Fri Oct 18, 2024
Hi Folks! TGIF! Today we had a glorious sea day! We got lots of rest but also got educated, won some money and once again had great food and entertainment! Can’t beat all that!
We started off by attending a talk by our cruise director Ray of his life in both show business and cruise ships. He started at 4 years old singing for money in England. Soon after he started doing shows with his puppets and ventriloquism. That led him to working on cruise ships and he’s been doing that for 55 years!
He said thru all those years he’s gotten to meet many famous people who came on his cruise ships. One funny story he shared was he met the astronaut Buzz Aldrin who walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong. He said when they did their first walk on the moon and left the capsule they realized they put handles on the inside but not the outside! So when they went on the first moon walk they had to jam moon rocks into the door hinge so the capsule door wouldn’t close on them! Too funny!
We then went to listen to the speaker whose subject was “Mussolini – The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism”. He covered the period in Italy from 1932 to 1945. He said the term Fascists comes from a bundle of sticks attached to an ax. He covered so much history it’s too much to describe here but one gruesome thing he said was something I never heard.
At the end of World War II when they rounded up Mussolini and Hitler, the government of Italy had Mussolini executed for war crimes and hung his dead body upside down in the town square in Milan. Ouch!
We then had lunch and chilled for a bit. Then I went to listen to the second talk the speaker gave and Kathy went to do the Slot Machine Tournament. I should have went with her since she won!! I won’t say how much she won since all her friends and family may come asking for money. I wish it was that much! Lol
The talk I went to was called “Italian Cinema – Bombshells, Playboys and Neorealism” which covered Italian films from 1945-1960. Roberto Rossellini was one of the main Italian directors from that era. Again, way too much detail to share here but one interesting item I learned was where the term paparazzi came from.
It comes from the Italian film named “La Dolce Vita” (which means The Sweet Life) where there was a photographer character in the film who was very pushy and his name was Paparazzo! Never knew that!
We then did a “behind the scenes tour” of the theater on the ship. We talked to the sound and light engineer and saw the control room and how they coordinate all that. Saw behind the stage where they keep all their costumes for all the shows. And finally saw the dressing room where they do their “quick changes” between scenes.
One cool tip we learned from the costumes person was if you ever need to get smells out of clothes (I’m thinking of my daughter with three kids and their smelly clothes! Lol) use equal parts vodka (the cheapest will do!) and water and spray it on the clothes and let it dry. Voila! No smelly clothes!
After that we got ready for dinner and ate in Compass Rose again. I switched over to fowl tonight! Of course I had a little seafood with my escargot appetizer but then had a Chicken Spring Roll and the Duck a l’Orange. Quack quack!
After dinner we decided to give the comedian, Martin Beaumont, a second chance. We saw him the other night and just didn’t think he was funny. But he promised a new show tonight and… he was just as bad the second night! Poor guy. Oh well they all can’t be great.
After the show, we listened to our favorite piano player Mark who did a Billy Joel tribute. Such great music and everyone was singing along. So fun!
Tomorrow we’re in another country! We’re back in Italy in the town of Sorrento. Hope everyone had a great Friday!
The Wandering Italian 