Wait...

Hi.

I'm Katie. Remember me?

It is okay if you don't. To be honest, I don't remember me. This girl traipsing around the world on a cruise ship seems so far away.

Obviously I'm home now.
And I miss it.
I wanted to post this because, in my Chicago apartment with my cats and my clothes and my bed...I miss that life that you so very kindly read about.

My sister asked me if I had ended my blog yet. No. No, I haven't. I'm not ready to. I'm still processing some stuff.

So, thank you for you patience. We will all get there some day.

In My Country, Comedy Laughs at You!

Istanbul. Night. Taxim Square. Cool people everywhere. Oh, and Steve and I.

We didn't have a plan, and ambling around tends to lead to shopping with leads to overdraft notices from Chase Bank.

Steve and I are two of the most indecisive people in the world, only a scant more decisive than dead people. So, after a fun game of, "What do you Want to do? Well, Whatever you Want to do. I Don't Care, What do you Want to Do?" we ran into Cody.

Cody did not want to play "What do you Want to do? Well, Whatever you Want to do. I Don't Care, What do you Want to Do?" so we mentioned to him that we had seen a shady-looking neon sign during our ambling that said "Old City Comedy Club." Steve and I thought it would be awkward to go in there and watch a comedy show that was all in Turkish. Cody also thought it would be awkward to watch a comedy show all in Turkish, but in an awesome way.

So, we decided to go. The club itself was very ImprovOlympic-like, with cabaret-style seating and a full bar in the back of the house. ImprovOlympic (or i.O.) is the theater that both Steve and I perform at weekly in Chicago.

There was also a cat that roamed free in the theater, which is also very i.O.-like, as Charna, the owner, lets her dogs roam free during shows.

Five gentlemen performed for about 10 minutes each. I don't know what we thought was going to happen, but, surprise surprise, we didn't understand anything that was going on and tended to enjoy the folks that used a lot of gestures and moved around a lot.

The closing act was a dude who looked like a Turkish Andy Samburg and seemed to be a pretty popular guy. The crowd was very happy to welcome him to the stage.

And when I use the word, "welcome" I mean welcome. The main difference between the Old City Comedy Club and any comedy club in the States (besides the gratuitous use of the Turkish language, of course) is the fact that the audience is very attentive and warm and they...well...listen. No one heckled. In fact, the "jokes" were more like stories. The comic would take his time, often going two to three minutes before the joke even came. Either the audience was really happy with crappy comedy, or they were used to a style of comedy that was more anecdotal than bump-set-joke-repeat.

We ended up leaving during intermission as one can only take so much non-English stand-up.

But, kudos to those Turkish comics and their audiences for realizing that, as an art, comedy is often a dish best served slowly.

Oh, and for realizing that when someone else is on stage, that means shut-up.

June 20, 2007

Charles Bach had his birthday on the ship, so he is in good company, as Matt Craig and *ahem* I also had our birthdays at sea.

For Charles, we did the traditional Big-Ass-Group-of-Peeps-at-Cagney's routine, followed by cocktails. Charles' wisdom teeth are coming in, so Edge bought him a teething ring.

"It works surprisingly well," he said. "I see why 2 year olds get into this."


As we had cocktails afterwards in the swanky and traditionally uninfested with anyone but us Star Bar, Dave and Steve began singing piano melodies. The normal piano melody couple had been kicked off earlier that week for *enjoying each other* on deck 14.



Charles is now married. He married a very successful lawyer from Poland named Magdelena on 07/07/07.

The Light Melody Couple are presumably naked somewhere in public.

Visitor

The only person who came to visit us, besides Steve's family, was a gentleman who Steve has been friends with since they were, like, three. His name is Matt Flynn.
Most people working on cruise ships get visitors when the boat is in Puerto Rico or Italy or Spain. But Matt visited us when we were in the port town of Alexandria, Egypt.

This was because he, too, was in Alexandria as he has been traveling the world for quite some time now.

By traveling the world, I don't mean going to Europe and drinking in pubs with other Americans. I mean like sleeping in mosquito-infested tents in Kenya ("I usually spend the extra two dollars for the net. Otherwise, I'm guaranteed malaria," he told us) or hitching rides with sheep farmers in the Sudan. Like, the WORLD.

It was definitely bizarre for Matt to go from seeing the parts of the world that have literally nothing to then bunking one night on one of the biggest, most lavish cruise ships out there. He wasn't judgemental about it, but Steve and I still felt the need to apologize for everything we had. Like clean sheets. Changed daily. Not by us. You get the point.



Here is a picture of Matt post-sip of a delicious glass of orange juice that was delivered, free of charge, to our room that morning, along with cereal and an assortment of toast and muffins and other sundries. The steward who delivered our room service was Kenyan.

Parthe-none

We made it to the Acropolis. It was about 147 degrees out, but we made it.



Just to be clear, "Acropolis" refers to any high city, or the edge of a town (from the Greek "acron," which means edge, and "polis," which means city). The Acropolis in Athens is a complex that includes, among other things, the Parthenon, which is a temple devoted to Athena Parthos, or Athena the Virgin, the Temple of Athena Nike, or Athena of Victory, The Theater of Dionysus, and a lot of sand and rubble and fat tourists.


There is a very good possibility that I am suffering from Important Stuff Immunity. We have seen so much in so little time, that I could be done with freaking out over ancient runes. Perhaps nothing short of Athena herself welcoming me into her famous monument would have satisfied me as we walked up the slippery rocks of the Acropolis.

But I don’t think that is it. I think one of the reasons the Acropolis as a whole is so disappointing is that the site itself is more picked over than T.J. Maxx on a Friday.

A dude named Lord Elgin took pretty much all the beautiful sculptures form the Parthenon back to England with him. Back in the 1800s you didn’t bring back postcards and t-shirts of ancient treasures – you brought back the treasures themselves. It seemed like everywhere we looked, there is a picture of what was there and an explanation of where it is now.
This is the East pediment of the Parthenon.

I saw more of the East Pediment when I was at the British Museum.

I think what I will remember most from the Acropolis is this girl in the green and white striped shirt.

When we were making our way up the stairs to the Parthenon, this chunker climbed over some rocks and smacked Jennine in the face with her sandal. She looked Jennine in the eye and didn't say a word of apology. She made me so. Angry. I'm angry just thinking about her, dressed like a pack of Fruit Stripe gum.
Sometimes the most innocuous thing becomes your clearest memory.

Cody agreed. He told us, “I remember going on this awesome field trip in grade school to the Mayan runes. But the only thing I still remember about the trip is that Robby Herrera got detention for throwing a juice box at a rival school’s bus.”

He paused. "Actually it might have been Incan runes. But, I know for a fact the juice box was a Capri-Sun."

Boo

My biggest piece of luggage (a 52" long duffel bag) is still happily sitting in Heathrow airport.

It had everything in there. Even stuff they tell you to always pack in your carry-on. Like my house keys.

Worst of all, though, it had all my presents in there. I bought a lot of stuff - small stuff - for a lot of people. And I was very excited to give them a piece of my journey and to let them know I was thinking about them while far away.

Until then, here is a picture of the Blue Mosque.


And the inside of the Hagia Sophia in Turkey.

These pictures might seem random, given the subject of this entry.

But, did I mention my camera is in the bag, too?

Please...Stay With Me.

Hi Friends!

Our trip got a little out of hand busy and my blog slowly suffered because of it. Like one of those Nanopets. Remember? You had to play with it or it would die?



But, the blog isn't dead. I've got a lot more adventure to speak of. Like how we saw Woody Allen in Barcelona. Or how we went to a soccer game in Turkey.

So, now that I have some reliable internet, please stay with us. I'll be updating regularly again. Play with the blog and feed it and take it for walks. Because it doesn't really exist without you guys.

Love,
Katie (and Steve)