It Is December 23,

Do you have your Valentine's gift yet?

RiteAid can help. Valentine's gifts are now available.

Forget that Christmas has not yet past, start shopping for Valentine's Day now, before all the gifts are gone and replaced by Easter goods.

It reminds me of my favorite commercial line of the year, "Come on kids, go get on your Halloween costumes while Mom hides the Easter Eggs." (Capital One's "No Black Out Dates" credit card commercial) Like in the commercial, it seems that all the holidays are merging into one.

Seeing a Valentine's Day aisle, packed solid with pink, red and white goods before Christmas, is just wrong.

Whatever happen to the division of holidays? I protest the merger of holiday seasons with every holiday. I will not buy a single Halloween good before October 1st or anything for Christmas before Thanksgiving.

In order to really appreciate the holidays, there has to be some time without holidays. This year, in September, I saw Santa decorations. I was horrified. I remember clearly because it was before my birthday. Santa does not belong in September! I love Christmas and all, but its not very special if it spreads over three months of the year.

Anyway, care of RiteAid and various merchandisers, on this December 23, I would like to wish you...

a Happy Valentine's Day.

NFR

From the Wrangler NFR Photo Gallery

In a year of many firsts for me, if you had told me a few months ago I would be ‘covering’ a rodeo, I would have laughed boisterously.

My suburban parents decided the family vacation this year would be to the National Finals Rodeo.

I think this was greeted with silent stares from the kids, mouths slightly ajar and a background of chirping crickets.

They won tickets through an auction last year and said, “Why not?” and went.

This year they returned and dragged the kids, 23, 25, 29.

We went, rolling our eyes, embarrassed, asking what the hell we were doing at a rodeo. I was told that at very least, I would get good stupid cool material out of it. (So I went for your entertainment. See what I do for you guys!)

To jump to the conclusion of this entry, this is not a stupid cool entry, just a cool entry. The rodeo was absolutely unbelievable. It was a spectacle, a show, and perhaps most of all a sport. I would go again in a heartbeat.

National Finals Rodeo Basics for People Like Me:

The National Finals Rodeo, held annually in Las Vegas (of all places) brings together the top rodeo winners of the year in eight events: Bareback Riding, Steer Wrestling, Team Roping, Saddle Bronc Riding, Tie-Down Roping, Steer Roping, Barrel Racing and the most popular of all, Bull Riding.

The events are either judged for points, such as Bull Riding, or timed, where the shortest time wins, such as Steer Roping.

The Rodeo is the ultimate ADD Generation sport. Bull Riding is an eight second event while Steer Wrestling (jump off a running horse, in a run, and tackle a steer to the ground) is a four second event!

(I don’t think I can jump of a stationary horse in four seconds, let alone jump off a moving one, catch a running steer and tackle it to the ground, looking sexy doing it.)

Each contestant of an event is brought up in quick secession, with very little downtime. When the event is over, the winner rides a victory lap about the arena floor escorted by a cowgirl. They are followed by a commercial, which in a rodeo, is a cowgirl riding a lap with a flag for Wrangler, or GoArmy, or Hooters.

Advertising in and of itself was fascinating. The advertising I am exposed to usually touts computer stuff, wi-fi providers, prescription drugs, practical cars and investment firms. (What I just learned is I watch and read some pretty droll stuff.)

At the rodeo though, the demographic was not dull computer geeks, but young guys and cowboys. The advertisers around the arena included, Wrangler (jeans), Justin Boots, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco, Dodge, Wells Fargo, Coors, GoArmy, Jack Daniels, Resistol Hats, B&W Trailer Hitches and Montana SilverSmiths (the all important belt buckles). The goal demographic was clear from the advertisers and the advertising was fascinating. Outside the arena, were many large tent structures, including a Jack Daniels’ bar with hot cowgirls dancing on the bar.

In the interest of keeping with the short and sweet rodeo flavor, more to come in additional entries…

The Halifax Lobsters

The Halifax Lobsters

It seems a requirement that tourist locations have a renown synonymous sculpture. New York has the Statue of Liberty; Copenhagen has the Little Mermaid; Rio has Christ the Redeemer.

And Halifax has the Lobsters. The lobsters, situated all over town, decorated with various themes, seemed to have one purpose only, amusement, and they met their purpose well.



So for fun one day, I ran out with my camera and took pictures of me, with the lobsters. (see below)

It was a fun attraction, much like an Easter egg hunt, but for six foot tall lobsters, in the city with all sorts of interesting themes.

I had a good time.

Halifax otherwise, is completely morbid. Its biggest claim to fame is its cemeteries, as the resting places of two remarkable disasters.

Three cemeteries are the final resting places for the recovered unclaimed dead from the Titanic, 150 in all. There are several exhibits in town dedicated to this tragedy complete with recovered artifacts.

The other morbid Halifax legacy is the Mont Blanc ship explosion of 1917. Mont Blanc, a munitions ship caught fire after a collision with another ship. It continued to drift into the harbor after the collision, bringing it to the center of town blazing. The local population was drawn to the shores by the spectacle of the burning ship. The ship, laden with 400,000lbs of TNT amongst other explosives, having burned for several minutes, exploded, killing 1,900 people instantly. The explosion potentially the largest man-made explosion prior to the nuclear era shattered glass fifty miles away. The ship's anchor, 1,140lbs., was found 2.3 miles away after the explosion.

But if you like life sized lobster sculptures, I recommend Halifax.

Bag Pipe Lobster


Ocean Lobster


Bob Marley Lobster

For What I Am Vastly Thankful...

I try to keep my personal life out of this blog. It is really meant to be an impersonal funny column like that you find in life section of the paper.

Thanksgiving, though, yields personal reflection.

As I drove to over to my parents house, where I now sit in the California sun, enjoying the 70 degree weather and the sounds of the waterfall, I thought about Thanksgiving.

I knew at the coming dinner I would be asked what I am thankful for.

And the answer is so immense it is hard to begin.

2004 began with the aftermath of having been beaten up by my boss and best friend. I was subsequently (and illegally) fired. Thereafter loosing my house became a real possibility. This was followed by a car accident and several months in the hospital where no one was really sure what would become of me.

Last Thanksgiving, recently out of the hospital, having just had several staples removed from my leg, with no job, I felt generally beaten. I still had my house, through the generosity of my father, which I was grateful for last year as I am this year.

But I was a soul in purgatory. I had lost my career and most of my friends. I had lost direction and interest in finding it.

In the early part of this year, I cycled through a few jobs which barely paid the bills and one which made me miserable.

This changed with a phone call in April, asking me to interview for a cruise line position. I was offered (or given like a gift from god) the job, with eight days notice before flying to Rome.

It was a new start, with new people, with new experiences, new opportunities and new hopes.

It changed me for ever. Pulled from lost despair and thrust into the unknown. As with any new endeavor, I spent the night in Rome terrified that I had made the wrong choice. In eight days I packed up my life with just a hope.

I made a catastrophic mistake in the first few weeks aboard. I was griped by the fear I would be sent home, leaving great hopes in Europe and returning home fired and lost again.

Here I sit in the warm California fall sun. I have an amazing home. I have an amazing job which has transformed my soul. I have learned who my true friends are and I have there friendship. I have a family, all happy and in good health.

Ridiculously, I still miss some of the things I lost, my old job which I loved, the friends I had there, and their respect.

But missing things lost is normal. As awful as things have been, I would not change a thing. They brought me to where I am today, and I am vastly thankful for everything my life is today.

I hope the same for you.

Thanksgiving Greetings

I generally associate Thanksgiving with warm weather, and this year will be no exception. It was 85F yesterday.

Eighty-five and beautiful. This picture was taken yesterday from my local beach, Hendry’s.



I hope you enjoy a lovely Thanksgiving.

Stay tuned for information about pirates… in a future entry.

Time To Buy A Lottery Ticket

Every now and then something happens in my life which makes me think I have hit such a stroke of luck, it is time to buy a lottery ticket since everything is going my way.

If you did not already think I had the best job in the world, working on a cruise ship, now you will.

I got an ominous email from my boss yesterday saying we had to talk. (not stupid, intimidating)

Today he informed me that due to a rescheduling necessity, my paid vacation has been extended by one month. (cool, amazing, awesome)

Unreal.

(I was actually looking forward to going back, because the ship is in the Caribbean, oh well.)

Being on vacation is sooooo hard.

(I hope you all still love me, despite my miraculous fortune.)

Tallinn, Estonia and My Mom's Been Watching Sex in the City

As I said before, I am going to try to include a picture in every post. This post's picture is my amazing ship, right, in Tallinn, Estonia. Tallinn had one of the most beautiful docks, just a ship or two on a long, clean, new, cement dock with blue Baltic sea and sky beyond. In the other direction is a view of the steeples and castle walls of the medieval city. (I didn't take a picture of the other direction unfortunately.)



I wrote a long entry about Tallinn in July. Tallinn was definitely an enchanting surprise in the Baltic. (Cool)

(End of Tallinn conversation, beginning of Mom conversation)

So I have decided my mother has been watching too much Sex in the City.

This was our conversation on instant messenger this morning:

me: I have nothing to say
me: how was your weekend?
mom: here too! what boring people!
me: well I had an exciting weekend... but you are my mom
mom: oh was he nice/good/fun/whatever??
mom: I didn't say that, something evil and non-maternal took over my body
me: lol
mom: okay, enough of the weird stuff, what is his name
mom: ...if you know
me: JESUS MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At that point someone showed up at her desk and I think I was thankfully spared further conversation with my mom on this particular subject. (Neither stupid, nor cool, just scary.)

:)

Greenland

Every Thursday should start with Greenland.

This Thursday certainly is starting with Greenland. Not that Thursday has a g in it or anything. In fact, no day of the week has a g in it.

But I won't let that stop me from starting this Thursday with Greenland.

So at this point, you are probably bored of the funny little banter and wondering when I am actually going to get to anything regarding Greenland instead of just talking about Greenland and its non-affiliation with any day of the week except Thursday, cause namely, I said so.

So, Greenland.

I was at dinner the other night, not in Greenland, but the reference is coming, and someone asked me where was the strangest place I had visited in my summer aboard the ship. I hmmm and haaaaed and basically came up with nothing.

(Greenland reference still coming.)

Later that night, I was talking about Greenland (see, a Greenland reference). And the person who had asked me, Dani, about the strangest place I had been to said it sounded like Greenland was the strangest place I had been to.

So, Greenland.

I visited Greenland for crisp, i.e. cold, clear, beautiful, Sunday afternoon, in September, for four hours. (Note as promised, no g in Sunday.)

We visited the capital, Nuuk, which proudly sells sweatshirts embossed with "NUUK, The Capital." I thought that was hysterical! Nuuk at, 14,500 is hardly a thriving metropolis. (Though with the ship there, the population swelled to over 15,500.) I suspect the thriving metropolis is limited a lot by the icebergs in the harbor which we managed to navigate around, unlike earlier in the morning, which is a different story all together, also involving Greenland, so it too will be told on a Thursday.

See icebergs in harbor:



Harbor is a bit of a misnomer. It is a natural harbor, with a ten foot by thirty foot wood plank extension into the water. The ship didn't pull into this remarkable feat of Saturday afternoon engineering (note Saturdays lack of g also). We had to board little tender boats to get to the "harbor" which was really more like a lake dock.

Greenland is such a stir of cultures it is amazing. The homes on the harbor are bright, brilliant burgundy reds, bright yellows, bright whites, bright blues and bright forest greens. They are adored with ornate white, green and yellow shutters. Some have perfect picket fences. All have somewhat steep roofs, many with dormer windows. A few also had tree house like structures in their backyards with hanging skins drying, mostly reindeer. (I regret not having pictures of the drying racks.)




Click for larger image.

Greenland is part of and loosely governed by Denmark. (Personally I think the English, French, Spanish and Portuguese managed to get the better new world real estate.)

The governorship means Greenland speaks Danish and uses the Danish Kroner (currency).

This is a very strange juxtaposition to the people who are Inuit, some in traditional Inuit garb. You just don't think of an Eskimo, speaking Danish and living in a Danish style house with pretty little shutters and a white picket fence.

I suppose this is not much different from an Inuit speaking English driving a Ford in Alaska.

This breeds a long conversation on expectations of appearance, culture and language. Namely, the expectation a person of a certain features will be of a certain culture and language. I will talk about this in a different entry.

In Greenland, the tourist trinkets were whale-bone whittles and reindeer-skin hats, gloves, etc.




I have no idea what the deal was with these whittles, but they were so unusual I had to take pictures.

Greenland also has huge numbers of whales. I never got a chance glimpse but many people did.

The dark underside of Greenland was the slums, packed cement apartment complexes, clearly over crowded, with suspicious rabid-looking dogs wandering outside, and men sitting beside the road so inebriated I found it shocking they had not passed out.

Despite having wandered into the bad neighborhood of Greenland (I guess there is a bad neighborhood everywhere), it was very interesting, the combination of Danish and Inuit traditions and cultures. (I doubt many Danish people dry reindeer skins within their picket fences.)

I would not recommend Greenland as a destination resort. I had four hours there and had trouble filling the time. It was fascinating and a place I feel very fortunate to have visited, but I would not go out of my way to return, and its Greenland, so it is always out of the way. (But there is always Air Greenland, yes, really, it exists. I am sure they have at least one plane.)

And that is Greenland, this Thursday, which still does not have a g in it, and probably won't anytime soon.

Ship Life vs. Real Life

On the ship, in theory, you work ten hours a day seven days a week. It sounds like a lot.

I am finding it is not.

Do you have any idea how much laundry you produce a week, sheets and towels and seven sets of clothes! (more than seven sets if you have a drinking problem… you know the type, the type where you occasionally miss your mouth.)

Then there are the other things, like going to the supermarket and cooking and cleaning.

Figure in that the rest of the world commutes more than the three minutes it takes from cabin, up one deck, to office.

I don’t think I actually work that much more than most people. I think it is just more in the office than the supermarket, the laundry room, and the car.

In case you don’t know, I have a steward. This person changes my sheets and towels, cleans my room, takes my laundry and returns it the next day. (cool) This saves me a lot of time.

Then there is the o’mess, or Officer’s Mess. It always has food, and none of which I had to go to the market for or prepare. (cool)

These perks make life much easier. So all things accounted for, I don’t really think I work that much more than most people.

I mention all this because I am amazed at how much laundry a girl can produce!

Anyway, my last entry was on spiders… so here is the spider renting my front yard.



As long as they are not on me, spiders are cool.

Vacationing, At Home

Given that I work on a cruise ship, I spend eight months a year traveling. Nonetheless, when I chose to spend my vacation at home, my co-workers baulked. “Why aren’t you traveling?” they asked.

This seemed a ridiculous question to me. I travel most of the year. But the industry attracts people with something in common, the love to travel. Many of them don’t stop for vacation.

The consistently incredulous response to my vacation plans made me quite feel awkward and a bit embarrassed every time someone asked what I was doing on vacation.

Yesterday, November first, on vacation, I woke up, grabbed my Nano Ipod, a bottle of water and walked the three blocks from my house to the Coronado Butterfly Preserve, where the Mexican Monarchs winter. The butterflies, bright orange, and nearly the size of my hands (which are admittedly small), fluttered around like confetti in a breeze. Their wings are a brilliant contrast to the gray-green eucalyptus leaves.

From there I walked the short distance to the beach, where I walked on an entirely empty beach, my footprints the only human disturbance on the sandy canvass waterline. The sun was high and bright. The islands some thirty miles off the coast looked like a mirage.

In my several mile walk, I stop occasionally to admire the glass-flat Pacific. The 85 degree heat was offset by an ocean breeze cooling my skin and my water was satiating.

Toward the end of my walk, I stood at the top of the ocean cliffs and realized something my coworkers didn’t. I don’t need to travel on vacation. I live in one of the best travel destinations in the world. (Cool)

I could not imagine anything I would prefer to do on vacation than spend a hot day at a beautiful beach I had all to myself.

---

I have lots of left over pictures from my trip that I have not posted yet. So I decided I would try to post one with every post. This is me with a troll in Norway. There are lots of Viking trolls in Norway. I loved them, the ugly, full-sized child-like, figurines with viking hats and huge happy smiles.

The Welcome Home Committee

Big ones, small ones, gross ones, cute ones, furry ones, buzzing ones, flying ones, crawling ones, slimy ones…

Insects.

As much as we would like to claim otherwise, they are in our homes, on high shelves and in the corners of the garage.

Arachnophobics beware, California homes generally have at least one spider per person. I have daddy longlegs everywhere, one in the shower, one in a corner in the hallway, several in the living room, and the laundry room has arachno-condos.

I shoo them out, take down their webs and clean up the tiny bloodless insect carcasses discarded. Yet, they rebuild. (Clearly they have a better Federal Emergency Management Agency than Katrina victims.)

Daddy longlegs are part of life here. No one really notices or pays attention.

But I noticed, because it was a contrast.

Ships are a very closed environment with a lot of food, a lot of food. Great efforts are made to prevent stowaways of every type, including the small crawly type.

My ship is extraordinarily successful at this. With the exception of the occasional fly, I never once in my five months aboard saw an insect on board.

That is not entirely true. On the top deck while in St. Petersburg once, we had a terrible infestation of lady bugs. You literally could not take a couple steps without crunching a lady big. But the lady bugs were well restricted to the exterior top deck. As soon as we left St. Petersburg, we left behind the lady bugs.

My point is, among the strange aspects of ship life, is the complete absence of some normal aspects of life, including insects.

This has been strikingly apparent in my return home, not to an empty house, but one with a spider here and there.

They seemed rather indifferent to my return.

Understanding the Harvest Season

I am currently in Keene, New Hampshire, New England, the birth place of Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving traditions all make sense here.

There are big fat wild turkeys waddling around the harvested corn fields. The cranberries are canned. Pumpkins are everywhere and the last apples are falling from trees, amidst other trees that are gold, brown, green and red.

But let’s discuss the pumpkins as they are by far and away the most excessive tradition locally.

Every year, people and businesses carve pumpkins or a few dozen, and carry them down to town square where they REGISTER their pumpkin(s).

Then they find a nice space for the pumpkin along the side of Main Street (aptly name as it is the main street) or on the three story high erected pyramid, pumpkin scaffoldings, provided with honor by local construction companies. Each tier of the mammoth pyramid structures is about two feet high, just big enough for a large of pumpkin. (There were four or five of these glowing structures around Main Street.

And they were glowing, all a light. I have been told there are even people tasked specifically with going around town and relighting darkened lanterns.

So on the night of the pumpkin festival, you cruise Main Street admiring the pumpkins, everywhere, and purchasing hot cider, hot cocoa, hot soup, hot chili, cause it is damn cold out. (Local charities set up booths for fund raising.)

This tradition fosters a lot of very creative carving. Businesses who sponsor pumpkin collection manage to advertise, each pumpkin having a letter to spell McKay’s Market for example. I liked the one with wholes through out the entire thing. It just looked like a very evenly glowing spotted ball. It was kind of abstract.

And there is even a goal. The reason why people register their pumpkin is it is their yearly effort to exceed their own Guinness Book of World Records record for the most lit lanterns in one place.

The other reason is their competition with Boston who is also trying to beat Keene’s record.

This year Keene had 22,167 pumpkins, and apparently Boston had around 24,000. The record is around 28,000.

I would say this is a fire hazard, except it was 37 degrees and raining out.

In the end, people are encouraged to take home their pumpkins. Otherwise, with a forklift, they are fed to the pigs.

My picture did not come out so great, so I will tell you what it is. The pyramid of pumpkins-a-glow is fairly obvious. The white pinnacle in the upper right is the steeple of the standard issue New England town center chapel. (The base is hidden by a very dark tree.) Then those are people with umbrellas in front.

Happy Carving…

Landed

I am off the ship and life is weird.

• Driving is strange.

• People asking me what of 8000 things I want on a sandwich is disorienting.

• Everyone seems rude compared to life on the ship where it is our job and lifestyle to be accommodating.

• Everywhere is cold and various in temperature instead of being a nice, steady 68 degrees.

• I have to make a decision as to what I want to eat rather than having it all laid out for me to put on a plate.

• In the Officer’s Mess, there is a bus woman named Melinda. She always takes you plate before you are finished and some how when you are distracted by conversation or something. You find yourself, surprised, looking down, fork mid-air. As a result, I eat convict style. I guard my plate. When you are eating where no one is going to take your plate and you are expected to bus your own, this is really silly.

• I am expected to pick out my own clothes everyday.

• I don’t have a big group of friends to have breakfast, lunch and dinner with.

• There are five hundred channels chock full of mostly commercials, and still there is nothing on. (There is something fairly comforting about six channels of movies you have seen bits and pieces of before all without commercials.)

• Everything seems dirty. Apparently the rest of the world does not have two full time cleaners allocated per 75 sq. ft.

• I walk around town and don’t recognize anyone. On the ship, in every port, you always run into fellow crew.

• It occurred to me as I drove yesterday, I was supposed to have a drivers license with me. This is something I completely forgot about.

• I can take a shower and straighten my arms without touching a wall.

• I cannot touch every wall of the bathroom while standing at every point of the bathroom.

• No one takes my dry-cleaning from my bedroom every morning and returns it the next day.

• I have no pager resting against my spine, clipped to my skirt and I am not supposed to.

• The walls are not magnetic, which makes hanging things with magnets much harder.

• No one here makes friendly jests at my expense from long standing jokes.

• Amazingly I still have difficult users. (I am staying at my mom’s house.)

I am going to try and catch up on back stupid cools.

Stay tuned.

Next Time with Deeper Pockets

As I was walking by Nadja's office today, I noticed she had some cash on the desk. Kidding, I said, "I’ll take some of that."

She shrugged, "That’s ok. I have 400,000 under my desk?"

"What?"

She casually grabbed an ordinary gray plastic bag from under her desk. She set it on her lap and pulled out a brick of plastic-wrapped hundred dollar bills. She put it on her desk, along with another, and another and another.

She was serious. She had $400,000 under her desk.

$400,000 in hundreds is not that big. I can easily hold it, though it didn't fit into my pockets (not that I checked…).

I love my job. It has given me many interesting experiences.

Holding $400,000 is one of them.

She had over a hundred thousand more on the other side of the room.

A cruise ship chooses a currency to pay wages in. Then, since the cruise ship is the bank on board, there must be enough currency available for the crew to hit the "atm" (her name is Hilde) before a day of shopping in port.

Four hundred grand seemed to cover it.

NEWSFLASH!

Mika spotted alive in Quebec!

As part of the perks, as a cruise employee, I am allowed to have blood-relative guests for reduced rates.

This means I work ten hours a day and spend an additional few hours with family during their visit, leading to fond memories... without any documentation due to time constraints.

Stories coming.... sometime...

My Bedroom Window

I woke up this morning, and looked out my window.

And saw a concord jet, not in the sky but just 100 feet away. Just sitting there.

Behind the concord, was a legion of helicopters. Big ones, small ones, fat ones, white ones, black ones, green ones.

For the average person, waking and looking out the bedroom window to see a bunch of aircraft, that had not been there the night before, would be an surprising sight.

It is weird sight, when you are used to seeing ocean, but not an odd one.

It is one of the fantastic aspects of my life. I get up every morning, and with excitement, opening my curtains to a sight I have never seen before.

Today, it was an aircraft carrier:



(The Intrepid, New York City)

Lerwick, Scotland

A charming, foggy, island, outpost,



With a flower box of cheerful brilliant orange.

Check That One Off The List

Under the category of awesome:

A dark sky, the glint of stars peak through the unseen clouds…

Born to the north, a faint hint of warmth, a budding mild glow, emerges raining light, natures fireworks, a green luminescence amidst a dark sky, mystical clouds drifting by.

The color, the candor, the blue of a fading sunset high in the sky, as if peaking out from behind the black velvets curtains of night… just a patch of fading daylight god forgot to wipe from the slate of the heavens.

A drifting cloud, like a slow painter’s stroke, a mystical leafy green faded by early morning spring fog, across the ethereal. Painted over with another stroke, this time darkness.

The captain called to alert me to the starboard side.

There is much to be said, for standing on the bridge of a huge ship, lit only by the glow of radar screens, in the north Atlantic…

Watching the northern lights.

Lost

What the hell is a nice Jewish girl doing in Greenland?

Ship-Lag

Under the category of Stupid:

The problem with living on a ship, which changes time zones constantly, is you are effectively constantly jetlagged.

Signed,

Wide Awake at 4 am.

Where was your phone in August?

Today was Iceland... and boy was it. Thirty-five degrees on September 7th.

One thought, PEOPLE! MOVE!

Anyway, where was your phone this August?

My phone was:

Dublin's Drug Problem

This is Dublin Castle:





This is Dublin Castle on acid:

That is two sides of the same building.

On a different note, we have crew members emergency disembarking. They are heading home to Mississippi, to look for family members they have not heard from.

I live on a ship of 40 nationalities. The crew consensus is utter disgust that America can organize to go to Iraq, yet cannot properly respond to a disaster within its borders.

This event makes the international community angry. How dare American stick their nose in everyone's affairs and yet not be able to adequately react to an internal disaster.

In general, prior to Hurricane Katrina, the anti-American sentiment, on board, is overwhelming. Sitting in the mess, it is tiring to listen to the American bashing. I am tired of being criticized for American policy and culture or further being treated as if I am personally accountable for my nations actions.

Perhaps most, I am disheartened that in the wake of this event, rather than empathy and concern, policy disparagement is what I hear most.

Suddy Irony, My Monetary Closet

After my last entry, I went looking for lotion in Germany. I bought Mit Teebaumol, Duschol, fur sensible und trockene haut.

I took my shower with my Zel Przeciw Wagrom, Szampon and Pflegespulung. I toweled off. I poured my Mit Teebaubol into my hand and then rubbed it into my skin.

It sudded up.

Much to my surprise.

My lotion was body wash, or so I think.

My first extra-lingual shopping failure, and just following my post of successes. It seemed ironic.

And while I am discussing ironing, onto my closet…

(In other words, this is an abrupt non-sequitur into something regarding my closet.)

In my closet, I have many envelopes. These envelopes help me interact with the global marketplace. Most of the envelopes have a location and some also have a ratio.

The envelopes are:
Russia 1/30, in the envelope, 230 Rubles
Estonia 1/11, in the envelope, 52 Krooni
Norway 1/7, in the envelope lots of Krone coins
Stockholm no ratio, change
Copenhagen, no ratio, 5 Krone
No label, 56Euros
No label $100
No label 28 Pounds

My closet has a very sophisticated monetary system. Its clothing organization, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired. I am hoping the monetary organization over takes the clothing organization, which seems high hopes. At very least, it would be nice if the closet monetary sophistication migrated into the complete chaos of the currency in my jeans.

When is the last time you put on your jeans and found two hundred Ruble…
Five Krone
And a quarter?

Today, not knowing the currency of Belfast, I unloaded the random currencies from my jeans and left with both Euro and Pounds. Pounds in the left pocket, Euros in the right. I was prepared either way.

My first stop was Boots where the total was 7 pounds 90 p. I handed over a fifty. The woman gave me twenty something pounds in change.

I protested.

She said there was nothing she could do.

I tried to explain math to her, namely fifty minus eight does not equal twenty anything.

She explained exchange rate to me.

I looked at her… and then realized I had pulled fifty from my right pocket instead of my left.

I paid 7 pounds 90 pence with fifty Euros and got twenty odd pounds back.

Apparently Boots was prepared either way also.

In the end, truth be known, I don't pay much attention to the local currency.

I carry the universal currency…

Visa.

This Mouthwash Tastes Terrible

One of the oddities of living on a ship, is the concept of your local drug store.

Every day, amongst others, I used the following products:
Zel Przeciw Wagrom
Szampon
Pflegespulung
Deo Gel
Vanlig

In order, that is:
Polish Face Wash
Polish Shampoo
German Conditioner
French Deodorant.
Swedish Vitamins

Or at least I think that's what those things are…

Today’s Time Change Is Minus One

Living on a ship that cruises through time zones, ticking them off as we go, has many odd consequences.

This week we put the clocks forward on Thursday, and puts the clocks forward again on Friday. Then on Tuesday we go back an hour and again on Wednesday.

Now the effects of this chaos are so far reaching I cannot even tell you what they are. (But it starts with the IT Officer getting up at 6 am to change the mainframe time. It sucks to have an hour forward, and then have to get up even an hour more forward to change the mainframe clock.)

Luckily the ship builders were BRILLIANT! All the wall clocks on board are controlled on the bridge; I think this is genius.

Another affect of this is, unlike daylight savings time, on any given day, the time difference between me and my loved ones various. Today it is 12 hours to the west coast. On Friday it will be ten hours.

That is just too damned confusing.

So I have this dual clock, a clock with two dials that can be individually set. The other day, I set one clock on Pacific Time, 1:40 and one on Eastern Time, 4:40.

The next day, pleased with myself, I checked my dual clock. According to my clock, it was 11:53 west coast and 4:15 eastern coast.

So I am back to checking the wall for our current gst plus value and calculating.

The fact that we change time zone so frequently, makes it hard to keep track of the time land based offices we interact with, such as the LA Corporate Office, Florida Spa Office, etc. (When you have to call your boss in LA for something urgent, it is important to consider whether it is 3 am.) To compensate, there are clocks all over the ship set to random hours, but the correct minute past the hour. This way there is no need to first figure out what time zone we are in before figuring out what time it is somewhere else, where somewhere else is a land based office a the nearest person works with most.

Our office has an LA clock that is always set to LA time. (It should say, Boss Time, cause that is all we care about.) It took me a few time changes before I was comfortable not changing the time on that clock when changing other clocks.




We also use the phrase old time/new time a lot. He called at 11 new time, 10 o’clock old time last night. This is partially because the time does not change at 2 am. The time changes at some nebulous localized convenient over night time. In the bars, the time change is after 3 am. The computer systems change time at 5 am. The hotel and phone accounting systems change around 7 am. I think the bridge watch changes at 4 am. (But now I am curious and will find out.) Luggage handlers change time at 8pm the night before. And the Ving servers never change time, they stay in GMT, always.

To make sure no one forgets the time change, the crew doors have signs. They are turned to “time change” on the nights with time changes, to remind us to change our clocks, and be on time.

It is also funny when I wear a watch, which I only do when I get off the ship. I put on my watch the other day and wandered around the city. I checked the time, knowing I would have to get back, and the time was clearly wrong. (It turned out to be wrong by two hours.) I needed to know what time it was but could not find the time. I had to remember what city I had last worn the watch, what time zone the city was in, what time zone I was in at that time and adjust my watch.

In the end, you spend a lot of time, on time.

Submitted at
21:35 GMT +3.00 old time or
20:35 GMT +2.00 new time
11:35 GMT -8.00 LA time

Land Based WorkVs.Cruise Based Work

In land based work, it is acceptable to call in sick.

In cruise based work, it is acceptable to call in drunk, still, from the night before.

Cool: Flyg Ballong

Cool: Flyg Ballong

(Flying Balloon in Swedish)

Balloon pre-flight



More balloon pre-flight


Sky, balloon, ground, pretty self explanatory (which is why it has the longest explanation thus far)


Stockholm old medieval city. Stockholm is a city of lots of islands, and so many bridges. There are also lots of little ferries, used in the same way we might use a bus.



Picture of me, for my mom, to prove I am alive and sympathizing with my captors, due to Stockholm Syndrome.


This Stockholm neighborhood had a terrible outbreak of tramplines

"Are the trampolenes to provide a safe landing for the balloonists?" (From my Dad, kidding.)


A little outside Stockholm, like twenty minutes. (Cities are little in Europe.)



A reflection of the balloon in water, from the balloon


Random things I have learned:

Norwegian Grammatical Rule:
Why say in two syllables what could be said in eight.

Dates:
The Americans use MM/DD/YY
The Europeans use DD/MM/YY
The Mainframe uses YY/MM/DD
Payroll uses YY/DD/MM
And no matter what you enter first, it is wrong for the intended purpose.

Phonetic colloquialisms Can be Hysterical:
I got an email promising to get that information to me, "In a Yippy."

When you work to hard, the basic stuff trips you up:
My mother asked, "Where I you?" (The first question most people ask me.)
I replied sarcastically, "On the ship. Where do you think I am?"
She laughed. "Ok, Mika, and where is the ship."
I reply, "Um," not knowing I look out the window for a hint, and see a BIG sign that says, "Welcome to Copenhagen."

In my life, time is told in Cities:
Judith to me, "When was that? Was that the day before yesterday?" (Monday or Sunday)
Me, "No, I think it was Stockholm." (Saturday)
Judith, "That's right, cause it was the day Helsinki shipment." (Friday)

I need to reference the wall to find myself:
Friend, "Where are you?"
Me, in my office, "I don't know. What is the date?"
Friend, "August 17th."
I look at my calendar on the wall, find August 17, "St. Petersburg."

Rushin' Moments

A quick run down of moments from Russia...

Cyrillic Signage at Catharine’s Palace, I just thought it was cool.



Peterhof’s Palace, the goal was to surpass Versailles. Talk about over the top!



That ain’t Disneyland gold paint, also Peterhof’s Palace. Unfortunately, I did not take pictures of the ridiculously gaudy interior with so much gold. It never occurred to me it was real until the guide explained how it was plated, and suddenly I realized it was all actual gold.



OK, this is a heater. I realized that seems boring, but it is a hand painted tile heater on gold feet and there was one in every room. It being Russia and all, they like heaters. (They also had old fashion double windows; the ones where there is a window, and then outside of that is another window.) The walls are yellow silk.




The vast horizon between this opulence and the reality of daily life in Russia remains quite evident today, thought perhaps marginally less extreme.

And yes, "We take dollars, ten dollars. You have Euros, I take Euros, eight Euros. Oh? Pounds? Yes, I take pounds five pounds. Not enough pounds? I take four pounds, two dollars, or eight dollars one pound. Or two dollars, one Euro, six pounds and 10 Kroner. Ruples?"

He checks his pockets. "No, no Ruples." You start walking away, "No, wait, I take seven dollars twenty-five Ruples."

(By the way, mixing currencies is something you get used to on a ship. I gave someone 200 Swedish Kroner, just today, and they gave me $20 and three Euro. You don’t even try to figure out the exact exchange rate after a while.)

Weeeeeeeeeeeee

We were supposed to dock in Helsinki today, but it was so rough that we had to pull out and go back to sea. (Banging a big ship against a dock is bad.) The port call was canceled.

And as I sat in my office, the rough seas rolling my chair across the slick linoleum floor of my ship office, I couldn’t help but wonder whose idea it was to buy chairs with wheels.

Over the gap, Oops, to The GAP

The picture below was taken,

Right before I ripped my jeans,

Jumping a fence,

To escape from customs.



Nice picture though...

That is Stockholm in the background.

In-Port-Manning In Russia

For future reference, there is a very well known, amongst sailors but not necessarily naïve female IT Officers, Russian ‘Cultural’ Club in St. Petersburg.

It is a whore house.

Just for your information, should it ever come up.

Anyway, I decided to blow off some very stressful days, by spending a night in the Officer’s Bar. After drinking a few too many white Russians, I was hit over the head with a glass but the night didn’t end until given the proper Russia sound off, of a round of vodka shots.

At least that is what they told me the next morning.

I am going hot air ballooning in Stockholm on Saturday. How awesome is that!

OK, very sleep deprived! Too busy working and having fun.

These Are Not My Co-Workers

(Title is reference to a song, "This Is Not My Beautiful Life." If you know the song I am talking about, and who it is by, please let me know.)

One of the weird things about shipboard workplace is the life and schedule. I work a four-two and a five-five split.

The five-five split is seven am to noon and four pm to nine with variation due to technical emergencies and cruise turn over. (End of cruise/beginning of cruise day, embarkation day, is a very long day of computer processing crap that the main frame should be able to do itself but instead needs a babysitter for.)

The four-two refers to four months on and two months off. Before you are in awe and envy of my two month vacation, do remember I work 120 days in a row, ten hours a day, before having two months off. I am not by any means complaining. Just saying it is well deserved.

All this was to explain how odd our workplace is because the office staff is constantly turning over. Every four months, each person goes on vacation for two months and there position is filled by someone else. Thus, for example, during your four months you will have two different bosses in the same position. When I started Joseph was the Hotel Director, now it is Herbert. This is true for every position.

Anyway, last week, by chance, 25% of the office staff turned over. Imagine coming into work one day and having 25% new staff. They are all returning staff, and know what they are doing, but you still have to adjust to everyone’s different styles.

In some ways it is great, you get rid of people who you don’t work well with. I lost one person I really clashed with…. But I got another one back. I guess there is a law: Conservation of Co-Workers Who Annoy You.

But it is a very strange environment to come into work one day and be working with completely different people, who do not need to be trained, who simply pick up where the predecessor left off. It is a little twilight-zone-ish, to simply wake up one day and have the office staff be different and yet everything else the same.

I find it interesting, so I thought I would share that twilight-zone oddity of my office life, at sea.

Random Pics

The Norwegian Fjords:



Me with trolls at the North Cape of Norway, where the sun does not set in the summer:



The view from my porthole when we dock in Oslo:

Pictures of Tallin, Estonia

Tallin, Estonia was an amazing gem on the Baltic. It is a stir of Russian Orthodox, medieval fortifications, and summer charm.



The city is extremely old. Unlike many cities of its age it not only still has its original city walls but is also a functioning city within those walls. The walls two or three stories high, surround stone buildings with tiny windows and thick walls reaching to a castle and church at the high point of the city.



Even more charming was the pastel stucco fascades on these old, otherwise gray, stone buildings.



Many of the streets, narrow, spiraling, and too steep even for cars, revealed shops, café’s, galleries, offices and home. The cobble stones and the grade forces a careful step.

Where the streets opened up there were large cafés and kids in medieval garb selling fresh baked bread, still warm, and ripe strawberries.




I am not sure I would consider Tallinn a destination, as it is a long way to travel and I don’t know if there is much more to do. But if the opportunity arises, I highly recommend it a couple days wandering the old city.

It was an delightful highlight.

Pictures for Kirsten

Modern Art, in Stockholm:



My phone bill...

We should all travel as much as my phone.



Tired... two crisis days in a row...

On Bombs and Drifting Sail Boats

My mother, has that special over drive mother instinct.

If a bomb goes off near where I am, she gets worried. I was in Israel once, and a bomb went off killing three. I was fifty miles away. She cried with relief when we finally touched base.

So now, I am somewhere. It is hard to say where.

My mother saw the explosions in London on TV.

I could have been in London.

I could have been at sea.

I could have been in Europe.

But I was likely in London, on a train that blew up, at least in my mother’s logic.

Knowing my mother as I do, I called her as soon as I saw the news to assuage her fears. My voicemail said, "Hi mom. I am not in London. I am no where near London. I will not be in London any time soon, and I think I am in Norway."

My mother was glad to hear from me, even though she says she "decided" not to worry, which is different from not worrying.

Anyway… I have been at work since 5 am and it is 9 pm. At work is a funny thought… work was in Stravanger Norway for most of the day.

I was on the bridge this morning at about 5:30 am, as we headed into Stravanger, we were headed to run over a sail boat. That was cool. What does a 50,000 vessel do when an itty bitty sail boat drifts into its course?

Honk its horn.

It was very unsophisticated.

The whole scene was a bit boring. It was just me and the first officer on the bridge. No chaos. I looked out and said, "Hey Morton, we seem to be getting close to that buoy."

He looked at me like I had two heads. "You mean the sail boat?"

I am glad he was paying attention. (I am not blind… he had the binoculars, which only seems appropriate.)

I love Norway… just FYI, especially now that we are in southern Norway where the sun actually sets this time of year. It is so much easier to go to sleep when it is dark out.

So I think I will do that…

A Month of One Lazy Afternoon

It is July 2, and I sit in the sun, bundled in sweatshirt and jeans, enjoying cool artic air. The sun rose at 1:40 this morning. It will not set for me this calendar day. I am nearing the artic circle.

This whole sun all day thing is very bizarre. You never have a clue what time it is. Take now, if I were to guess, I would say it is two in the afternoon. If you had asked me an hour ago, I would have said the same. If you ask me again in two hours, when it is actually two in the afternoon, I will likely say the same. It is a strange existence to go to bed in light of the mid-afternoon and wake up to light of the midmorning, only to check the clock and realize you have slept not fifteen hours, but only four.

It gives everything the feel of a lazy afternoon, all day long, for days. It has been lovely and warm in Norway… but funny to see these towhead people, blindingly white, laying in the summer sun.

Norway is a calm land of quiet sedate people, majestic scenery and the endless summer afternoon. Everyone speaks perfect English and is quite happy to help.

Norway is the home of the deck staff. I believe Norway has amongst the best maritime schools in the world, hence of the cruise ships I have been on, the deck staff is predominantly Norwegian. They, the deck staff, are home. Little tow headed kids are visiting the ship, and the energy is high, spirits up with the joy of seeing loved ones and home.

The country has a strange integration of Christian religion and pagan lore. For every cross you see, there is too a sprite if not a troll.

I thought I had a lot to write, and I do, but I am so tired. We work ten hours a day, standard and some days are more like sixteen. Last embarkation day I worked midnight to eight am, eleven to six pm and then was paged and worked eight pm to ten pm. I had to be up at five am the next day.

To be quite honest, I hate the work. But I love the life. I like walking into the mess and being greeted by friends. I like how bizarre it is to ask, “Where are we and what is the currency?” (This is a question asked frequently by the crew. We don’t pay much attention.)

There are three ships in our fleet, the other two are in Alaska and the Mediterranean. I have fellow IT Officers I can contact on those ships when I need to bounce ideas off of someone. These are people I chat with online and make jokes with everyday, yet have never spoken to or met. I will ordain them, my virtual co-workers.

I highly recommend virtual co-workers, they are all the helpfulness and none of the politics.

I will meet them eventually as there is a bit of movement from ship to ship. We have a good time, bantering back and forth.

Yesterday we had a problem on this ship. We emailed the other ships for help.

We have the omen or idle or icon of an African face, named Tokolash. He is mounted on our server rack. You rub his forehead for luck. My co-worker, Adele, prays religiously and believes fervently in the power of Tokolash. Anyway, we had a problem on our mainframe. She decided to rub Tokolash and an hour later the problem stopped. We sent an email to the other ships saying we had solved the problem and they should see the picture for an explanation. The picture was her rubbing Tokolash.

To which one of the other ships asked if Tokolash can switch DLT tapes (a backup method on major computer systems), cause then they want one.

So we have a good time. So, yeah, I guess I recommend server rack deities as well as virtual co-workers.

Another thing about cruise life is crew drills. Every cruise we have a crew drill. This involves five hundred and some crew members putting on neon life jackets and going to an appointed location in order to help guests evacuate, followed by evacuation to an upper deck.

Some people have more active rolls than others. I for example, have to make sure that fifty people stations on five different decks are manning their stations. I report back to an officer. As I was walking to the officer I passed two people, one in uniform, one in casual clothes, in their big bright bulky orange reflective life jackets, on an office couch, lounging, each separately engrossed in reading a book. It was by far the most ludicrous sight I have seen in a while.

Anyway, it is foggy and wet and cold on deck… which is kind of what I imagine the weather is at home at the moment. I am going to grab some lunch before the mess closes.

Oh here is another tidbit. Everyday the captain comes on the PA and talks about the day. He includes the locations of our sister ships as well as our own.

Except our captain keeps getting it wrong! He used to be captain of the one of the other ships. He switches our ship, in reading the bulletin, with his old ship. Hence he says we are where his old ship is.

It throws the guests a little off when the Captain says we are in the Mediterranean and yet we are supposed to be in Norway.

“Well, I did see him have a couple glasses of wine last night…”

Strangeness of Sea LifeLaundry, Crashes, City Review, And Daily Life Tidbits

So I walk down to my local laundry mat, deck 4 midship.

On opening the door, I see two inches of suddy water covering the entire floor. Stunned, I watch as it casually moves to the left before slowing and drifting to the right.

At this point, what do you think I thought?

If you guessed, “Oh, I we must be moving,” you are right. I would not have known we were moving without the water moving on the floor with the motion of the boat.

So this guy, on his toes, trying not to get wet turns to me and asks solemnly, “Abandon ship?”

He was joking, since clearly a washing machine had simply overflowed.

But it was pretty hysterical. I mean come on, when is the last time an overflowing washing machine resulted in someone asking you about abandoning ship.

So, where has Mika been. Mika has been on a grueling two weeks, which started with one little F10, and then another.

To run a process on the system I command, and loath, I press F10. The other day, I accidentally pressed F10 twice.

The system crashed.

Crashed hard.

Crashed so hard that we in Russia woke up someone in LA to fix it.

Crashed so hard the person in LA worked for hours, got stuck, and called in a mainframe expert from IBM.

The system was down for seven hours. We literally could not leave Russia until we had the system back up. Talk about incentive! (All the customs and immigration data was held in the system.)

Now let’s go back a minute and reassess what I did, instead of hitting F10 once, which is good, I hit it again which was FATALLY bad.

Who designed this system!!! The Everything In Moderation Counsel?

So I still have a job…. Even after the following day.

What happened the following day Mika?

Well kids, I did not hit F10 twice… but I did press a seven instead of a six. Wish I was joking. We were down for four hours. This time however, everyone who looked at the log was baffled by why the seven caused the crash.

Meanwhile, in Mikaland, I am just picking keys off the keyboard to prevent further problems. No F10, no 7.

If I run out of keys all together, then we will be abandoning ship.

So it has been stressful in the land of Mika, especially in what I now call Saint Petersbrig. (This is because I am not allowed off the ship in Saint Petersburg, still.)

A recap of the cities I have seen recently:

Stockholm: Fantastic, especially for museum goers. Great modern art in the city. Tons of museums. Beautiful green spaces. Canals everywhere. A truly beautiful city. (Paid for with a 25% sales tax.)

Helsinki: fairly boring, except for this Finish girl. I asked her if she spoke English. She said yes. I asked her my question and was very surprised by a near perfect American English accent. I asked her why she spoke with an American accent instead of an English one. She said, “I studied in WiscONsin.” I knew for sure she was telling the truth. You have to spend at least a few months in Wisconsin before being able to pronounce it with a Wisconsin accent. Nothing like a Finish kid with a Wisconsin accent.

Tallinn, Estonia: Fantastic!!! Tallinn is a medieval city with nearly everything intact, from the castle walls, to the armory. The streets are super narrow and some too steep for cars. At the same time, all these medieval buildings, are painted in the warmest pastels. It was fantastic. Pictures coming soon. Tallinn is one of those cities in life I would never have seen if not for a job, and I am most grateful for having seen. Highly Highly Recommended!

Saint Petersburg: Well it still looks pretty boring from the ship.

Gdansk, Poland: I never found the tourist attraction. I would pass on it. (I feel guilty giving it the Mika Seal of Death, but then I am not exactly an influencial travel author, so I think they will long out live my death seal.)

I have far more tales to tell…

I really should tell them now, because we will be moving into satellite silence for a while. We do the Norwegian Forges next week. This is too far north for our regular satellite coverage.

But, I have to sleep sometime.

Sometime after the little funny tidbits from the day…

Bit One:
User: “I have a problem with the computer.”
Mika: “What is the problem?”
User: “It does not work.”
Mika: “Well what does it say?”
User: “It is now safe to shutdown your computer.”

Bit Two:
I was on the bridge chatting with the second officer. A portside surpassing tanker spawned this piece of wisdom, “You haven’t lived until you’ve taken an oil tanker from behind.”

Bit Three:
I get up at 5:30 am to go to work. But tomorrow is going to be very busy, so my coworker offered to help. “You can call me if you get swamped, but don’t call me. I’ll be ugly at that hour.”

Maybe no sleep… the second officer, who was driving ten minutes ago is now buying drinks at the bar.

UN F*!@%ING BELIEVABLE

So I am sleeping soundly in my cabin, at 2:40am in St. Petersburg when my cell phone rings, the first time in a month.

I think, “Hmmm, something must be up in America and someone needs information from me.” I was thinking a parent.

I answer and it is a voice I do not recognize. Then my thought is, “If this is a telemarketer calling me in Russia, at $5.99/minute, I am going to be outraged.”

No, it was UCLA Medical Center calling in regards to my past due medical account, my past due medical account which, notably, called last month to issue a credit for overpayment.

This is in regards to bills from July of 2004.

It is June 2005…

At least here in St. Petersburg.

I honestly believe I would have been billed, here in Russia, much more quickly and efficiently.

(And more advantageously in Rubles.)

But what do I know? It is 2:40am in Russia.

And still light out.

Twilight.

I had VIAGRA for lunch...

What would you have for lunch in Copenhagen?

Copenhagen is a lovely little city. It has a nice shopping thorough fare, a theme park, and an incredible city park, grass, bushes, dogs, school children, pond, trees, ducks, green stuff. (You miss green stuff on a ship.)

This was an incredible store: http://www.royalshopping.com.

It had lots of Hans Christian Anderson things, statues, monuments, tributes, and lots of spires.

It also had a hungry Mika, at least when I was there.

So Mika wanted to eat something from a place where she could order by pointing at the menu, where she could understand enough of the menu to know what she was eating and was reasonably inexpensive.

I found a menu on the side of a little store and saw what I thought was a salmon sandwich.

I was quite surprised when the woman said, “Ok. Viagra for you.”

Sure enough, I had ordered Viagra,



at the HonkyPizza place in Copenhagen.

(Note that it was not a pizza so much as a little bit of cheese, tomato and lox between two toasted crackers.)

You can’t make this stuff up.

----

P.S. This was such a "kick-ass" comment, it had to get frontliner entry in my blog.

From Kirsten, "The spammers have invaded Copenhagen restaurants! This is terrible. Next time, order the CI4L1S."

Hysterical!

Expensive PaperweightsDrug Sniffing DogsVibrating Beds

Stupid: Not being able to print to any printer on the ship from any computer on the ship (some just inches apart) because…

Your satellite connection is down.

You are in the Baltic, and the computers contact LA to print.

And you thought you had printing problems!

(Those of you who are network savvy, the printers are mapped by name, and the DNS is in LA.)

So the Captain changed course so we could get a better angle on the satellite. Apparently this will be an ongoing problem in northern latitudes. (First I lose high speed access, then 28.8 access. What did I do before the internet!?)

Anyway, I forgot to mention the drug sniffing dogs on board in Amsterdam.

They put the drug sniffing dogs on the ship in Amsterdam.

Think about that.

Were they hoping the dogs would sober up?

Were they afraid we would import more drugs than we used while there?

I haven’t figured that one out. Maybe they were just cold. Fifty-three degrees AS THE HIGH in June.

I saw none of Amsterdam. I have been there before and worked instead. I did see the locks as we left. We were in this one little lock. The ship is about 90 feet wide. The lock was about 110 feet wide. I was very impressed by this.

One of the cool things about life at sea is, in certain seas, I have a vibrating bed. I also have a rocking bed sometimes. Please stay tuned for a full analysis of all possible bed motion classification, strictly due to oceanographic manifestations. (Get your heads out of the gutter.)

As a Californian, I occasionally wake with a start to a bed shaking, curtains swinging, various things clattering and think it is an earthquake. This always gives me a giggle. It is an amusing little manifestation of being California grown.

Alister had the opposite experience. He went home and was sleeping at his sister’s when an earthquake struck. She got all bent out of shape, and he, just shaken from sleep told her it was fine, just a little rough seas.

Tomorrow, Copenhagen.

Things That Are Stupid

Stupid: A high of 53 degrees today in Amsterdam!

People… Summer time… try it.

Stupid: working 00:00-4:30, 8:30-14:00, and 15:30-19:30.

Stupid: getting paged every time you have reached thirty minutes of sleep.

Random…. So I am walking on Deck 12, enjoying the sights in Bordeaux, when the crew member in front of me jumps over the side!

Oh my god!

So I race over to the railing, not thinking of the cement dock eighty feet below. What I was planning to do when I reached the railing, I have no clue.

And there, looking over the railing, ten feet below, is the guy in a basket with a window squeegy.

Stupid: Being yelled at for sitting in the front of the bus. But that's ok. My mom says I have good company in Rosa Parks.

Stupid: Being yelled at for all sorts of rules no one bothered to tell me about.

Cool: There are still more cool things than stupid things… But every now and then, after being yelled at, you have to vent.

I am so behind in stories to tell you… but must be up in seven hours. (Hopefully I will get to sleep all seven.)

Bordeaux

First, about Bordeaux…

This was the view from the ship.



I went for a bit of a wander (perhaps a Kiwi phrase) with a few fellow officers. We walked up the streets of Bordeaux and enjoyed the shear ambiance of narrow cobbled streets, lined by three or four story high stone buildings with shuttered windows and flower boxes, the occasional bicyclist with fresh produce in a front mounted basket wizzing by.

Simply turning a corner would yield a spectacular site.



This, by the way, is comparably a very wide street. The rails are for the trams which not only look like they should be in Disneyland (see the view from the ship) but make the exact same noise as the Disneyland train.

The people were very nice and quite willing to speak with us in English, contrary to everything I have heard of the French.

The Canadian, Kiwi, German and I ate in a lovely café for dinner where I found myself in a very bizarre conversation I never thought in a million years I would have. As officers, we began discussing and comparing out steward(esse)s.

I have a stewardess. My second so far. She is wonderful and cheerful and bends over backwards to do anything I need. She has been working on ships since 1998 and even met her husband, of three years, on board. They both now work on my ship.

Ironically, we, my fellow officers and I, all admitted to cleaning before our stewards come lest they talk to other stewards and word gets out we are messy. (God forbid.)

Anyway, back to Bordeaux. The nice thing about our ship is, when you need to get stumbling home, it is easy to find.

I put this in its own link, for better viewing. Click here.


You just turn down a street and, there it is. The ship! (The ship is dead center in that picture.)

The next morning I picked up on a few more things.

The city smells like chocolate croissants, which is entirely accurate, cause there were chocolate croissants everywhere. There is nothing so charming as walking down an ridiculously narrow lane (or half lane) smelling baked pastries, in France.

In America, the kids experiment and dye their hair unnatural colors. In France, it is 50 year old women. Bright punk rock pink seemed most popular, followed by neon blue. Usually this flare was done in streaks. I suppose if you are going to cover up the gray you might as well do it with pizzazz.

French people are wafer thin in general. My only theory is you must get sick of smelling chocolate croissants all the time.

And then there was the guy riding his bike with an according on his back.



I don’t know why I took this picture, after all bike riding accordion players are so common where I am from.

I have to be up in three hours…

More later.

Lisbon and Le Verdon

Thank you everyone for the comments on the red dot I call home.

Well, it is a good thing tomorrow is a sea day because I have so much to write!

(Sea day: a day spent entirely at sea with no ports of call.)

I went to Lisbon, June 1. Lisbon has Jacarandas! They are huge, old, and vibrantly violet (or violent, as my initial typo indicated). Santa Barbara has lovely jacarandas. They are comparably tiny to the old ones lining Lisbon’s streets.

Lisbon has an affair with tile work and mosaics. Building façades are covered with elaborate tile work, or washed in brilliant pastels. The sidewalks are mosaics.

This is a picture of just some random side walk. All the sidewalks were like this though.



I was not very impressed with Lisbon. It was dirty. There was graffiti everywhere. It seemed like there were lots of improvement projects forgotten half way through. (stupid)

Unless you are crazy into mosaic sidewalks, enormous jesus statues over bays, or majestic jacarandas, you can probably pass it.

I bought a plant for my cabin though, which made it worth the stop.

(I feel so guilty, like I am sentencing it to tourism death.)

Le Verdon, France: I did not have the opportunity to go into Le Verdon. I did however get off the ship for an hour and walk around the dock.

Why am I telling you this?

I walked to the end of the cargo lot and found, to my pleasure and delight the most secluded stretch of beach I had seen in a long time. My foot prints broke the smooth canvas of sand, millions of shells, rain pockets and crabs. I was the only set of foot prints.

It made me realize how vast my love is for a long walk on an empty beach. I collected shells; they are in the plant saucer, I got from the florist on board, around the base of my new plant.

I am most grateful for the solitary walk through a space so pure as a meadow to the right and the sea to the left. (cool)

Next…

BORDEAUX!

I LOVE BORDEAUX!!!!

Here is a picture… so you have something to return for….



I will write about Bordeaux tomorrow....