Leave or Nah

Wednesday

 

After all the excursions we'd gone on, half the group decided no more. Me and the fam and some friends as well were tired of being rushed around so we decided to do our next port, Livorno, on our own. We woke up at a more sensible hour than we had the entire trip, met up for breakfast and went off to shop and look around the city. One good thing about Carnival is even if you don't choose to go on an excursion, they still provide shuttles to and from the nearest cities every so many minutes so you can still travel  around and sight see on your own. So that's what we did. The Crew and I went off in one direction and our parents went in another.

In hindsight, that was probably a mistake on my behalf. One of the girls in our group was on the hunt of a lifetime for a mint granita and I got so invested I wanted to try one too. We walked around a couple streets but couldn't find a cafe or restaurant that had it. 

 

This ended up being a synagogue

Colors are so much better in Europe

Now instead of just walking elsewhere, in a different direction perhaps, we ended up back at the location the shuttle was going to pick us up at with everyone just trying to find wifi. Personally, I did not come all the way around the world to sit around in the shade and look for wifi. I wandered a tiny bit to find a gift for my pops and the granita girl wandered even further off, still searching. She came back a little later, triumphant, with a location. We all went with her and my cousin and I fell behind while souvenir shopping since my earlier attempts led to absolutely nothing. We told the others we'd meet up with them and then went full-on shopping in the streets. A jewelry purchase or two later, we wandered past where they were and I chanced to spot our lost friends. Do you know all 3 of those youngins were sitting in the back of a gelato shop using the wifi and talking on the phone. Thought I did not come all the way to Italy to sit in a cafe on my phone, I found myself doing just that for the next 45 minutes. I made the foolish decision to look at a couple work emails since I had free wifi on hand and the connection was so good but I got so physically nauseated I had to stop. Work was going to be a nightmare to come back to. When the time came to meet up with our parentals again, my cousin and I both were not pleased with all the sitting around we'd just done. We unfortunately determined we more than likely would have had a better trip in Livorno overall if we had stayed with the adults instead. Lesson learned. 

 

Once we got back to the ship, mom and I grabbed veggie burgers and everyone else ended up coming too.

Veggie burger blessings

We got into a couple deep discussions before mom and I dipped to go read on the deck. A friend of mine showed up and we caught up since we hadn't seen each other since sometime the evening before. 

Mirror selfie cause I was feelilng myself

I was in no mood to go to dinner, especially since it was a fancy dress night again so instead we went to the spa. That was a great decision. After a glorious but short trip, we ran back to the room, showered, then went up to the deck on top of the ship and ended the evening watching "Avengers: Age of Ultron" with the nightsky as our backdrop. Sometimes, things work out in the end.

 

xx