SERENDIPITY LATEST NEWS MMMM11 SEPTEMBER 2010

LOVE FROM LIVORNO
Hello and greetings from Livorno in Italy. This is our 2nd Newsletter on our latest European Tour in board The Oceana. If you missed the first one click HERE.

Livorno is the port for Pisa and Florence, although we decided not to go on a trip but instead pop into Livorno itself, were we have had a lovely walk round the market and popped into an Internet Cafe to check our emails etc.

Livorno, Italy

Livorno is a lovely Italian town, which we call a little Venice as it has a network of canals running through it. It is also has some fantastic markets - a fruit and veg one, an undercover fish and meat market and then an outdoor clothes/shoes market.

TOUR ESCORTS
At Cartegena we both accompanied a couple of tours. Lyn took a group to Murcia where they visited the Cathedral there and walked through the City, enjoying a specialist hot chocolate at one of the restuarants. Then they went back to Cartagena to see the Town Hall and the fabulous Roman Amphitheatre.

Cartagena

Stuart went with 50 passengers to a town called Elchi, which is famous for it's palm trees. In fact it is a heretige site and has the most palm trees in any one place in the world.

The most famous one is in a botanical garden known as 'The Priest's Garden'. It has 1 trunk with no less than 6 other trunks coming out of that. It is about 100 years old now but still has a life expenctancy of 300 years. After the garden we visited the City and a Bassilica where I couldn't resist climbing the 167 steps to the top of the tower for a view of the area. Breathtaking!

Elchi - The City of Palms

A NIGHT OFF
Yes, we have a night off too, which we thoroughly enjoyed on Monday.

Early evening we went to see our new friend Adam Brown performing his first recital in the Starlights Theater. He studied at The Royal College of Music and also lived in New York for 5 years, just recently returning to London to extend his performance opportunities. This is his first time performing on ship and he was quite nervous. However he did a great job.

On Deck 8 is a restaurant called Le Jardin but in the evening it turns into a Marco Pierre White Restaurant. In fact the man himself is actually on board next week! On our evenings off we are allowed to book a table and for a small sur charge can enjoy something really special - even frogs legs and snails if you so wish.

Stuart opted for calves tongue followed by spinach soup, then sea food which included lobster tail, salmon, halibut and scallops, finished off with a blueberry soufflé - made fresh. Lyn had salad, chicken in puff pastry and a chocolate torte with cream. We accompanied it all with a bottle of Australian Red Pinotage.

After that we took in a show and enjoyed also listening to Masquerade performing in the Yacht and Compass to finish the evening off with a bit of a dance.

THE WINNERS BAR
It seems strange going to work at 9.45 every night and I think our body clocks are still adjusting. We play till 12.30 and very often the adrenaline is still pumping at that time as we have been performing for 3 hours and the excitement and energy created through that makes it difficult to unwind and go to sleep straight away.

Some of our new friends : Ray (left) ; Des, Pamela (A young Dame Judy Dench?) Victoria and Geoff

3 nights ago we have the star cabaret on board that is Mike Doyle, come and watch our whole performance! You can check out Mike's Web Web Site to see that he is a major celebrity and performer and his shows on board are often full 20 minutes before the show starts. So it was a little bit intimidating having him sitting right under our nose. However he was very complimentary and gave us lots of encouragement, which was really nice of him. He even says he would be happy to give us and endorsement and cross link web sites which would be incredible. He is such a celebrity on board and an amazing comedian and singer.

A WEDDING PARTY
It was a privilege to have Tanya and Rob call into The Winners Bar on the evening of their wedding.

Rob and Tanya are from Basildon - just down the road from us in Colchester, and they actually met on the ship where they were working, Rob as a singer and guitarist and Tanya as a dancer.

We had bumped into them during the day and invited them to visit us in The Winners Bar where we made a fuss of them and played for them to have a first dance.

Serendipity with newlyweds - Tanya and Rob, in the Winners Bar

That's all for now. We hope you found this newsletter interesting and send our greetings to you and all our friends back in the UK. We would love to hear from you too! So please feel free to email us at emailserendipity@yahoo.co.uk

Stuart & Lyn X

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