Cabina d'Amore! Baby, Cabina d'Amore!

Let me clear something up right off the bat. It's not "Life from a deck" but rather "Life from A deck" as opposed to B deck or C deck. I work on a cruise ship and I live on Deck A. I have no idea how often I will write here, or if it's just another one of my great ideas that start out with glorious and noble ambition, and end up forgotten and discarded like a one night stand's phone number. Suffice it to say that I want to keep some sort of log. Working on a cruise ship can be wonderfully rewarding; but it can also be a most frustrating, surreal and absurd exercise in futility.

Tonight, my band "plays the hits" for 4 hours. They are amazing. We love playing together, and we're tight tight tight. They're a dream! But more often than not, we outnumber the audience. It's difficult to belt out "Play That Funky Music White Boy" to an audience of seven 80 year-olds. Tonight might be a practice-in-front-of-the-crowd night where we'll try out some new or less familiar tunes. Maybe "Love Shack".

We found a great bar in Venice that was willing to stay open, shall we say, later than usually allowed to by law. It was the first night that all 8 of us went out all together. It's a party band, I'll give us that. Beer was cheap (or at least cheap by Venetian standards) and the company was delightful. I spent an hour chatting with a guy named Marco (who may or may not have been trying to pick me up...) who spoke only slightly more English than I speak Italian. However, after about 40 minutes, we realized we both spoke lousy German. So, imagine if you will, a trilingual conversation, in which neither party really fully comprehends anything being said, but are having one hell of a time. We bonded while singing "Che Gelida Manina" at the top of our lungs while the proprietors of the establishment shushed us repeatedly.

Tomorrow, Venice again, then Croatia. Then the magic of Istanbul for 2 days. Lots to tell...