This cartoon was sent to me by a musician friend of mine - he designed it based on a comment I made about a potential barbecue on my upcoming vacation. I had no idea he was so talented, or bored.
I have one task assigned to me - what is the wiener saying?
I am packing and writing evaluations for my substance-addicted band. I have no time for captioning wieners. So why don't you help me out - what do YOU think it's saying?
This is my last cruise before I take a short January vacation.
I need it. There has been such a turnover in the band. Everybody is a temp and I don't even know if there will be people to fill our places come January. But that will not be my problem, hopefully, when I am home on my unpaid vacation.
There are a lot of Mexico ports. I enjoyed these decorations in Cabo today, on Christmas Eve. I found a friendly Pelican and sat beside him on the pier for 20 minutes. It was fun hanging out with him/it.
The ship is highly decorated. Reindeer placed around are just asking to be rearranged when leaving the bar. The decorations have been up for a month already, and it isn't uncommon to see drunk crew members doing ridiculous thing to the reindeer and horses set around.
These ladies were on the beach the other day in Grand Cayman, having a great holiday with their reindeer antlers on!
I have a Christmas (how do you do that thing where you cross out that word to denotate sarcasm in the style of humour primarily used by Bossy) Holiday show to play.
They are doing lots of stuff for us crew. Don't worry, we are well taken care of.
Too tired. Will show the festivities later.
Maybe it's 'cause I'm an officer (blush..) but at the beginning of this cruise I got a complimentary Poinsettia in my cabin! Thanks!
Now I just need to know how to take care of it..
When Docked in Curacao, no matter which dock you are at, you always have to cross the canal somehow to find your way to town. The easiest method of doing this is by crossing the Queen Emma Bridge. This floating bridge moves back and forth to allow large ship traffic to pass through the canal.
Somehow though, whenever I go to cross the bridge it's not in the right place.
It's really confusing when you are walking on the bridge and it starts to move.
Here I can see it in its rightful place as I approach it
Ooops, there it goes...
Until it lies flat against the side of the canal. Look at the guys still walking across it!
Luckily there are things to do while you wait for that bridge. Of course, you could just take the free ferry across. Or you could people watch.
I have grown fond of this juice stand right by the bridge.
Curacao is so close to South America geographically, I swear half the people working there are Venezuelans. Maybe this is why they seem to have all sorts of nice fruits for sale.
I like to look at the menu and imagine what some of those fruits are.
I order the strangest, most pricey fruit shake - the Borojo. They told me it was some sort of Brazilian fruit. It tasted chocolaty.
See another post about Curacao, if you want!
Miami , actually. It looks nice from the ship, especially lit up at night with the speed boats going by us and into the city. But to quote the Trombone player (who usually just talks about his own unit and/or drugs) it's really Crack Village.
American ports are so strict with their shore leave to the point of being ridiculous. We were all herded through immigration in the morning to update our shore passes. They give us windows to go ashore on the half-hour, which doesn't make sense since the security sits there all day anyways. The port security and luggage handlers all speak some kind of Eubonic and I can never understand what they're saying and vice versa.
Today was my lucky day, to wait for 2 piano tuners. One tuner was there the week before, and he was hired to replace a string. Instead, he removed 3 strings and took off leaving a note to return with the strings the next week. This annoyed all of us, especially Min, who read the note aloud in her concert. This in turn annoyed the passengers and they were all complaining and demanding that we replace the piano for her next concert. That is really impossible. We managed to dig a piano tuner out of the jungles of Belize. There are only 2 tuners in the whole country, and this french guy lives in the Jungle for the peace of it and has a giant pet frog.
He looked like he was straight from the jungle but he fixed the strings well.
The second tuner was hired to regulate 1 piano, a big job requiring hours of work. He was held up by port security for 2 hours, became very irate, and even more irate when he learned they wouldn't let him on board at all with his tools and without a certain pass we were told he would not need. He gave me an invoice for $400 and left. I don't want to get on the bad side of these tuners, as they are all friends with each other. This is why I should learn to tune them myself and make a bunch of extra money :)
Standing at the Crew Board, I saw Crazy Dutch Girl. She asked me what I was doing in Miami. "Nothing," I said. This was probably the best answer I could have given, as she recruited me to be a model in the spa for a treatment. People like to tour the ship on embarkation day, and they always require crew members to model their treatments for these tours. I got to lay covered in seaweed wrapped in a bunch of foil floating in a tank. It was a bit warm in there but I think the seaweed makes you high.
I really like how they decorated the crew hallways for Christmas
The Provisions area has a busy day loading supplies.
A well placed wreath beside the Garbage Room and above a cockroach zapper.
The smoking room in the Mess has window decorations. I always have a laugh at the golden bows on the curtains. They were added as decorations in Christmas 2003 and were never taken away!
P. takes a picture of Dex. "You're actually working, here's proof!"
There are a lot of decorations to distribute.
Here is our map - a 12 day cruise and 4 lovely ports. We will end up in LA on the 21st. Perhaps in Cabo I will get to see my friends the Pelicans again!
Since we are in the Caribbean season now my summer has begun. What else to do on a Sunday in Curacao but take a walk with my camera and seek out bright colours.
Here are some Caribbean colours to brighten your December day.
I seem to be surrounded by total lunatics lately. I just gleefully watched one totally loonie musician walk down the gangway on her way home. And now a crazy is trying to spam my blog. If this ever happens to you, there is a great site where you can block specific IP addresses called the Toolator.
Not only can you block IP addresses, but you can put your own special message to them and then redirect them wherever you want! For example, if this crazy ever tries to spam me again, they get a personalized message saying "Go and Duck yourself" and get re-directed to This totally insane website.
Another glorious cruise somewhere way too hot for me :)
This week's theme is a Jazz Cruise
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