CIVITAVECCHIA, ITALY
after parent port we set out for chicevechia italy. the sail was so cozy and everyone seemed closer than ever. even though we missed our families a bit more than usually, we were all glad to be back and working together. for the first half of the sail the water were so calm we were barely rolling. near the end however we started to roll quite hard again. classes went as usual, day watch went as usual and galley was usual. around the 7th day or so we started to head towards a storm, in an attempt to avoid it we sped up but just ended up sailing (faster) right into it. everything was ok but it was a full day on insane rolling, down pouring rain and a whole lot of wet, grumpy, nauseous people all together.
Day one!
the first day we got to rome we had a full academic day but we were able to go out around 6 to get dinner. Rakel, Solveig, Marie and I went to a grocery store and bought groceries and on our way back we stopped at a little restaurant. this restaurant was in this man’s house. we walked into his living room where he had a few tables set out. he told us what he was serving for the night and asked what we wanted to drink. we asked for coke and he said he didn’t have any then left his house to go get some for us. when he returned he had also got fresh bread, cheese and meats. our first course was a meat and cheese platter with fresh bread and pepper marmalade. next he brought out beet pesto gnocchi followed by pasta carbonara. the next course was sea bass shaped into a rose with oil and vinegar. next was a vegetable dish with sauces and spices in it. after that we had one more cheese pasta and some cookies for dessert. it was one of the best meals i’ve ever had and the man was so friendly. it’s so cool he served us in his own house, it was definitely a great first experience to have.
day two!
today was a full day of shore leave but my watch had to stay on board for watch. during port each watch rotated between going out and staying on ship to maintain and do chores. karen and i started off the day organizing and cleaning the shelves in the laundry room. once we finished we headed to aft deck where we deep cleaned and spot cleaned the chart house, the monkey island, the railings and the things on deck like the boxes and podiums and compass and stuff. we used sponges to get the black scuff marks off and then acid to do something else. i don’t actually know what, but the acid we use is pretty dangerous so that’s kinda cool haha. i shines the ships bell, which is bad luck, so, now i’m cursed apparently.
we cleaned the heads, sewed some sails, stowed sails into the sail lockers, tidied the banjer, did ships laundry, organized the lost and found, made rags and used brass polish on lots of things. while on watch we have to rotate between each other to keep two people on gangway watch at all times. while karen and i were on gangway we had to take care of the food trash. i honestly can’t describe how disgusting this is. there is a garbage can full of bags (with holes in them) of 10 days of old food trash from the sails. the bags are thrown into the garbage can but they’re full on liquid that spills into the can so when you pick up the bags they’re dripping and disgusting. the smell alone made me throw up. karen, being an amazing person, told me she would throw it all away if i kept shining the bell. as she was finishing up i helped get the bags way down inside the can. she had the wet stuff from the garbages dripping all down her arms and as i bent down it got all in my hair. Ulf, the officer on watch, said we could take a shower once we finished- god bless Ulf. we both smelled bad enough that it made the banjer smell when we went down there.
after our shower we helped everyone clean the heads. when we clean the heads we get black buckets full of water with uniwash in them. we use one for the red rags we use to clean the toilets and one for the blue rags used for the other surfaces. i picked up a blue rag, wrung it out and it fell back into the bucket. i stuck both my hands into the bucket to grab it and wring it out. well, remember how i’m “cursed”? it turns out that bucket was full of the acid we used to clean the walls so i had to spend the next 15 minutes scrubbing my hands hoping my skin wouldn’t burn off. that sounds dramatic, but it’s true, the acid we use it very bad for skin....
after we finished our day at 6pm we got to chill in the banjer all together. for dinner martin made us pizza. after dinner everyone started coming back from shore leave and by bedtime we were all very excited to sleep.