The Black Lung is on a Boat! Part 2: The Italian Job

Previously, on The Black Lung: everything goes wrong.

At last 24.5 hours after we were supposed to arrive in Venice, we finally made it! And I must admit that I dig their airport. Mostly because it was a breeze to get through customs. Those Italians really know how to do it. Also nice, the bowl of not great but not bad candy by the baggage carousel. Plus the fact that you can get a taxi to take you directly to the port. Since we were super late, we had to go straight there for our boarding time, but since we took a taxi, it was insanely fast to get there.

To preface, when we were in New York, it somehow came up that I had never ridden in a taxi before. The whole idea of taxis is super creepy to me, probably because I have seen more than one TV show where the murderer turned out to be a cab driver who was choosing his victims based on who he drove around. So we joked a lot about murder cars, and then immediately had to ride in one. I have rarely if ever been more afraid than I was while taking that ride. This man was speeding, tailgating, swerving in and out of traffic, and generally driving in ways that would get you pulled over and arrested here in the states. I had to close my eyes for a good part of the drive so that I wouldn't see my imminent death coming. But amazingly enough, we did not die! We didn't even crash! So good job, crazy guy. Still never want to go anywhere with you again.

The ship we were on was the MSC Magnifica! I always feels like you have to say it with an exclamation point. I guess it was pretty nice. We all kind of laughed when we saw how tiny our room was. It worked out OK, and technically we could have had 1 more person in the cabin with us, but we were all really glad we didn't. It would have been crowded! The one thing we didn't like about the ship was that there were mirrors everywhere. Seriously everywhere. It all made you feel kind of narcissistic and/or gross, depending on how much you had done to look beautiful before you started looking at yourself.

Magnifica! Our cabin was on the other side of the ship (and inside so no portholes or balconies for us) on deck 8.

Our tiny home away from home. The bunk was mine! I think Bonnie only hit her head on the ladder that first night. And you can see that another bunk also could have been folded down on the other side if we had wanted to bring a friend.

There was some fun stuff to do on board, although a lot of it was really geared more toward the drinking/gambling types. The best thing was the theater, which put on really weird live shows every night. Since people spoke all sorts of different languages on board, the shows were always dance related. My favorite one/the one that made the least sense was Ike: Raised by Wolves! Seriously, it made no sense. There were people dressed like wolves and elk dancing around, and then there were some contortionists who did some stuff, and then some acrobats who were amazing but had nothing to do with wolves. Also, a lady came out and sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water." All of the shows were at least kind of like that, which was neat. The last one was Harry Potter themed, and it was adorable. The best part was when Voldemort really just wanted to dance. Reader, I LOLed.

One thing that everyone has asked me was how the food was. It was OK, I guess. We made a friend our last day who said that this cruise had the worst food of any she had ever been on, so there you go. It was really plentiful, so that was nice. I got a lot of fresh fruit, which I enjoyed. And I think if I had liked seafood, this would have been very exciting for me. We mostly ate in the buffet, because the restaurants were very seafood heavy and because our dinner time was at 9:45 at night. I did get cannoli one night at the buffet, which was very exciting. And one of our ship friends, who was from South Africa and had never heard of cannoli before, was convinced by my praise of them that she should give it a shot. Basically, I can't believe they don't have cannoli in South Africa.

Anywho, back to the good stuff! Our first full day on ship was rough, because we were super tired. And kind of bummed that the far off view of Venice is all we got to see. But Venice was super beautiful. I'm pretty sure it would have been awesome. I hope I get back to see it before it sinks into the sea. The other rough thing about it was that they took our pictures on the way onto the ship, so that every time you came or went and got your card scanned, your picture came up to identify you. Unfortunately, we had jsut been on an evil plane ride, so we all looked tired and gross. Every time my card was scanned, I wanted to yell, "Look, see how I'm normally much less gross than that???" But I didn't. I just hoped they would figure it out on their own.

 Why are you so picturesque, Venice? Why must you taunt me so?

I have heard that Venice has a bit of a smell (not surprising considering the location), but with views like that, who even cares? Also, I just watched The Italian Job, the one that came out when I was in college, and I'm pretty sure this building was in it. 

Whoops, I went right back to the bad stuff. Really the good stuff now. The next morning, we docked in Bari, Italy. It's down near the boot heel of the country. We didn't see too much of Bari itself, because the excursion that we signed up for was in Matera, a town about an hour's bus ride away. Truthfully, Bari looked pretty lame, but Matera was awesome. Only complaint-we didn't get to stay very long! I'm not sure why, because after we got back, we sat on the ship for more than an hour before we left, so they definitely could have let us stay longer and go shopping or something.

So yeah, Matera is the third oldest continuously inhabited city in the world according to our tour guide. I have no idea what the other two are, and the internet cannot seem to agree about it, so who knows? Basically, there's a new town, which is mostly where people live now, and then there's the ancient cave city, the Sassi, where mostly people don't live now. There are two parts of the caves, too. There's the cave caves, where people started living in prehistoric times, and then there are the cave houses where people lived for hundreds of years until the 1950s. These houses look like stone houses from the outside, but inside they are totally caves. The government forced everyone to move out of the Sassi in the 1950s, because they were basically living in caves, with all that entails. No plumbing, no electricity, 12 or more people living in just 2 or 3 rooms with cattle. Today, the government owns most of the Sassi, and residents of Matera can get long term leases on the houses if they want to live there. But since it's now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, apparently you have to do all sorts of crazy expensive but historically accurate renovations to live there. So I think it's mostly a tourist place now. We did see some people who seemed to live there though. Pretty cool. We did not find out if the insides had to be historically accurate. But probably not. I'm pretty sure they can put in plumbing. And they probably don't have to let cows stay with them.

 The Sassi in Matera. Isn't it amazing? The inside of those buildings are totally caves!

 Bonnie, Me, and Leanne with the Sassi in the background.

The ancient cave part of the Sassi, which is across the little valley from the cave house part. It was really pretty. A lot of people were exploring over there, which made me somewhat jealous.

The Sassi was basically breathtaking. It's almost unreal how amazing and beautiful it was. Apparently a lot of movies have been filmed there, like The Passion of the Christ and the remake of Ben-Hur (did we know about this, internet? Has this alleged remake been released into the wild?). And I'm not surprised at all. It's not only super historical looking, it's just amazingly beautiful. I would have loved to spend more time there and explore.

And that was it for Italy. Stay tuned for next time, when the Black Lung does some naked running and other very Greek things.