7/5/2008

It’s Saturday, however it does not feel like Saturday! I keep thinking that I should be studying or doing something productive rather than walk around an Italian city on the Mediterranean coast! Our hostel is situated up in the hills behind Genova…the good thing is that I can look out my window right now and see the city of Genova along with the whole Mediterranean Sea! There are only four of us staying in our 8 person room. I have only met one of the other guys that are staying in our room. He hails from Tazmania, Australia! Very nice guy, older, I think retired. He said he used to be a CPA down in Tazmania. The other guy, whom I have not met yet, is from South Africa and has been here for a couple weeks now trying to become a ship captain. From what the Australian guy told me he has been working as a deck hand trying to meet the right people in order to become a captain or something of that nature.

Today we woke up around 8:30am to make it down stairs in time for some complementary breakfast. They served a bread roll, juice, and jam. Not the best hostel breakfast that I have had. After breakfast we headed out for the day. We took the short us ride up to the Funicular. The 15 minute funicular ride took us down to the medieval part of the city. The medieval city has some neat things to see, but the most intriguing of them all are how the buildings are so close together. You can really only fit one small car down them at a time. We then took a short amount of time to see the Harbor. Some pretty nice and also very expensive yachts we getting ready to head out for the day!

After the Harbor we made it out to a beach that had a bit of an older crowd! I have since learned that you don’t want to go to the beach where the older crowd is!

Upon coming home from the beach we sat in our room to gather some energy so we could go out later. As we sat in our room, in walks the South African. He immediately introduced himself to Scott and me. His name is Wesley (sorry no last name, has slipped my mind)! But for the next 30 minutes or so he went on to tell us what he’s doing in Genova and plans to do with the rest of his life. To make it brief, he attained his college degree in South Africa. Upon graduating he worked as an agent representing some of his buddies who are well known surfers within South Africa. He then got the idea that he wanted to make some money while traveling all over the world and quit doing the agent thing to be a deck hand. He travels all over the world to be a deck hand at harbors that have some of the nicest yachts known to man! He’s only 25 right now and said he hopes to become captain of a yacht in about three years time. He said he makes some good money doing it….about 120 euro for 8 hours work being a deck hand. When converting that to the South African currency, that’s a lot of money!

One of the more interesting things that he talked to us about was his viewpoint of Paul Allen. To keep it PG -13, I will leave it out as to what he thinks of him! But he has worked on a harbor in France and has seen one of Allen’s four yachts. The story behind this particular yacht is that Allen went a whole year without ever using it……! He just paid millions in docking and maintenance costs. The guy apparently knows how to waste a lot of money!

Later that evening Scott and I went out to grab a bite to eat with Wesley. We went to a rather nice seafood restaurant in the middle of Genova. Scott and I were both apprehensive about the place due to the fact that we were both trying to stick to a budget and did not want to pay 10 euro for dinner. But we stuck it out and had a pretty good meal! And a FOUR euro beer as well!!!!