Having said that…I am writing a blog here. So, I'm going to do my best. I'm going to try and shed some verbal light on a few things that have happened to me since I arrived here.
Signing on to a ship is a little like this scene from The Shawshank Redemption:
Of course, I'm TOTALLY KIDDING. I did think of this scene during the sign on process, though. Lots of hurry up and wait. People do tend to stare at me in particular. Probably due to my height and striking good looks (and modesty).
The ship is huge. It truly does make the Majesty feel like a kiddie bike with training wheels. The main corridor in the crew area on Deck 1 (the I-95) is almost twice as wide as the MJ. Or, at least it feels that way. While the ship is bigger and hallways are wider, the ceilings appear to be lower. It's either that or the floors are higher. I haven't crushed my head, yet, but that's inevitable. So far, every timeI've walked down the I-95 here someone has told me to "mind my head" or asked my height. I don't even have clever answers for this anymore (it wouldn't work with the language barrier anyway). I just say "thank you" and go on my merry way. On the Majesty, I had to keep my eyes on the ceiling and plan a route dodging emergency fire sprayers and smoke alarms. I do the same thing here on Adventure, but, for about 50 yards of the I-95 I have to walk with my head tilted to the side. It reminds me of following my father going down the stairs at our old Loon Lake cottage. I have a clear memory of him tilting his head to the right to avoid hitting the ceiling. My family can back me up on this.
I elected to not pay for a cell phone plan in Europe. We are only here for 4 weeks and I thought I might try to just communicate via internet for this month. One thing I neglected to take into consideration is the time difference. Emailing and using Facebook fine. However, in order to Skype with someone the other person has to be awake and I'm at least 5 hours ahead over here. That makes it near impossible to Skype when it's the afternoon in Eastern Standard Time. We just aren't in ports that long.
The musicians here are excellent and very accommodating. A few of them have worked together before on other ships. All of them have been helpful and welcoming to me. It's a bigger band with 5 horns now (2 trumpets, alto sax, tenor sax, and trombone) in addition to the full 4 person rhythm section. The theater is bigger and we play from an actual pit at the front of the stage that moves up and down utilizing hydraulics. I sit on the edge of the pit nearest to the stage and spent the entire first night of shows making sure I didn't get any part of my body or my instrument trapped as the pit moved up and down during the performance. I'll be used to it after this week, but, it was distracting to say the least.
We work every night. This week we have 2 entertainers onboard. Instead of jugglers and comedians like on the Majesty, the headliners are vocalists. The orchestra provides the back up band for these folks. During our first show on Tuesday night we were backing up a country singer from the U.K. One of the audience members shouted out during a break between songs, "Español tambien! Español!!" It was incredibly rude and disrespectful. I mean, the cruise director had informed everyone the night before that the show would be "solamente en Ingles" or "English only." Besides, it's a country singer from England. The people are onboard for 1 week and they expect everything to be in Spanish? I just can't imagine ever yelling something like that at a live concert or event.
I saw a guy onboard at the crew bar with a shirt that read "Loose Control" in large print on the front. I'm not sure what this means. Loose control? Like, he has loose control on what…his faculties? Or is it the common misspelling of the word "lose" as in Michigan State is going to LOSE to Michigan this weekend? Either way, it's not a message that I'd be comfortable sending out to the world at large.
