3 days on land

It's been a hectic couple of days around here. Kevin got very sick yesterday with some sort of stomach bug, so we were understaffed for our busiest day of the week. I did Liars Club with Paul and Joe and then took Kevin's spot teaching a workshop with Sue, and then we did a 4-person improv show. It all went well, but there's a big difference between 4 people and 5. Kevin's doing better; fortunately our shows aren't until Wednesday next week, so he has plenty of time to recuperate.

As you may know, I'm am leaving the ship tomorrow to shoot another Sonic commerical in Phoenix. Everyone has been very accomodating in letting me go; we moved our shows from Monday to Wednesday, the day I come back. Since I've never signed off the ship before, it's been a little nerve wracking for me, but hopefully everything will go off without a hitch. Next week is our last week before our dry dock break; it's also Joe's last week and Beth, our producer, is coming to visit. So certainly it will be a bit unusual all around. It feels very strange to be packing up to leave tomorrow, only to come back and then leave again next Sunday.

Eating my words

Well, it's 12:44 am, and I'm sitting here writing this because our crew show was cancelled. There was a misunderstanding, and because of the free drinks in crew bar, someone made the announcement that our show was cancelled. We still had a handful of people show up, but we explained the situation to them and hopefully they'll come back when we reschedule. We're going to try to do it next week.

So a bit of an anticlimax tonight, but just a minor setback, I hope.

Welcome to Miami...

I definitely feel less urgency in sightseeing on this trip, partially because Florida isn't quite as exotic as our past locales, and partially because I know I'll be doing this trip 9 more times. I did get off the ship today though, and walked around an outdoor shopping tourist-y area. Then I came back to the ship and got a massage. On port days we get a nice cruise discount, and honestly, it was one of the best massages I've ever had.

Tonight is our crew show (at midnight), and we're not sure what to expect. The word was a little late getting out, but people aren't really faced with lots of activity options. I just got word, however, that because of an excellent safety inspection today, drinks are free tonight, both at crew bar and at our show. As long as people know that there are free drinks at our show, we should get a decent house. It's also Colin's birthday, so there's going to be some karaoke antics in crew bar as well, but with 1200 crew members, we're sure to get some folks. Hopefully I'm not just being naively optimistic, but if I am, isn't that adorable of me?

I just posted a picture of last week's Liars Club panel, with an example of one of the words we have to make up a definition for. Nothing brings down the house here like a little innuendo.

Because of hurricane damage, Norwegian's private island is not quite ready for visitors. So tomorrow we're going to Nassau for the day, and then Friday we'll be in Freeport (also in the Bahamas, just a different island).

No more tired fingers

Our shows went well last night; we had to cut an improv game from the first one to insure we were done in 50 minutes, since there were a lot of events scheduled that evening and we needed to let people out in time to go to the next one. Our second show went as usual, and we did our improv set. It's nice to see how many people stay for the set, even when given the chance to leave. Then we went to one of our favorite nighttime spots, Pearly Kings pub, for drinks and free popcorn. And then to crew bar where I tried on Colin's afro wig that he wore for that evening's 70's night party. I think it suits me.

Today we are in Port Canaveral, Florida. There's a shuttle bus that makes stops at all the exciting places (shopping mall, Wal Mart), so we took advantage of that. I made some purchases, the most thrilling of which is a universal remote which I just programmed to work with my TV. The remote that comes in our cabins only has channel up and down buttons, so if you want to jump from channel 3 to 21, you have to press the button 18 times. No more! And it lets me use a sleep timer, too.

So I'm back on the ship now, but we don't leave until 9pm. Tomorrow we're in Miami, which I've never visited.

Sieben day cruise

That's German for seven day cruise. Yeah I know, a lot like English. Uh huh.

It's a new and different cruise this time around, but the good ol' Reading and Writing room on deck 12, where I usually fulfill my online needs, remains the same. People reading, sleeping, snoring, or just sitting.

Yesterday Kevin, Joe, and I met up with our friend Liz in New York. We had brunch and then went to see the Gates in Central Park. I'm posting a photo.

There are somewhere around 800 kids on board this week. That increases the total number of passengers too, since most of these kids are in cabins with their parents. It definitely feels like there are more people waling around, but then again, this is our first sea day and it's cloudy and cool out, so everyone's more or less confined. I did see a new sight last night around 11:30 when I went in Spinnaker and actually saw a full dance floor. Of people dancing! Dancing!

We have rehearsal shortly and our shows tonight. Because the 7-day cruises pack a lot of activity into a shorter amount of time, everything has to run much tighter than on the 10 and 11-day runs. Our first show needs to be no longer than 50 minutes tonight, so we're cutting one of our improv games. But for the second show, we're putting it back in and we still get to do our improv set afterwards.

Wednesday at midnight we're going to do a crew show. Most crew aren't allowed to see shows in the theatre, so this is a wasy for them to see our show and just have some fun. There's a Crew Welfare Committee that orchestrates events like this, as well as the crew parties we've been to in the past. We're looking forward to it, but I think we're more nervous about it than our regular shows since this audience won't go home at the end of the week. So we hope they like it.

Our new itinerary is as follows:
Sunday: Leave New York
Monday: Sea day
Tuesday: Port Canaveral, Florida
Wednesday: Miami
Thursday: Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas (Norwegian's private island)
Friday: Nassau, Bahamas
Saturday: Sea day
Sunday: Arrive in New York...leave again

I think time is going to pass really quickly now. It's hard to belive we're almost half way done.

Haben Sie noch ein Ei?

That means "Do you have another egg?". I can't wait to use that one.

My German is coming along, at least as much as I could expect it to after about 2 1/2 hours of study. I took French from the time I was in preschool through my first semester of college (when I realized that I pretty much knew all the French I was going to learn without actually spending time in France). That same semester, I took Italian, which is similar to French in many ways, so it was pretty easy for me to pick up. German is very different, and even though it's structured similarly to English in terms of syntax, I'm not finding it very intuitive. Regardless, it's a fun task to take on and it makes me feel productive.

It's 11:30 on Friday night, and I'll admit it, I'm feeling a little homesick. I'd like to say to all of you back home, whether that's Chicago or Dallas or Boston or wherever, I miss you.

Gute nacht.

Meatloaf would be outraged

Yesterday was a lot of fun. It was our half day in Tortola, most of which I slept through, and then the beginning of our sea days back up to New York. I went to watch some of our group do Liar's Club for a very tough audience; in the middle of people's definitions some of the audience would yell, very matter-of-factly, "oh, that's just not true." When Paul said that "Futtocks" is the top of your foot, a woman yelled "I know that's not true, I'm a nurse!" It's just a game, folks. I'm up in a couple of hours for my turn, and this time Joe is hosting so Mike, the Assistant Cruise Director, can be on the panel.

Speaking of Joe, he did a very charming clown show for the 2-5 year olds in the kids club last night. We all went to watch and take pictures, as if Joe was our own child doing his very first show. I'll have one posted soon. It was a big hit, and educational too - the kids all learned to say "neutral" when his clown mouth turned out to be neither happy nor sad.

Then we had our improv show, which was the best one yet. Great audience, and a tight show but without too many games crammed in. Then we went to see this week's ventriloquist, who was terrific.

We all went to the crew bar last night, and since it was Thursday it was karaoke night. In general I haven't felt the urge to do karaoke on the ship; in the lounge where they have it most nights, the singers are way too much the center of attention, and in the crew bar they're stuck in a corner by a door almost as an afterthought. But last night we all took the plunge, with some urging from Colin, who sang as well. Colin and I signed up to do "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," which we thought was hilarious because it's a 7-minute song. When we got up to sing, however, we were disappointed to discover that they had shortened the song for karaoke purposes. Next time we'll just have to do the song twice back to back.

This morning Kevin and I taught a workshop, and now I'm off to get ready for Liar's Club. Hopefully the audience will be a little gentler with us today.

Guten tag

It's Caribbean Night on board, and that seems to mean more than it has before. The guests this cruise tend to be in much more of a partying mood than in the past; it's a new experience to be walking around at 11 at night and still see lots of people around. We just finished up a card game next to a table of 14-year-olds playing poker. Teach 'em young, I say.

Yesterday we were in Antigua, and I stayed on the ship and relaxed. Today we were in St. Maarten, for only the second time, and 5 of us went to a beach while Brian tried his hand at scuba for the first time. It's been cloudy this cruise, but it's actually kind of nice because you avoid the feeling of the sun searing your flesh. I know to those of you in places that are actually experiencing winter right now, that sounds pretty good.

Tomorrow is our final Caribbean destination, Tortola. It's really beautiful, but we're only there until 1pm. I've done a couple of fun things there, so I won't feel to bad if I sleep through the majority of our stay. Tomorrow and Friday are our busy days: Liar's Club, workshops, and an improv show.

At the beginning of this cruise we all decided on a task to achieve by the last day. I put some German language CD's on my ipod before I left, so I decided mine was to actually listen to them and be able to show something for it (count to ten, say a sentence or two, whatever). So far, I have done nothing, but I still have a couple of days. Nein!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today we were in St. Thomas (for the last time), and as a group we decided to go into downtown, which we hadn't done before. St. Thomas is known for its shopping, and some people wanted to buy cameras, which they successfully did. I went off by myself and walked around, and after a little delibertation decided to buy myself a gift and got a necklace I'd had my eye on. It rained off and on but wan't too bad.

Tonight there's a crew party in honor of Valentine's Day, but it't not until late so I have to keep myself busy to stay awake. I woke up early this morning because there was a huge vibration and accompanying noise as we pulled into port. We were in a different port than we usually come into, which hampered my plan to eat lunch at Wendy's today, but it's probably just as well since I satisfied my McDonald's craving in San Juan yesterday. Happy Meals know no language.

I've been reading the book Word Freak, which is about the world of competitive Scrabble. So, naturally, I've been itching to play. Yesterday I found a Scrabble-like game and downloaded it, and I have a feeling it's going to become a new obsession. At least it keeps me off the streets.

Cruisin' for a bruisin'

We had our shows last night, and I think all-around they were the best yet. Some of us went to the Star Bar after the show and met a woman who lived in Chicago for a while and used to watch Second City sets back in the early 80's. Her cousin studied with the late improv guru Del Close and then moved to New York and started Chicago City Limits. It was nice to talk to someone who had some knowledge about improv history and Second City.

Then we went to the disco-ish type lounge, Spinnaker, and found out that we had just missed a near brawl. Kids under 18 aren't supposed to be in there after 11pm, but apparently there was a loarge teen contingent on the dance floor well after that time. So a group of adults who didn't want to share the room with teenagers wanted them out, and the teens' parents wanted them to be able to stay. Drinks were spilled. Security alerted. Spinnaker nearly emptied.

This week again we've been rerouted and are pulling into San Juan, Puerto Rico right now. I'm not sure if I'll do anything here today; we walked around Old San Juan last time and then went to the mall...I may sneak in a quick trip to Borders if I have time. Then tomorrow we'll be in St. Thomas all day. I really haven't doe much in St. Thomas when we've been there, but I may tomorrow. Rich and I went on our honeymoon there, but we only spent one day in the downtown area.

Our rerouting means we're skipping Barbados, which has become our favorite place to go. That's where the Boatyard is, where Rich went jetskiing last week. The biggest bummer is that I have about $7 in Boatyard drink tokens left over, so if any of you are planning a trip to Barbados, let me know and maybe we can work out a deal.

How to make a better ransom note

It's a rainy and rocky day on the ship today, but the motion really isn't bothering me that much anymore. Plus, it provides a good excuse not to go to the gym. Dangerous!

Today I went to a lecture on handwriting analysis. On every cruise there are one or two people on board who do lectures on specialized things like how to sell items on Ebay, or, seriously, pet CPR. So today I learned that you can tell when someone's lying by the way they write, unless they're a good liar, and really, aren't those the ones that are the most dangerous? I also learned from my own handwriting that I am shy because of my margins, but outgoing because of my writing speed. Hmm.

Not much else to report, but if anyone would like to send me a handwriting sample, I'd be happy to tell you what kind of person you are.

And then there were six

We're back in New York, and all our visitors from the past 11 days have left. It was a little stressful today, since we ended up getting into NY late. Rich didn't even leave the ship until 1:30pm, and his flight was at 2:00. So needless to say, he missed his flight, but as I write this he is on a later flight back to Chicago.

It was great to have Rich here and show him everything I've been experiencing for the past month. But now we're back to life as usual, if there is such a thing. We're all meeting for a nice steak dinner in a little while to kick off our final Caribbean cruise; after this 10-day trip, we start our 7-day Florida and Bahamas cruises. At first I wasn't looking forward to those because they aren't as exotic as the Caribbean trips, but from what I've heard, they should be a lot of fun. For one thing, we'll be less cut-off as far as cell phones service and general comforts of home - two of our four stops are in Florida. Also, it's easier for younger working couples and families to take just a week off of work and school, so the 7-day cruises tend to attract a younger set - including kids, so we'll be starting up some kids workshops soon.

Right now the ship is full of new passengers wandering around, trying to find their rooms, checking out the scene. Our shows are Saturday night this week. We also have a new Assistant Cruise Director on board now; his name is Mike, and he was on this ship previously. He'll be here until early May, and then Lance will come back.

I did have a chance to walk around New York a little today; I didn't have a lot of time, but it's always nice to hit sturdy land for a little while.

Oh, the reason we were late getting in wasn't rough seas as it has been in the past...yesterday a passenger had to be taken off the ship by helicopter for medical reasons. I don't know the whole story, but I think he/she was fairly stable when the helicopter came. I did see it leaving, along with a Coast Guard prop plane that was accompanying it. It was quite a sight. Hopefully the passenger is doing fine.

More later.

Catching up

Where to begin? It's been a lot of fun having Rich here, but of course that leaves much less downtime for posting about my antics. Since I last wrote, we've been to St. Thomas, a beach on Antigua, back to the Boatyard beach on Barbados (photos soon available), and river tubing on Dominica. Tomorrow is our Tortola half-day, and then back up to New York.

Today is the 4-week mark for our group, which is really hard to believe. It seems like ages since we first got here, but at the same time, I still feel new here.

For those of you in Dallas, apparently there is a blurb about us in the travel section of Sunday's (2/6) Dallas Morning News.

The Superbowl is going on right now - it's being broadcast in just about every lounge on the ship. Rich and I took advantage of that fact and had a nice dinner in the Benihana-style restaurant, which was excellent.

Tomorrow we start up our duties again, doing workshops and our improv show. Hopefully our ride back up to New York won't be as rough as our trip down.

Change of plans

As you all know, Rich is here this cruise, so I apologize that my posts may be a bit more sporadic for the next week or so. But I'm sure you understand.

So today is our first port day, and we were supposed to get in to St. Thomas around 11am. Now, we usually arrive there early afternoon, but that still gives people time to see the sights and all that. But we hit a lot of rough seas (the worst yet) heading south, so yesterday we found out that we wouldn't get to St. Thomas until 3pm. Then the captain decided to change our route to give people more time in more places. So now as I type this we're docking in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We'll spend the day here, and then go to St. Thomas tomorrow for a full day. We'll skip Grenada at the end, but of all the places to skip, that seemed most appropriate. No offense to any Grenadianieters out there.

So this is unexpected and fun, and shortly we're going to head out and see San Juan. And I'll admit it right now, that includes a mall. And we get to stay until 8pm, which is unusual, but since St. Thomas is only about 40 miles from here, it won't take much to get there by tomorrow morning.

Our shows last night went well, and now we have nothing but free time until our Liar's Clubs on Friday night.

I would like to semi-publicly wish a very happy birthday to my sister Emily, who turned 25 yesterday!