Day 18 - BA5 takes the lead
At the Tower of Pisa today…
We also saw the Piazza Della Signoria…
Our last show…The Choir of Man
7/9/22. Saturday Day 10 on cruise
This is it…our last day of the cruise and our last excursion. We leave tomorrow. Today’s excursion is entitled Lets take a Selfie - Florence & Pisa. I’ve been waiting for this tour because, hello!, Leaning Tower of Pisa?! I can’t wait. These excursions have become rote in that, “I’ve got this down” This is how it is with all cruises…just when you figure everything out, it’s over.
We’re meeting at the Escape Theater at 10:45 am, so plenty of time for me to stop off at the Garden Buffet for my standard bacon and eggs. Sidebar: If you think I’m eating responsibly, I’m not. I don’t carb-load in the mornings because I’m trying to conserve my energy, but the rest of the day…I eat with abandon. Although I haven’t weighed myself, I have definitely gained weight. I can feel it because the first place it hits is my stomach. Oh well. I’ll worry about it when I get home…if, in fact, I even give it a second thought (j/k). I’m on vacation and I’m going to enjoy myself.
By now, you know the drill. Same old, same old. We meet outside our state rooms around 10:30 and walk to the Escape Theater. Mom is…sick…and her cough is…bad. At this point on cruise, passengers are openly coughing throughout the ship…it’s especially prominent at the restaurants during dinner…and of course at the meeting places for our excursions. I’m a Covid scholar [er, I read a lot] so by my estimation, I would say that over this 10-day cruise, the BA5 variant has ripped through the entire passenger manifest, rendering people sick or unscathed (asymptomatic) in its wake.
Think about it…if passengers contracted Covid on Day 7 or 8 of the cruise, they will be asymptomatic (symptoms don’t typically appear until Days 3-5), but unique to Covid is the fact that you can still “shed virus” even when you have NO symptoms. Most viruses aren’t contagious until you have symptoms, but not with the “rona.” Which means, by my calculations, based on magical thinking and NO scientific deduction, whatsoever, the entire ship is infected. Except the Norwegian employees, of course…they’ve masked the entire time and are seemingly unscathed. The Captain has issued no advisories [shouldn’t the passengers be masking? Social distancing? - although social distancing has largely been debunked] or made no announcements regarding Covid infections on the ship. I’m sure sick bay is full.
Take a trip in the time machine with me… Mom’s symptoms appeared yesterday, on Day 9 of cruise. This means she probably contracted Covid on or about Day 4 on cruise. I should note that there is a family of four who has, coincidentally, been on most of the same excursions with us. They’re a husband and wife, with two tween/teen sons…very nice…their boys are polite, although sometimes they get bored.
The wife has been sick from the “get.” This family was on our Santorini excursion and she coughed the entire time. To be fair, she masked…but still…she was sick…on the tenders…in the busses…the day they boarded the cruise ship. I’m going to call her “Patient 0” even though I don’t know what I’m talking about. The reason I mention “the wife” at all is because Mom sat next to her on the bus, during one of our excursions, before Mom got sick. They had a conversation. Mom commented later on how nice she was.
“The wife” was a Covid carrier. Cue the ominous music representing foreshadowing.
On our last excursion, this family returns. “The wife” is still sick. Covid is a bitch. Even though Rochelle from the CDC has demanded that employees return to work within 3 days of contracting Covid (largely due to the sniveling Airline CEOs who asked Rochelle to shorten the self-quarantine time frame so the planes would be appropriately staffed), you’re not truly up to speed if you have Covid until Week #2, and even then, you still feel like shit.
What I haven’t discussed nearly enough is that M. is also sick. Her cough isn’t as bad as Mom’s, but it’s there, and M. says she isn’t feeling well. In fact, she almost missed the Volcano/Wine tasting tour, but at the last minute felt well enough to go. She mentions, today, that she’s been battling a UTI throughout the last half of the cruise…UTIs are so painful…I don’t know how M. is still standing…
10:45-5:00 - We’re docked at the port of Livorne and walk to our assigned busses once we’re told where to go at the Escape Theater. We drive to…somewhere???…and disembark. Our tour guide is carrying a big sign on a stick and we’re following her all over the place. As usual, I have no idea where we’re going as we walk down several alleys, packed with tons of people, until we arrive at the Piazza della Signoria, a large public square with beautiful statues, to include a replica of Michelangelo’s David.
The sculptures are incredible, but they’re in the public square and totally exposed to the elements…the local Florence government doesn’t seem to care about their preservation, which is why it’s surprising when a security guard tells Mom to move away from the sculptures because she’s holding a cup of gelato. He says, “No food!”, when all of the figurines are in an outdoor plaza and subjected to rain and trash. If you don’t want tourists, or anybody, for that matter, to eat and drink around the statues, why are you selling gelato (and other food items) right next to the statues?
Although the Piazza is breathtaking, it’s surrounded by tawdry tourist traps like a leather store and a purse store, displaying over-priced merchandise that L. meanders through. Also disturbing is the callousness with which the Rape of the Sabine Women is displayed. This is one of the more famous sculptures and depicts a rape, right there, in the town square! People casually walk past it without batting an eye. At the entrance of the square is the famous Fountain of Neptune, featuring a naked Neptune, pissing on the mermaids and sea horses clustered at his feet. L. and I got some great pictures of this sculpture.
Mom is still sick and seems to be getting worse…there is no shade, whatsoever, in the Piazza, and the sun is beating down on us. We spend about 30 minutes here and then follow the sign on the stick down more alleys until we reach a small restaurant where a wine tasting is supposed to be held. Unfortunately, a sign on the door says “Closed” and the restaurant is behind a padlocked metal gate…our tour guide doesn’t have a key. She makes a series of frantic calls to the owner while about 20 to 30 of us cluster around her, trying to find shade under the few existing awnings attached to the building.
Eventually, the owner arrives and unlocks the gate. Inside, the tables are set for wine tasting, but it’s a cheesy winetasting: just one “Red” and we each get our choice of one of three sandwiches that look suspiciously like they’re from “Subway” or the Italian version of the “Subway” chain. L. says this is the smallest public restroom she’s ever been in. We spend about 90 minutes here, then its back to following the sign on the stick, through more alleys and back to the busses, where we take an approximate 90-minute bus ride to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which is 51 miles west of Florence.
We arrive in Pisa, Italy, at a bus depot, located on the outskirts of a “neighborhood” [read: ghetto] and we follow the sign on the stick through the residential streets until we reach the Piazza del Duomo (now called the Campo dei Miracoli). It is absolutely packed with people.
The Tower of Pisa is phenomenal - I can’t believe I’m here! I also can’t believe it’s still standing. Building the Tower took over 200 years and was done in three stages. In 1173, a mere 9-foot-deep foundation was laid [9 feet…that’s it!] on unstable topsoil. The Tower started sinking 5 years later, after the second floor was finished, and nobody knew what to do about it, especially since the Republic of Pisa was busy waging war with other surrounding cities. There simply wasn’t time to work on the Tower AND wage war for the next…100 years (oh brother). Eventually, the soil settled, but unevenly, resulting in a 5 1/2-degree lean. In 1233, building resumed and kept going but nobody knew what to do about the slant. When they got to the upper floors, they decided to build one side taller than the other to adjust for the lean. Because one side is taller than the other, by 1272, the Tower is tilted AND curved…what a cluster f—k.
Cue another war and the country of Pisa goes back into battle again. As usual, Pisa is unable to do two things at once, so construction is stalled - big surprise. In 1319, the Tower is finally completed…but wait…there’s more. Don’t forget the “bell chamber”…that part isn’t done until 1655. Italians move slowly…
In 1964, the Italian government was afraid the Tower would topple; HOWEVER, due to good ‘ol capitalism, the Tower of Pisa had become a lucrative tourist attraction and the Italian government said it was paramount to maintain the tilt at all costs…but how to stabilize the Tower and still maintain the defect (for the tourists AND the tax base)? In 1989, a group of engineers dug out some dirt from the raised end of the Tower until the lean was reduced to 4 degrees. There! These same engineers certified that the Tower is now stable for the next 200 years. I’m not sure how they can make that pronouncement…can we say “Hurricane Katrina and the levees?”, but whatever.
The Cathedral is another building at the Piazza and it looks pretty cool. L. and I try to go inside, but the employee says we need tickets and points vaguely at another building that is all the way across the square…it’s a hike and we don’t have much time. We make the trek and see a sign that says “Tickets”, but we’re at the wrong door and we need to go somewhere else. We bumble around until we’re at another door, but it’s past the hours of operation…it looks like nobody is actually manning the ticket kiosk. I can’t figure this s—t out. We give up and head back to the bus.
En route to the bus, I stop at a gift-store kiosk and buy a miniature Tower of Pisa and a T-shirt depicting Audrey Hepburn and the Tower. Another tourist trap filled with cheap knock-offs - this is LA’s Olvera Street, all over again. These gift stores are not actual buildings…more like makeshift tents selling anything and everything. I see the sign on the stick near a public restroom, inside a mini-mart. The public isn’t allowed to use the bathroom unless they purchase gross snacks and there is no toilet paper. great. Back through the ghetto we go, until finally arriving at the bus depot. Another 1-hour ride back to the ship. This might have been our longest excursion.
5:00-9:00 - Back on the boat and we return to our cabins, freshen up, and walk to dinner as a family. Because S&M have saved their ONE free dinner credit for the end of the cruise, we finally get to eat at a different restaurant, an Italian place called La Cucina. The food is incredible! I think Mom must be really feeling under the weather, though, because she excuses herself, mid-dinner, and returns to her room. Because S&M are ‘comped’ for this meal, they order dish after dish from the menu, knowing they can’t possibly finish all of the food or take it with them, but still doing so because it’s free. When dinner is over, the table is piled high with plates of their uneaten food. It’s…a lot. L. and I return to our room.
9:00-10:00 - M. reserved tickets for the last show of the cruise - The Choir of Man - but when L. and I knock on Mom’s door she reports that M. is too sick to go to the show. Uh oh. My brother accompanies us, but once he’s seated in the theater, he decides to return to his cabin to keep M. company. L., Mom, and I stay for the “musical’, which is just…okay. The plot appears to involve 5 male friends who own a bar and sing Top 40 songs from 10 years ago. Some dancing is involved.
10:00-1:00 - L., Mom, and I return to our cabins and L. and I pack and put our suitcases outside the room since we disembark tomorrow. Most of the ship has shut down early for the night and there appears to be nothing for the passengers to do…and everyone has Covid anyway. On the last day of this cruise, even though L. has been with Collin every night for the past 5/6 nights, L. again takes off, leaving me to spend the last day of the cruise alone, in our cabin, watching shitty CNN. I sit on the balcony for awhile, staring at the ocean and reflecting on the cruise and how amazing it was to see Greece and Italy. By 1:00 a.m., L. has still not returned, nor has she texted because L. believes that she’s an adult and it’s none of my business where she is. Per usual, I can’t sleep until L. is back at the cabin, safe and sound. She finally rolls in around 1:30 am which means I can finally go to bed.