Twenty-five hours after flying out of Melbourne, including a 4 ½ hour lay-over in Dubai we arrived in Milan, Italy where we caught a coach to Genoa about 2 ½ hours away, from where our ship the MSC Magnifica, was due to sail the next day.  Unfortunately, due to the lateness of our arrival, and the onset of jetlag, we had little capacity to take in much of Genoa – apart from glimpses of beautiful medieval laneways and old buildings.  Plus of course the ubiquitous sight of African youths selling knock off designer handbag. So after dinner in a quaint little ristorante close to the hotel we crashed out and slept like babes in the woods.  It was the May Day holiday the next day so the town was very quiet.  We nonetheless ventured out to stretch our legs, and absorb some of the local ambience and sights.   However incessant rain put a dampener on things, so our efforts were severely hampered in that area.  I barely had a chance to fire up my trusty Nikon DSLR.  Being confined to quarters in the hotel did however provide an opportunity for us to schmooze with some of our fellow Aussie and Kiwi travellers.  Two hours later we were on our way to the ship.   Like rats, we all scurried through the rain from the coach to the dryness of the passenger terminal.  I flashed Terry’s and my boarding documentation and voila – it was like Moses parting the Red Sea.  There were hundreds of people waiting to be ‘processed’ for boarding, but we were ushered right past all of them, and within 10-minutes we were on board.  Our fellow travellers were left eating our dust.  I’m still not sure why we got the royal treatment at boarding, but we’re pleased we did.  It took most of the others between 1-2 hours to get on board.  I do need to say however that’s where the VIP treatment ended.  Since then it’s back to ‘plebsville’ for us. More to come ... best Keri