Where have you been?

The Sounds of Sea World; Randy Petersen, composer

Where have I been? Here’s a partial list.

Venice, Ravenna, Naples, Anacapri (on the island of Capri), Pompeii, Rome, Pisa, Florence, Livorno and Portofino in Italy. The Vatican. Dubrovnik in the former Yogoslavia, now called Croatia. The Islands of Mikonos, Rhodes and Santorini, the city of Athens and through the Corinth Canal in Greece. The Island of Cyprus. Ephesus, Istanbul and Kusadasi in Turkey. Odessa and Yalta in the former USSR, now the Ukraine. Constanta in Romania. Bethlehem, Haifa, Jerusalem and Nazareth in Israel. Messina in Sicily. Palma on the Island of Majorca, Barcelona, Gibraltar and Malaga in Spain. Monaco. Eze, Nice and Villefranche-sur-Mer in France. Cascais, Lisbon, Porto and Sintra in Portugal. Tangier and Casablanca in Morroco. Funchal on the Island of Madeira.

I’ve never seen a more beautiful city in the world than Venice. To get to Anacapri from the ship, I had to tender to shore in a boat, take a funicular up to the city center, catch a bus to the west side of Capri, then ride a ski lift chair over acres upon acres of vineyards to get to the top of the island where I bought an egg sandwich for breakfast. I saw Don Rickles and Bob Newhart when I visited Pompeii. In Florence, I had a bowl of the finest chicken alfredo that I’ve ever eaten. I went to Portofino five times during my cruise ship career and it rained every time. K. and I saw Joe Montana while visiting the Vatican gift shop.

In Dubrovnik, some friends and I packed a picnic, rode a funicular up the thousand-foot high escarpment and ate our lunch near some cows while overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The whole band rented motorcycles in Mikonos. I rode a mule from the old harbour up to the city of Fira on Santorini. We played a midnight dance set while the ship sailed through the mile-long Corinth Canal. I bought some very handsome vests to give away as presents outside the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. The Odessa Opera Company performed the first act of La Traviata for anybody from the ship who wanted to go. I bought a leather jacket in Kusadasi. One Easter Sunday, J., J. and I rented a taxi for the day and visited the church over the site where God sent the angel Gabriel to see Mary, crossed the River Jordan and made it all the way around the Sea of Galilee.

In Barcelona, I visited the site of the 1992 Olympics a full year before the Olympic torch entered the city. A Flamenco troupe visited the ship whenever we docked in Malaga. I visited the apartment of the cruise director in Cascais; a flat that the family has held for five hundred years. One afternoon, I went to the movies in Lisbon to see “The Piano” and during the intermission they served punch and cake.

But I have never been to Sea World.

Credits: To Don Rickles and Bob Newhart, for lifetimes of creative entertainment and senses of devil-may-care humor the size of a thousand-ton mile-wide hockey puck.