compliment

I think one of the coolest things about being on the entertainment staff is that at night, when there's a comedy show or a band in the club on the top deck, most of the cast and the main theatre entertainers go hang out.

Tonight, I was talking to some of the singers and, as usual, offering to play an extra rehearsal on the side to help out a singer. One of the singers pulled me aside, took my hand, looked straight into my eyes, and told me that the show I played/conducted two nights ago was the best performance of that show she was ever involved in (and she's been here about 4 months with 2 other MD's). It really meant a lot to me to hear that since I'm working hard to stay ahead of the curve. I thought I'd share with all of you.

Sea-tigo and Stewards

I posted a while ago about how scary I find the sea at night. I just don't like going out at night. Now that I've gone outside during the day, I realize it's not the dark. Whenever I walk out on the deck while the ship is moving, even though I'm hugging the inside rail, I'm very nervous and almost (but not quite) dizzy with fear that I'll fall over. It's not the water so much as the vastness of the water. I worry that the wrong gust of wind or a slip will send me tumbling into the sea. I think it's what vertigo must feel like.

One of the surprises on this ship is that every crew member, from the cruise director down to the dish washer has room stewardss that come into rooms once a day, straighten up a little, vacuum, replace the towels, and make the bed. It may not be that interesting, but it's something I never expected. At this point, I have a little "no service needed" sign I put up about every other day. No need to have my bed made.

So, there you go

So, I just found out that since it's a very quick train ride to Athens, I should get a chance to go on Thursday. I'm very excited. Now, since I'm from America, I don't have no honeys or jams. I'm just dry toast. But I imagine from what I've seen in the movies, this will all change in Greece.

Civitawhat?

So, we don't actually go to Rome on this cruise. We go to a port city called Civitavecchia. FROM Civitavecchia, you can take an hour train to Rome. Since I had a light day and am caught up on paperwork, I was hoping to go for most of the day. Unfortunately, I had to perform the weekly cabin inspection at 11, which means that if I took a train at 12 and got there around 1, it'd leave me about 4 hours in the city before I need to catch the train back. Also, it's raining and I'll be back here in 2 weeks, so I figure instead of spending money on a round trip train for a couple ohurs, I'll save it and spend a full day next time we're here. In the mean time, we'll be in Greece in 2 days and Alexandria, Egypt on Sunday. Crew can sign up to chapperone on passenger tours. Basically you get everyone on and off the bus and take notes on how the tour guide was, etc, and you can go for free. So, i've signed up to do a pyramid tour for free. I wno't find out til Saturday night which tour I'll get to so, but I signed up for 3 choices, so hopefully I'll get one of them. For those I've talked to before I came here, you know that Egypt was the place I'm most excited to visit.

I'm still in disbelief sometimes that I get to go to Egypt and Rome and Athens for free (actually, while getting paid), but days like yesterday remind me that I'm definitely earning it.

By the way, I accidentally logged off Skype (the password had been saved) and even though I reset the password so i know it's right, I can't log in anymore....I'm working on that.

First shows

So, yesterday was my first full day of performing. I had a rehearsal with the cast for one show and then a rehearsal with the pop opera singer for another. Then, after one rehearsal each, I performed each show.

The opera show (That's Amore, Le Donna e Mobile, etc) was fairly clean, but not as good as I would have liked. Now that I know the show well enough, I can work with the band a little. The problem on a cruise ship is that we won't revisit the show until next cruise. So, we won't look at it for another 2 weeks.

The second show, basically a revue of 60's British pop music, went much better than in rehearsal. Although there were a couple of missed cues, the music itself was very clean. Audiences normally don't pick up on slight hitches in plot like people who know the show do, and we got a standing ovation at the end, so I think that went over pretty well.

It was a stressful night, but now that it's done and I have 2 light days, I think things should be good.

crewbar

To celebrate my first day and to hang out with the guys in the band, I told them after the show that the first round at the crew bar would be on me. I've never been there before and felt I earned it. I walk into the dark room with a a small dance floor, DJ lights and music playing, and bar tables for people to stand and sit at. The band is all around one table and I ask what everyone wants. I get to the bar and order 3 Heinekens, a corona, and glass of wine. I did a double take when the bartender handed me the credit card slip (credit card being my payroll account which they subtract from before they pay me) and the grand total came to $6.50! (American). I learned that at the crew bar, any beer is a buck and wine (fancy for even Mrs. mamola) is $2.50. So, here I am being a big shot buying a round and I only pay 6.50.

The problem with these prices is that one beer with the guys turned into 4, since everyone that came over bought a round. The last guy I even asked not to get me anything, but there I was with my 4th beer. So, needless to say, it's 2 am and my alarm clock will be set for...let's say 8:30. Guess I better take a nap before rehearsal tomorrow.

First day on the job

So, with the previous bandmaster off the ship, today was my first full day working. I had to be ready at 9:30 to escort the piano tuner to the first of threee pianos that needed to be tuned (reminding me that I still haven't had my pinao tuned back home). In the middle of that, I received several phone calls regarding the new trombone player who had to be put in a 4-person cabin since there were no 2-person cabins available. He was, understandably, upset.

The middle of my day was fairly open, including a failed attempt to return some electronics in Barcelona since the store was closed on Sundays (something I probably should have thought to find out).

The evening involved my first tech run and performance for the welcome aboard show, which features a snippet from each of the performers on ship. That went relatively smoothly, apart from one iffy start for one of the singers. All in all, it was a sucessful first day of the job.

The best part, probably, was my cabin move. After seeing that most crew live in 2 or 4 person cabins, I was happy to have my cabin which was the size of about half a dorm room to myself. Now that I've moved into the bandmaster's cabin, however, I'm living in a room about the size of a small hotel room. Minicouch including. Whereas before I couldn't open the bathroom door without hitting the desk, now I have 2 closets, a couch, and room to do situps and pushups without snaking my body around the desk. Oh! I almost forgot that I know have a window! Before, being without a window, the room was equally pitch black without lights on no matter what time of day it was. Now, I can wake up and see sunlight to know that it's morning and not the middle of the night. I'm movin on up, Jeffersons style.

Day 8: Lost and the takeover

Sorry for the long delay. Yesterday I went into Malaga in search of wifi in order to watch lost. The good news is that I found it, the bad is that I never really got it to work properly. It did work long enough for me to call my parents on SKype. Outside of that, I couldn't get pages to load. Very frustrating.

So, I'm stuck, at least this week, paying 10 cents a minute to watch in my cabin. So, I'm essentially renting Lost for $4 an episode. I don't mind too much since I don't really spend any other money here, and when you think of all the trips to wendys or chipotle that I would have spent $4 on at home, it's not a big deal.

By the time I sign online again, I'll have finished the second episode, so no more ban on mentioning lost to me.

As of noon today, I will be performing almost all the duties of my job. Thye current person leaves tomorrow morning. I'm pretty excited to finally start doing the job fully. It's been a litttle frustating just sitting and watching the past few days. But, tomorrow begins a new cruise. Sink or swim I suppose...

my eyes

So, there have now been about 4 people in the span of 2 days (men and women) that have commented about how wonderful my eyes are. Some are from NY, so I can't chalk it up to being international. It just makes me realize how underappreciated my eyes go back home. This is crap and I demand it be fixed immediately upon my arrival back home.

Lost premieres tonight~!!!

I forgot to mention this the other post, but I've felt a bit like Ben from Lost the past couple of days. Different ports use different currency, so when I'm about to go out, I go into my lockbox where I have different currencies. Though, only one passport, sadly. Right now I just have dollars and euros, but soon I'll have a few other things I hope.

This is very important: I WILL NOT BE WATCHING LOST UNTIL FRIDAY!!! Don't you DARE write anything about the premiere. I'll let you know when I've seen it. Though, no full writeups.

(PS - for the best post-episode Lose discussion, I highly recommend visiting longlivelocke.blogspot.com)

Tuesday Answers

Shane asked about my daily schedule. Right now, I haven't fully taken over the job, but I've been shadowing the current band master fairly frequently. It seems that when I take over, I wake up, head into the office to work on the schedule for the next day. For the most part this has already been set. I know what production shows are going on (there are 2 evening slots) and what rehearsals are needed for them. Outside of that, it's a matter of scheduling the various individual acts in the little lounges around the ship. This, too, remains failry consistent day to day.

After I'm done in the office, I'm usually good until either 4:30 or 6:30, depending on whether there needs to be a full rehearsal of that night's show. Then, we do the shows. So, the busiest part of the day is from 6:30 on when I could be working each hour until about 10:30. Though, the shows are only an hour each, so after the 7:30 show, I have alittle break. The middle of the day is most open.

I've been going to the staff gym after the last show, after practicing a bit. This makes it harder to get up early since I could be in the gym until well after midnight.

I know my mom had a bunch of questions, but i don't really remember what they were...guess she'll have to wait until next monday ;c) ..or email me.

Oh, and my new weekly ritual is to call Bridgett and Shane on Skype! I haven't been able to get it to work from the ship calling phone numbers, but last night I connected to them using skype. I even got the video to send for a minute, so they could see my cabin.

As far as pictures, everything freezes due to bandwidth, so I might have to wait until I come home.

Day ?: Offshore Accounts

Today I got off the ship for the first time in a city called Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. It was about 22 C out which I believe felt around 65 or 70F. Right when I got off the ship there was a giant mall. I looked around for a minute, but was more interested in the beach that was also nearby.

On my way to the beach, I passed a lot of little shops and restaraunts, some in buldings, some on the sidewalk. There are two things there are an abundance of in Las Palmas: Chinese Buffets and Banks. I took a picture of the first chinese buffet I saw, I thinking it was a funny novelty, but then I saw about 3 more just in my walk towards the beach. Since this seemed to be a big tourist city, I imagine there are a lot of asian tourists as well. The nice thing about the restauraunts was that they had their menus posted outside in multiple languages.

Since it was a port day, I knew I could eat upstairs in the guest cafe cand have a nice selection of guest food (which I'm starting to realize is crew food, just a day earlier.) Since I could eat free on the ship, I decided to stop in a bakery and ask the woman behind the counter to pick something sweet out for me. She gave me a pastry that was cut into a long triangle, similar to a pizza slice. The pastry was on the top and bottom and sandwiched between was some sort of cream and lemon custard. I asked what it was called and I'm pretty sure she said "cunio" or "curio." Anyone with better access to google might help me out and post the answer.

As I said, the other thing in abundance was is Las Palmas was banks. I realized that when people say in movies (or I imagine in real life too) "he transferred the money to an offshore account in the canary islands" that THIS is where they meant! I didn't ask if any of the banks had a super saver account I could store my remaining 8 Euros in.

After I came back I practiced a bit and then we had rehearsal. We paused rehearsal for about 20 minutes to watch the Obama inaugeration and speech in the theatre on a drop down movie screen. Both the band and the cast stood and clapped often. Even the Brits amongst us recognized the importance of the moment.

Monday Questions

I've decided that perhaps the things that seem interesting for me to blog about aren't always the things you want to know. So, if there's actually anyone reading this (and one of those people better be Emily Burke for all the crap she gave me about not writing my old blog), I think on mondays i'm going to invite you all to ask questions that you want to know about and I'll answer them.
So, ask away!

PS - Go Cardinals C-A-R-D-I-N-A-L-S Cardinals!

DAY 3: When the ship starts 'a rockin', don't fall off the balcony

Since this ship is basically like a floating building, it's very easy to forget you're on a ship. Crew stay indoors for the most part, and the ship doesn't often move very much.This was not the case today. On and off, the ship has been rocking a generous amount today. The first interesting thing about walking on a ship that's rocking is that gravity keeps shifting. Sometimes you're walking and the ship is tilting towards you, so gravity is heavy. The ship is literally pushing back up on you. The more interesting time to walk is when the ship is rolling the other way. it's dropping away from you as you walk. You can feel gravity let up a bit.

But none of that involves a balcony. I was upstairs practicing in the balcony today. I sit on a stool right next to the edge of the balcony. There is a piece of glass that extends up from the edge to keep things from falling over, but still. The ship began rocking and I became very aware that a few more degrees more, and I might tumble off my stool. This was very disconcerting. I'll get used to it, but still.

You might think that this has become the last place I want to be when the ship is rocking. It quickly became second on that list...when I went outside onto the deck. It's one thing to be in pitch black, but it's another when you look out, all you see is black, but you're aware there's a big ol' ocean out there...somewhere. I hugged the inside rail as if a winning lottery ticket was taped to the underside of it somewhere. Thus, I will never go outside at night again, ever...again. (ever).

Outside of that, today was the first day i've felt like a more or less normal person. I woke up, I ate breakfast, had rehearsal, practiced, etc.

I'm not sure if I'll stay up tonight to watch football, though I'm pretty sure it is on tv. Go...yeah, I don't care. I think i'm routing for a Steelers/Eagles Super Bowl, though, Eagles suck, so go Cardinals! Actually, I think the Cardinals would make a better game than the Eagles.

Day 2: Eating

When most people think about going on a cruise, one of the first things they think of is gaining weight. This may be the case for the passengers. There is a lot of food around. However, I can easily see losing a little weight on this cruise.

Before I continue, I can see bridgett and my mom getting anxious already. I will start by saying they serve 3 meals a day cafeteria style with plenty of options, very decent quality, and absolutely no limits on how much you can eat.

There are two things (probably for the eating better) that are different. First, meals are at set times. They start and stop. Now, between 6:30 and 8 at night, there is probably in actuality only a couple of hours here and there that aren't one meal time or the other. But once you've eaten lunch, you're likely not going to go back for more lunch. So, snacking in that fashion is out.

There are mini-fridges in the cabins. However, you are not allowed to keep anything remotely perishable in there (counting fruit, yogurt, etc). In other words, you can not keep anything in the fridge that fits the mantra mention above "Eat [real] food, not too much, mostly plants." Real food and/or plants are specifically forbidden.

So, like I said, I might actually lose a little weight. I visited the staff gym after the second show tonight. It made my think of the gym that Mr. T trains in in Rocky III (with considerably more Asians).

Tomorrow we stop at Casablanca. There will likely be a drill at 10 before we get into port. At 1:00 I need to be on the ship for a safety written test. Plus, so much practicing to catch up on. I think since we get back there 2x more while I'm here, I'm going to enjoy my first relatively free day since I've been here. I have more than enough practicing to do and laundry and such.

There are NFL playoffs tomorrow which I will likely miss. I might actually be free when they're on, thanks to the time difference, but I don't think I get that channel. I know they'll be showing the Obama innaugeration here. And then there's Lost. It'd be much cheaper for me to watch it on shore at an internet cafe somewhere, but I think I might feel guilty/silly being somewhere in Morocco and watching Lost in an internet cafe.

day 1, aka "24"

I've been up almost 24 hours straight now. I woke up 1 am local Barcelona time since I was still partially on US time. I've been on the ship since about 9 this morning. I've been through hours of safety training, a rehearsal, a performance (both of which I watched), had a glass of wine, and capped off the night with an hour and a half of practicing a score that I've never seen before, but will conduct in roughly a week.

My cabin is small. Very small. Half of a dorm room small. Can't open the bathroom door all the way due to the desk chair small. But, at least it's my own. Most crew have to share 2-4 in a room (I assume those rooms are slightly bigger than this one). This is temporary, however. I have yet to see the room I will be moving into when the current band master leaves, but I am told it is wonderful. I even have a port window.

The hardest and most frustrating thing right now is geting around. It's a big ship. Very big. I now have landmarks to look for (stair 40 on deck 4) but a landmark is only useful if you actually see it. Sometimes I am teased by very similar, but still very different landmarks. Like stair 41. Everyone is very helpful, but it's hard to ask for help sometimes because I'm not quite lost, I just don't know how to get where I'm headed.

I'm shooting to only be up 18 hrs or so tomorrow, not 24.

Hola from Barcelona!

Well, I've been here about 18 hrs. I don't speak Spanish at all, but I've never felt more like I don't speak Spanish than today. In fact, even the small ammount of Spanish I attempted on the phone (por favor, habitacion de Kevin) was greeting with "yes sir, I'll connect your call."

As expected, my sleeping/eating schedule is pretty messed up at the moment. I arrived at 8 am local time having slept only here and there on the plane. I think my big mistake was that instead of taking a 1 hr nap this morning and waiting to sleep for real until tonight, I fell asleep for 3 hours. So, when I went to bed at 8 this evening thinking "great, I'll get a full night's sleep and be fresh to go tomorrow," I instead woke up at 1 am.

Skype is a wonderful thing. For only 2.95/mo I am able to call my parents, my grandparents, bridgett and breighan with unlimited minutes.

So, that's Barcelona. I went walking a bit but really didn't do any sight-seeing or anything. I'm just tried to rest up as much as possible since I think this next week will be one of my hardest ever.

A final thought: I recommend reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. It reminds you that the food industry is indeed an industry and that it is dangerous to think of food in terms of its nutrients. A product that contains a similar amount of protein, carbs, and types of fat as a real piece of food does not make it just as healthy (e.g. whole wheat white bread, low carb pasta, etc.) The book's mantra is: "eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

My last night in the States?

Ok, I'm taking a second shot at blogging. I have great intentions but who knows how it'll pan out. At the very least, I'll post a couple of pictures when I get there and let everyone know I'm settled and doing ok on the boat.

Also, I wanted to set up some sort of mass email, so this is probably easier for everyone involved.

To catch everyone up, this is my first time leaving the country (except to visit our northern neighbors) so even the idea of getting on a flight going farther than California is new. Christine left me a few Spanish phrases to help me get along while I'm in Barcelona, though she left out the 2 that I was really hoping to learn:

"I'm sorry, I only have a few dollars, I didn't realize a hooker would cost that much."

and

"Don't shoot, I voted for Barack Obama"

But, immersion is the best way to learn a language, so if I arrive in Spain before I have to get on the ship, I'm sure I'll pick it up.