luca

luca

29 October, 2008

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik

The next stop after Venice was in Croatia. Dubrovnik is an amazing little city on the ocean. There is a wall that goes around the old town that you can walk on all the way. The first ever pharmacy was opened there in 1317. Of course it was closed when we were there but we saw it anyway. I bought a beautiful amber necklace and earrings and Karen bought a new ring to replace the one she lost the last time she was there. All in all I would love to see more of Croatia and it's coast someday.















28 October, 2008

Big Room!

Some how Karen and I got a handicap room on the ship! Boy, was everyone jealous of us! We even had enough room to host cocktail parties before dinner.





Ah Venice...





27 October, 2008

I'm Back!


After 2 weeks and 12 cities I'm back. We had a fantastic time! For those of you that don't know what the hell I'm talking about Karen, MJ, Davey, Ed, Dominic, Suzi and I just got back from a 12 day cruise on the Queen Victoria in the Mediterranean. We stopped in Italy, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, France and Spain. There will be a lot of good stories and pictures to follow but it will take some time so here is part one.

Karen, MJ, Davey and I flew from Newark to Roma and then on to Venice but 2 of our bags only made it as far as Rome so Karen and I had to stay behind and waste a day at the airport. We walked pretty much every area of the Rome airport and two hours later we found our luggage and another 2 hours later we got on another flight to Venice. That really sucked big meatballs! The problem started in Newark when we checked in. The women helping us checked two bags to Venice and two to Rome but we didn't catch it until Rome. Moral of the story...when making a connecting flight double check your luggage destination tags!

05 October, 2008

Saturday in Philadelphia!




Monday is the last day to register to vote in Pennsylvania so some of us went down to Philly to canvas some neighborhoods and help register voters. Jeannine and three of her friends went down from Brooklyn and Gabrielle and I drove down together from Jersey.
I wasn't sure what to expect since I've never done anything like this before nor have I ever been to Philadelphia before. At least I can say I helped at least a little to try and change the way things are going in this country and as a bonus we got to see Bruce Springsteen.


From NBC's Cat Corrigan and Abby LivingstonPHILADELPHIA -- Bruce Springsteen hit the streets of Philadelphia with a mission yesterday: to elect Barack Obama. The Obama team estimated that 50,000 people showed up to see the Boss's free concert in the heart of the City of Brotherly Love. A native son of neighboring New Jersey, Springsteen's songs and message were targeted to Pennsylvania's working men and women.
Just hours before the concert, Obama staffers hastily broke down a platform of risers set up for network cameras because they obscured the view of the people in the streets. When Springsteen climbed onstage, he came sans E-Street Band, and was clad in jeans and a plain plaid shirt.
His set kicked off with "Promised Land," a song he performed during John Kerry's 2004 presidential run. He later followed up with the Kerry theme song, "No Surrender." In a nod to his 2004 performances, he said, "I tried this four years ago. This time we're winning."
Mid-concert, Springsteen pulled out written remarks he had prepared for the event. His speech was as much an homage to Obama as it was a scathing critique of the Bush administration, which he called "a disaster."
He continued, "I've spent 35 years writing about America and its people and the meaning of the American promise. A promise handed down right here in this city. Our everyday citizens have justifiably lost faith in its meaning."
With that flourish, he launched into his de facto theme song for Obama, "The Rising." The tune, originally written for the firefighters who died in the World Trade Center, has taken on an evangelical pro-Obama interpretation in the campaign. Springsteen sang and preached the Obama gospel, performing a solemn and rare acoustic version of the song.
To finish the uncharacteristically short set, Springsteen strummed his guitar to the crowd chants of "Yes we can!" which then morphed into Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land."
As Springsteen walked off the stage, he said, "It's up to you now."
With Election Day a month away and voting registration in Pennsylvania ending on Monday, the gathering was as much about political tactics and registering voters as it was about musical inspiration. The number of volunteers with clipboards prowling the event for unregistered voters sometimes seemed to rival the number of unregistered voters themselves. Leading up to the Springsteen appearance, appeals were made to text message the campaign, the same tactic used at Obama's acceptance nomination speech at Invesco Field to give the Obama team a built-in database of phone numbers to use in the final days of the Colorado campaign.