Nh Royal Messina

... is to match ones cloth napkin to one's clothing. I wear black pants with various tops each evening. So they give me a black napkin. Jim get's a white one as he wears khakis most of the time. Prevents lint. How clever.
The show last night was a Las Vegas revue. One couple did everything. She was an aerialist and hula hooper. He a comedian, magician, acrobat. They were great! Very entertaining and the house was full. A great day.
Tomorrow, Greece!

... I want my home, I like my home, and I don’t think I could leave it for any…extended period of time, say indefinitely .

But then I am reminded, by my brain, the thought I would wake on my 16th birthday, a different person, with a new mind, with some different crazy wild perspectives (teenagers, what do they know!), the same on my 19th, maybe I’ll even admit to my 20th … and unfortunately I was ...

... images section on their homepage. I'm stoked!

But here's the thing I think is coolest. (See photo to the left.) I assumed most of these countries were highlighted because I've been meeting fellow travelers, but then I realized there are some countries here where I haven't met people from. Which means random people in random parts of the ...

... making myself quite at home. My laundry is hanging in the hallway, I have completely taken over the 4-person bedroom and bathroom. And in the morning I was able to wave and say ciao to my friendly bakery neighbors. La vita dolce?

Today I had plans to go see Mt. Etna (the most active volcano in Europe). But planner-Josie took over and when that happens usually cheapskate-Josie gets involved which leaves real-Josie planless with money in her pocket. In other words I had intended to ...

... of Stardust, in the Princess Theatre, was a fantastic show, with great choreography, costumes and stage production. Well worth watching!

The 50's Rock'n Roll Dance Party continued after the Stardust production. It was an opportunity to practice some jive and work off some of those calories we gathered throughout the day.

Tomorrow, it's the Greek Island of Mykonos! Ciao! Rick & Elsie!

I'm sitting on the beach as I write and the kids are in the water. we
decided to cancel our excursion - just wanted a low stress shore day.
Wonderful light breeze in from the water. Looking across the straits
from Sicily to mainland Italy. Took a cab to this beach resort that
is more for the locals - at least the life guard ...

... A small village perched high above the Mediterranean sea. It's church tower was spotted by Francis Ford Coppola from below and that was how he picked this for the movie the Godfather. It is the village where Michael spots his bride to be and the wedding party winds through the small streets. Very beautiful.

We then went to Taormina ...

... and a hard place'.(look it up in Wikipedia). For the rest of the day, we managed to do - not much. I'm still getting over my cold and Andy was tired as my coughing didn't allow him much sleep. I laid by the pool - again it was sunny, hot and humid. The Mediterranean is a beautiful aquamarine colour so it's a great location to be - even with a cold. Before dinner, we had drinks - Andy had a ...

... close to the lowest point of the 'boot' of Italy. Luckily we timed it just right and a ferry was arriving to take people over to Sicily just as we got to the port. The ferries are quite big (capacity of maybe 300 people) and only take 25 minutes to get to Messina, the closest city on Sicily (about 280k people). Neill wanted to keep going to Palermo, the capital, but it was already 6:30 and would have taken 3 hours again to get ...

... now, thank you. We purchased an Inmarsat-mini C Satellite transceiver. This will allow us to send emergency email messages from the middle of the ocean. We also have with that that a "little red button" for abandon ship kinds of things. If the red button is pushed, the emergency message is immediately sent to the nearest national search and rescue organization. The transceiver has a tracker feature that if you are so inclined, you could watch our progress from ...