February 2, 2009

Another day, another thirteen hours of work and training. Last night wasn't terribly exciting, really. My Croatian friend was around, so I ate dinner with him and he told me all about his teaching experiences back in Croatia. After dinner I went right up to the club, where I watched the super bowl with the one teen who's been showing up for events and played wii sports until he had to go around 10:00. The next three hours meant more training, but for at least two of them I just played in the DJ booth and put on whatever music I wanted.

This morning was more training, but I've befriended the new nurse and she had to be there as well. She's a kiwi, so we chatted about our respective countries and she had a lot of questions about mail and banking in the US, since 'home' is mostly Florida these days. I've also made a Romanian hairdresser friend who was there, and we were the only two who came to the tour offered at the end of the first part of training so we got lunch on the Lido deck afterwards (we are allowed to use it during the day if it isn't too busy). After that, more training, but in between the two I ran into the kiwi and her trainer (a really nice lady from London), met the magician on board, and bought an internet card. Unfortunately I can't find the crew internet in my room... but hopefully after I finish writing this I'll have some time to wander up to the crew lounge. I imagine I can find it there.

After all of that, it was more video games and more training after our one kid had to go to dinner.

But OH, there is ONE exciting thing that happened today. We're arriving in port tomorrow four hours later than planned, and I had the misfortune of walking down a guest hall when this was announced. I suddenly got bombarded with questions from scared guests about what was going on, and would we be back in Tampa on time, and various other questions... which I dealt with spectacularly, in that by the time I left each guest they were calmed down and smiling. Less spectacularly in that I didn't actually know what had happened, since I had only heard as much as them by that point.

This arriving-late thing is being made up for by leaving-late, so the guests still have a lot of time in Cozumel. Unfortunately, both this and ANOTHER training session have severely dented my day of sleeping in. I can still sleep until around 10:00, since training is at 11:00 and I'll work 12:00-2:00ish since the kids will still be on board, but that is a lot different than my original sleep-until-lunch plan.

Also, I was in training the entire time we were in the Caymans today, so I haven't made it off the boat. I could get off tomorrow, though. My only issue is that I'd want to go with someone else who knows the port already, and I'm still in that getting-to-know-you stage of my friendships on-board. Speaking of which, I ate dinner with my Latvian nemesis. We got into a fight over which was the better football club: Barcelona or Liverpool, which ended when he flailed at the asst. cruise director about it and the asst. cruise director said “she'll be nice, she can't help it if Barcelona sucks.” Ha! We called a truce anyway, after it was discovered we both liked Irbe. So, see? I'm making friends! We even ate with some of the dancers, who are all tiny freckled girls from Canada or England (at least the ones I've met), but they're also friendly. I'm really digging the staff on this ship.