Updating Updates

Yo. Just a quick update to let you know that I will be updating soon, I'm having Internet issues, but I've been keeping track of everything! So. Soon. I really hope.

Barcelona or I Couldn't Come Up With An Interesting Title

Ay. It's been a long few days. And interesting. I'm really excited but I'm having a little breakdown thinking about home and my puppy.

He may not be very photogenic, but I still love him. 

I got to Barcelona last night and stayed in a fancy schmancy hotel. Then I slept until 2:00 pm and had to change rooms because Royal Caribbean is paying for this night. They didn't have a reservation for me, but they gave me a room anyway (phew). I walked into my room and there was a girl sleeping in the bed. So I went downstairs and told the receptionist that there was already someone in my room. Well duh. I was sharing with someone else joining the ship. I felt pretty dumb.

Anyway, meeting her has probably been the best thing that's happened so far. Her name is Maria and she's from Bulgaria. Turns out she has a friend that lives in Barcelona, so we met her for some tapas and then went to a bar. So I got to explore Barcelona a little bit. She has been working for Royal Caribbean for 2 contracts so she has been able to tell me about ship life and now I am not so nervous about tomorrow.

So tomorrow is the day! The shuttle comes to pick me up at 8:00 am and I join the ship. Very, very nervous. Really, really excited.

P.S. Spanish men are very attractive.

Observations and Random Thoughts While Traveling From Chicago to Helsinki

I’m really liking the long hair on these Finnish men.

I saw an Elder getting ready to leave on his two year mission.

There are no cognates in Finnish.

People keep staring at my feet weird…apparently flip flops aren’t acceptable here.

This airport seems really new.

All of the employees seem young.

Europeans really like stripes. And so do I.

My feet are freezing…maybe they are on to something with this whole flip flop thing.

Why do they sell perfume on airplanes?

I need to watch The Terminal again.

What is there to do in Helsinki?

What’s it like to be from Finland?

Why do people visit Finland? Like what is it known for?

O’Hare has these fancy automatic seat cover things. They are magical and I think they should be mandatory in every public restroom.

I need to find a place to sleep.

Home to Chicago to Helsinki

Okay, these time zones are completely screwing me up. Is it today or yesterday or tomorrow? I left home at 9:30 am yesterday and arrived in Helsinki at 8:30 am today, but it is 1:30 am at home. Is it Thursday? Ay. I didn't sleep at all on the plane and now I have a 9 hour layover. 9 hours in an airport. In Finland. By myself. Really tired. At least there's free wifi. 

Helsinki airport is really small, but I still got lost. Most of the people speak English, but some of them just grunt at me. Don’t know if it’s the language barrier or the Finnish way? Or if it’s too early in the morning for people to string words together? I can understand that.

So since Monday I obviously managed to get everything together. On my way to Chicago my recruiter called saying there were problems with my medical, but by the time I got on the plane everything seemed to be in order. At least the last I heard…haven’t talked to anyone from home lately.

That’s been the most frustrating part. I know my family probably wants to know how I’m doing and I want to tell them about everything and make sure everything is okay but I can’t! Thank God for Facebook and iMessage. If only the time zone part weren’t making things so difficult. 

Jumping Through Hoops

So the past few days have been pretty insane. There is so much to get accomplished, but I'm kind of stuck waiting for everyone else at this point. I've got all my paperwork done, the medical finished, tickets bought, I'm just waiting for my information from my recruiter for booking my hotel and getting my lab results back from the doctor. Other than that, all that's left to do is pack. And I hate packing.

It's really stressful having my recruiter so far away and hard to contact. There seem to be miscommunications. Last Friday she told me to go ahead and buy my ticket to Barcelona, so I did. When I was talking to her today she told me to wait until she had the letter of employment to buy it. Ahhh! Freaking me out a little bit. I don't know what's going on on her end, but I really hope that she has the LOE tomorrow and everything will turn out okay. 

If all goes as planned, I will have a day to explore Barcelona before joining the ship, so I'm looking forward to that. A little uneasy, since I know nothing about the city and my Spanish ain't so good. I'm pretty good at navigating most of them time, but I usually have my trusty iPhone to assist me. But Mr. iPhone won't work in Spain :( Hopefully WiFi is easy to access in Barcelona? 

For now I'm just anxiously waiting to hear about my LOE and hoping that I didn't waste money on an expensive plane ticket. 

Prepare ye, Barcelona!

It's all happening! I'm joining the Liberty of the Seas in Barcelona on October 29th! Less than a week to get everything together. I have to have a background check, medical, get my ticket to Spain, pack, plus tons of paperwork. It's very hectic, but going okay so far. When I first heard, I was at work and I pretty much had a panic attack thinking about getting all of the stuff together. But I have the most amazing mother in the world who is helping me through it all. Seriously, Mama, I love you.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to leave my job at the doctor's office before I expected and I feel pretty awful about that. Huge thank you to everyone at Vascular and Thoracic Associates for putting up with my craziness! I'm going to miss all of you! 

I was super excited when I heard Barcelona, but I'm joining the ship on the last transatlantic itinerary until April, so I'll mostly be going to the Caribbean. And from what I've heard, the first two weeks are the worst because I will be doing safety training on top of everything else. So I don't think there is any chance that I'll be able to get off at any of the ports. 

On top of all the training, we are cruising for 7 days straight, so the passengers are on the ship 24/7. Guess it will be good to be able to jump in with both feet. 

Still have a lot of unanswered questions. My main concerns have to do with actually getting to the ship. Being in Spain all by myself! At Orion High School, we learned Mexican, not Spanish. Way to prepare me for the world, Orion. Not that I can speak Mexican very well either. 

So here's my new home for the next 6 months. I can't wait to get started and meet new people.

I still haven't given up on my fantasy that I will meet a supermegafoxyawesomehot Australian even though I'm not going to Australia. He's an heir to tons of family money, but he wanted to work on a cruise ship to get some life experience. He will take me to Australia and teach me to surf and we will live happily ever after in his huge Australian mansion. 

asdkfjskldfj;

Joining the ship October 29th!

It's Really Starting!

I'm at work right now so I don't have much time, but wanted to share the good news! I got my assignment! Joining the Liberty of the Seas in Barcelona! It seems like the ship does a lot of Caribbean with some Europe mixed in.Not sure of the date yet. Having a small panic attack. My recruiter just sent me an email with about 14 attachments. My head is spinning. More details later!

It's Spirit Day, Ya'll.

I’m kind of at a stand still on this here blog as I wait for more information. So if anyone out there that might be reading this has any questions or ideas of things I could write about, let me know!

On a completely unrelated note, I just want to remind everybody that today is Spirit Day. Wear purple today to support victims of LGBT bullying, but don’t stop there! Check out websites like thetrevorproject.org and NOH8campaign.com to find out how you can help spread awareness and prevent teen suicides. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT YOUR RELIGIOUS/POLITICAL VIEWS ARE, EVERYBODY DESERVES TO BE TREATED WITH RESPECT. Thank you :) 

The World

Maybe I should rethink the Royal Caribbean thing and join this ship's crew instead. Or better yet, meet a supermegafoxyawesomehot RICH Australian and be a resident. I can't believe things like this exist...

http://aboardtheworld.com/

G'day mate.

Sigh. Another day has passed with no word of when I'm leaving. I think I shall go mad. And to make myself even crazier I've decided to dwell on which ship/destination so that when I actually find out I will be disappointed. Yup. Going crazy. But I have decided. I want to go to Australia. I don't really know much about the place except they have awesome accents. And the pictures look pretty. There are kangaroos there. And koalas. I think I would like it there. So I am going to go to Australia. 

I Love Cheese Fries

With little to do but dwell on the future, I’ve had a lot of time to fantasize about my new life.  And come to the harsh reality that there are some things that I will not be able to do once I’m gone. So, in no particular order, here’s a list of stuff I will miss. 

1. Steak and Shake. There is nothing like a Double Steak and Cheese and some cheese fries at the end of a long day. And I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of long days at sea with no greasy, cheesy goodness to take off the edge. 

2. The Internet. Duh. In my endless hours of research I have learned that the internet is available on board but it's gonna cost me. No one will tell me how much though...Might make this blog thing complicated but I'll make it work.

3. Speaking of making it work, I am going to miss my reality television. Tim Gunn, the Kardashians, Dance Moms, America's Next Top Model. How will I ever escape the drama of my own life if I can't watch group challenges and cat fights? Life is rough. 

4. My bed. Do crew cabins have sleep number beds?

5. Netflix. They might be messing everything up with their price raising and crazy two website thingy that I don't understand. But they have still exposed me to movies and shows that I never needed to watch. And loved.  I mean, I can't imagine what my life would be like if I had never watched a lovely show about the struggles of growing up in Australia as a teenage mermaid. I learned a lot of life lessons from that one. (H20: Just Add Water. Check it out sometime. You'll thank me later.) 

I might miss my friends and family, too, but I'll think about that tomorrow. (Irrelevant yet relevant side note: the day that Gone With the Wind was added to Netflix Instant Play was a very important day in my life). 

Here We Go...Kind of

Hello. This is my new blog. I am writing it because I got a job as an assistant waitress for Royal Caribbean. So I'm gonna write about what that's like and all.

I'm still in the beginning stages of my employment and basically have no clue what my life is going to be like once everything gets going. I don't know exactly how this is going to work, like how often I will be able to update and stuff like that. But since I'm still on land, I figured I would document the entire process. I guess I'll just jump right in and tell you how all of this came about.

I'm currently living in the Quad Cities in Illinois working as a medical assistant. I've been working at a doctor's office for about 5 months in a temporary position that will be ending in November. The time came for me to start looking for a new job and it seemed like a good time to start a new adventure. To make a long story short, a combination of obnoxious student loans and restlessness led me to researching cruise ship employment, and I decided it might be a good option for me.

It was pretty simple to get started. Cruise lines use recruiting agencies to hire most positions in the hotel department. I put together my resume and submitted it to the recruiting agency. A few days later a recruiter emailed me and said that I qualified for a prescreening interview. The interview was via Skype. She basically asked me about my work experience and told me about the job description, living arrangements, and legal documents that I would need. She helped me clean up my resume and then said that she was going to set up an interview with Royal Caribbean.

This is when it started to suck. I waited and waited for her to contact me about the interview. I drove everyone around me crazy while I was obsessing about it. FINALLY, an eternity (two weeks) later she told me that I had an interview with Royal Caribbean that would also be via Skype. A day after the interview, my recruiter called me and told me that I was hired! Woot woot.

So that was the easy part. Now I wait. There are so many things that need to be done before I can leave, but I can't do any of them until I get my date/ship assignment and I have no idea when that will happen. In the meantime I've been annoying everyone in my life talking about it constantly including my friends, family, coworkers. And my recruiter. I email her a lot. Poor lady.

So in attempt to keep me sane I'm going to be writing here. I think it will also be a good way to keep my family informed and make sure I remember this experience. And I've noticed that while there are a lot of crew blogs out there, most of them are from people in higher positions, so I think it might be nice to have the view of a lowly assistant waitress out in the blogosphere. So here we go!