World Italy Toscana Livorno

Barcelona 2009

Thursday, Livorno May 28, 2009

Thursday in Livorno. Livorno is a beautiful little city on the coast of Italy. From there you can take a train or bus to Florence but it Is over an hour train ride and longer by bus. Being somewhat tired from almost seeing the Pope and fighting those Gladiators the day before, Ellen and I decided to just hang in Livorno. It was a beautiful day with a high of about 75 degrees. The town was very pretty with a huge outdoor farmers market and a huge outdoor retail market. The retail market had all kinds of clothes, shoes, sunglasses etc and took up several city blocks. The farmers market may have been bigger. If you wanted some seafood you could buy it or if you wanted some veggies, there were many different kinds. We walked around awhile until I had to pee. I found a great little local place called Café Duomo. Not sure what to order so we just got a bottle of local white wine (12 Euro). After a glass the waiter convinced us to try their anti pasta dish. While waiting who comes up to our table but Geoff and John (they just wanted me to buy their lunch). They ordered some food and drink and we had a very nice 2 ½ hour lunch. John and Geoff left to explore and I took Ellen to the designer shops in Livorno. I told her she could buy anything she wanted. Unfortunately for Ellen the shops all close between 1:30 and 3 pm for siesta and it was 1:45 pm (the waiter told me the shops were all closed so that is why I was so generous with the offer for Ellen to buy what she wanted. Gees I’m smart). After awhile we ran into John and Geoff again looking to buy some Grappa. Apparently they found a place to buy it and I will be drinking it soon. We got back to the ship and relaxed awhile. We saw the boys and decided tonight’s theme would be “redneck night”. John showed up wearing a “wife beater” shirt, Jimmy brought a bucket of beer, Geoff had a white undershirt on with sunglasses and Jim had a Tshirt with cigarettes rolled up in his sleeve with a Rays hat turned backwards and sunglasses. But Ellen out did them all. She blacked out her front tooth and when she smiled our waiter fell over. Our waiter, Dragos, is from Romania and we had to explain the concept of redneck night to him. I told him you knew you were a redneck if your wifes father was your uncle. We talked about drinking Budweiser and puking. He slowly got it. Dragos said he used to work on a Carnival ship that sailed out of Galveston and it sounded like their clientele. After dinner we all went to the Vault. Again, Ellen and I did not last long. I will let the boys fill it in from here.

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