My European Vacation

Day 1: Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy
We fly into Rome. My mom's friend got totally hammered on the plane and was thoroughly annoying, reminding me of going out with Ex-Roommate. We take a bus to the ship, and spend the day sitting around on the boat.

Day 2: Naples, Italy
I'm not sure what the plan was, but we got off in Naples and hired some taxi driver guy to drive us up the Amalfi coast. We stopped off in Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi, as well as at some shmancy hotels and overlooks. It was totally beautiful, but after a few hours of being surrounded by older women cooing over the pretty flowers and the water I was ready to jump ship.
After dinner, I get prettied up and go down to the onboard dance club. I sit around like a loser for a while, but then some lame guy bought be a drink. I promptly slam my mojito and leave the loser to go grind up on this super-sexy German guy. Unfortunately, my Mom et al decide to swing by to see what I'm up to...Oh, well. It didn't stop me from going down to dance every other night of the trip.

Day 3: Day At Sea
Sat around and tanned. Well, more like sat around and got spectacular sunburn on my boobs and the backs of my thighs. Nothing too exciting.
At dinner I start to make eyes at the tall hottie that was serving the table next to mine.

Day 4: Dubrovnik, Croatia
This is the first day that I realize that I'm on vacation with a bunch of lunatics, as we walk nearly 2 miles to get to the Old City of Dubrovnik, and then pay for the privilege of walking the city walls, which is an additional 2 miles. In the sun. With several staircases. Slippery rocks. Without stopping for lunch. After the walk back, I was not a very happy camper to say the least.

Day 5: Venice, Italy
I absolutely fell in love with Venice. I can't even explain it, but I want to go back there so badly. I only wish I was there with more fun people; I mean, while we did see some neat things on the walking tour my mom found in a library book that my cousin read haltingly outloud, we were still doing a lame walking tour. The olds redeemed themselves by picking a super-sexy gondola man to give us a tour of the canals. Not that it was hard to find a super-sexy Italian man; I was seriously falling in love every 5 minutes over there. This is my new favorite place on earth.
This night at the club, some sketch guy was creeping on me, telling me that I should be dancing [I was dancing, but not to the lame songs], that I was looking fine [uh, duh], and so on. I ended up going out on the deck with him since I wasn't having any fun in the club. After far too much awkward pawing at my head on his part, he kissed me. It was so awful.

Day 6: Venice, Italy
Despite being enamored with the city, I opted out of going ashore on the second day, since the olds wanted to spend the entire time shopping. If there's one thing I hate, it's shopping for touristy things. However, I did stake out a primo spot on the deck for tanning that turned out to be a primo spot for watching Venice as we pulled back out into the sea.
The creeper from the club came up to me as we were going back out to sea and tried to make small talk, but I was having none of it. It took him a few minutes before he made his parting comment, "You're friendlier when you're drunk," to which I could only reply, "I get that a lot."
That night at the club, I was dancing with the sexy German's be-mohawked brother when the DJ suddenly decided it was time for everyone to salsa. Out of nowhere this curly-haired, broad-shouldered Puerto Rican-via-Philly pops up and starts dancing with me. I was highly impressed.

Day 7: Day At Sea
Slept in, tanned, ate, schooled my cousin at both word searches and crossword puzzles.

Day 8: Messina, Sicily, Italy
Sicily was not my friend. My group walked from the port to the train station and I sat with this family from New Zealand that had an absolute DILF with them. After getting off the train, the olds and myself, bereft of any logic, follow a Midwestern Dad up the side of a mountain. We walked uphill in the sun for approximately 7 km. Once we reached the top, everyone who we walked up with thought it would be fun to sit down and get some authentic Sicilian pizza and beers. However, my group thought it would be fun to walk around some more.
I nearly passed out in a store selling giant ugly ceramic sun wall hangings before anyone else thought that taking a freaking break would be a good idea. But, since I was with a bunch of women who were watching their weight [and I guess forgot that we had just walked 7km uphill in the sun] we didn't get any authentic Sicilian pizza, nor did we get any food at all.
Thank god that they sold beers at the train station, or I'd have considered the day a total loss.

Day 9: Day At Sea
Tanning, hooray.

Day 10: Barcelona, Spain
I was disappointed by Barcelona. We walked up and down Las Ramblas, which is just a big street with stores. Other than not being able to go into the cathedral because I had on a tank dress, it was just like walking around in NYC, which I don't like. Since we struck out on our own, we missed out on seeing this [from what I heard from my friends and the people that sat with us at dinner] amazingly beautiful garden. Oh, well. We did find a store that was selling bottles of wine for less than 2 Euros each, which is almost the same.

Day 11: Cannes, France
I woke up on the wrong side of the bed when we got to France, so I didn't have the best time. It was another day of walking slowly through narrow streets lined with tourist-friendly stores selling either kitsch or clothing you could get for cheaper in any H&M stateside.
That night I ended up taking a nice walk on the deck after the club closed with this guy who teaches at a school near my hometown. We talked about all kinds of things as people who have had a few drinks are wont to do. As the sun started coming up behind us, he made some comment or other about how beautiful my eyes were, so we made out. Not great, but scads better than that first guy.

Day 12: Livorno, Italy
The last full day was the first day that my group did any of the ship's "Shore Excursions." We went to Tuscany, to this cute little family farm, and did a wine tasting. Now, wine tastings, I've been told, usually don't include piles of free Italian snacky foods [bruchetta, crusty bread, prosciutto, cheese] and usually do entail spitting out the wine as you taste it. I guess it was less of a wine tasting and more of a bunch of people sitting around swilling awesome wine. On the ride home I made friends with a pair of newlyweds, declaring that the Mr. was a HILF.
That night at dinner I got a little tangled up in my chair and the olds left me. I was suddenly surrounded by a large number of waiters. I was told that the tall hottie that had been eye-flirting with me since Day 3 thought I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. I didn't quite know what to say, partly [mostly] [all] because I had been drinking wine for about 6 hours. I'm kicking myself now for not at least dropping him my email address. He really was something else.
That night at the club I made up for the hot waiter by exchanging emails and so on with the other kids that I'd been drinking/dancing/carrying on with. I had taken my mom's card with me, so I was buying too many drinks for myself- and I was buying drinks with a capital D: Long Island iced teas, Adios Motherfuckers, and at least one shot of tequila. Not to say that I blacked out, but I totally blacked out.
I definitely made out with the mohawk German guy, and possibly with this adorable Britishy guy. The last thing I remember is asking someone if they had a condom, and then moaning that we couldn't do anything because he didn't, so I guess good on me, eh? Or at least, not entirely 100% bad on me.

Day 13: Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy
I honestly do not remember how I made it back to my room/off the boat/onto the bus/off the bus/into the Rome airport. Yikes.
The flight was delayed almost 3 hours, which meant I passed out on on uncomfortable metal bench, in the clothes that I wore out the night before, using my lumpy carry-on as a pillow, for almost 3 hours. I slept almost the whole flight home, and was decidedly grumpy when we landed.

I would go back again tomorrow if I could.