact on my very first day we had a breakfast meeting where we were told that we would not be going on board for the first couple of days. We were on strike.

There is something scrumptiously satisfying about starting your best paying job ever with a first day of hard striking. It tickles my corpuscles. I am sure immediate and not so immediate members of my family will also enjoy this irony.

Back to the boat, well it is big. I am all for perspectives for example on my last Yacht I could clean the whole thing by myself in two days and spend a third day doing detailed polishing and window cleaning. What did I do for the rest of the week? Good question.

On this new beast, estimates range from 5-7 days of cleaning a week with five deck crew.

Jeebus.

On the plus side today we spent a good couple of hours testing the tender and jet ski. Or Yetski if you are from the northern hemisphere. I am reliably informed our Jet Ski can do 70 knots. That is really fast. Like really really fast.

I have been leaving my camera out of my bag a lot recently which has been very annoying given all of the new things I can take photos of. I am going to make a new months resolution of taking my camera everywhere. Which reminds me.....

The new month coincides with Halloween. I have a carefully crafted and transported AWESOME costume that I will be unveiling this Saturday in Italy.

Back to corpuscles. Anna and I have joined the local gym. It seems well run apart from its insane opening hours. Fancy a Latin American dance class at 9:45 pm? This gym can help you out. Want to work out before 9:00 am ? No can do.

Si Si Si.
I have been very busy.
Don't you see?

Deckhands Log #8 Just Desserts

2009-10-25T13:30:00.004+01:00

So Friday was my last day on my first Yacht. It was not without excitement, drama and the stuff of which Deckhands logs are written from.

Our mission for the day was heading out to sea 13 miles so important paperwork could be signed changing the ownership and name of Allegro. 13 miles is well into international waters and the transaction would be safely out of the grasp of Mr Tax Man.

I started my day as I often do with a stiff coffee, banana and some muesli. I watched the CNN weather report and felt my eyebrows lift at the promise of isolated tornadoes for Italy. Today would be like no other.

With a kick off of 11am I busied myself tying down outside furniture and tidying up after Italian contractors. By 11am our boat had two temporary crew members and two temporary deal makers on board and we were on our way out to sea.

As is often the case when Allegro moves anywhere she decided to be stubborn just outside the port entrance. Sauron was called to the bridge and lost the plot at the Captain in what would be a final verse in his swan song.

I have devoted a few words to Sauron the mental engineer. I did think that this would finish with me moving on but Sauron commanded another story. The rest of the voyage went to plan. We got home safely, tied up and the deal makers set about firing Sauron.

I do not think I could have engineered a dish of karma so sweet if I sat on top of a mountain of nirvana rubbing a huge Buddha sized tummy. Sauron was woefully upset. He did tell me he had been fired.

"Dan I am leaving tomorrow"

"Cool"

So with my conscience doing gleeful little cartwheels I got to listen to Sauron furiously back-pedalling explaining his behaviour. It was actually quite pathetic. Not much else to say about that.

It is the second job he has been fired from this year and he will have a hard time securing another job in a hurry.

Which brings me to the moral of this saga.

It doesn't matter what you know, or what you think you know. If you are a fuck wit the universe will catch up with your sorry ass.

In closing, before that glorious time, If I cross your path. I will blog about you.

20 Days at Sea

2009-10-21T15:07:00.007+02:00

It is with mixed emotions as I sit astride the last week of my time aboard Allegro. It has been fun here. I have met some neat people and some not so neat people. I have immersed myself in Italy and have learned a bit more about the world.

Some would say I still do not know much about Yachting I have actually learned quite a lot. I am Knots McConnell arrrrhhh. It is said your first job on Yachts is your worst. I think I got a pretty sweet deal.

Looking ahead is exciting. I know my last attempt at a map came to nothing, but let me mangle another one.

That thin black line is where our new boat will be going before the end of the year. It is a twenty day trip which will take us past Egypt, real live pirates in Somalia and then to some of the best diving in the world in the Maldives. Did I mention we have a dive compressor on board?

It is a huge distance. It is almost half of the way home. Imagine that. I am going to take 20 days sea sickness pills along just in case.

Anyway this weekend we are going to hire a car and play tour guides for a day and maybe head back to Florence.

Sweet.

London Revisited

2009-10-16T21:00:00.012+02:00

Five years ago Anna and I made the long journey to the UK for a three week holiday. 1.5 weeks were spent in London. I liked and still like London. Five years on many things remain the same however living in a non English speaking country for the last six months has allowed me to look upon London with a fresh pair of eyes.

We caught the Euro-Star from Paris to London. Before we left the Mediterranean we were able to enjoy two of the finest products Italy and France have to offer.

Italian Acqua Frizzante and French baby baguettes.

English passport control was as frightening as last time. Thankfully within 10 minutes of being on the train we were able to sample good produce from the motherland.

On to London.

Do you know how odd it is to have to start thinking in English again?

To be able to eavesdrop on other peoples conversations again?

Which reminds me.

One of Prince Malcolm's funnier jokes when he was not going on about Sailing Yachts.

Q:How do you stop an Italian from talking?

A:You chop his arms off

This is probably why I have managed living in Italy when I don't really know what people are saying a lot of the time.

After such an exile I was struck by advertising of all things. Advertising loses a lot of its impact when you can't read it so I gladly gazed at news paper bill boards, taxi banners and read the contents on the back of chip packets for at least five minutes.

After such a homecoming for someone who is quite fond of the English language it was great to get in Jacqui and Nicks VW and head to Putney!

Putney is a locally described haven for antipodeans. Like most places in London it seemed positively dreary when it was raining but had a bit of charm when the sun was out.

One of things I enjoy about Britain is that the English know they are shit at making good food. Hence there is a excellent array of international restaurants catering to every whim and fancy. Its positively international and makes you really feel part of a rock orbiting a fiery mass inside a galaxy. I even spotted a Swedish fast foot restaurant. What do Swedes eat? and what do they eat when they are in a hurry?

Borrowing previous big city writing I will now drape some photos across the page and write some suitable comments.

The very English/ Lord Nelson square. Actual well dressed wombles/moles out enjoying the sun shine.

Interesting performance art space that you could perform in. Unfortunately this person was not much of a performer. She could have been writing a book!

Some clock. It was out an hour. In Italy anyway.

One of the more affordable streets in London. It was quiet in the cheap streets.

Winter Pims. Great invention.

Interesting juxtaposition of things.

That is a wrap. I do have other things to write but they can wait for that elusive book I am writing or for the next time I go to London. Sometimes things are best left unread.

Emmas

2009-10-16T20:29:00.002+02:00

Some of you may have read me writing superlative after energetic adjective describing the wonderment that is Gelato. Emmas in particular makes fantastic Gelato.

Now with glorious technology I can bring you what greets me every time I walk in.

YAY

2009-10-16T16:35:00.009+02:00

Well it took us six months but we finally have a job together on a Super Yacht. To give you all an idea of how zany Yachting can be please enjoy the following timeline.

Sunday: Anna is homeless and jobless. Karina and Darren take pity on us and put us up for a few nights.

Tuesday Karina tells Anna of a new boat that needs crew and advises Anna to call on Wednesday.

Wednesday: Anna calls and is told to come in for lunch with the crew.

Mad rush to print off Anna's CV. I take a chance and print off a copy of mine.

I do an expert iron of Anna's polo shirt.

I am two glasses down an excellent red and I get a phone call to also come and have lunch with crew.

Meet Captain and his Wife. We are told they do not like to employ couples but......

Captain begrudgingly tells me the boat is a computer with two rudders and two engines.

I rub my hands together.

We get a tour of Yacht on Wednesday night. More about that later.

Thursday: We have new jobs. Anna starts today. I start as soon as I can get out of my contract.

So what about the boat? Well it is brand new. 62 metres in length. It has an on board gym and lap pool. It has really good crew areas which is good as the Captain likes to cruise and not sit about in port. It is full of technology and I can stand up in the engine room which is a novelty.

We will be leaving Viareggio on the 20th of November for the Maldives and Egypt. We will then go to the Dubai yacht show.

Life is good.

PS Interested devils can enquire here for chartering our work place. No pirates allowed.

My Chronicles of Paris #2

2009-10-11T21:32:00.003+02:00

Continuing where we left off.

Having slummed in the Riviera for two months, yachtied in Italy for four months I am well accustomed with watching people watchers and in particular tourists. Paris really refined some of my personal theories on how to get more out of your time and lower your idiot footprint TM

Let me quickly explain the idiot footprint theory.

Think of carbon footprint. Then think of all the stupid noise, pollution, mess and down right crazy things Tourists do to ruin a place.

Parisians have a reputation for being rude. We found them them lovely, why? because we did not look like tourists.

Here is my idiot proof lower your idiot footprint guide to Paris.

-Do not carry a camera around your neck.

-Do not say wow, ever.

-Carry a copy of Le monde or a local news paper. Do not worry if it is not in your language.

-Do not wear a bum bag. Do not wear a day pack. Sure you might have to carry your valuables in normal bag but guess what? you will not look like a tourist and an easy target.

-If you have to carry a map, smuggle it inside that news paper you picked up before.

Now for some quite specific rules.

-Don't fall on your face outside a restaurant into your Chinese lunch and then loudly blame the sloping floor outside the door which don't exist in America, apparently.

-Don't compare public transport systems with the rail system in Pennsylvania.

-If you have to talk really loudly, actually just don't.

See how easy it is!

Anyway, back to Paris. On Tuesday we took the liberating trip outside of Paris to visit the Palace of Versailles.

Versailles was the French royal palace for about 100 years from 1682.

It is an incredibly large monument to royal excess, grandeur and I do believe I said wow a few times.

The weather was a bit iffy which was a bit disappointing but it put us in good stead for London. More on that at a later date.

Please enjoy my photos and comments.

Section of Garden.

Section of Garden with handsome sense of scale device in foreground.

Section of Palace from outside. Camera could not fit it in.

Swarming revolutionary horde of Tourists. See how few have read my guide!

Excellent chandelier.

Quite a tasty alcove.

I rate Versailles.

The Big Issue Scam

2009-10-11T20:32:00.004+02:00

Having not been knowingly scammed in a while I was surprised and pleased to be hijacked outside a pub in London.

I was sitting peacefully minding my own iPhone. A man came along purporting to be selling the big issue. a magazine sold by homeless people in London) feeling charitable I gave him five pounds. The man assured me he was homeless and promptly walked off never to be seen again.

For the Australians in my readership he was supposed to give me a copy of the magazine that he was carrying. The big issue. Maybe he only had issues.

Let the reader beware, I was told to stay away from homeless Big issue salespeople by our gracious host Jacqui. A couple of glasses of merlot may have affected my judgement.

Back Home?

2009-10-11T20:06:00.007+02:00

After the crispness of Paris and the bi-polar blast which was London it is nice to be back in the still balmy Italy.

I have quite a few travel tales to tidy up over the next week. I also have to reapply for my job as we have a new settlement date for the boat.

The good news is we are now 200 metres from the best Gelato in Viareggio.

photo has nothing to do with Gelato but is awesome all the same.

My Chronicles of Paris #1

2009-10-06T18:47:00.009+02:00

Last weeks serious natural disasters did not leave me unscathed. Friday was a neat cataclysmic coupling with me losing the remnants of my thumbnail, squashing another finger and the death of my laptop.

Naturally I was quite chuffed at this and I have been skulking the streets of Paris, taking notes with my ruined hands and trying to carry off the unimpressed air of someone who now calls Tuscany home. Well on Facebook anyway.

Without further dilly dallying here are my thoughts on Paris.

I love Paris. I love it a lot. I could see myself living here with little coaxing. Its a beguiling place which seduces you quickly and leaves you sad to walk away. I am not going to pretend I have even nibbled the ear lobe of Paris. It is a vast place full of wonderful things to write about. Let me just write about what we did, what we enjoyed and what I would do to improve time spent here.

Statue Bro?

Not being much of an fine art aficionado I find the statue avalanche that confronts you at every turn in Paris absolutely awesome. Give me a statue or sculpture over a painting any day of the week.

My first Caesar. Does anyone else see the irony that I had to go to France to see my first Caesar and I saw my first Napolean in Italy?

Actually some paintings are pretty awesome

Now that ends my iPhone photos. We now own a HD camera/video camera combo unit. Expect more video and nicer photos. Thanks iPhone. I look forward to using you for more phonely pursuits haha, whatever.

Sitting down. Paris has been designed well for the pedestrian and for the most pedestrian of pedestrian. Forget the cafes. Walk anywhere and you will find chairs, benches and all manner of things to sit down and just enjoy time off your feet.

Cuisine. Paris has great food. The constant deluge of tourists mean there plenty of scope for the enterprising restaurateur. You can find every type of restaurant in good supply for every price range.

Pro tip. When you are feeling overwhelmed by the Frenchness of it all. Go to the Mexican themed Tex mex restaurants. The burittos are fabulous.

An interesting thing I noticed about Paris is that it was all strangely familiar just on a grander scale. Why is this? Because I visited three French colonies last year. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Want an example?

Contrast this

exhibit a Laos Vietenne

with this

exhibit b some famous thing in Paris that I dare not spell incorrectly and hide my embarrassment behind some words as is often the case.

More to come. In the next instalment we shall look at the finer art of palace running, Parisians, music and how not to appear American or English.

Footnote,

On the third day of my laptops death it rose again with a broken backspace key. I shall type very carefully from here on in.

Dargnabbit

2009-10-03T15:39:00.000+02:00

In what can only be best described as an unfortunate incident I have started by first serious travel writing holiday in a while with a broken laptop.

With by wifes laptop safely stowed in board Allegro I will not be even punctuating with a pink keyboard.

Creativity is ignited by such challenges and I shall do my best to drizzle a saucy sweet concoction on this page for the next week. All by using French keyboards, begging for internet access on the street and a healthy dose of Dragons luck.

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

2009-09-30T17:50:00.006+02:00

Sometimes the world moves in mysterious ways.

On Monday I was sunning myself on the Riviera living the life.

On Tuesday we made our way back to Italy. Our agent could not find us a berth in Imperia or Viareggio. We ended up in Livorno with no berth and we docked in the Commercial yard.

That is our boat sitting amongst piles of limestone and other useful metals.

I have had my second run in with our engineer. This time I was not as nice. I used a choice smattering of expletives and adjectives. I do believe I called question of his self esteem levels and impolitely told him to stay away from me and to limit further communication for my mental health.

Whether this will work remains to be seen. I will give our next heated interaction some thought.

I may make a show of head butting a stainless steel rail to signify the futility of our previous discussions.

Deckhands Log #7 Back to the France

2009-09-28T21:01:00.003+02:00

First off let me apologise for not having updated my blog in over a week.

I did take the precaution of loading up my internet key with 40 euros worth of internet time before we left Italy. Unfortunately the French resistance taxed my internet time so I ended up with following for my investment.

1 Email check
1 Small face book session
1 Internet banking session

International roaming charges are incurred at 2 euros a megabyte. That is quite steep.

Anyway....

For the last week we have been anchored about half an hour away from Monaco. The trip here was good in that I loaded up on sea sickness tablets and was not violently or even peacefully ill.

We have had two temporary crew members for two weeks. They are both from England and it has been nice to banter about in my mother tongue.

They are both characters and have earned a couple of nick names.

The first; Deckhand/Engineer has been named Prince Malcolm or the Deckhand formerly known as Prince.

He has an almost regal bearing. He went to school with the heir to the throne of Dubai and it is where Prince Charles was schooled.

Malcolm loves Sail Boats and loves talking about them. Almost all of his work place talk is peppered with the following conjunctions.

Sail boats are cool because.....

On Sail boats ......

We do this on Sail boats......

The second is our First Mate. We have named Hulk.

Hulk shares my cabin and has been a fount of knowledge. He has been very good at getting us organised and going to leave me a list of things to do when he laves. I think he suspects I am lonely here on account of all the talking I do.

The Hulk earned his nick name through a series of actions.

Firstly our stewardess noticed his pants are often almost falling down.

Secondly the Stewardess noticed he has been rupturing his trousers.

Thirdly he announced he had split his pants and he had no underwear on.

Quite the character is our Hulk.

Anyway our days have been spent getting the boat ready for potential buyers and ferrying people to the boat from ashore.

I have been taking a lot of photos whilst I have been working. Something the Hulk is secretly proud of.

Sunrise at Beaulieu

Children Sailing school

One of my cooler tasks this week was taking a swim in the pristine waters to scrap sea growth off our underwater lights and the swim platform.

I also had to swim to cut a line off a tenders propeller. I am getting paid to swim. I am a professional swimmer!

On Wednesday morning I went with our Captain to Monaco itself to get some mail and brochures.

The Monaco maritime museum

Shot of the Maltese Falcon. Check it out on Wikipedia. Quite a Yacht.

Leaving Monaco we followed a small Sub. All I could think was Nemo.......

Other highlights of the week at anchor were.

Spending half an hour coloring in a book with a little girl named Anastasia. She was quite the artist for an almost three year old. I am getting paid to play with kids. I am a professional nanny.

Being named Knots McConnell on my inability to perform knots in a timely fashion when my Captain is watching. That being said, I now know three more knots thanks to Prince and Hulk.

Going out for a couple of quiet Long Island iced teas. Returning back to the boat under the cover of darkness. Quietly drinking a couple of Gin and Juices and being called a herd of elephants in the morning by our illustrious Captain.

Learning a lot of new stuff including how to pay out an anchor using winches and a lot of useful deck tricks. Apparently working on a Super Yacht can make you OCD. Look out friends I am turning OCD!

Enjoying France not being unemployed, it is actually quite a beautiful place when you are not worrying about where you are going to sleep next week.

Currently we are in France. We are heading back to Viareggio tomorrow morning. Anna and I will be flying to Paris on Saturday. We are going to spend four nights there and three nights in London

Excellent.

vomitorious

2009-09-20T21:48:00.003+02:00

Vomitorious.

adj.

The elation felt when you have vomited every single thing from your stomach.

The tale that lead to the discovery of this new word is just as stupidpendous.

My Friday night was relatively tame. I had visited the Red Lion for a pre dinner drink. Red Lion patrons, Vanessa makes a semi drinkable blow your head off gin and tonic. Kevin makes a take no prisoners annihilate your liver gin and tonic.

I met my crew mates for dinner. Sans Engineer of course. Dinner was middling or muddling. I do not remember my pizza. The waitress cleverly did not give me a menu so I would not embarrass myself ordering. We walked home stopping at the Red Lion. I just ordered plain tonic this time.

I slept a little too soundly and arose surprisingly chirpy. Today we would go to Imperia! The first few hours went well. We bunkered (took on fuel) tied up our tender for towing and were on the open sea by 11am.

Unfortunately the antics of the previous night combined with a very greasy english breakfast and sizable swell. I started to feel pretty rotten. I would have probably managed ok if I had not been on the bridge trying to fix a navigation computer problem. I wisely decided to exit stage left and try to recuperate.

We do have sea sickness tablets on board. I did take some of these four hours later than they would have been effective. They were seen soon after as I slid into the trance like state that accompanies a prolonged bout of forced stomach contents expulsion.

Never again.
When will it end?
Why me why?
I think I might cry.

Sheepishly I did try to return to navigation duties but I soon returned to my bathroom to reacquaint myself with my English breakfast and the barrel load of water I had drank.

But then the feeling soon came. I was vomitorious! I had nothing left to give. I could sleep soundly.

Never to drink again. Till next week.

E GAD ZOOKS

2009-09-14T17:45:00.006+02:00

I woke up to an odd sensation this morning. It was dark, there was a strobe like pulse flickering in my port hole. I wrote it off as being an erratic hard drive or gadget that often nest in my habitats like birds in a tree.

I continued my morning routine and made a startling discovery as I went up the stairs into the crew galley. There was very little natural light. Upon opening the door outside I was greeted by the heavy falling of earth bound droplets of moisture (rain). The strobe like pulse had been lightning. There was also an awful lot of thunder.

I felt at home. It has not really rained here for 3 months. The last week though has been frequently cloudy and I must admit I have felt a little bit cold at some points. Having had four summers continuously over the last couple of years there was a rebellious part of me that wanted to pack my bags and head south. However it was soon curtailed by the prospect of wearing wet weather gear!

There is some deliciously satisfying about wearing a rain coat and gum boots and sloshing around. This has been my whole day, a smorgasbord of dampened delights. The weather has postponed our passage to Imperia so we will soak up a bit more of Viareggio before we get under way.

Choice.

A short incredibly lost cousin

2009-09-13T20:05:00.006+02:00

As opposed to a long lost cousin.

I have been away from New Zealand for quite a while. Interactions with genuine Kiwis in the flesh are intermittent. Australians wander the streets in packs, salivating and generally messing up the place.

Actual photo of Australians wandering the streets. Quite possibly salivating.

The solitary Kiwi walks a lonely path, sometimes blending in with the background noise, sometimes over powering it.

This is the story of the second type.

We had dropped our feet anchors at a beach club, paid for some delectable sun loungers by the pool and were waiting for the kitchen to open so we could feast on some fried seafood drizzled with lemon juice and pepper.

There was a shortish fiery chap of the red haired persuasion watching a rugby game on the TV at the bar. It did not take us long to hear him knowledgeably announcing that one of the teams was Bay of Plenty. Ahoy! we have ourselves a New Zealander.

We made ourselves known to him and what followed was an increasingly mad cap afternoon. Will as we affectionately came to yell at him was quite the character.

What we learned about Will,

He was a trained and certified helicopter pilot.
When drinking he had a five minute memory at best.
He did not drink and fly helicopters, obviously.
He loved to play fight.
His current Yacht was perfect for fighting.
On board they had a Captain nicknamed the Maltese Mongrel.
They also had a big Australian chef they called the silverback Gorilla who had a blow dart gun and was not afraid to use it.

Will spent the afternoon getting more and more drunk, forgetting more and more and gradually sliding into inebriation. At one point he made himself known to three really large Italian men. He tried to fire up a conversation and possibly a play fight. He got a bicep flex from one of them.

This was the first time I put my head in my hands.

Will was not a man of words. He was a man of hurts. He had many bruises and was quite keen to inflict some on anyone.

The crescendo of the afternoon was him leaping into the pool wearing my sun glasses and then trying to over turn me.

I had the pleasure of destroying his watch.

The watch was quite a tale in itself. It had been bought in Turkey, was a knock off of a 17,000 Euro watch named a U-Boat. U-Boat is another name for submarine. Wills watch was part submarine. It took on a lot of water once submerged and sat quite happily on the floor of the pool after I had wrenched the strap off it.

Will was a ladies man of some repute, apparently. After a poor attempt to encourage my wife to go topless he told us the sad story of a stewardess who really wanted to be with him but found his age a turn off. Not his voice, not his pelt of red hair but his age. Clever lady that one.

We almost lost Will at some point. He went to get 2 beers and a vodka orange, whilst he was away we turned our sun loungers to get some more sun. I did tell him we were under the first umbrellla. Half an hour had passed and Will was no where to be seen. Our second search party was sent. She found Will at a table with three rum and cokes. I am pretty sure he had forgotten who we were soon after he forgot what he was ordering.

All being said we did enjoy hanging out with Will. How good is it to say BRO and CHUR and be really understood? Also my Maori language campaign badly needed a captive audience. Will was certainly captive.

It was nice to wake up to a couple of bruises and the invitation to come over for a play fight when ever I want.

Good on you Will!

PS I did come across some great beer for Will to drink the next time I see him

Current Plans

2009-09-09T09:09:00.006+02:00

I have learned that making plans can be fraught with disappointment. However as of 09/09/09 our current plans are.

We are heading to Imperia on Tuesday. We will be there a few days before we go to the Monaco Yacht show.

The Monaco boat show is a big deal. A massive industry event and a lot of Yachts will be there. Only 2 percent of the Yachts there actually sell, a fact that is often glossed over. But it is a great junket: a lot of free booze, parties and a good opportunity to network.

Following the show we are coming back to Viareggio and our Captain wants to move the yacht closer to France for Winter. Something that we are not thrilled about, Viareggio is a good place for winter if you are a Yachty. It has a lot of ship yards and a lot of Yachts winter here so there are plenty of people about.

Anna and I are wanting to go away for a week at the start of October. We will take in a few days of Paris and return to London. Hard to believe it has been five years.

The future is a little bit murkier, we don't want to get cold. But I would rather be cold with a job than warm and unemployed. The Caribbean season gets started in December so we might leave Europe and head over there.

Compounding all of this is the mental engineer. I had blamed his lunacy on the full moon which happened last Friday. Nevertheless he started getting upset again yesterday. He goes off *shopping* for bits and pieces and we have caught him out sitting at the bar a few times.

I am sorry updates have been sparse and infrequent. Things are quite not cricket at the moment.

Deckhands Log #6 Fight Fight Fight Write

2009-09-07T12:06:00.011+02:00

Its not all roses and caviar on board. On Friday night I was privy to my very first fight at sea.

I use the term fight loosely because technically a fight should have two protagonists. A healthy diet of Kung Fu movies and Dalai Llama teachings meant that I adopted the WTF pose and did not participate.

Fights on boats are weird. If you have a fight at home you can go to work. If you have a fight at work you can go home. Kind of stuck here.

I think the fight went pretty well. I got a story out of it and it was character testing.

Here is the odd tale.

I had turned in early and locked our crew door. I did make a mistake by leaving the key in the door but this was an honest slip up.

Our new Hobbit engineer that I have nick named Sauron¹ returned to the boat and could not get in. Instead of doing the rational thing and calling me he proceeded to huff and puff his way through our emergency escape hatch. This is usually quite fun after a few drinks I might add, I should know.

He then rang me from the crew mess. I went up to let him in and proceeded to get verbally assaulted, psychoanalysed, career advised, sworn at, belittled and generally made feel very stupid. I am childish and need to grow up!

My core character flaw is that I smile too much, I look like I am having fun and am not serious enough. I am not going to apologise for smiling or for trying to enjoy my job. It has taken 32 years of painstaking research to be as I am. I am hardly going to change because someone is a bit loopy.

Luckily I had the presence of mind to just roll with it. I made him sit down to discuss his feelings and using some of my chair side skills listened intently and let him get it all out.

I am a laugher not a fighter and a writer not a worrier.

It is worth noting that in the space of a week he has also verbally assaulted the Chief Stewardess and lost the plot with our previous engineer. Sadly our Captain is not around to deal with this miscreant. Whilst he has not attacked the Captain to the best of my knowledge; he did have the absence of mind to say Romanians make cognac comparable with French.

I may be stupid( I am plainly not) but I know it is a very slippery slope when you start arguing cuisine with a French man.

Within 30 minutes of the tirade I received my first apology. I received my second, third and fourth apologies the next day. It appears our new engineer has the following character flaws.

-He drinks heavily and gets angry when he drinks
-I suspect he is an alcoholic. It is not normal to drink beer with breakfast.
-He is also is mainline passive aggressive.

The really funny thing was that our air conditioning broke down on Friday night and guess who had to help the poor sot the next day?

Chief Deckhand!

The next really funny thing was being invited for a beer as the final apology on Saturday night.

Sorry dork. I may have to work with you. I may have to live with you. But I am not going to spend my free time with you.

¹He has the physique of a malnourished hobbit
His name is close to Sauron
He has a fearsomely bad temper
He has a failed marriage and has probably lost his ring

Music from Viareggio

2009-09-04T14:14:00.004+02:00

A trio of local musos Andy Corford, Alessio pangallo & Claudio rosetti. Andy is one of the first people I met in Viareggio. He came to do some day work the very first day we arrived here.

Nice tune chaps.

The taxi drivers name is Luca and is a bit of a character, if you know what I mean.