Hasta la Vista Espana

Today I leave Spain for Italy. Not sure how much internet access I will have from here on out so this may be my last post for a while.

Last night Miro and I went out for tapas and wine. He tried to take me to this place where they offer wine tastings, but unfortunately, they are now closed until Oct 13! We wandered around and found a little place that offered what they called "pinchos" which are a type of tapa I guess. It's essentially a piece of bread topped with different things - meats, cheeses, fruits, etc. I had one with sausage and grilled green peppers, one with a dry salami, one with grilled chicken and peppers, one with some sort of fried cheese/potato/pepper deal and one with soft cheese, walnuts, raisins and a drizzle of some sauce (awesome). We also got a bottle of wine to share. They we walked to another little wine bar and had a glass of some really good red. As we were heading outside to a table, some of Miro's friends from another boat in port here walked up so we sat and chatted with them for a while.

When we returned to Shadow, I expected Neil to be back (since he was due in at 6:30) but he still hadn't arrived. Dan said that Will had been waiting for him at the airport since about 5 when we went to drop off the captain for his flight out. Neil finally showed up around 10 PM. We caught up about the tank briefly and then I went to bed.

I got to listen to most of the Giants game through my iPhone!! Unfortunately, I probably will be cut off from that until I get back - not sure if I will have internet access in Italy and I doubt there are many wi-fi cafes open at 4am when the game would be on here. Just one more win and we're in!!

I know I've said it before, but I'm glad this part of my trip is over. I did have some good times, made some new friends but the hassle of that tank just wasn't really worth it! I feel like I failed at what I was supposed to do, which was essentially prevent any major disasters but disasters kept happening. All in all, I didn't wreak havock on the livestock so I guess that was a small victory. And I got paid to be in Europe on a luxury yacht so I guess that's better than not getting paid to do nothing in California. I can't wait to get home and I hope that Giants baseball is still going strong by Oct 14th!!

Ciao for now!

Wine

On the recommendation of the captain of the Shadow, I watched a film tonight called Bottle Shock. It stars Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman (one of my favorite actors) and is about...wine! There was a very famous blind wine tasting "competition" in 1976 organized by a Brit, living in France. He pitted American wines from Napa against French wines. It was a great movie and I highly recommend it.

While watching, I decided to open the bottle I bought this morning and have some cheese, crackers and wine. Hell, I'm in France - that sounds like a very French thing to do. Anyway, just as I learned last time I was here, California wines are superior. Maybe I am biased, but this wine just doesn't have much going on. California reds and generally big and bold, the French wines I've tried are pretty weak. Sounds like the wines kind of reflect the cultures that produce them....

Saturday 4 Sept 2010

So today started out pretty well - considering the pub crawl last night. I did (maybe not so) regrettably bow out at 12:30 while the rest of the guys stayed out until about 4 AM. Here in Europe they do half pints of beer at the pubs so you can hang out for a bit, watch football (the REAL kind) and drink a "demi" as it called in France. It's cheaper (except at the bar that I picked up the round, about $5 per half pint of Stella, which I don't even like but, when in Rome - or Nice), you don't get so full so fast, nor do you get so drunk so fast allowing you to do a respectable pub crawl. Anyway, I bowed out early and headed back to the ship with the Captain. Heard this morning that one of the boys started doing Jager Bombs with a shot of vodka to spice things up a bit. Glad I missed that part!

So, back to this morning. Got up and went upstairs for breakfast and passed the chef in the stairwell. I asked him if he knew how to make pancakes and could he please make me some. He said, sure, no problem. They were delicious! I topped them with some fresh bananas and some berry jam. Yummy! After breakfast I did what I needed to do for the tank - feeding, cleaning the filter and dropping the shade on the back window - then headed out for a quick walk before we left port. I swung by a little market and picked up a bottle of Cotes du Rhone wine just to say I bought some French wine (though I much prefer California wines but I can't say that too loud around here). Besides, it was only about $5, so you can't really go wrong.

On my way back to the ship I passed another little market with a fruit stand outside. Lo and behold, I found some fresh nectarines and peaches! I could tell that they wouldn't be great, but they were nectarines! I bought one and devoured it when I got back to the boat. It was ok, not as sweet as I would have liked but it satisfied my craving.

Waved bon voyage to nice about 30 minutes ago and we're motoring toward Antibes. The Bobby Darin song, Beyond the Sea popped into my head as we left the port for the azure waters of the Mediterranean.