Oh boy where to begin? SO much happens from the time you leave for a contract to that first day on board…..it’s hard to condense and give an accurate representation of it. So I will try my best….
So my last day with Chris was started with the best of intentions. Those who know me know I borderline on emotional basket case on a good day. On that particular day it was more of trying to exorcise demons from an unwilling patient in this case being my silly brain. I was a wreck. Even with a trip to see a traveling Tim Burton art exhibit (so amazing I can’t even being to describe) it wasn’t enough to take the edge off my nerves and a trip afterwards to WalMart to get a few last minute essentials turned into an adventure of puke inducing nerves that caused Chris to have to pull to the side of the road several times to let me barf what little I had eaten that day right back out. I was not pretty. So I finished packing that night in a nausea medicated stupor and then it was that dreaded morning.
I have observed before on here that you take pretty well your life with you to a ship. Well, being a girl that’s more than obvious and so there we were in the Toronto airport, me, still in pretty well my pajamas, two carry ons and two over packed suitcases to drag around while feeling still pretty sick and then having to say goodbyes to Chris….again. Sigh. He gets the best boyfriend in the world award for putting up with my garbage. He let me hug on him and publicly cry up until the last possible moment and then I was out. I arrived at the Double Tree Hotel in Miami after a really long day and started back into a not so welcome routine of scheduling our first of many Skype dates and again….messiness. Part of me feels like it’s just not natural to share your life with the person you want to spend it with constantly over computer chat. And at this moment I should point out that while this makes me sound HIGHLY ungrateful for my work as it is pretty exceptional, I will say that I am in no way downplaying my thankfulness for my job. In our line of work, work at all is hard to come by much less stable amounts and we are pretty lucky, but I will say for us that we work very very hard to have it so these moments of semi-selfish whining I feel are well deserved. And so at that moment I got out what I felt like was a good dose of self pitying whining.
I do feel that a lot of times, when you feel like you just can’t handle a situation (this time I was pretty unsure of myself….almost to the point where I thought about turning around, quitting and just figuring out my life from there) the universe gives you at least a small helping hand to give you that little extra push. While sitting in my hotel room enjoying my last bit of free internet for a while (yes, crew members have to pay for internet time on a ship…that’s why it’s the equivalent of gold in most cases) I got a face book message from a ship friend I hadn’t heard from in a while. When you go to the hotel Carnival puts you up in the night before you sign on, you have to sign a list and subsequently get to see who else is staying there. My British friend Robin happened to be going to the same ship as me (which I was unaware of) and noticed my name on the list when he happened to sign in and wrote to tell me he happened to be…well….just down the hall. The prospect of a familiar face to take some of the edge off being so incredibly lonely was more than a happy coincidence. I got to speak to Chris (a little more calmly) on Skype one more time before he went to bed and then tore off to Robin’s room for a much needed hug and some good laughs and my spirits were immediately lifted. It’s the little things that make it for me and at that point, things looked incredibly brighter.
The next morning we took our time and another musician signing on to the Destiny accompanied us in getting a cab to the ship where we waited for what seemed like forever to sign on. Anyone who ever complains about a slow embarkation process onto a ship needs to try it being a crew member some time. Chaos is not the word. Anarchy disguised as organization is more like it. I felt insanely lucky though, as when I did get on, I knew I had a couple of friends already on board, but had no idea that I knew what seemed like the entire ship full of people. The comfort level of having so many familiar faces was amazing. I got the key to my cabin and soon found my new room mate had just signed on as well and happened to be someone I had met before and happens to be a very sweet girl named Sarah. All of entertainment pretty much on this ship, lives in a corridor right behind the stage in the main theatre. My very first ship was the same set up and it felt very much like home and put me even more at ease. Luckier still, my first evening of playing only consisted of 2 hours. Amazing….and being exhausted made it even more amazing that I had such a short evening. Of course, the night would not have been complete without a Skype chat with my handsome (even when pixilated) man who also got to chat with a mutual dancer friend (who also happens to be named Alison) and get a tour of my room etc etc. By the end of my evening I only ha a couple of complaints….my piano I play is horrendous. All my hard practicing I did before coming here may be null and void as the thing is garbage. Yamaha pianos are crap for anyone looking into one…don’t waste your time and money. My other complaint was the fact that the vibe from these guests feels a little to much like that of the ones out of Long Beach on 3 and 4 day cruises….the ones who either love or hate you or only clap if you play a song they like, otherwise they’re deafeningly loud and drunk and could not give a crap….which was kind of the atmosphere I found myself in. But considering all the pros this ship had already offered on just my first day, I was willing to overlook and ignore the ignorance. If you ever cruise and are around a live entertainer…..be warned. Behavior as I have pointed out is noticed and we will label you as rude and ignorant without much problem and your song request for Billy Joel will be met with a loud rendition of some obscure showtune….or in the case last night, a very BAD jazz rendition of O Christmas Tree. Other than that….all in all and considering my situation and circumstance (and the amount of puke it took me getting here) the first day on board the Carnival Destiny was as successful as anyone could hope for. Fingers crossed now Chris hears some good news and the process of sharing a good situation on another ship can begin again…..until then, I have four hours of playing on that awful piano and if that’s my worst complaint so far, I’m doing pretty well.
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