Here We Go Again!

Alright, so I have been a colossal failure at the blogging thing, but as I prepare to start my second contract, I’m going to make a second attempt.

I’ll start with a summary of the rest of my first contract.  By some miracle, I managed to finish. There were moments when I thought I couldn’t do it, all the way up to the last week. About 3 months into my contract, I started getting sick at least twice a month. Nothing life threatening, just colds and tonsillitis (more on that later) and aches and pains, but it was annoying and made it very difficult to keep my morale up.

I made a lot of friends, had a lot of fun, and got the hang of the work. LOVE Europe. Barcelona is my favorite place in the world. Italian food is amazing. I had the most incredible meal of my life in Livorno, Italy. Italians know how to eat. I struggled so much in Italy and France because of the language. I got lost in Civitavecci when I decided to wander by myself one day. I’m usually okay with wandering around until I find myself in a familiar place, but I got unbelievably lost that day and started to panic. I had wandered out of tourist area so NOBODY spoke English. Finally found one lady who spoke a little English and told another lady where I was trying to get to, and she kindly offered to escort me back to my destination. The entire time she babbled on to me in Italian, knowing that I didn’t speak Italian and she didn’t speak English. It was comical.

Unfortunately, I lost my camera so I don’t have any pictures to post.

So it was a long and exciting journey and I’m proud of myself for doing it. I can’t say this officially, but as far as anybody I know knows, I am the first female American to finish a contract as an Assistant Waiter with RCCL. Might not be true, but I’m gonna go with it.

Not only did I finish, but I’m going back again! I think I might be insane. So next week, I’m off to Copenhagen to join Jewel of the Seas. Excited to have a fresh start on a new ship, but sad to be leaving my friends on Liberty.

So, why am I going to the Jewel, you ask? Long story. It all started halfway through my contract when I started getting tonsillitis. The medical facility on the ship does the best they can with what they have, but I was getting frustrated. The nurses and doctors and I were on a first name basis. Every time they saw me coming, I’m sure they rolled their eyes. But my work was suffering from the illness and I was determined to get it taken care of. After tears and some harsh words Dr. Carlos wrote to RCCL Miami office and asked for me to be approved for a tonsillectomy during my vacation! This made me happy, but I was sure this was going to be an out of pocket expense for me and I don’t have insurance since the ship covers our medical when we are there. It wasn’t until the day I signed off that I found out that the company was covering the full cost of the surgery!

So on July 10, 2 weeks before I was supposed to rejoin the Liberty in Barcelona, I had my tonsillectomy. I was declared Fit For Duty the day before I was supposed to fly to Barcelona. Unbeknownst to me, my assignment and flight had been cancelled because Miami didn’t know if I would be FFD. So I drove the 3 hours to Chicago only to find out that I didn’t have a reservation. Called the crew helpline and was told that the Scheduler assigned to me was based in Manila, so I would have to wait until 3 AM to get anymore information.

A day later, she contacted me and told me that I had a new assignment on Jewel. Jewel is a lot smaller, so there is less crew and smaller cabins. But I’m excited about the itinerary. I’ll be doing the Baltic ports for a few weeks, which includes Denmark, England, Sweden, Italy, and during the crossing, Iceland! Then on my birthday (September 16.  FYI, I would like the Harry Potter Wizard’s Collection. Only $300) we arrive in Boston and do Canada, Boston, and Maine for another month. After that, we do the Caribbean, but much better ports than the Liberty’s Caribbean itinerary. I’m happy that we will be in Cozumel at the same time, so I’ll get to catch up with some Liberty friends.

So that’s about it. I’ve had a good vacation, making new friends at home, catching up with old ones and spending time with family. This extra week of vacation has been nice to have more time to recover after surgery and watch the Olympics J

Looking forward to my next contract, making goals to switch departments and make better money in Restaurants.  And update my blog. 

Monkey Brains

Once again, I have failed. It’s been hard to come up with things to write about because it’s just become my normal life.

I’ve had some hard times, but I’m really loving this life. I guess it’s the free spirit in me. Although this isn’t necessarily freedom. Sometimes I refer to the ship as Azkaban or Alcatraz of the Seas.

I’m learning so much, though. I think I’ve learned more on the ship than I did during my four years of college. About life, about cultures, languages. And it feels like the sky is the limit. Working here will open so many doors for me. Before, if I had gone to Chicago or New York City (my favorite places in the world) and tried to apply for a job in a restaurant there was no chance I would get hired. Now I feel confident that any one of them would hire me. I don’t know if I want to be a waitress for the rest of my life, but it will be something I can do for extra cash or until I figure out what I want to do.

Right now, I’m trying to figure out what I want to do in the company. If I want to switch departments or try to advance in my current department. I kind of like being unique as far as being the only American assistant waiter and I’m not sure if I’m ready to give that up. I guess I like the attention. But switching departments could bring more opportunities. I would love to be cruise staff. I could see myself making a career out of that. Become Cruise Director someday! There aren’t enough female Cruise Directors. That would be cool. 

So I think I will start a series on the interesting things that I have learned about different cultures and some of the stories people have told me.

I’m gonna start with China. There’s this Chinese guy that is an incredible story teller. He told me so much about Chinese culture. And it’s crazy. He told me that he is going to take me to China and have his mom make me monkey brains. They kill the monkey themselves. It’s very expensive.

He also told me about baby soup, which is illegal. They eat babies. They pay pregnant women big money for her unborn child and make soup out of it. Unbelievable.

He then told me an awful story about his favorite dumplings.  Every morning he would wake up early just so he could go get his favorite dumplings from a shop. One day, he arrived at the shop and there were police there. Meat was really expensive, so they had been buying bodies from a nearby funeral home! He was upset about that.

Probably the most interesting thing we talked about was marriage. He told me that his parents were pushing him to get married and want him to go to an agency that matches up people on his vacation. He went to one during his last vacation and had a meeting with one girl. But she was ugly. So when she asked him what he could offer her he told her that he had no money, no job, and no education. So he escaped that one.

Men have to pay a large amount of money to the father to marry a woman. Especially if they pick the woman themselves, not through an agency. There is currently a couple on the ship that met each other and want to marry, but they have to save up the money to pay her father. So both of them are using the money they make to save up. She’s paying her own father so that she can marry the man she loves. Crazy.

So then he asked me how much he would have to pay to marry me. When I told him nothing, he couldn’t believe it. He was especially shocked when I told him that the bride traditionally pays for the wedding.

I’m very sad, because he is leaving for vacation in a week. He was supposed to go in April, but they pushed up his vacation because they want him to join the Voyager soon. All of our Chinese crew members are being sent to the Voyager because they are going to Asia this summer. I think the Liberty is going to be suffering because of this. The Chinese assistants are the one’s with the highest ratings and biggest cap size. We could be struggling for awhile.

A lot of transfers have been happening lately. Royal Caribbean can do whatever they want with us. A few weeks ago, they informed one of our Brazilian crew members that she would be going to a different ship when we arrived in Ft. Lauderale. Well, she is married to one of the guys on Liberty who is from Croatia. But they didn’t care. He was to stay on Liberty, but they needed Brazilians on the other ship. She decided that she was going to resign if they sent her. Fortunately, one of her paisanos stepped up. He volunteered to go instead. Anyway, if she had resigned he would have been the next one they sent.

These transfers have been hard for me to accept. I’ve been learning that you can’t get too attached to the people you meet on the ship, but at the same time you have to have close friends on the ship or you’ll go crazy.

Okay, that’s all I have for now. Until next time. 

My Ridiculous Life

I am finally going to do a post of a typical day in the dining room. I’ve started this post a million times, but every time that I start explaining what I do everyday I get really tired. So. Here we go.

I’ll start by telling you about the layout of the dining room. On the Liberty, we have 3 levels of the dining room, deck 3, 4, and 5. Each has it’s own galley, or kitchen. The galley is in the back of the dining room and it’s where all the action is. When you look around the dining room, everything is so calm and smooth. The galley is the exact opposite. Waiters yelling at chef’s to hurry, waiters yelling at waiters to get out the way, waiters yelling at their assistants to get them something from the galley, dishes being thrown around, assistants pushing each other and fighting for glasses, coffee, tea. It’s a madhouse.

I usually try to get to the dining room by 4:00 to get everything ready. I have to make sure I have coffee cups and saucers, water pitchers, coffee pots, teapots, bread tongs, and water and wine glasses. Usually, I have to fix some stuff, which means I go around to other people’s side stands and steal their equipment. In my 2 months of experience I have learned that you can never have too many saucers. Never.

After I make sure I have all of that, I hide it. Put coffee pots on one of the chairs at your table and hide them under the tablecloth. Cups and saucers in the back of your side stand and cover it with a napkin. Usually this takes about 15 minutes, depending on how many things you have to hunt down.

After that, I head to the galley to fill up my water pitchers. Water pitchers are the most important things. If you don’t have 4, then your gonna be running back to the galley all night to refill your water, and there’s really no time for that. So after they are full I put them in my side stand and tie them together with a napkin. You can’t always hide everything, so you just make sure nothing is easily accessible. It will take someone who is “shopping” a minute to untie the pitchers, so they’re just going to move on to the next side stand instead of risking getting caught.

Now it’s time to set up the table. Not hard, just have to set up water and wine glasses. The waiter is in charge of the silver and plates.

Then, I gather all of my butter dishes and creamers, put them on a bar tray and head back to my cabin to put on my uniform, maybe take a quick nap.

About 5:15 I go back to the dining room to finish getting everything. Head back to my side stand to check the damage, meaning figuring out what babbaloos have managed to fix from me in the 45 minutes that I was gone. By this time, pretty much everyone is in dining room and fixing other people is really hard, so now it’s time for me to turn on the charm. Put on a really pathetic face and bat your eyelashes, “Vidal, somebody fixed all of my coffee cups, can I just have a few of yours?” Usually get 2 or 3 from a few different guys, and I’m set. I’m not proud, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  

Now is when it gets really ridiculous. Every night we have to serve condiments with the food. Sour cream for baked potatoes, horseradish for steak, mint jelly for lamb, brandy sauce, parmesan cheese, on and on and on. Assistant waiters must provide all of this when the waiter is serving the food. “Ma’am, would you care for some sour cream on your baked potato?” So at 5:30, the chefs bring out the condiments for us to put in bowls that we bring to our side stand. Kind of. Like everything else, there is never enough. And the chefs are busy getting the food ready, so we’re not their first priority.

So, for instance, the chef will put out a few boxes of butter. We all stampede toward the butter and start grabbing handfuls to fill up our butter dishes. Butter is gone in 2 minutes. We stand and stare and hassle the chef in charge of condiments until he brings us more butter or horseradish or sour cream or or or.

There are some condiments like the cocktail sauce for shrimp and mint jelly that the chefs make, so when it’s gone it’s gone. So then your stuck fixing someone else every time you serve shrimp. The next 20 minutes are spent in the galley yelling for condiments. If one deck runs out, you usually run to the next deck to see if they have any. I have found the deck 5 is usually the best for lemon, cheese, sour cream, and horseradish, deck 4 for cocktail sauce and mint jelly, and deck 3 always has butter the earliest.

And then there’s the bread. Every night at dinner, we serve a variety of bread before and during appetizer. Every cruise we have assistant waiters that are assigned to the bread line. At 5:30, the bakery in the deck 4 galley brings bread down to all of the decks. The 4 assistants assigned to bread line must then fill all of the bread baskets. There are supposed to be enough bread baskets for everyone, but of course, there never is. So about 10 minutes until 6 we all make a line and wait for the bread. This is the time every night when I wonder what I am doing here. Why am I doing this job? A head waiter oversees the whole thing, yells at us all to get in a single file line and come calmly when the bread line puts the last tray of bread in the baskets. It never works. The last piece of bread falls and STAMPEDE. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. People cutting in line, grabbing 3 bread baskets for their friends, elbowing, yelling, fighting. I hate it. I was talking to my friend Gustavo about all of this tonight. We were waiting for bread and I said, “Gustavo, do you ever think about how ridiculous our lives are? You’re one of my favorite people on the ship, but if you are about to grab the last bread basket, I will elbow you in the stomach and yank it out of your arms. And the bread isn’t even FOR me.”

When you don’t get a bread basket, you have to go to the bakery and fill your own basket. I have actually come to prefer this. You’re in control of how many sourdough rolls you get and you know how many of your guests eat sourdough every night.

So now it’s 6:00 and time for the guests to arrive. As an assistant, my basic responsibilities are to fill water, serve bread, give drinks, serve wine, condiments, and clear the plates. Sounds easy, and it mostly is but it can get hectic, especially when you have demanding guests.

After the guests are finished eating, I get to go wash all of the dishes. I load all of the saucers, butter plates, coffee cups, glasses, and silverware onto the waiter’s trolley and take it back to the dish ring in the galley. I have to put all of the dishes on racks and give them to the dish guys to put through the dishwasher. Then, I have to meet my dishes on the other side, load them back on the trolley, and set up for second seating. A lot of people pay the dish guys to put all of their stuff through the dishwasher first and put all of their stuff in the racks, I find that the batting of the eyelashes and sad face can sometimes work just as well.

So there you go. After I set up for second seating, everything goes pretty much the same. It’s an exciting life. 

Mexico and Christmas Party!

Well  I know I’ve been really bad about posting, and I told myself that I wouldn’t do that. But life is busy and sometimes it is hard for me to compose my thoughts. So instead of making this all formal and organized I’m just gonna list random things that have happened during my time here and finally post some pictures.

I finally got to go out in Cozumel! It was good. One of my Mexican friends took a group of us out and we went to a restaurant that was in someone’s house. It was really nice. Away from tourists, real Mexican food.

So here are some of the pictures I've taken so far! 

Gustavo (Mexico) and Brankica(Macedonia)

Oleksander (Ukraine) enjoying his margarita. 

He had green enchiladas. 

Brankica's pollo tacos.

Gustavo's enchilada's con mole. I tried it. Disgusting. 

My pollo burritos! They were delicious. 

Oleks, Nahum (Peru), Gustavo, Brankica, and me in front of the menu. They carried the board around from table to table.

Gustavo and his tequila!

She is from China!

Michael and Snezhana from Macedonia at the party. I couldn’t say her name for awhile, so I called her Snow White because that’s what her name means.

Games!

Bar in the crew lounge. 

Crew lounge

View from back deck.

Back deck (Crew Bar)

On the tender to Cococay!

Tendering!

Cococay! 

Snezhana on the beach at Cococay, RC's private island. 

 The gorgeous Maria from Bulgaria. She was my roommate in Barcelona. I try not to make it a habit to stand next to her so that I don’t feel completely inadequate. 

Michael from Sweden. He’s like me. Not a nationality you normally find in the dining room. Did I mention he was on Broadway? Dancer in the Lion King. What’s he doing here?

.

Rock N' Roll

Ay! I can’t believe how long it has been. There are not enough minutes in the day, and if there were I would probably spend all of them sleeping anyway. It’s so hard to balance all of the things I have to do. I need to sleep but I need to have fun and I need to have fun but I need to do my laundry and I need to do my laundry but I’m in Jamaica/Cozumel/Belize/Ft. Lauderdale right now and need to get off the ship.

So far I’ve managed to get off the ship twice, once in Ft. Lauderdale and then this week in Cococay, Royal Caribbean’s private island. I’m working breakfast this week so I should be able to get off in the Bahamas! The travel aspect hasn’t been that great, so really the best part of this experience has been meeting so many different people, including passengers and crew members. I served the Dodgers coach one night! And all of the guests are really interested in talking to me and giving me advice. I had some guests last week teach me how to open wine.

So this cruise is a little different. The whole ship has been chartered for ZZ Top and other bands. So we have a really interesting crowd right now. Everything else is different, too. Normally we have two scheduled seatings at 6:00 and 8:30 and it is assigned seating. For this cruise we have two seatings but they are at 5:30 and 7:00 and there is no assigned seating. So we have a different section, waiter, and passengers every night. The plus side is that every passenger prepaid their tips so we are guaranteed money!  The thing is, we all automatically get paid according to our capacity of passengers we can have in our section which is based on our rating. At the end of every cruise the passengers fill out an evaluation rating you from Poor- Excellent. My ratings have all been excellent so I was getting more guests, but then I had a bad week. I got assigned to a waiter that is old and cranky. He was rude to the passengers and didn’t even try to talk to them. He was also rude to me in front of the guests and they didn’t appreciate that. I made sure to talk to the guests, because that’s how you get your money. Sure enough, end of the cruise 6 of the guests paid me and not my waiter. It felt pretty good. However,  I wasn’t aware until this week that you and your waiter get the same rating. So I got two Poors and one Fair. Just in time for the prepay cruise. Ay.

I’ve been working on my Spanish a lot! I have a guy from Peru who has been helping me.

Alright, I want to write more but I need to go to sleep and I want to get this posted tonight. Thank you all for reading! I appreciate any comments and if you have any questions or anything you would like me to write about, let me know. I know I tend to talk about things like ratings and prepay and stuff like that like everyone knows what it is! So you can leave comments here on the blog or if you are reading it through Facebook you can comment there and I will make sure to read them. Give me some ideas to talk about so I don’t just ramble on. 

Ship Life

Ahhh! It's been forever. Here's a short little post. 

Ship Terminology

Paisono: somebody who is from the same country as you Ex: I have no paisonos in the dining room

Banana: somebody who does not leave a tip Ex: “Can you believe those bananas? I gaot them 15 hot chocolates everyday and they didn’t pay me.”

Bubbaloo: a stupid person Ex: “He is the biggest bubbaloo on this ship. Why he be telling me what to do?”

Fix: stealing someone else’s equipment in the dining room. Ex: “Somebody fixed me. I had 12 water glasses last night and now I have 2.”

Ship Life: term used to describe the way of life on a ship, usually used to make an excuse. Ex: “I really need to stop going to the crew bar every night”

                        “That’s ship life. Gotta get through this contract somehow.”

“That girl is married with two kids and lives with her boyfriend on the   ship.”

                        “That’s ship life. It get’s lonely without having someone.”

Back Deck: the crew bar, located on the very back of the ship on Deck 3. Ex: “Are you going to back deck tonight?”

Mauritius Mafia: huge group of Mauritian paisonos, always found together

Typical Conversations

“Where are you from in the States?”

            “Illinois”

“Where’s that?”

            “Chicago”

“Oh Chicago! It’s cold there.”

“This guy was just so mean to me. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to take water from there.”

            “Don’t worry about it, he’s Jamaican.”

Jamaican: “Why you cjkasouhf asoujfls?”

Other Person: “Speak English.”

Welcome To The Jungle

So I've been working on a post with lots of pictures and explanation of the ship but it's taking forever since I don't have much time. So that will be coming soon. In the meantime, I'll tell you about my first night in the dining room. Yikes.

Today was kind of nutso to begin with. I got a call at 7:45 telling me that I needed to go to the back deck immediately for immigration. Since we are going back into the US all of the employees have to be processed again. It was really easy for me, but I was told that it was going to be at 9:30. So I wasn't happy. I stood in the line and thought it was really stupid because all they did was glance at my passport.

Another super fun thing that happened today is that I was switched cabins. I was told by my roommate and no one else. No one contacted me to give me a key, tell me what I had to do, who my roommate would be. I went to the crew office to figure out what was up, but of course they were all involved in the immigration stuff. Finally a guy stopped me in the hallway to tell me what I needed to do.

I guess it was a good thing that I woke up at 8:00, because I managed to move out of my cabin, move into a new one, do my laundry, and a crew drill all before 10:30. All things that needed to be done. I really wanted to call home, but my phone wasn't working :( That was really annoying because I'm finally in the US and I still can't call home. Just as my shift at The Windjammer started, but phone began to work. I managed to text my mom a few times, but after that it was go go goooo.

At 3:45 I had to assist with the guest muster drill that is done on every embarkation day. Then right after that they posted which stations we were going to be working in the dining room. I had 4 tables and it was supposed to be 12 guests, which is the lowest amount. You have to work your way up to the bigger sections. Turns out my station is more like 20. Only 16 showed up tonight but it was still crazy. I was worthless. Anything I ever knew about serving completely went out the window. I spent half of the night hunting down random things like tongs and teapots and neglecting my guests. I will most definitely do another post on a typical day working in the dining room. Right now, it seems impossible.

On the plus side, I have been meeting a lot of new people. Unfortunately, this means I have been spending a little too much time at the crew bar. There are parties every week. But the group of people I've been hanging out with are so fun. Because...they're theater people! I'm really glad they've embraced me into their group. It feels good to be with people who get my jokes. I'm really funny, you know.

Anyway, time for me to go to bed. I work at 7:30 am tomorrow, which means if I'm not too tired I will be able to get off the ship! Yay!!!

What Day Is It?

I’ve been so sleepy that I haven’t been writing. We’re on Day 4 of Sea Days. The first day was very rocky and I felt kind of sick. Until now it has been pretty calm, but today at lunch we suddenly got some pretty rough waters. So I’m lying in bed before dinner feeling the ship rocking and hoping I won’t fall while I’m working.

I’ve been very frustrated with the management the past few days. Everywhere I turn someone is telling me I need to do this and that and I’m doing this wrong. Well, I’m working on it, but at the moment my hands are full and this person just asked me for 10 lemonades. If I was one of the people standing around in the bus station all the time I would understand, but I don’t stop moving as long as there is something to be done. I’m not standing idly. It just doesn’t matter what I do. I could be standing in the bus station waiting to put all of my stuff down while other people are in my way and they will ask if I’m standing there for a meeting. Or the one time I stop to take a break, a supervisor is there.

Oh, and my shirts are too big. Well, I asked for a small when I ordered my uniforms and they gave me a medium. Didn’t have time to do anything about it at the time because I had to start my shift. By the time I got a chance to exchange it I was told that I only had 2 days to exchange it. If someone had told me that I would have worked a little harder to get there before then. So now I’m wearing shirts that are way too big and I haven’t had time to buy new ones because the store is only open from 11-2. That’s when I work…But I don’t Look The Part and that’s very important. Maybe you should give me some time to fix it then? Everywhere I go, you need a different shirt.

On top of that, we are preparing for USPH when we get to Ft. Lauderdale so we are doing a lot of deep cleaning. Working from 5-12:30 for dinner. Last night I was given the impossible task of cleaning out the closet where all of the cleaning supplies are. Where everyone dumps the dirty water. So naturally, my closet didn’t pass inspection when my supervisor came with his stupid flashlight because every time a wiped out the sink or the shelf someone else came and used it.

Other than the management issues, I’m enjoying life. After 90 days I can apply for a different position. I think I’m going to apply for bar server. I talked to Gary today and he said that I could apply but it was unlikely that I would switch during this contract. They will have me come back for another contract in that position. I think I would be better as a bar server, because I like to talk to the guests a lot and guests like to talk to me. Don’t get much of a chance for that in the dining room because it’s so fast paced. My plan was to switch to bar server after 90 days and if I decided to do another contract I would take some bartending classes during my vacation so I could apply for bartender.

Once we start the Caribbean itinerary there will be a lot more drinking so that’s where most of the money will be.

I REALLY, REALLY need to learn Spanish. Anyone wanna buy me Rosetta Stone for Christmas?

I'll have pictures up soon. 

At last! WiFI!

So my other posts shouldn't be as long now that I have figured out the wifi. Kind of. I was just told I have been on for 22003894 minutes for a total of $7921401.84. I don't think I've even been on the ship for that many minutes.

10/29/2011

Day 1 “You’re American?!?”

So today has been full of crazy ups and downs. Started out dowwwwwn. I stayed up late talking to my mama last night and my roommate went to bed and said she was going to set her alarm for 7:15. The shuttle came at 8:00 and I knew I would need more time than that so I set my alarm for 6:45. Well of course after staying up late and not being able to sleep, when my alarm went off at 6:45 I ignored it and decided to wake up at 7:15 with Maria. Well Maria felt the same way and turned of her alarm when it went off. So she shakes me awake at 7:45 telling me we only had 15 minutes to get ready. I pretty much had a heart attack. Those of you that know me know that I am a slob and an awful packer. It was going to take me a half hour just to get everything packed back up. Somehow we made it out of there on time but I had to have Maria pack some of my things in her suitcase. Haven’t seen her since I got on board. She also owes me quite a bit of money…so there’s that.

After that it was a lot of lines and paperwork. There were a ton of new hires so it was looong. And of course I hadn’t had any time for hair and make up, so I looked awful. I got in trouble for my hair later that day, but I’ll come back to that.

After all the paperwork I finally got to find my room and put my luggage down. Tiny, tiny room. My stuff is still everywhere. And my roommate happens to be a head waiter. She’s really nice but it’s really hard for me to feel comfortable around authority figures, so living with one is going to be hard. But don’t worry, I’m probably moving out in two weeks anyway. Which sucks because it seems stupid to get unpacked and comfortable but I can’t find anything with it in the suitcases and the suitcases take up half of the room. I will definitely take some pics of the room once I have time.

So we went on a tour of the ship a little bit later, which didn’t help me at all. I can’t find my way around. Fortunately, there are these little Indonesian men who have taken it upon themselves to help out the little American girl. So I follow them like a lost puppy.

I also met a girl from the US who said she would take me under their wing, so that’s comforting. That’s right, a one girl. Which leads me to the theme of the day.

“You’re American?! And you’re a waitress?!?!” All. Day. Long. I am one of a handful of people from America and the only person from the US that works in restaurants. The only one.

The American that I met earlier told me to take advantage of it because passengers are going to be surprised and want to get to know me and give me better tips. So I took their advice. It’s been pretty easy. I just speak and they realize that I don’t have an accent and it’s an instant conversation starter. So I already have a connection with at least three groups of people that I talked to while serving at the Windjammer, one of them being “Super Mario,” the king of Royal Caribbean. Apparently he’s been on more cruises on the Liberty than any of the captains/crew. Do an internet search, you might be able to find something about him.

I knew that I was going to be one of very few American’s, but I didn’t realize it was going to be this big of a deal. I mean, it’s unheard of for an American to be a waitress.

I feel like this is putting a lot of pressure on me, EVERYONE is watching me, I don’t know if their just curious or waiting for me to fail and prove that American’s can’t do the work. I’m kind of paranoid. About the failure stuff, not about everyone watching me. They really are.

So tonight I worked at the Windjammer, which is the buffet style restaurant here. I will be spending my first two weeks there. I was really nervous at first, but once I started interacting with the passengers it was fun.

It was the before and after that were really awful. It started off with my supervisor telling me that I needed to fix my hair, which was very true. But it was going to take more than just a quick look in the mirror and a barrette to fix this monster. I slept on my hair wet last night and JUST managed to have time to straighten my bangs. So, I understood why it needed fixed, but there was just nothing I could do about it, I explained it to him and then I kind of broke down and cried a little in the corner. He didn’t say anything else but I was self conscious about it the rest of the night.

The passengers came and everything was fine and then they left and it started to suck again. It’s 10:30 and I haven’t had dinner yet, the only thing they have in the crew mess that is edible is rice so my lunch wasn’t even that satisfying and since I’ve gotten to Barcelona there doesn’t seem to be enough water in the world to quench my thirst, I’ve spent that past week sleeping on airplanes and airports and hotel beds, so I’m sore and on top of that I’m doing more physical labor than I have done in a long time. My back was killing me and the work was never ending and I was hungry and thirsty and my supervisor was watching me like a hawk. Might be the paranoia thing, but I think he really is paying special attention to me. And think I would have been fine if I was actually working on something useful. No. He had me empty out this closet and wipe all of the shelves down. So I had another moment. Why am I doing this? I could be at home with my puppy and mommy and daddy and internet, but no, I am torturing myself doing work that apparently most American’s wouldn’t even consider doing.

So here I am now. I got some food in me so I feel better, but I’m still feeling overwhelmed. Everyone keeps telling me that the first few days are like that, so I’m going to stick it out. I am definitely going to stick it out. I WILL finish this contract and prove to them that I can do this job. I’m just going to have a few breakdowns along the way.

I have a phone card that the company gave me, but the phones aren’t working. So I can’t even call my mama. There will be more time to figure all of this stuff out. For now I will sleep and have a good cry.  Oh and I don’t have a blanket. My roommate was very kind and went to the laundry room to get me one but it’s still a little damp.  And the ship is rooooooccccckkkkkkkinggggg. But! Best thing that happens today is it is daylight savings time here and I get an extra hour! Yay! Good night!

10/30/2011

Day 2: I Hate Rolling Silver

So I don’t know what I would have done without that extra hour. I would be a zombie. I managed to get my room a little more organized this morning. While watching Scrubs. So that was nice. Every part of my body hurts. My hands even hurt from rolling silver. Today went pretty much the same as yesterday. Met some nice and helpful people, everyone is very interested in the American girl. Might get old after awhile.

I had training at 9:30. Polishing the Gold. The Gold Standards:

Greet and smile

Own the problem

Look the Part

Deliver the WOW

I love our Training and Development guy, Gary. He is Scottish and really enthusiastic. It’s very contagious and makes me excited to work here.

Then I went to The Windjammer for lunch until 4:00. I get an hour break and then back for dinner. Haven’t had time to eat today because I had to get my ID and the crew mess doesn’t open until 5 pm for dinner. I think I might lose some weight...

I really want to go sign up for internet and such, but I haven’t had time. All I can think about right now is resting my back. I have a lot of other things to figure out as well. Still haven’t called my mama. I really want to but I can’t get out of my bunk right now. I love you, Mama. Hopefully I will get to post this soon. I’m hoping to have enough energy tonight to get the internet situation squared away and go socialize at the crew bar, but we will see…

Day 3 Why Aren’t Puppies Allowed in My Cabin?

Pretty much going the same as yesterday. Still haven’t called home :( Still haven’t figured out the internet. I did go to the crew bar and I met a lot of people. I don’t remember half of them. Ay. Too many names and faces and the names are hard to pronounce. I can’t even remember my roommate’s name half of the time.

I talked to some guys from Turkey tonight. They were really nice, I just hung out in their cabin for awhile. They told me that all the guys from Turkey that are here are running away from the army. Apparently everyone is required to join the army for 15 months in Turkey, but if you work in America for 5 years you are exempt. At least that’s the way I understand it. I never knew about that.

Day 4 Don’t wear it out.

Finally called home and talked to my mama and sister on facebook, which was very nice. I had training this morning, but it got cancelled so I’ve had 3 hours to get things organized. Finally. I needed to get my pants shortened, my laundry taken to the laundry room, figure out my wifi (yay!) and iron some stuff (I knew I should have taken my mama on the ship). So everything is going better today. Between learning all of the job assignments plus how to get everything I need to live, I have been very stressed and homesick. Still missing home and worrying about the work, but at least everything else is mostly taken care of.

We have a whole day at sea today, and the ship is rocking. Starting to feel a little seasick. So it’s probably going to be a long one.

I’ve gone to the dining room the past two nights to get the feel of it. I’m really scared that I can’t handle the work. It’s very fast paced. People keep telling me that if I learn the basics, I should get promoted fast because I am American. It seems a little unfair, but I don’t think I could turn it down. It makes me uncomfortable that I could potentially be in charge of people who have been working on ships for 10 years. I would prefer to get promoted to a different department, but I think I will need to at least learn Spanish to do that. I plan on talking to the T&D manager to see what I have to do to get into a different department. I have to work for 60 days in my current position, and even after that it is unlikely that I will get promoted during this contract.

I didn’t realize until I got here that I really like working with people. All of my coworkers complain about the demanding people, but I like the challenge. The American passengers respond to me really well, but the European’s don’t appreciate it if I can’t speak their language, so they just don’t ask me for anything. Anyway, I think I might want to try to work in some sort of HR on the ship and when I leave the ship. So we’ll see.

It seems weird to complain about this, but, as I mentioned before, being American makes everybody interested in me. They all ask the same questions.  “Why are you here?” “America is good country.” They don’t understand that things are not always so easy in the US for jobs right now.

The phrase “That’s my name, don’t wear it out” has been taken on a whole new level here. People I don’t even remember pass me and say “Cassie.” So I don’t respond to my name anymore, except for with a smile.

I’m missing home and my puppy A LOT, but I’m trying to keep my head up and keep going. I feel like giving up sometimes, but  I have to remember that I’m just starting and it’s going to be a while before I understand everything. Mostly, I need to get my ear trained to understand these accents. I can’t understand Jamaicans AT ALL. People get frustrated with me when I have to have them repeat what they’re saying over and over. I guess I will just have to get used to it.

I hope this seasickness goes away soon. I keep singing “Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down you’re rocking the boat.” Those are the only words I know. Until next time…

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.