Bali

How many people do you think live on the island of Bali? If you are me, you think “what, like 4,000?” Honestly, like 600 and each person has a puppet. Well, turns out there are TWENTY MILLION. And there are TWO HUNDRED AND TEN MILLION IN ALL OF INDONESIA. With a bunch of different dialects and one national language. Oh. (upon further research, turns out this is crap and he is exaggerating. O Bali.)

Apparently this crew bar is very normal, as far as crew bars go. When I saw a chef from the buffet making out with a random, very drunk woman in the hallway, under fluorescent lights, I was told “typical crew bar.” When I was surprised, other cast member informed me he had just made out with someone a second before. Oh.

We have two room stewards on our deck who are completely friendly, and, note: don’t clean our rooms. Which probably makes it easier to be friendly. They are both from Bali. I asked one guy about his cabin on the ship, how many roommates he had. He said he has 3, haha, that it is pretty much okay, ha ha, except for one guy. It smells and is always a mess because that one guy only has two socks and doesn’t wash them, ha ha. (!!!!!!!!!!!) So when he goes to his cabin, he shuts the curtain right away. Also, they can be loud, so he sleeps with an ipod, ha ha. We asked him if he’s excited to go home in a month, he said yes yes yes—he goes home for 4 months, via a 22 hour plane ride. He said the first time he was going home he got so excited he just kept drinking beer, especially once they hit Singapore. So that by the time his dad came to pick him up, he was so drunk he had to hold on to the wall to walk. So his dad said “WHAT THE F*CK IS WRONG WITH YOU! AFTER ONLY 10 MONTHS IN AMERICA!” Then he said he loves seeing drunk people dance and we watched a few of them, mainly a youth counselor pretend to dance with people as they walked by. The same youth counselor who told me “I’m going to hug you for 5 seconds” and then “you’re incredible” and then “oh. You’re not as drunk as me.”

I then learned some Balinese words (apakapar is “how are you”) and that they have a very bad lack of sex education and that our room steward friend goes to the beach every day when he is home and fishes. Also, he has a house that is interesting and the “kitchen and bathroom are separate.” Also, “you must come to Bali Megan!” This is fun.