New Jersey!
There was a selection of very jockish buzz haircut football playing Asian kids on board last cruise. They talked with a lot of “duh what’re you doin’” around the buffet and then showed off their muscles. One of them decided to make out with a girl he had just met or something (shy, semi-nerd-funky with glasses and long black hair) in the middle of the hallway, at the bottom of a stairwell, right below the buffet. I walked out and caught them kissing, which they immediately stopped, and she put her head in his neck and hid and he pretended he had to look straight ahead at the elevators. Then I got a cookie, by which I mean 3, and had such delightful thoughts about cookies that I forgot not to go down that stairwell. So I did and caught them again. They did the exact same stop tactic although this time he impatiently started to shake his leg, waiting for me to go. O TEENAGERS!
All of them, by the way, have a) extremely short buzz cut haircuts, b) fashion baseball hats worn artfully cockeyed, c) well fitting plaid shorts that do not hang low, but go below the knees, and d) white low top shoes with barely visible socks. This says “I am from Jersey.” Possibly “New York” and possibly “East Coast.” I have no idea. There is also male eyebrow shaping and large diamond/cubic zirconia earrings on the gentlemen, the flashier ones employing both ears.
Today’s passengers include:
A family with blue tshirts with white writing that says “Cruise 2008.” A family reunion/trip/something with neon green tshirts that say a list of Irish-ish last names on the back. A family with big white tshirts and a picture of a cruise ship that says “THIS IS MY [insert number] CRUISE” as is appropriate to them. One fluffy-ish 14-ish year old with day glow orange clearly fake nails had a t-shirt that said it was her 11th cruise.
Also, a Russian/Eastern European/Ukranian/something family with a probably 30-ish year old daughter. All of them dressed like they were about 23 and about to go clubbing, including the dad who had very trendy sunglasses, very trendy white long pointy shoes, and a trendy, tight light blue t-shirt with arty graphics stretched very far over his giant, round tummy. He has full white hair. I will attempt a photo.
There is also a little 10 or 11 ish year old girl who wore a head scarf. As we got closer to the statue of liberty, the wind blew her hair around, making it pretty obvious that she is going through chemo. The nice part is that her brother/cousin seemed to ignore her, so the world still made sense.
Also, note, vis a vis the hilarious South African doctors in the medical center: a small tale:
a) so I had a pretty bad idea and kept my contacts in water for about 2 weeks, probably 3, because I ran out of solution. Then I got some solution and just put them in there for a few days.
b) I then decided to put them in my eye anyway. My eye reacted by burning and turning red and tearing up, which I decided was dramatic and false and made my eye wear said contact all day.
c) I got pink eye.
So I went to the medical center and was prescribed eye drops. My exact prescription is like this: “well, usually you put 2 drops in your eye every four hours. I’d say just put 1 or 2 drops in your eye every hour for today—maybe 2--then tomorrow just do 2 every two hours or four hours or so then you know, so do like that and then instead of a slow attack, it’ll kill the germs fast. And when it stops bothering you, you know, stop uh, using it.”
Monday, July 7, 2008
A Happy Chinese July 4th
What it is to be irritable:
To be unable to escape from one’s own human companions:
To go like this: can I just have some time by myself and to have someone say “there you are!!!!” and insist upon telling one a story.
To be completely unable to find a tiny corner to just tuck away.
The complete unavailability of private corners.
Private corners!
Last night was spent discussing with castmate the exact nature of going crazy on a ship. It goes like this: as he reported: some of the doors in his mind got opened that didn’t need to be opened, like: “when did time begin” or “what is language” or “what was I before I was myself” and “when was my first thought” and things like this and “is it all meaningless” and items that you don’t actually need to think about because you will go crazy because there is no answer. This was good to hear about because this happens. This is what happens if you have no work and legions of servants. Then you start thinking “WHY AM I HERE” and feel like you are a trash pit that people throw food and amusement into. This must be part of what happens to incredibly rich entertainers or similar.
I am drinking 3 cups of coffee per morning. This is probably what is helping make me so irritable, along with the 50,000 people here. I should note that our room stewards, who work all day, are not irritable. They are pleasant and helpful. I should note that one of the guys who works in the buffet line had a fun time making up different sounds for a horn when he was trying to get through the masses of mooing humans, then went “hahaha.” Also, I should note that one of the women sings a song regularly and there is a general mood of laughing amongst that staff. This is nice x 1000.
The difficult thing about being a teenager is that you need a phone. I have seen the same girl twice in two days. She is a girl, so I have no idea if she is 23 or 16. I think she is probably 16. She asked me “is anybody sitting here?” about a chair that was about 15 feet away from me, in the middle of a completely empty mass of chairs. I said “no.” The day before I saw her and she desperately asked me if I got phone service. I said no and that maybe it was because we were in the Dominican Republic. She said she got phone service the other days. Both of these times I had my headphones in and was clearly on a computer. Well, today she got phone service and proceeded to loudly bawl on the phone. This is in the middle of a high traffic area. She didn’t want to sit in my line of sight, so she sat in traffic’s line of sight. I could hear her painfully sobbing and gulping air and saying “but noooooo” in a really high 4 year old’s type voice. And I think “I said I would call yoooou” and some other stuff. This is what happens when you have no privacy. Very upsetting. Also, she is going to be broke from that phone bill, if she is 23, or she is going to be grounded for life if she is 16.
There are a number of older Chinese folks on this cruise. They are frequently in the gym. I ran/walked on the treadmill next to an older lady who ran much faster than me and kept either staring at me or looking out the window right behind me.
Yesterday was the 4th of July. I should note that there are about 7 Americans on the crew, out of 1000. This results in a celebration of the 4th that is, in a word: crap. There were a bunch of red white and blue streamers that felt Chinese somehow and a fringie silver banner with cardboard letters that said PROUD (to be an) AMERICAN. The “to be an” was very small and on a silver cutout of the United States in the middle. Then there were identical cardboard American flags kind of haphazardly just around the ship at incorrect locations to the eye height. There was a $25 jazz brunch that they have every week that they called “Independence Day Brunch.” Like I said: Chinese. No fireworks, no sparklers, no face painting. I know blah blah blah Iraq blah blah blah SUVs blah blah blah, I don’t care. I am traditional. Very traditional apparently because I was VERY interested in getting in a fight all day. The best I could do was rant and rave about how terrible “Two Days in Paris” is as a movie. (It is terrible, just like how there is supposed to be a CLOTH AMERICAN FLAG SOMEWHERE AND ONE PICTURE OF UNCLE SAM AND OH I DON’T KNOW SOMETHING).
Our cruise director is Canadian, the captain is Swedish, everybody is Filipino or Peruvian, the Hotel Director is German and youth counselors are mainly Canadian and there are many of them. There are a ton of South Africans. For Canada Day (July 2nd) we had a big party and the Canadians wore red and white and put flags on their faces and got hammered. The passengers are all American, mainly from New Jersey physically or spiritually. Well, my cast had a lot of fun feeling very persecuted and ignored because there were no fireworks or BBQs and all of us tried to be alone and/or watch movies and/or read and/or write angry diatribes. Also, hello, we are people who make fun of things, so we wait for someone else to do something, then point out how stupid it is. This is hard when they are not doing the stupid thing you desire so you can rant about how pointless and jingoistic (maybe the word?) July 4th celebrations are. We finally went down to the crew bar for some conversation and Coronas, after our show, we could freely vent our hostility and wish each other a good 4th. I took the opportunity to plan a Labor Day Picnic and invite everyone. That is never to happen again! The end.
To be unable to escape from one’s own human companions:
To go like this: can I just have some time by myself and to have someone say “there you are!!!!” and insist upon telling one a story.
To be completely unable to find a tiny corner to just tuck away.
The complete unavailability of private corners.
Private corners!
Last night was spent discussing with castmate the exact nature of going crazy on a ship. It goes like this: as he reported: some of the doors in his mind got opened that didn’t need to be opened, like: “when did time begin” or “what is language” or “what was I before I was myself” and “when was my first thought” and things like this and “is it all meaningless” and items that you don’t actually need to think about because you will go crazy because there is no answer. This was good to hear about because this happens. This is what happens if you have no work and legions of servants. Then you start thinking “WHY AM I HERE” and feel like you are a trash pit that people throw food and amusement into. This must be part of what happens to incredibly rich entertainers or similar.
I am drinking 3 cups of coffee per morning. This is probably what is helping make me so irritable, along with the 50,000 people here. I should note that our room stewards, who work all day, are not irritable. They are pleasant and helpful. I should note that one of the guys who works in the buffet line had a fun time making up different sounds for a horn when he was trying to get through the masses of mooing humans, then went “hahaha.” Also, I should note that one of the women sings a song regularly and there is a general mood of laughing amongst that staff. This is nice x 1000.
The difficult thing about being a teenager is that you need a phone. I have seen the same girl twice in two days. She is a girl, so I have no idea if she is 23 or 16. I think she is probably 16. She asked me “is anybody sitting here?” about a chair that was about 15 feet away from me, in the middle of a completely empty mass of chairs. I said “no.” The day before I saw her and she desperately asked me if I got phone service. I said no and that maybe it was because we were in the Dominican Republic. She said she got phone service the other days. Both of these times I had my headphones in and was clearly on a computer. Well, today she got phone service and proceeded to loudly bawl on the phone. This is in the middle of a high traffic area. She didn’t want to sit in my line of sight, so she sat in traffic’s line of sight. I could hear her painfully sobbing and gulping air and saying “but noooooo” in a really high 4 year old’s type voice. And I think “I said I would call yoooou” and some other stuff. This is what happens when you have no privacy. Very upsetting. Also, she is going to be broke from that phone bill, if she is 23, or she is going to be grounded for life if she is 16.
There are a number of older Chinese folks on this cruise. They are frequently in the gym. I ran/walked on the treadmill next to an older lady who ran much faster than me and kept either staring at me or looking out the window right behind me.
Yesterday was the 4th of July. I should note that there are about 7 Americans on the crew, out of 1000. This results in a celebration of the 4th that is, in a word: crap. There were a bunch of red white and blue streamers that felt Chinese somehow and a fringie silver banner with cardboard letters that said PROUD (to be an) AMERICAN. The “to be an” was very small and on a silver cutout of the United States in the middle. Then there were identical cardboard American flags kind of haphazardly just around the ship at incorrect locations to the eye height. There was a $25 jazz brunch that they have every week that they called “Independence Day Brunch.” Like I said: Chinese. No fireworks, no sparklers, no face painting. I know blah blah blah Iraq blah blah blah SUVs blah blah blah, I don’t care. I am traditional. Very traditional apparently because I was VERY interested in getting in a fight all day. The best I could do was rant and rave about how terrible “Two Days in Paris” is as a movie. (It is terrible, just like how there is supposed to be a CLOTH AMERICAN FLAG SOMEWHERE AND ONE PICTURE OF UNCLE SAM AND OH I DON’T KNOW SOMETHING).
Our cruise director is Canadian, the captain is Swedish, everybody is Filipino or Peruvian, the Hotel Director is German and youth counselors are mainly Canadian and there are many of them. There are a ton of South Africans. For Canada Day (July 2nd) we had a big party and the Canadians wore red and white and put flags on their faces and got hammered. The passengers are all American, mainly from New Jersey physically or spiritually. Well, my cast had a lot of fun feeling very persecuted and ignored because there were no fireworks or BBQs and all of us tried to be alone and/or watch movies and/or read and/or write angry diatribes. Also, hello, we are people who make fun of things, so we wait for someone else to do something, then point out how stupid it is. This is hard when they are not doing the stupid thing you desire so you can rant about how pointless and jingoistic (maybe the word?) July 4th celebrations are. We finally went down to the crew bar for some conversation and Coronas, after our show, we could freely vent our hostility and wish each other a good 4th. I took the opportunity to plan a Labor Day Picnic and invite everyone. That is never to happen again! The end.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Canada Day, Abandon Ship
Last night was the crew party on the helipad.
We also saw Wall-E which will make you think a great deal about cruising. I loved it.
The clouds here are SPEKTAKULAR! And are my favorite things. Also there is RAIN! And local port people who have cars/jobs/a nearby Best Buy which it turns out is incredibly comforting. Puerto Rico is great so far although a cabbie DID try to rip us off, but I think they are trained that way. And he only tried for $3. As soon as a cabbie speaks Spanish, it is war.
No one is asking me if I am a vegetarian anymore, which I think is due to my increased human volume from living with desserts. I was very proud of myself for not having ANY cookies OR dessert with meals, although, full disclosure, there was a bag of carmel chocolates that I fell on which was my fault.
In incredible news for those of you who know Bar Habor or Improv Acadia, they had 3 Bar Harbor beers available for free at the crew party last night. I lost my mind. They are a blueberry-infused beer, a ginger-infused beer and a stout (barf). All of the crew wants “Hein-e-kin! Hein-e-kin!” and when you don’t have that, they say “oh, coke? Soh-dah?” Turns out if you are foreign, you probably don’t care about microbrews. This is probably because you don’t trust local things, which I don’t blame anyone after seeing Mexico (sorry Mexico). Our bartending system was like this: one giant trash can full of soda (Dr. Pepper and Coke and some Sprite and Sprite Zero) and ice. One giant trash can full of Budweiser and ice and a few Bud lights, which were hard to tell apart because there was no light. Another trashcan of mainly Bud lights, with some Budweiser. Then a trash can of Smirnoff Ice, which is a popular alternative to “Hein-e-kin!” Then 2 other trash cans, one that was the Blueberry beer mixed with the ginger beer mixed with a bottom layer of Heinekin and some Guiness. Well, we couldn’t see anything and then one of the Smirnoff Ice’s broke in the giant trash can. Bartending means “open bottles quickly, set on table.” We were 3 actors running the table, and we did pretty well until a real bartender came to help us and well, before he came we had the table like a 1/3 full of bottles. Maybe really like 3/8ths. The bartender, one guy, filled it in like mmm…5 minutes. Our system was “bump into each other” and “try to use the broken bottle opener many many times” and “only get two beers at a time from the trash can.” His was “BE A MACHINE.” This is a better system.
It was also Canada Day yesterday, so all of the Youth Counselors (always Canadian almost) dressed up and jumped around. I chatted with some of the guys from the Phillipines, one of whom told me this is the best ship. It WAS the Wind, but that’s now a ship in Asia. Then I saw pictures of another guy’s kids and he told me how a ferry went down 3 days ago in the Phillipines, killing everyone on board. We made fun of him for his party conversation and he told us the province where he is from, although the only other place I know is Mindinau because a bunch of people were killed there in a terrorist thingie a while back. This is my choice of party conversation. WHEEEEE!
The crew seems much nicer and friendlier here and no one seems like they must constantly get completely obliterated drunk. The crew is not so exclusively Filipino and Indonesian. We have people from Peru, a guy from Panama, Haitians, Bulgarians, Ukranians, and a rare few Mexicans. Mainly Filipino, yes, but everyone seems friendlier and more willing to chat. Even our room stewards are nicer and don’t seem as constantly stressed out as our last guy on the Star, who was always sweating and wild-eyed and only was really happy when we smuggled him Amarula, which is a liqueur from the Amarula fruit (obvious).
This morning was a boat drill that we had to take part in. It was an entire “abandon ship” drill, meaning 1000 people had to leave the ship all in their uniforms. It was very confusing and not what I thought, which is that someone would go “ABANDON SHIP!!!” and we’d all freak out and jump down things like the blow up chutes in an airplane. I mean, in fire drills, it’s all about time and can-we-make-it-out-in-90-seconds, etc. Well, for this one, we stood around on deck 7, all of us tired and hung over. They announced the drill, did the alarm, then we waited for 15 minutes as people passed us by and a Panamanian gentleman said “oh, who are you” etc. Then a very hung over nice British party girl from the spa came and said “yeah I guess I’m your leader” or something to that effect. Then we waited for a while longer and guys from the engine room in coveralls stood next to us and did not talk because they are Eastern European or something. Then another guy came over and we joked around. Then someone said “follow him” and we started following some guy out. We calmly left the ship and went to stand in a field behind a sign for “B2” even though we were instructed to stand behind “B1,” but there was no B1 sign. Then we got no word. Our crew leader came out about 15 minutes later and got us behind the right sign. Then she said “I’m dehydrated” and sat down and we discussed tattoos. Then someone randomly gave another castmate a “C1” sign and told him to hold it, next to the “B1” sign, 4 rows down from the other, differently formatted “C1” sign, so it went C1, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2 and so on. Then about 15 minutes later, he got in trouble for holding it.
The safety officer is a terrifying Swede in and all white coverall. There were other random guys walking around, slowly everybody trickled out from the ship. One guy, a waiter, was still holding his tray, which I do not understand. The Indian guys (who frequently wear women’s jeans—it must be cultural) quietly made fun of someone for saying “WAH-ter” like an American, instead of “wuh-tah,” like a Brit, something they found clearly hilarious. Then apparently it was over and we all went back on the ship. I hope to the dear Lord in Heaven that we never have to abandon ship for real. The drill took an hour and 15 minutes, no one knew what was going on. Maybe fires at sea are slow acting. I hope this is true. Thank you.
We also saw Wall-E which will make you think a great deal about cruising. I loved it.
The clouds here are SPEKTAKULAR! And are my favorite things. Also there is RAIN! And local port people who have cars/jobs/a nearby Best Buy which it turns out is incredibly comforting. Puerto Rico is great so far although a cabbie DID try to rip us off, but I think they are trained that way. And he only tried for $3. As soon as a cabbie speaks Spanish, it is war.
No one is asking me if I am a vegetarian anymore, which I think is due to my increased human volume from living with desserts. I was very proud of myself for not having ANY cookies OR dessert with meals, although, full disclosure, there was a bag of carmel chocolates that I fell on which was my fault.
In incredible news for those of you who know Bar Habor or Improv Acadia, they had 3 Bar Harbor beers available for free at the crew party last night. I lost my mind. They are a blueberry-infused beer, a ginger-infused beer and a stout (barf). All of the crew wants “Hein-e-kin! Hein-e-kin!” and when you don’t have that, they say “oh, coke? Soh-dah?” Turns out if you are foreign, you probably don’t care about microbrews. This is probably because you don’t trust local things, which I don’t blame anyone after seeing Mexico (sorry Mexico). Our bartending system was like this: one giant trash can full of soda (Dr. Pepper and Coke and some Sprite and Sprite Zero) and ice. One giant trash can full of Budweiser and ice and a few Bud lights, which were hard to tell apart because there was no light. Another trashcan of mainly Bud lights, with some Budweiser. Then a trash can of Smirnoff Ice, which is a popular alternative to “Hein-e-kin!” Then 2 other trash cans, one that was the Blueberry beer mixed with the ginger beer mixed with a bottom layer of Heinekin and some Guiness. Well, we couldn’t see anything and then one of the Smirnoff Ice’s broke in the giant trash can. Bartending means “open bottles quickly, set on table.” We were 3 actors running the table, and we did pretty well until a real bartender came to help us and well, before he came we had the table like a 1/3 full of bottles. Maybe really like 3/8ths. The bartender, one guy, filled it in like mmm…5 minutes. Our system was “bump into each other” and “try to use the broken bottle opener many many times” and “only get two beers at a time from the trash can.” His was “BE A MACHINE.” This is a better system.
It was also Canada Day yesterday, so all of the Youth Counselors (always Canadian almost) dressed up and jumped around. I chatted with some of the guys from the Phillipines, one of whom told me this is the best ship. It WAS the Wind, but that’s now a ship in Asia. Then I saw pictures of another guy’s kids and he told me how a ferry went down 3 days ago in the Phillipines, killing everyone on board. We made fun of him for his party conversation and he told us the province where he is from, although the only other place I know is Mindinau because a bunch of people were killed there in a terrorist thingie a while back. This is my choice of party conversation. WHEEEEE!
The crew seems much nicer and friendlier here and no one seems like they must constantly get completely obliterated drunk. The crew is not so exclusively Filipino and Indonesian. We have people from Peru, a guy from Panama, Haitians, Bulgarians, Ukranians, and a rare few Mexicans. Mainly Filipino, yes, but everyone seems friendlier and more willing to chat. Even our room stewards are nicer and don’t seem as constantly stressed out as our last guy on the Star, who was always sweating and wild-eyed and only was really happy when we smuggled him Amarula, which is a liqueur from the Amarula fruit (obvious).
This morning was a boat drill that we had to take part in. It was an entire “abandon ship” drill, meaning 1000 people had to leave the ship all in their uniforms. It was very confusing and not what I thought, which is that someone would go “ABANDON SHIP!!!” and we’d all freak out and jump down things like the blow up chutes in an airplane. I mean, in fire drills, it’s all about time and can-we-make-it-out-in-90-seconds, etc. Well, for this one, we stood around on deck 7, all of us tired and hung over. They announced the drill, did the alarm, then we waited for 15 minutes as people passed us by and a Panamanian gentleman said “oh, who are you” etc. Then a very hung over nice British party girl from the spa came and said “yeah I guess I’m your leader” or something to that effect. Then we waited for a while longer and guys from the engine room in coveralls stood next to us and did not talk because they are Eastern European or something. Then another guy came over and we joked around. Then someone said “follow him” and we started following some guy out. We calmly left the ship and went to stand in a field behind a sign for “B2” even though we were instructed to stand behind “B1,” but there was no B1 sign. Then we got no word. Our crew leader came out about 15 minutes later and got us behind the right sign. Then she said “I’m dehydrated” and sat down and we discussed tattoos. Then someone randomly gave another castmate a “C1” sign and told him to hold it, next to the “B1” sign, 4 rows down from the other, differently formatted “C1” sign, so it went C1, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2 and so on. Then about 15 minutes later, he got in trouble for holding it.
The safety officer is a terrifying Swede in and all white coverall. There were other random guys walking around, slowly everybody trickled out from the ship. One guy, a waiter, was still holding his tray, which I do not understand. The Indian guys (who frequently wear women’s jeans—it must be cultural) quietly made fun of someone for saying “WAH-ter” like an American, instead of “wuh-tah,” like a Brit, something they found clearly hilarious. Then apparently it was over and we all went back on the ship. I hope to the dear Lord in Heaven that we never have to abandon ship for real. The drill took an hour and 15 minutes, no one knew what was going on. Maybe fires at sea are slow acting. I hope this is true. Thank you.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Pet Notes
There is a rascal parked on deck 11 right by the elevators. This is because they probably can’t get it into their room or some other problem of person to hallway to motorized chair ratio. The Rascal has a bumper sticker that reads, in funky font: “MY POMERANIAN IS SMARTER THAN YOUR HONOR STUDENT.”
The best story thus far:
a) we do a scene in the show about how a guy can’t express his emotions—that’s the joke of it. It mentions a cat that was just put to sleep.
b) Several months ago, on the cruise director’s birthday, he was called out of a dinner to deal with an irate passenger. The passenger was a woman who was bawling out the ladies at reception because she was furious about the comedy show she had just seen, that she was offended by the mention of a cat dying because she had a cat that had just died. She said she is in charge of a union of 60,000 people and that union would shut down all of NCL, since our comedy troupe is on several other ships. She was out of her mind.
The best story thus far:
a) we do a scene in the show about how a guy can’t express his emotions—that’s the joke of it. It mentions a cat that was just put to sleep.
b) Several months ago, on the cruise director’s birthday, he was called out of a dinner to deal with an irate passenger. The passenger was a woman who was bawling out the ladies at reception because she was furious about the comedy show she had just seen, that she was offended by the mention of a cat dying because she had a cat that had just died. She said she is in charge of a union of 60,000 people and that union would shut down all of NCL, since our comedy troupe is on several other ships. She was out of her mind.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
NYC, Asians, Sleep
Boat!
We port every week in New York City, which is a wonderful antidote for living on a ship with giant fleshiness. I got in a cab and as we were driving, the cabbie asked me to re-close the door. Another cabbie threw me his cabbie/tourist directory to figure out where we were driving. The directory made no sense, and by the time we got to the pier, he made it clear that he had been there many times before.
I am becoming cruise-ified again. I went to M&M World in Times Square, because I must due to the way Peanut M&Ms taste. There was nothing in there. All tchotchke crap, like a resin peanut m&m bag with 3 mini snow-globes. Or crap purses. I thought of buying a huge M&M pillow very briefly. Then I left. I announced to my cast mates how crap that store is and how there is nothing in M&M World and no one should go there. My cast mates informed me that I apparently missed the escalator and stairs that take you up to the top floor where there are endless candy delights in every possible theme and color. Heh. Oh.
I went to the New York Library, which is a research library in Manhattan. It is gorgeous. It is the polar opposite of a cruise ship and I sat in the Baltic Studies room and downloaded things. Everything is historical and old and hand crafted and elegant. The Rose Reading room made me become either more beautiful than ever before or have terrifying laser death eyes that people could feel. I made meaningful eye contact with hundreds of people. It is incredibly wonderful to see large masses of human beings and have them be STUDYING and using their MIND and QUIET underneath wood and hand painted oil frescoes. Also there were several galleries of ART actual ART and portraits of old dead Americans (one with a wall eye, bonus) and people tell you things like “you can’t do that in here” which is wonderful. Unfortunately, there was also a homeless gentleman wearing a suit with one leg ripped off to the point of Daisy Duke shorts getting dressed in the corner of one of the art exhibits. So, it’s not entirely fairyland.
We have an impressive sail away on this run. “Sail Away” is the technical term for the amount of time you spend sailing away. Everyone gets on the top of the ship and takes pictures of each other. I yapped on the phone in a lounge chair, desperate to yap on the phone. I sat next to 3 ladies, probably related, one was much older. As soon as we started to leave the port, one of the freaked out and squealed “weeee’re starting to MOOOOVE!!!” I also saw a full cookie randomly tossed out into the hallway.
Roommate and self are probably a little crabby today. Our cast mates warned us that our room is louder than the others. We have a pole in the middle of it, which I like because I can put my foot on it. The room wasn’t loud the entire week, so I happily could follow the worldview that “everyone else is an oversensitive whiner.” Well, turns out the night before we come BACK to port, the two walls and the pole become giant drums. There is a crew hallway next to my bed and behind our room. I think they must put luggage there. And by put, I mean “slam against wall” or “drop things” or “purposefully throw things on the ground, like a metal tray of metal trays.” My wall and bed repeatedly shook. Also, the pole in our room is a drainage pipe for the buffet, I think. Or a pipe that you put large metal cans down, or noise bombs that will explode in the middle of our room. Meaning: we woke up over and over and over again swearing, and mein roommate wears earplugs. I dreamt about helicopters flying low to the ground. Just saying.
Also, I am learning to play ukulele and therefore got all of the verses to “Clementine.” It is dark and depressing and terrible and about a girl drowning and someone who can’t save her. Terrible.
Quote of last cruise, a New Jersey gentleman teenager walked outside, lifted his arms and shouted: “FYI I’m F-L-Y.” Priceless.
Also, we went to see the comedian tonight. He does a lot of wife-based and how-horrible-marriage-is based jokes. We sat by a Chinese family of 2 parents and 2 girls, both around 9. One of the girls laughed very hard whenever anyone else laughed. This was hilarious, especially when the comedian went on his Asian-jokes tear. Like “I had a girlfriend who was Chinese. She was a cashier. Her name was Ka Ching.” Oooh did that 9 year old like that. Also the “I ordered checks from my bank, they said they’d send me the regular, already stamped ‘insufficient funds.’” Apparently the 9 year old understands financial checking difficulties. This was a delight.
We port every week in New York City, which is a wonderful antidote for living on a ship with giant fleshiness. I got in a cab and as we were driving, the cabbie asked me to re-close the door. Another cabbie threw me his cabbie/tourist directory to figure out where we were driving. The directory made no sense, and by the time we got to the pier, he made it clear that he had been there many times before.
I am becoming cruise-ified again. I went to M&M World in Times Square, because I must due to the way Peanut M&Ms taste. There was nothing in there. All tchotchke crap, like a resin peanut m&m bag with 3 mini snow-globes. Or crap purses. I thought of buying a huge M&M pillow very briefly. Then I left. I announced to my cast mates how crap that store is and how there is nothing in M&M World and no one should go there. My cast mates informed me that I apparently missed the escalator and stairs that take you up to the top floor where there are endless candy delights in every possible theme and color. Heh. Oh.
I went to the New York Library, which is a research library in Manhattan. It is gorgeous. It is the polar opposite of a cruise ship and I sat in the Baltic Studies room and downloaded things. Everything is historical and old and hand crafted and elegant. The Rose Reading room made me become either more beautiful than ever before or have terrifying laser death eyes that people could feel. I made meaningful eye contact with hundreds of people. It is incredibly wonderful to see large masses of human beings and have them be STUDYING and using their MIND and QUIET underneath wood and hand painted oil frescoes. Also there were several galleries of ART actual ART and portraits of old dead Americans (one with a wall eye, bonus) and people tell you things like “you can’t do that in here” which is wonderful. Unfortunately, there was also a homeless gentleman wearing a suit with one leg ripped off to the point of Daisy Duke shorts getting dressed in the corner of one of the art exhibits. So, it’s not entirely fairyland.
We have an impressive sail away on this run. “Sail Away” is the technical term for the amount of time you spend sailing away. Everyone gets on the top of the ship and takes pictures of each other. I yapped on the phone in a lounge chair, desperate to yap on the phone. I sat next to 3 ladies, probably related, one was much older. As soon as we started to leave the port, one of the freaked out and squealed “weeee’re starting to MOOOOVE!!!” I also saw a full cookie randomly tossed out into the hallway.
Roommate and self are probably a little crabby today. Our cast mates warned us that our room is louder than the others. We have a pole in the middle of it, which I like because I can put my foot on it. The room wasn’t loud the entire week, so I happily could follow the worldview that “everyone else is an oversensitive whiner.” Well, turns out the night before we come BACK to port, the two walls and the pole become giant drums. There is a crew hallway next to my bed and behind our room. I think they must put luggage there. And by put, I mean “slam against wall” or “drop things” or “purposefully throw things on the ground, like a metal tray of metal trays.” My wall and bed repeatedly shook. Also, the pole in our room is a drainage pipe for the buffet, I think. Or a pipe that you put large metal cans down, or noise bombs that will explode in the middle of our room. Meaning: we woke up over and over and over again swearing, and mein roommate wears earplugs. I dreamt about helicopters flying low to the ground. Just saying.
Also, I am learning to play ukulele and therefore got all of the verses to “Clementine.” It is dark and depressing and terrible and about a girl drowning and someone who can’t save her. Terrible.
Quote of last cruise, a New Jersey gentleman teenager walked outside, lifted his arms and shouted: “FYI I’m F-L-Y.” Priceless.
Also, we went to see the comedian tonight. He does a lot of wife-based and how-horrible-marriage-is based jokes. We sat by a Chinese family of 2 parents and 2 girls, both around 9. One of the girls laughed very hard whenever anyone else laughed. This was hilarious, especially when the comedian went on his Asian-jokes tear. Like “I had a girlfriend who was Chinese. She was a cashier. Her name was Ka Ching.” Oooh did that 9 year old like that. Also the “I ordered checks from my bank, they said they’d send me the regular, already stamped ‘insufficient funds.’” Apparently the 9 year old understands financial checking difficulties. This was a delight.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Spiritum
This new ship is very cocky about it’s GI problem. There are hand sanitizers kinda…arouuund. Apparently someone in one of the previous casts got GI, but as someone said, scoldingly, “he was playing beer pong in the crew bar.” On the last ship, we were aggressively sanitized at every possibility. There were hand sanitizers at the door of ever restaurant, in front of the elevators, in the elevators, as you enter the buffet—and those are the stand alone, laser eye versions. There were humans with spray bottles who aggressively sanitized you. Here, there are more than a few double-paned windows with mold growing between them. Hand sanitizers are around, but only the stand alone versions and only here and there, as if to say “meh, if YOU think you need it.”
I forgot that people have dots behind their ears, which is a transdermal anti-barf system. I have felt sluggish and tired, which is how it is when you get on ships.
The clientle here is famously New Jersey apparently. I wouldn’t know exactly, but there are a lot of tattoos on dads (I just saw Yosemite Sam) and kids with large chains (silver/gold) and large crosses on them. Generally there are a lot of eyebrows. I have only seen a little bit of ice cream so far.
As per usual, the chocolate chip cookies disappear immediately. We met the two magicians, a husband & wife team, who are obviously fascinating.
We saw teenagers being RADICAL! To one another via “your freckles turn green in the sun” spake by a dark, freckle free Italian-ish pre-pubescent boy (physically) with a post pubescent attitude (emotionally). He did not make eye contact with the girl (taller) that he was trying to impress. She said “what? Hahaha that’s not true hahaha.” He and his shy buddy both were wearing large silver crosses.
A very large woman in a bathing suit decided to use the handicapped bathroom. She was not handicapped, but I guess didn’t want to open the door, so she pressed the button. This revealed a gentleman already using the bathroom. They had a long exchange of mutual annoyed muttering. She then walked to use the non-handicapped bathroom. He eventually left, revealing himself not to be handicapped.
We walk through the casino a lot. I have very strong negative feelings about casinos, so this will be a challenge for self. There are Sopranos themed one armed bandits…jackpots…see this is how your brain dies. I cannot think of SLOTS!!! Slots. This is an appropriate theme because so many people are from Jersey.
A note about flip flops: many people purchase flip flops with about ¾ of an inch extra hanging off the back.
The buffet closed. Almost entirely. The ice cream station: remained open.
I forgot that people have dots behind their ears, which is a transdermal anti-barf system. I have felt sluggish and tired, which is how it is when you get on ships.
The clientle here is famously New Jersey apparently. I wouldn’t know exactly, but there are a lot of tattoos on dads (I just saw Yosemite Sam) and kids with large chains (silver/gold) and large crosses on them. Generally there are a lot of eyebrows. I have only seen a little bit of ice cream so far.
As per usual, the chocolate chip cookies disappear immediately. We met the two magicians, a husband & wife team, who are obviously fascinating.
We saw teenagers being RADICAL! To one another via “your freckles turn green in the sun” spake by a dark, freckle free Italian-ish pre-pubescent boy (physically) with a post pubescent attitude (emotionally). He did not make eye contact with the girl (taller) that he was trying to impress. She said “what? Hahaha that’s not true hahaha.” He and his shy buddy both were wearing large silver crosses.
A very large woman in a bathing suit decided to use the handicapped bathroom. She was not handicapped, but I guess didn’t want to open the door, so she pressed the button. This revealed a gentleman already using the bathroom. They had a long exchange of mutual annoyed muttering. She then walked to use the non-handicapped bathroom. He eventually left, revealing himself not to be handicapped.
We walk through the casino a lot. I have very strong negative feelings about casinos, so this will be a challenge for self. There are Sopranos themed one armed bandits…jackpots…see this is how your brain dies. I cannot think of SLOTS!!! Slots. This is an appropriate theme because so many people are from Jersey.
A note about flip flops: many people purchase flip flops with about ¾ of an inch extra hanging off the back.
The buffet closed. Almost entirely. The ice cream station: remained open.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
The Spirit Commenceth
Day 1, back on board a new ship.
This time it is the Norwegian Spirit, a ship my old castmate Becky used to worship because she loved it so much. I am sad to say I can understand why a little bit, particularly compared to the last one. Which means I am turning into someone who compares cruise ships. Cue slow metamorphosis into the audience.
At the port today, the guy on the elevator flipped out that we got to go away for 4 months. “Let me guess, SINGLE, SINGLE, SINGLE, SINGLE, SINGLE.” We said “heh heh heh um.”
All cruise directors are now required to take a picture where they are dressed in all white and are wearing angel wings. This is all across the board. This is hilarious. It used to be dignified and boring pictures like from a stuffy business.
I am having déjà vu.
This time it is the Norwegian Spirit, a ship my old castmate Becky used to worship because she loved it so much. I am sad to say I can understand why a little bit, particularly compared to the last one. Which means I am turning into someone who compares cruise ships. Cue slow metamorphosis into the audience.
At the port today, the guy on the elevator flipped out that we got to go away for 4 months. “Let me guess, SINGLE, SINGLE, SINGLE, SINGLE, SINGLE.” We said “heh heh heh um.”
All cruise directors are now required to take a picture where they are dressed in all white and are wearing angel wings. This is all across the board. This is hilarious. It used to be dignified and boring pictures like from a stuffy business.
I am having déjà vu.
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