"Sea, Sick" OR... "When You Lean Sickly O'er The Side, The Sound You Make Is 'Porsche'."

I am sick.

You know that sick you get, the one your body stores up in reserve until it thinks you have "time" to be sick? That's the sick I have now.

Why is my body so misinformed? Because as offa few days ago, we began a roughly one-month-long charter for the Porsche company. They paid upward of $20 million altogether, half for the use of the ship and facilities half for their own equipment and festivities. They'll be taking five or six groups through in the next month, cruising each for two days in Palma de Mallorca and two in Ibiza. And so we don't get to go to Venice, Istanbul, or many other truly interesting places... but essentially to the Daytona Beach and Galveston Island of the Mediterranean. Harsh? Perhaps. But gimma a break, I'm sick.

They're unveiling two new vehicles to their worldwide affiliates and the media during this time. I've seen the cars, and they're, well, cars. Yay Porsche. If someone gave me one for free I wouldn't complain, and maybe I'll come out of this with some free swag. We're not performing as usual, in fact we're doing f#*$-all for this entire month... save for three numbers from our pop show once per five-day cruise.

You can't complain about that - not much work - but I miss home and the fact that our ORIGINAL return date creeps nearer and nearer makes me wish they'd just sent us home for the duration of this Porscheit. They sent 40% of the crew home.

They've also revoked everyone's above decks dining privileges for the duration, which means money must be spent on food unless you can stomach the swill they throw at you in the mess. Ugh. We'll all be investing in peanut butter. The biggest plus about this ship (other than the money) was the food.

So I'm under the influence of a massive dose of Spanish Psuedoephedrine and this candy-looking and -flavored block of Ibuprofen, plus some over-the-counter Finnish Zyrtec for good measure. I went into the Farmacia today and asked for Sudafed, por favor. The Farmaciaistador shook his head "Non. Decongestiencia..." and handed me a clinical looking package. I struggled to locate the active ingredient and dosage. I ... well, I'm not going to tell you by how many times these little red pellets beat sudafed in their medicinal content, but I assure you these should be a controlled substance. Five Euro and fifty, over the counter.

Counting down now... 58 days until I'm done.

Yay.

Myfrennmyfrennmyfrenn

"Listen,listen,listen,myfrennmyfrenn.This is good price. What is your last price? BEST price. You tell me BEST price."

"Well, I could really only pay... as I said... 40 US. At most."

"My friend. I pay 40 for materials. These are Nike Shox. You cannot...you are not tourist. You are crew. Tourist...Belgians, Americans... like you, but tourist... they come here pay one hundred euro. I give you special price, because you go back to ship, you tell friends, you let them know I give you deal."

"You paid 40 for the materials?"

"Yes, I pay 40."

"You made these Nike Shox?"

"I make... These not plastic shoes. These real shoes. Outside, in bazzar, you get plastic shoes. You want, you have, you pay 40. Maybe 20. These no fake."

"But you make them."

"My frennnnnnnn. [taking my hand to shake] Come on. What is best price?"

"40. Really. I was only going to pay $25."

"$25! These are Nike Shox!"

"I don't need Nike Shox. I'm buying them because I need good trainers and they're cheap."

"No cheap! Cheap price, $80. I give you better, I tell you $60. What is final price. BEST price."

"40."

There was a LOT of that during my day in Kusadasi. The amazing thing is, while you can buy a lot of cheap imitations, you can also buy a lot of cheap REAL stuff... the stuff cranked out by the same factories that make the real stuff that throw out a couple thousand extra for their friends in the bazaar. I got the shoes for $42, by the way. It was the worst bargaining I did all day... but I was just warming up. Many gifts were bought this day... so much amazing local stuff to see and so many amazing artists.

Then on to Rhodes, then Santorini, then at midnight last night into Piraeus, the port of Athens. We just left there, it's about 9:20 am. Mainly we were dropping all passengers and a ot of crew off to begin our one month Porsche charter. A month in Malljorca and Ibiza toting various groups of Porsche people around, with no regular duties and not a lot to do at all.

Yawn.

By the way, in case I didn't already mention this, Naples Italy should pretty much be off your list of "places to visit in the Med" or... really places to visit if you're near Naples.

Anyway, I've been up most of the night, so I'm going to go get ready for boat drill and an all day nap.

Good night.

Kusadasi

This is going to be the best travel entry yet.

Unfortunately I have 35 seconds of internet time left... more to come.

Mmm Turkey

Cote d'Azur, Amalfi, and whatnot.

Today I enjoyed another great lunch at Cafe Ciao in Sorrento. It didn't approach my earlier experience there, which is logged in my sense memory a the most amazing meal I've ever had.

Yesterday was perhaps the dullest, most pretentious port I've ever been bored by. Beautiful, yes, but no more so than many less "chi-chi" destinations we've sailed to. Poltu Quato, Sardegna. Don't bother.

Before that, it was a day in Pisa. You'd think the Pizza there would be better, but we were short on time and had to eat reheated kiosk pizzas from a cart in the shadow of the leaning tower... an experience, but not a culinary one. We were all making fun of the fact that absolutely every one of the hundreds upon hundreds of people around were taking some kind of picture from a distance that made it look like they were holding up the tower. We, of course, would never do such a preposterously cliche thing.

It wasn't five minutes before we all had several pictures of ourselves doing the preposterously cliche thing.

Went back to Marseilles before that, which... well, see earlier writings on how Northern Spain and Southern France are while Souuthern Spain and Northern France are .

Of course, Nothern France IS still France.

Has a two Starbucks in one day fix in Barcelona. When I first arrived in Europe, I would've naively said to my new self "You're in Europe and you're going to Starbucks? Gad, man! How pedestrian!"

And then the current me would punch the other me in the face and take his lunch money to buy another frappucino.

Italy, though. Italy will do just fine. The food alone will keep me happy. Did I mention I tried Andalusian coffee in ... um... Cadiz, I think? Wow.

I have local coffee everywhere I go. You're welcome, kidneys.

For those of you who read this and I have either not responded to an e-mail or just not written you... or worse, if I haven't heard from YOU in a bit... Again I put out the call to help me feel a little less disconnected from home. Walt, for example, I don't have your cell # or any IMs here, so e-mail me again!!!

Anyway, must dash. Working on video demos and teaching myself advanced d-video editing.

Send me stuff

Hey!

There are some changes in the wind I'll mention later... for now, here's the address to use to send me things before I leave the ship... At least, until mid-October...

Don Winsor, Entertainment Dept.
Radisson Seven Seas Voyager
Leisure SeaMaster / Aigue Marine
24 Avenue de Fontvielle
BP 639
98013 Monaco Cedex

Absinthe

I will just say for the record I am tired of foreign keyboards, no two seem the same.

Our internet and phone service on the ship are down. That is why I havent called.

Since Dover, I think. Maybe longer. Not much time to write now but a few things:

Last night I had real Abisnthe for the first time here in Bordeaux. More on that later.

Dusty: write me, damn it.

Eh... Better go.