3:22am MSD/August 30, 2008 – 7:22pm EDT
Eventful day today… Woke up around 10:30 after losing an hour of sleep to yet another time change. Thankfully after tomorrow, we start to get those hours back. Really I should say I woke up around 5:30 and then slept fitfully and not very well until about 9:45 and then was doing great… Til I had to get up. Bah. Got dressed and went to the theater to help hang lights. That was a bitch. I don’t know how much a Martin 2000 weighs but it’s too damn much to be hoisting on a single pulley way up onto a catwalk. They have electric winches but the Filipinos say they’re “too slow”… I think we’ll be using them next time anyway – to hell with that!
Ate lunch (or breakfast, as it were) and came back to my cabin for a shower. Picked up my pay – which was more than I thought it was going to be, happily… still not enough of course – and came BACK to the cabin again to pack my backpack for the day. I do a lot of back and forth here. Forgetting things or going somewhere only to come right back… It’s lame. But it’s fairly cold in here so I generally don’t mind haha… Anyway, departed and headed for the gangway to make my way into St. Petersburg. Got to the customs desk and, when I didn’t have a photocopy of my passport, was turned away. The security guys on the gangway told me if I showed them my crew ID, they would let me through… So I did (went to a different line!) and got through no problem. It’s been my experience overall that Russians aren’t very… warm and friendly. To say the least. Stood around for a few and then got on the crew shuttle van to head for the city.
Which is a good way to segue into my next point – traffic in St. Petersburg (and I imagine Russia as a whole) is fucking SCARY. There’s not much in the way of lines on the road, and what is there doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and isn’t really paid any heed anyway. People weaving in and out of traffic, multiple cars making turns from all lanes… Including the van driver. I kind of feared for my life, not gonna lie. I’ve never seen anything like that. I mean at least sometimes they use their turn signals. But this made Washington DC and Chicago look like a gentle, mid-afternoon lunch rush. Very discomforting. Very happy when we got dropped off at Issac’s Square. I walked around with Matt and his girlfriend Candi, who is what is known onboard as a JAR. JAR stands for Jean Anne Rynd (sp?) which is the company I believe I mentioned before that is contracted out to do all the shows. Yeah, Candi works for them and is in the shows onboard. Anyway, after taking a few pictures of St. Issac’s Cathedral, we headed for the Peter and Paul fortress. Along the way, we stopped at this really neat old bank to change some dollars into Russian rubles. 24 rubles = 1 dollar. Or at least today. When I go back tomorrow, I hope it’s gone down some so I’ll get more dollars for my rubles!
St. Petersburg, like Stockholm, is a couple of islands connected by bridges. Or rather, it’s a couple parts of mainland that encircle a bay, with an island or 2. Anyway bridges over water, that’s my point. We had to cross several. Got there and walked around the outside wall of the fortress… Went inside, and made for the cathedral. Bought tickets and went in and took lots of pictures. Apparently the Cathedral of the Spilt Blood is even more spectacular… We’ll see tomorrow. Stopped at a stand and got some food and drink. Very difficult to communicate with Russians – they don’t speak ANY English and the language is so different (as opposed to French, German, Finnish, etc) that it can be very difficult for both parties to make themselves understood. Couple cups of coffee, a Pepsi Max in a bottle, a hot dog, a bag of chips, a microwave apple pie pastry thing, and some chocolate covered sunflower seeds… The coffee and hot dog were pretty terrible but… Everything else (read: the prepackaged things) was good. Paid some more rubles to go up on the wall of the fortress and walk around. For both the cathedral and the wall, we showed our NCL crew badges and claimed we were students and got the half price discount. So the language barrier DID help us a bit. The wall was neat – a nice view of the city. Of course it started to rain (again) while we were walking around on it but… It was still a nice view. Got to the end and headed back, and back to the shuttle. We had to kind of hurry to get to the shuttle on time and I was pretty exhausted by the time we got there. Very brisk pace.
Matt and Candi have, of course, been to St. Petersburg before… I say of course because they’ve been on this boat for a while… So they’ve been doing laps around this course for a while. So they weren’t real into a lot of exploring, and after feeling like I needed to keep up with them to get back to the shuttle, I was ready to drop. So I opted to come back to the ship and just go back to the city tomorrow, since we’re docked here overnight. Before heading into the ship, I stopped at the CD/DVD store and souvenir store right next to the berth… Got a couple Russian DVDs, which I’m sure are some kind of bootlegged… One of them sucks and I’m considering taking it back to swap for a more expensive one (a dollar more)… I don’t think they’ll mind. They said if there were problems we could return them and exchange so… Also got something for my parents…
So came back on board, had some dinner, and then came back to my cabin to watch a movie and just lay for a while. As I mentioned, pretty exhausted. At about 11:15, I ran up to the crew store to get my shuttle pass for tomorrow, and then came back to the cabin. Since tonight is an overnight stay, they let crew bend the rules a bit and they throw a big party in one of the guest areas of the ship, up on deck 13 (remember, I live on deck 3!). I moseyed up there to check it out and… everybody was dressed kinda nice and dancing and whatever. I felt kind of out of place in my shorts and t-shirt, so I came BACK to the cabin (see what I mean?!) to wash my face and change into something nicer. Once done, I headed back up and hung out til the end of the party. I mostly sat off to the side watching, but talked to a few people I’ve met in the last week. I suppose all told, it was more a waste of money than anything… I had to pay for my drinks. I don’t know if they were charging for beer, but they were certainly charging for liquor. But it’s not like I really met anyone new or… strengthened any connections with anyone I already knew… I suppose I had a reasonably good time all things considered so I don’t mind too much…
Some people got really drunk. And there are still people partying around the ship – I hear a few down the hall. Pretty funny and… Cool I guess. I just wish I knew more people so I could partake some in the merriment. We’ll be back in St. Petersburg in a week or so, so maybe by then I’ll be a little better off if they do this again. I kinda hope they will.
Finally, the damn phone thing won’t work so I can’t dial out. It’s only early evening at home and I was hoping to make a phone call or two, but apparently not! Jerks. And I still haven’t figured out the laundry thing. I really need to do that – work clothes are getting very slim.
Ok, it’s nearly 4am and I have a meeting at 11 and a bunch of things I want to see in St. Petersburg still. And I feel like my typing might potentially be disturbing Igor. Not likely, he’s a pretty heavy sleeper, which is good… But I just feel better being cautious about such things. I want to be a good roommate and not “that guy”. Hm just heard a snore, guess I’m ok. But the other thing, about it being real damn late… that still stands. I really wish I could get wifi in my cabin. And this blog entry is onto the third page now in Word. I blather a lot. Apparently you don’t mind too much or you wouldn’t have made it this far!
Soooooooo…. G’night!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Abanodon Ship!
11:30am EEST/4:30am EDT
Just got back from my first lifeboat drill. No big deal. My assembly station is a bunch of the musicians and singers and dancers… And all the new people. So basically, our job is to stand there and not be in the way. Which, if the ship is sinking, is fine with me. And then a meeting with the whole crew and the captain, which was pretty uneventful. I guess he’d been on vacation or something and had just recently come back (I think he rejoined the ship the same day I signed on) so he didn’t really have anything to say. Not that I minded that either. And then the S.T.Y.L.E. awards. STYLE (cuz I’m too lazy to type it with the periods) is an acronym NCL uses for… the crew? Or something? It’s like a philosophy of the company and… They do a great job of jamming it in your face. We have to wear STYLE pins every day as part of the uniform, things about STYLE or the “stylish crew” are all over in the back crew stairways and stuff… And they talk to the guests about it too – there are STYLE cards the guests can fill out about a crew member. STYLE stands for “Service, Teamwork, and Yes Lead to Excellence!” and every month, they have an awards ceremony where crew members, who are nominated by other crew members, are chosen for various things they’ve done onboard and win various prizes. For example, crew member of the month gets you $400. There are 12 categories, I believe, and some are for individuals and others for teams. The individual winners get to stay a night (and can bring a friend) in one of the big suites with butler service… A bunch of the other prizes are free meals in one of the nicer restaurants with a bottle of wine, etc etc. Even though the lady who was presenting the awards had horrible timing with her speech and the Powerpoint presentation, she burned through it and it was mercifully short – although the cheese factor was still pretty high. And THEN we had a Cruise Programs department meeting. Which again, wasn’t too hateful. Sat and talked about various issues that had come up, presented those STYLE cards to the people they were about, introduced the new guys (including me) and wrapped up. All told, the whole thing (including the fire drill that immediately preceded the lifeboat drill) only took about an hour and 15 minutes. Not bad at all.
Today, we’re in Helsinki, Finland. I don’t think I’m going to get off the ship today, for a few reasons. One: I need to do laundry. More like, I need to figure out where to do my laundry... And then do it. Two: my right knee is REALLY pissed at me about yesterday. I need to start stretching and stuff on a regular basis, but ESPECIALLY if I’m going to be walking around for 4 and 5 hours at a time. Three: the city isn’t really close. There’s a shuttle you have to take, and it costs 10 bucks for a round trip ticket and… Well, I don’t have 10 bucks. Not til tomorrow, anyway. Saturday is payday. It’s also our first day in St. Petersburg and I can’t pick up my money until 1:30pm. I have a ticket for the shuttle to St. Petersburg but I don’t know if I should trade it for a ticket for Sunday, since I don’t really have money and I can’t pick up my pay until 1:30… Bah we’ll see. Anyway uh… Oh right. Four: we’ll be back to Helsinki next month. And Oslo! Of course, the pay I get now is SUPPOSED to last me for the whole month (since we only get paid monthly) but I have to give it all to other people. So we’ll see. I think I can make something work so that I can go to some of these places next time around. Anyway, those are the reasons I’m staying onboard today.
Tonight is the first night I’m not scheduled in the theater. I don’t know how I feel about that… I kind of like it in there, but probably because it’s like a “safe zone” of sorts. It’s familiar and comfortable because it’s where I’ve spent most of my time thus far. Speaking of, last night I sat backstage for the Country Gold show. The music wasn’t TOO horrible, but it was still pretty irritating. Nice part was, though, the only thing I did the whole show was hand the cruise director a wireless mic, and hold the curtain open for a guy who had to hold a girl up in the air as they went out on stage. And then before the show, lay out all the performers’ mics and check the batteries… After the show, put them away. Easy enough. Actually, most of this job is pretty damn easy, once you learn where things are and the basic procedure of what they want done. Ya know, for trivia, turn on and unmute the mic. Wait for the start time, and turn off the background music. Done for an hour. Come back, turn the background music on, put the mic away (unless there’s more trivia later). Sometimes you run into some weird issues (we had one with the video feed to the TVs from the Wii a couple days ago) but… That’s the bulk of my job. That and setting up/striking stage sets. Mic checks and shows in the theater are pretty easy, although right now I’m not doing much with them. But watching Matt, he’s usually not doing much. Since the shows are the same, the channel mutes and stuff are all programmed in the board, so, for the most part, it’s pushing Next a bunch of times throughout the show. And playing background music or a backing track for the show. Setting up bands is usually only a few channels. 3 or 4 on drums, bass, keys, 3 horns, and vocals. The board in the booth is big enough that everything has a dedicated channel. Everything’s labeled so it’s the same every time. Some of the smaller live music setups are the same – everything’s labeled and the boards have dedicated tracks for, say, the karaoke mics and the band. Pretty much a cakewalk. Mmmmmm cake…
My belly just grumbled real loud. I was thinking I might head up to the mess hall to get some foods, and I’d say that confirms it. I need to figure out where all on the ship has wifi, so I can tote my laptop around and get online. Gotta be careful though, I spent 43% of my internet card last night getting this blog and the photo album set up. The internet on board is fairly slow and cuts in and out when at sea. Understandable, the weather wasn’t great last night and the internet’s coming over satellite to the middle of the sea… There IS a souvenir shop right off the gangway – wonder if I take my laptop up a few decks and to a place with some windows, if maybe I could pick up some internets from them. I’ll have to do some experimentation. Also, I wonder if I could transfer Word documents over to a Blackberry and then like… Copy/Paste them. Or just this amount of text. Or something. Igor told me it’s no problem to find wifi in the ports of call, but I walked around for hours yesterday before I could find one that wasn’t locked that actually was connected. Thus the Blackberry plan AT&T offered seems to be pretty slick. OH – that reminds me. I need to call T-Mobile too. I owe them some money and I need to get them to cancel my service or whatever. NOTE TO SELF!
Ok for real, my stomach sounds like it’s going to start ingesting my other organs if I don’t eat something soon.
Just got back from my first lifeboat drill. No big deal. My assembly station is a bunch of the musicians and singers and dancers… And all the new people. So basically, our job is to stand there and not be in the way. Which, if the ship is sinking, is fine with me. And then a meeting with the whole crew and the captain, which was pretty uneventful. I guess he’d been on vacation or something and had just recently come back (I think he rejoined the ship the same day I signed on) so he didn’t really have anything to say. Not that I minded that either. And then the S.T.Y.L.E. awards. STYLE (cuz I’m too lazy to type it with the periods) is an acronym NCL uses for… the crew? Or something? It’s like a philosophy of the company and… They do a great job of jamming it in your face. We have to wear STYLE pins every day as part of the uniform, things about STYLE or the “stylish crew” are all over in the back crew stairways and stuff… And they talk to the guests about it too – there are STYLE cards the guests can fill out about a crew member. STYLE stands for “Service, Teamwork, and Yes Lead to Excellence!” and every month, they have an awards ceremony where crew members, who are nominated by other crew members, are chosen for various things they’ve done onboard and win various prizes. For example, crew member of the month gets you $400. There are 12 categories, I believe, and some are for individuals and others for teams. The individual winners get to stay a night (and can bring a friend) in one of the big suites with butler service… A bunch of the other prizes are free meals in one of the nicer restaurants with a bottle of wine, etc etc. Even though the lady who was presenting the awards had horrible timing with her speech and the Powerpoint presentation, she burned through it and it was mercifully short – although the cheese factor was still pretty high. And THEN we had a Cruise Programs department meeting. Which again, wasn’t too hateful. Sat and talked about various issues that had come up, presented those STYLE cards to the people they were about, introduced the new guys (including me) and wrapped up. All told, the whole thing (including the fire drill that immediately preceded the lifeboat drill) only took about an hour and 15 minutes. Not bad at all.
Today, we’re in Helsinki, Finland. I don’t think I’m going to get off the ship today, for a few reasons. One: I need to do laundry. More like, I need to figure out where to do my laundry... And then do it. Two: my right knee is REALLY pissed at me about yesterday. I need to start stretching and stuff on a regular basis, but ESPECIALLY if I’m going to be walking around for 4 and 5 hours at a time. Three: the city isn’t really close. There’s a shuttle you have to take, and it costs 10 bucks for a round trip ticket and… Well, I don’t have 10 bucks. Not til tomorrow, anyway. Saturday is payday. It’s also our first day in St. Petersburg and I can’t pick up my money until 1:30pm. I have a ticket for the shuttle to St. Petersburg but I don’t know if I should trade it for a ticket for Sunday, since I don’t really have money and I can’t pick up my pay until 1:30… Bah we’ll see. Anyway uh… Oh right. Four: we’ll be back to Helsinki next month. And Oslo! Of course, the pay I get now is SUPPOSED to last me for the whole month (since we only get paid monthly) but I have to give it all to other people. So we’ll see. I think I can make something work so that I can go to some of these places next time around. Anyway, those are the reasons I’m staying onboard today.
Tonight is the first night I’m not scheduled in the theater. I don’t know how I feel about that… I kind of like it in there, but probably because it’s like a “safe zone” of sorts. It’s familiar and comfortable because it’s where I’ve spent most of my time thus far. Speaking of, last night I sat backstage for the Country Gold show. The music wasn’t TOO horrible, but it was still pretty irritating. Nice part was, though, the only thing I did the whole show was hand the cruise director a wireless mic, and hold the curtain open for a guy who had to hold a girl up in the air as they went out on stage. And then before the show, lay out all the performers’ mics and check the batteries… After the show, put them away. Easy enough. Actually, most of this job is pretty damn easy, once you learn where things are and the basic procedure of what they want done. Ya know, for trivia, turn on and unmute the mic. Wait for the start time, and turn off the background music. Done for an hour. Come back, turn the background music on, put the mic away (unless there’s more trivia later). Sometimes you run into some weird issues (we had one with the video feed to the TVs from the Wii a couple days ago) but… That’s the bulk of my job. That and setting up/striking stage sets. Mic checks and shows in the theater are pretty easy, although right now I’m not doing much with them. But watching Matt, he’s usually not doing much. Since the shows are the same, the channel mutes and stuff are all programmed in the board, so, for the most part, it’s pushing Next a bunch of times throughout the show. And playing background music or a backing track for the show. Setting up bands is usually only a few channels. 3 or 4 on drums, bass, keys, 3 horns, and vocals. The board in the booth is big enough that everything has a dedicated channel. Everything’s labeled so it’s the same every time. Some of the smaller live music setups are the same – everything’s labeled and the boards have dedicated tracks for, say, the karaoke mics and the band. Pretty much a cakewalk. Mmmmmm cake…
My belly just grumbled real loud. I was thinking I might head up to the mess hall to get some foods, and I’d say that confirms it. I need to figure out where all on the ship has wifi, so I can tote my laptop around and get online. Gotta be careful though, I spent 43% of my internet card last night getting this blog and the photo album set up. The internet on board is fairly slow and cuts in and out when at sea. Understandable, the weather wasn’t great last night and the internet’s coming over satellite to the middle of the sea… There IS a souvenir shop right off the gangway – wonder if I take my laptop up a few decks and to a place with some windows, if maybe I could pick up some internets from them. I’ll have to do some experimentation. Also, I wonder if I could transfer Word documents over to a Blackberry and then like… Copy/Paste them. Or just this amount of text. Or something. Igor told me it’s no problem to find wifi in the ports of call, but I walked around for hours yesterday before I could find one that wasn’t locked that actually was connected. Thus the Blackberry plan AT&T offered seems to be pretty slick. OH – that reminds me. I need to call T-Mobile too. I owe them some money and I need to get them to cancel my service or whatever. NOTE TO SELF!
Ok for real, my stomach sounds like it’s going to start ingesting my other organs if I don’t eat something soon.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Adventure #1
5:45pm CEST/ 11:45am EDT
Well, today was my first excursion off the ship. It was a lot of fun… But hopefully I’ll be a little more prepared for my next one. This one mostly consisted of me wandering around aimlessly, trying to find a place where I could get internet access so I could check my bank account, so I could get cash, so I could buy a phone card to make calls home, and an internet card so I could maybe finally post some of these blogs and pictures I took today. Whew.
Stockholm is a very cool old city. Something I didn’t realize about the city is that it’s comprised of multiple islands… That proved interesting for the walking around… Anywho, I’ll spare you the history lesson. If you want to know, look it up on wikipedia or something. I’d link you but since I’m not online right now (writing this in Word, to be posted later) you’ll have to find it your damn self.
Got up at 9 for rehearsal in the theater at 10… Except the Shore Ex (“ex” short for “excursion”) folks screwed up their scheduling information or something… So rehearsal was postponed til 4. No big – all aboard for crew was at 3:30 anyway. So I grabbed my backpack out of my cabin and headed for the gangway. Didn’t have as much trouble as I was expecting in getting off the ship, which was nice. They had this nice blue line painted on the ground too, for pedestrians walking from the cruise ship dock to the city. Apparently they do a lot of cruise ship business, based on the terminals at the harbor, and some of the tourist trap shopping places. There is certainly a lot of crap for sale in Stockholm. I imagine it’s like that everywhere, but we’ll see… Reminded me of Nashville in that respect.
Anyway… Not much to tell. Finally found a place to get wifi – though it was in the middle of a busy outdoor shopping area so I didn’t want to linger on the computer too long. I felt sort of awkward… I didn’t see anyone else with laptops or anything and didn’t want to make myself TOO obvious… Or something. Anyway, did what I set out to do and I now have a phone card and internet card. I’ll be seeing to both later – as it’s only noon at home now anyway. Speaking of which, the clocks go forward ANOTHER hour tonight, so I’ll be in a different time zone next time I write… And will be 7 hours ahead of home. Anyway… See pictures for specific stuff on Stockholm. It’s a cool city, I’m just not sure what to say about it really. Might just be cuz I’m tired and kind of sore from walking around for like 4 ½ hours.
On an unrelated note, the ship is listing a LOT right now. More so I think than it has the entire time I’ve been on. Rocking baaaaaack and forth… baaaaack and forth. So much so that I had to brace myself a little bit earlier in the theater so I didn’t fall over. A little unsettling, I’ll admit. But you get used to it. Let’s see uh… Had a few more training things I had to go to. I should’ve known I wasn’t done! One about crowd control… And then one on Noroviruses (diarrhea and vomiting... aka the 24 hour flu). Apparently this is a big damn problem on cruise ships. I mean I can see why… But they spray your hands with sanitizer every time you go into one of the buffets… And there are hand sanitizers set up ALL over the ship. I mean you can stand in any one place (in the guest areas, I mean) and look around and probably see three of the things. In the crew areas, they’re really only in the mess hall… But hand cleanliness is no joke around here. It’s interesting, but… I mean I get it. They don’t want to have to sanitize every square inch of this damn boat because of an outbreak of the runs and puking, that would otherwise spread like wildfire in these close quarters. They tactfully call it Gastroenteritis… Or just simply GI. Not what you wanted to hear about, I’m sure ☺ Anyway, then I had one other training on hazardous materials. Nothing I didn’t already know after taking that Environmental Management class in high school. Good stuff. Real cheesy videos they showed us on the last two trainings. And I managed to what the shit out of my head on the projector in the lecture room not once but TWICE yesterday. Yay.
Alright… I think I’m done for now. I’m hungry and I have to change and be back to the theater in an hour for the shows tonight. “Country Gold” – whoopty doo. The way the shows work – I find this interesting – is NCL contracts out this company to produce the shows and… ya know… train and rehearse with the singers and dancers. Do all the routines and get the shows down prior to coming on the ship… So then the casts for the shows change every couple of months but it’s the same shows… And the new cast members come on board prepared, and knowing their parts and where they fit in with the choreography and everything. It’s pretty neat and seems to work well. Makes it nice for us because we don’t have to spend forever and ever going through the show over and over. We usually set up for whatever show the night before… and then run one rehearsal the day of, and then two shows that night. Easy enough. Tonight they’ve got me working backstage for the first time. Don’t really know what it involves. Rehearsal consisted mostly of me trying to stay the HELL out of the way of frantic running dancers… and laughing about the tilt of the ship and the guys on the comm.
I’ve been getting really bad hiccups lately at random. Very annoying. I had a big single hiccup the other day and someone told me it meant someone was thinking about me. I mean I don’t doubt someone was but… I’d never heard that about single hiccups before. And if that’s the case with these outbreaks of hiccups… Well… I can’t very well ask you to stop but… Ow!
Alright for real… Time to change and eat and work and sleep. My ankles and shins are stiff already haha… Til next time…
Well, today was my first excursion off the ship. It was a lot of fun… But hopefully I’ll be a little more prepared for my next one. This one mostly consisted of me wandering around aimlessly, trying to find a place where I could get internet access so I could check my bank account, so I could get cash, so I could buy a phone card to make calls home, and an internet card so I could maybe finally post some of these blogs and pictures I took today. Whew.
Stockholm is a very cool old city. Something I didn’t realize about the city is that it’s comprised of multiple islands… That proved interesting for the walking around… Anywho, I’ll spare you the history lesson. If you want to know, look it up on wikipedia or something. I’d link you but since I’m not online right now (writing this in Word, to be posted later) you’ll have to find it your damn self.
Got up at 9 for rehearsal in the theater at 10… Except the Shore Ex (“ex” short for “excursion”) folks screwed up their scheduling information or something… So rehearsal was postponed til 4. No big – all aboard for crew was at 3:30 anyway. So I grabbed my backpack out of my cabin and headed for the gangway. Didn’t have as much trouble as I was expecting in getting off the ship, which was nice. They had this nice blue line painted on the ground too, for pedestrians walking from the cruise ship dock to the city. Apparently they do a lot of cruise ship business, based on the terminals at the harbor, and some of the tourist trap shopping places. There is certainly a lot of crap for sale in Stockholm. I imagine it’s like that everywhere, but we’ll see… Reminded me of Nashville in that respect.
Anyway… Not much to tell. Finally found a place to get wifi – though it was in the middle of a busy outdoor shopping area so I didn’t want to linger on the computer too long. I felt sort of awkward… I didn’t see anyone else with laptops or anything and didn’t want to make myself TOO obvious… Or something. Anyway, did what I set out to do and I now have a phone card and internet card. I’ll be seeing to both later – as it’s only noon at home now anyway. Speaking of which, the clocks go forward ANOTHER hour tonight, so I’ll be in a different time zone next time I write… And will be 7 hours ahead of home. Anyway… See pictures for specific stuff on Stockholm. It’s a cool city, I’m just not sure what to say about it really. Might just be cuz I’m tired and kind of sore from walking around for like 4 ½ hours.
On an unrelated note, the ship is listing a LOT right now. More so I think than it has the entire time I’ve been on. Rocking baaaaaack and forth… baaaaack and forth. So much so that I had to brace myself a little bit earlier in the theater so I didn’t fall over. A little unsettling, I’ll admit. But you get used to it. Let’s see uh… Had a few more training things I had to go to. I should’ve known I wasn’t done! One about crowd control… And then one on Noroviruses (diarrhea and vomiting... aka the 24 hour flu). Apparently this is a big damn problem on cruise ships. I mean I can see why… But they spray your hands with sanitizer every time you go into one of the buffets… And there are hand sanitizers set up ALL over the ship. I mean you can stand in any one place (in the guest areas, I mean) and look around and probably see three of the things. In the crew areas, they’re really only in the mess hall… But hand cleanliness is no joke around here. It’s interesting, but… I mean I get it. They don’t want to have to sanitize every square inch of this damn boat because of an outbreak of the runs and puking, that would otherwise spread like wildfire in these close quarters. They tactfully call it Gastroenteritis… Or just simply GI. Not what you wanted to hear about, I’m sure ☺ Anyway, then I had one other training on hazardous materials. Nothing I didn’t already know after taking that Environmental Management class in high school. Good stuff. Real cheesy videos they showed us on the last two trainings. And I managed to what the shit out of my head on the projector in the lecture room not once but TWICE yesterday. Yay.
Alright… I think I’m done for now. I’m hungry and I have to change and be back to the theater in an hour for the shows tonight. “Country Gold” – whoopty doo. The way the shows work – I find this interesting – is NCL contracts out this company to produce the shows and… ya know… train and rehearse with the singers and dancers. Do all the routines and get the shows down prior to coming on the ship… So then the casts for the shows change every couple of months but it’s the same shows… And the new cast members come on board prepared, and knowing their parts and where they fit in with the choreography and everything. It’s pretty neat and seems to work well. Makes it nice for us because we don’t have to spend forever and ever going through the show over and over. We usually set up for whatever show the night before… and then run one rehearsal the day of, and then two shows that night. Easy enough. Tonight they’ve got me working backstage for the first time. Don’t really know what it involves. Rehearsal consisted mostly of me trying to stay the HELL out of the way of frantic running dancers… and laughing about the tilt of the ship and the guys on the comm.
I’ve been getting really bad hiccups lately at random. Very annoying. I had a big single hiccup the other day and someone told me it meant someone was thinking about me. I mean I don’t doubt someone was but… I’d never heard that about single hiccups before. And if that’s the case with these outbreaks of hiccups… Well… I can’t very well ask you to stop but… Ow!
Alright for real… Time to change and eat and work and sleep. My ankles and shins are stiff already haha… Til next time…
Monday, August 25, 2008
And...
9:02pm CEST/3:02pm EDT
Back after the juggler’s first set. He’s actually pretty hilarious. I laughed a lot. A lot of comedy, and physical comedy, in his act. Back again in 45 minutes to sit through another of his sets. The water is loud tonight. I can hear it on the hull, corresponding to the bigger rockings I feel. The coat hangers and stuff all sway on a regular basis. Like constantly. It’s weird.
Something else I wanted to put down about the ship. Caffeine is SO hard to come by. You wouldn’t think so… Or at least I wouldn’t. But I’m having trouble really even coming by coffee easily. I haven’t had a pop since I left Dover. And being the caffeine addict that I am, I’ve been getting headaches. Tea helps, some. But there’s only one kind of tea in the mess area that even has caffeine in it. It’s very weird to me. Apparently Coke and Diet Coke can be purchased… But I’ve yet to see it for crew.
And I still feel tired… That’s not good, since I slept most of the day… maybe I’ll take a 30 minute powernap then… Later.
Back after the juggler’s first set. He’s actually pretty hilarious. I laughed a lot. A lot of comedy, and physical comedy, in his act. Back again in 45 minutes to sit through another of his sets. The water is loud tonight. I can hear it on the hull, corresponding to the bigger rockings I feel. The coat hangers and stuff all sway on a regular basis. Like constantly. It’s weird.
Something else I wanted to put down about the ship. Caffeine is SO hard to come by. You wouldn’t think so… Or at least I wouldn’t. But I’m having trouble really even coming by coffee easily. I haven’t had a pop since I left Dover. And being the caffeine addict that I am, I’ve been getting headaches. Tea helps, some. But there’s only one kind of tea in the mess area that even has caffeine in it. It’s very weird to me. Apparently Coke and Diet Coke can be purchased… But I’ve yet to see it for crew.
And I still feel tired… That’s not good, since I slept most of the day… maybe I’ll take a 30 minute powernap then… Later.
Head First
6:28pm CEST/ 12:28pm EDT
Well… Wow. Ok then. It’s been sort of a whirlwind couple of days, hence the lack of writing. So let’s see… Where was I… Woke up damn early Saturday morning, got cleaned up, and ate some breakfast at the hotel. Who knew beans and stewed tomatoes were breakfast items?! Haha apparently the English. Other than the beans on this fried bread stuff, the rest of breakfast was pretty slimy and unappealing but hey… it was free. The grapefruit juice was tasty though. Got my stuff loaded up and got in the van. This ride was much shorter than the one to Dover. Got to the dock, went through all the security shit (which was none too fun… much like an airport)… Loaded my crap on board and had to wait forever to find someone to show me into the bowels of the ship, to the Personnel office. Stood around there for a while getting myself checked in or whatever. Handed my passport over, got my cabin assignment, and found someone to show me to it. Walked in, turned the light on… and my cabin-mate was asleep. So of course I was a big jerk and woke him up… No worries though, he was cool. Got all my junk moved in and went back up to return the cart… Remember the story about the airport and getting the box? Yeah I had to get a cart to be able to get all of my shit moved in. I felt like a jerk for that too, because I was the only one that wasn’t able to move in his stuff himself.
Went to some mandatory meetings with the Safety Officer on board and a few other folks… During which the ship departed port, which was a very weird sensation. We’re doing it again now but I’ll get to that…
So then things start to settle down, I suppose. I’ve had lots of safety training stuff to do… Learning what the different signs mean, the way to go in case of an emergency, where the watertight doors are, etc etc. All good things to know, but it sucks getting up at 7:30am and then not making it to bed until after 1, because of setting up for shows and stuff in the theater. So… Get up, sometimes make it to breakfast, sometimes not… Go to safety training, lunch, more safety training or take care of stuff at the personnel office or whatever… Dinner or the theater… Then the theater or dinner. Then the theater til late. That’s been my schedule. And a lot of wandering around, going up and down the wrong stairway or through the wrong door. Some of that is good, to learn my way around. It does get mighty frustrating though. Also – random thought – I’m amazed at how much you can feel the boat moving. You’d think on a ship this size that you wouldn’t feel it rock or feel off balance sometimes when you’re walking but… You most certainly do. It’s very weird.
My cabinmate’s name is Igor. He’s Ukranian and plays the drums in the show band. Very nice guy. The cabin is, as one might expect, very small. The shower is quite possibly the smallest shower I’ve ever used… Which is saying a lot considering some camp showers and stuff I’ve managed to squeeze into. All told though, it’s comfortable enough. Surprisingly so. When I first got in, the guy was in here before me had left a bunch of his shit. I think I’ve gotten it all cleaned out but… They hadn’t changed the sheets or anything after he moved out/before I moved in. Stuff in the bathroom, a bunch of stuff that we’re not supposed to have, stuff in the closet and desk drawer… Bah. Whatever, it’s pretty much all gone now. I need to get someone to come take away this big box of trash (the box that once held my 30 extra pounds of clothing and stuff on the flight out!). Let’s see… My cabin is on deck 3, my job usually finds me on deck 7… Crew mess and a few other areas of note are on deck 5. The main hallway to get from one end of the ship to the other is on deck 4. The main promenade around the ship that I’ve seen so far is also deck 7. Going up and down the stairs gets old haha… Each staircase is numbered, so I’m starting to learn that stuff too…
Most of the crew on board the ship is Filipino, which is different for me. Being white, and specifically an American, I’m in a severe minority here. There are more Canadians, Europeans and Australians than Americans, that I’ve seen anyway. Pretty much everyone has been really friendly and outgoing enough though. It’s nice. My team is me and two other white guys – a Canadian guy Matt, and my supervisor Shawn, who’s also American (that’s caused some confusion, of course) – and then a handful of Filipino guys… Including one hilariously flamboyant gay one, who dances all around the stage haha… It’s a good time.
My job so far has mostly been observing. Watching how things are done, where things are located, etc. I mostly sit in the booth in the theater and watch Matt run the sound. After shows, I’ll go down to the stage and help strike and set up for whatever is going on the next day. We just finished a show called Band on the Run. It’s good – we’ll be doing it again in a week and a half or whatever. Whenever we do this itinerary again. We struck that set last night and today it’s a juggler. Doesn’t sound very impressive but I watched him rehearse earlier and it should be pretty cool. I’ve gotta be back up there in 25 minutes for the actual show.
Today we were in Copenhagen. I was so exhausted from getting up early and staying up late, plus the time changes (we had to go +1 hour after the first day) and jet lag, that I pretty much slept the entire day. I had to get up early for my safety test, but did so without showering and opted for breakfast instead. Took my test, and came back to my cabin… and crashed. I slept until I had just enough time to shower, head up to the staff office, eat dinner, and head to the theater for the aforementioned rehearsal. So I missed Copenhagen, but we’ll be back next tour and I’ll definitely see it then. Tomorrow is Warnemuende, Germany (about 3 hours outside of Berlin). And then Wednesday we’re at sea, Thursday in Stockholm, Friday in Helsinki, and Friday and Saturday are St. Petersburg. I WILL be going there.
So hopefully my writing isn’t too erratic and… ya know… makes sense. For now, I gotta run. It’s about time for me to run back up to deck 7, to the Stardust (the theater). I don’t think I’ll be doing much of anything. Maybe setting up after the juggler’s done. I’m not sure what’s going on tomorrow. So… til next time…
Well… Wow. Ok then. It’s been sort of a whirlwind couple of days, hence the lack of writing. So let’s see… Where was I… Woke up damn early Saturday morning, got cleaned up, and ate some breakfast at the hotel. Who knew beans and stewed tomatoes were breakfast items?! Haha apparently the English. Other than the beans on this fried bread stuff, the rest of breakfast was pretty slimy and unappealing but hey… it was free. The grapefruit juice was tasty though. Got my stuff loaded up and got in the van. This ride was much shorter than the one to Dover. Got to the dock, went through all the security shit (which was none too fun… much like an airport)… Loaded my crap on board and had to wait forever to find someone to show me into the bowels of the ship, to the Personnel office. Stood around there for a while getting myself checked in or whatever. Handed my passport over, got my cabin assignment, and found someone to show me to it. Walked in, turned the light on… and my cabin-mate was asleep. So of course I was a big jerk and woke him up… No worries though, he was cool. Got all my junk moved in and went back up to return the cart… Remember the story about the airport and getting the box? Yeah I had to get a cart to be able to get all of my shit moved in. I felt like a jerk for that too, because I was the only one that wasn’t able to move in his stuff himself.
Went to some mandatory meetings with the Safety Officer on board and a few other folks… During which the ship departed port, which was a very weird sensation. We’re doing it again now but I’ll get to that…
So then things start to settle down, I suppose. I’ve had lots of safety training stuff to do… Learning what the different signs mean, the way to go in case of an emergency, where the watertight doors are, etc etc. All good things to know, but it sucks getting up at 7:30am and then not making it to bed until after 1, because of setting up for shows and stuff in the theater. So… Get up, sometimes make it to breakfast, sometimes not… Go to safety training, lunch, more safety training or take care of stuff at the personnel office or whatever… Dinner or the theater… Then the theater or dinner. Then the theater til late. That’s been my schedule. And a lot of wandering around, going up and down the wrong stairway or through the wrong door. Some of that is good, to learn my way around. It does get mighty frustrating though. Also – random thought – I’m amazed at how much you can feel the boat moving. You’d think on a ship this size that you wouldn’t feel it rock or feel off balance sometimes when you’re walking but… You most certainly do. It’s very weird.
My cabinmate’s name is Igor. He’s Ukranian and plays the drums in the show band. Very nice guy. The cabin is, as one might expect, very small. The shower is quite possibly the smallest shower I’ve ever used… Which is saying a lot considering some camp showers and stuff I’ve managed to squeeze into. All told though, it’s comfortable enough. Surprisingly so. When I first got in, the guy was in here before me had left a bunch of his shit. I think I’ve gotten it all cleaned out but… They hadn’t changed the sheets or anything after he moved out/before I moved in. Stuff in the bathroom, a bunch of stuff that we’re not supposed to have, stuff in the closet and desk drawer… Bah. Whatever, it’s pretty much all gone now. I need to get someone to come take away this big box of trash (the box that once held my 30 extra pounds of clothing and stuff on the flight out!). Let’s see… My cabin is on deck 3, my job usually finds me on deck 7… Crew mess and a few other areas of note are on deck 5. The main hallway to get from one end of the ship to the other is on deck 4. The main promenade around the ship that I’ve seen so far is also deck 7. Going up and down the stairs gets old haha… Each staircase is numbered, so I’m starting to learn that stuff too…
Most of the crew on board the ship is Filipino, which is different for me. Being white, and specifically an American, I’m in a severe minority here. There are more Canadians, Europeans and Australians than Americans, that I’ve seen anyway. Pretty much everyone has been really friendly and outgoing enough though. It’s nice. My team is me and two other white guys – a Canadian guy Matt, and my supervisor Shawn, who’s also American (that’s caused some confusion, of course) – and then a handful of Filipino guys… Including one hilariously flamboyant gay one, who dances all around the stage haha… It’s a good time.
My job so far has mostly been observing. Watching how things are done, where things are located, etc. I mostly sit in the booth in the theater and watch Matt run the sound. After shows, I’ll go down to the stage and help strike and set up for whatever is going on the next day. We just finished a show called Band on the Run. It’s good – we’ll be doing it again in a week and a half or whatever. Whenever we do this itinerary again. We struck that set last night and today it’s a juggler. Doesn’t sound very impressive but I watched him rehearse earlier and it should be pretty cool. I’ve gotta be back up there in 25 minutes for the actual show.
Today we were in Copenhagen. I was so exhausted from getting up early and staying up late, plus the time changes (we had to go +1 hour after the first day) and jet lag, that I pretty much slept the entire day. I had to get up early for my safety test, but did so without showering and opted for breakfast instead. Took my test, and came back to my cabin… and crashed. I slept until I had just enough time to shower, head up to the staff office, eat dinner, and head to the theater for the aforementioned rehearsal. So I missed Copenhagen, but we’ll be back next tour and I’ll definitely see it then. Tomorrow is Warnemuende, Germany (about 3 hours outside of Berlin). And then Wednesday we’re at sea, Thursday in Stockholm, Friday in Helsinki, and Friday and Saturday are St. Petersburg. I WILL be going there.
So hopefully my writing isn’t too erratic and… ya know… makes sense. For now, I gotta run. It’s about time for me to run back up to deck 7, to the Stardust (the theater). I don’t think I’ll be doing much of anything. Maybe setting up after the juggler’s done. I’m not sure what’s going on tomorrow. So… til next time…
Friday, August 22, 2008
A Prelude...
9:24pm BST/4:24pm EDT
Day one. Whew. What an ordeal. But I’m here, fed, and in one piece so I guess I can’t complain too much. I was hoping for a day to poke around London and see the sights but… I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s see then…
It all starts right about 24 hours ago, actually. I called United Airlines – the airline I was scheduled to fly with – to ask a few questions about luggage… and was informed that my flight from Dayton to Washington D.C. had been cancelled. Insert panicked face here. They offered me another flight to Chicago, but the flight from Chicago to Heathrow was questionable. Apparently there was some crew issue and it was 50/50 whether the flight was going to take off at all. Turns out it did end up taking off but hey… I didn’t know at the time. So anyway, I called Norwegian Cruise Lines’ agent to inform them and, after much run around, got reassigned to another flight on a different airline – US Airways. It left a few minutes later than my original flight was supposed to and routed me through Philadelphia instead. A pretty similar timeframe, and in the end, not a big deal really.
Get to the Dayton airport… And my bag is 32 pounds overweight. And the people on the phone gave me some incorrect information regarding my baggage. Jerks. Anyway, the lady at the counter was EXTREMELY helpful and found me a box that I somehow managed to pack 40 pounds of stuff into… Apparently you can check 2 bags on international flights free of charge. Remember that incorrect information I mentioned? Whatever… After much hoopla and shuffling stuff around, we made it work, get my bag and box checked, get my carryon situation figured out… Get on the plane.
So I get to Philly and rush from one end of the airport AAAAALL the way to the other end… Arrive huffing and puffing and sweating at my gate, thinking the plane is scheduled to take off in 5 minutes… and there are tons of people sitting around waiting. I’m starving at this point, and of course, everything in the airport is closing down. Manage to get a burger from McDonalds, but they’d already shut down the fryers and drink machines. The whole time, I’m sitting there trying to figure out why the screen says the flight is on time but it’s over half an hour since the plane was supposed to depart… Then they announced boarding was about to begin. Turns out I can’t read my own damn watch. I was thinking it was an hour later than it really was – I hauled ass down to the gate at 9:40, when the plane wasn’t set to depart until 10:45. Bah. Fail. Oh well, no harm done.
Speaking of fail… I was thinking the flight from Philly was going to be something ridiculous like 15-18 hours. Get on the plane and am feeling fairly unhappy about the amount of legroom and… well, room overall. And my dumbass requested a window seat. D’oh. I’m not a claustrophobic person… But thinking about 12+ hours in that cramped seat made even me rather uncomfortable. Once boarding is finished, the captain comes on the intercom and talks about the altitude, speed, flight path, and flight time… Time. A little over 6 hours. Hm I feel like a retard again. But hey, at least the flight wasn’t as long as I was expecting!
Not much to be said about the flight. It was a long, fairly cramped flight. Slept some, watched a movie, listened to music. Only made the guy next to me let me out once, towards the very end of the flight. Flew into the rising sun, which was kind of weird… But neat. Arrived at Heathrow this morning. Lots of jumping through hoops to actually get through the airport. Security checks and having my passport out in a million different places. Got interrogated at the border about where I’d come from, what I was going to be doing, etc. Pretty standard, I imagine. They sound so suspicious when they ask though… Anyway, got to my bag/box… And didn’t see anyone waiting for me. Went to the info desk and they called the company for me… and the taxi guy showed up a few minutes later.
If you didn’t know (I didn’t), Dover is a damn long way from London. I was pretty unaware of this fact and… Well I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for the cab ride haha… I fell asleep more than once on the way. Pretty cool though – the lady I shared the cab with was an American doctor, who’s gonna be on the same ship. The crew doctor specifically. Anyway… Got to the hotel – which is pretty big for how small the rooms are. Just a lot of them in here I suppose. Mostly a nice place though. Turns out I have to share a room with another guy for the night and he’d already checked in when I got here. Small beds. Bah. Took a nap, and woke up around 8:15pm local time (so 3:15 Eastern time… nearly 20 hours since I’d departed, and the first time I’d really slept in that time). I was starving and had no cash. I suppose I assumed too much when I figured NCL would pay for meals while we were here too. There’s an ATM in the lobby and, for lack of any other ideas on how to obtain currency for the eating I went to try it out. I don’t know off the top of my head the conversion rate but I was able to withdraw £10 from the ATM… I also have no concept of how much things cost around here so I wasn’t sure if £10 would cover *anything* to eat. Walked out the door of the hotel – again, hunger and lack of options drove me to do SOMETHING – and started walking around. There’s really only one direction you can walk/drive from the front of the hotel, so I went that way. It’s right across the street from the harbor and the tide was out. All of the boats in the harbor were just sitting in the mud… I mean, when I say the tide was out, it was OUT. Boats were literally resting on the ground… Some tilted to the side a bit. I wouldn’t think that would be GOOD for them, but… Whatever. It’s a neat view anyway.
So I walked around the corner, and there were two little restaurants right there. I don’t remember the name of the second, but I went into the first – Harbour Fish Bar. Both places were run by non-British folks – the second place served kabobs and gyros… Both places had stuff like burgers too. Thankfully, £10 was plenty to get me a good-sized place of fish (cod) and chips (aka french fries) at Harbour Fish Bar. I felt pretty out of place but was pretty proud of myself for figuring it all out and getting food. That and caffeine improved my mood a lot. Came back to the hotel and, again, felt pretty satisfied with myself for operating the Coke machine downstairs. I know that sounds lame but hey… You’d be happy with yourself too, considering the circumstances and the significant lost feeling I’d had earlier in the evening. Glad I’m leaving tomorrow because I really did not do enough research about England to feel comfortable staying here very long.
In other news, apparently it’s Bank Holiday weekend. I have no idea what that means but a bunch of commercials on TV are talking about sales, and traffic was nuts heading the other direction on the M25 (the highway). Might also explain how busy this hotel was today. Also – I need a shower and to shave. Trying to decide if I should do that now or in the morning. I suck at getting up early.
So… Meet the ship in the morning. The adventure begins. I feel like maybe I’ve forgotten something that I wanted to say here, so… if I remember, I’ll put it in later. So… Yeah. Days 1 and 2 come to a close. Or maybe days -2 and -1? I don’t know. This time change is messing with me still haha. Sleep maybe… Til next time…
Day one. Whew. What an ordeal. But I’m here, fed, and in one piece so I guess I can’t complain too much. I was hoping for a day to poke around London and see the sights but… I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s see then…
It all starts right about 24 hours ago, actually. I called United Airlines – the airline I was scheduled to fly with – to ask a few questions about luggage… and was informed that my flight from Dayton to Washington D.C. had been cancelled. Insert panicked face here. They offered me another flight to Chicago, but the flight from Chicago to Heathrow was questionable. Apparently there was some crew issue and it was 50/50 whether the flight was going to take off at all. Turns out it did end up taking off but hey… I didn’t know at the time. So anyway, I called Norwegian Cruise Lines’ agent to inform them and, after much run around, got reassigned to another flight on a different airline – US Airways. It left a few minutes later than my original flight was supposed to and routed me through Philadelphia instead. A pretty similar timeframe, and in the end, not a big deal really.
Get to the Dayton airport… And my bag is 32 pounds overweight. And the people on the phone gave me some incorrect information regarding my baggage. Jerks. Anyway, the lady at the counter was EXTREMELY helpful and found me a box that I somehow managed to pack 40 pounds of stuff into… Apparently you can check 2 bags on international flights free of charge. Remember that incorrect information I mentioned? Whatever… After much hoopla and shuffling stuff around, we made it work, get my bag and box checked, get my carryon situation figured out… Get on the plane.
So I get to Philly and rush from one end of the airport AAAAALL the way to the other end… Arrive huffing and puffing and sweating at my gate, thinking the plane is scheduled to take off in 5 minutes… and there are tons of people sitting around waiting. I’m starving at this point, and of course, everything in the airport is closing down. Manage to get a burger from McDonalds, but they’d already shut down the fryers and drink machines. The whole time, I’m sitting there trying to figure out why the screen says the flight is on time but it’s over half an hour since the plane was supposed to depart… Then they announced boarding was about to begin. Turns out I can’t read my own damn watch. I was thinking it was an hour later than it really was – I hauled ass down to the gate at 9:40, when the plane wasn’t set to depart until 10:45. Bah. Fail. Oh well, no harm done.
Speaking of fail… I was thinking the flight from Philly was going to be something ridiculous like 15-18 hours. Get on the plane and am feeling fairly unhappy about the amount of legroom and… well, room overall. And my dumbass requested a window seat. D’oh. I’m not a claustrophobic person… But thinking about 12+ hours in that cramped seat made even me rather uncomfortable. Once boarding is finished, the captain comes on the intercom and talks about the altitude, speed, flight path, and flight time… Time. A little over 6 hours. Hm I feel like a retard again. But hey, at least the flight wasn’t as long as I was expecting!
Not much to be said about the flight. It was a long, fairly cramped flight. Slept some, watched a movie, listened to music. Only made the guy next to me let me out once, towards the very end of the flight. Flew into the rising sun, which was kind of weird… But neat. Arrived at Heathrow this morning. Lots of jumping through hoops to actually get through the airport. Security checks and having my passport out in a million different places. Got interrogated at the border about where I’d come from, what I was going to be doing, etc. Pretty standard, I imagine. They sound so suspicious when they ask though… Anyway, got to my bag/box… And didn’t see anyone waiting for me. Went to the info desk and they called the company for me… and the taxi guy showed up a few minutes later.
If you didn’t know (I didn’t), Dover is a damn long way from London. I was pretty unaware of this fact and… Well I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for the cab ride haha… I fell asleep more than once on the way. Pretty cool though – the lady I shared the cab with was an American doctor, who’s gonna be on the same ship. The crew doctor specifically. Anyway… Got to the hotel – which is pretty big for how small the rooms are. Just a lot of them in here I suppose. Mostly a nice place though. Turns out I have to share a room with another guy for the night and he’d already checked in when I got here. Small beds. Bah. Took a nap, and woke up around 8:15pm local time (so 3:15 Eastern time… nearly 20 hours since I’d departed, and the first time I’d really slept in that time). I was starving and had no cash. I suppose I assumed too much when I figured NCL would pay for meals while we were here too. There’s an ATM in the lobby and, for lack of any other ideas on how to obtain currency for the eating I went to try it out. I don’t know off the top of my head the conversion rate but I was able to withdraw £10 from the ATM… I also have no concept of how much things cost around here so I wasn’t sure if £10 would cover *anything* to eat. Walked out the door of the hotel – again, hunger and lack of options drove me to do SOMETHING – and started walking around. There’s really only one direction you can walk/drive from the front of the hotel, so I went that way. It’s right across the street from the harbor and the tide was out. All of the boats in the harbor were just sitting in the mud… I mean, when I say the tide was out, it was OUT. Boats were literally resting on the ground… Some tilted to the side a bit. I wouldn’t think that would be GOOD for them, but… Whatever. It’s a neat view anyway.
So I walked around the corner, and there were two little restaurants right there. I don’t remember the name of the second, but I went into the first – Harbour Fish Bar. Both places were run by non-British folks – the second place served kabobs and gyros… Both places had stuff like burgers too. Thankfully, £10 was plenty to get me a good-sized place of fish (cod) and chips (aka french fries) at Harbour Fish Bar. I felt pretty out of place but was pretty proud of myself for figuring it all out and getting food. That and caffeine improved my mood a lot. Came back to the hotel and, again, felt pretty satisfied with myself for operating the Coke machine downstairs. I know that sounds lame but hey… You’d be happy with yourself too, considering the circumstances and the significant lost feeling I’d had earlier in the evening. Glad I’m leaving tomorrow because I really did not do enough research about England to feel comfortable staying here very long.
In other news, apparently it’s Bank Holiday weekend. I have no idea what that means but a bunch of commercials on TV are talking about sales, and traffic was nuts heading the other direction on the M25 (the highway). Might also explain how busy this hotel was today. Also – I need a shower and to shave. Trying to decide if I should do that now or in the morning. I suck at getting up early.
So… Meet the ship in the morning. The adventure begins. I feel like maybe I’ve forgotten something that I wanted to say here, so… if I remember, I’ll put it in later. So… Yeah. Days 1 and 2 come to a close. Or maybe days -2 and -1? I don’t know. This time change is messing with me still haha. Sleep maybe… Til next time…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)