4: Sensational

Right now I am on American Airlines flight AA 685 headed for Houston, Texas. I found out I was leaving my training boat (2 days early) just over 24 hours ago! So much can happen in a day, let alone a week. It feels like I’ve been working for months already; and it’s only been 8 days.

Ship life is SO different to anything at home. We work long hours and I don’t think I’ve been to bed before 1am since I got on the ship. There’s been so much to learn and so much I’ve wanted to write down to tell everyone back home but there’s just no time. If I get time off that’s more than 2 hours I tend to spend it sleeping or try go ashore and see the islands. Also, internet access is expensive - $20 for 200 minutes – it all adds up very quickly. Hopefully now I’m going to my proper ship things will calm down a little as there will be no more training.

The photo training has been fun and I’ve learned a lot. There were four trainees in my group, myself and three other South Africans – Landé, Liaan and Lititia. Somehow Liaan and Lititia got on to the boat the day Landé and I were supposed to start, and they were staying at the same hotel as us. Anyway, more about the training. We’ve had classes about the boat and its environmental impact or something (can’t remember), safety briefings, selling our products, been through many rules and regulations, had tests on photo stuff as well as general boat safety, evacuations and much more. Most of this happened before I was even given a camera to start taking photos. The photos we take are very basic, many snap shots and some portraits in the evenings. It’s so different to VEGA where the aim was to create beautiful pictures and we could take our time. Here quantity comes before quality. Photographers are given a target of how many photos have to be taken during a certain time period or of a certain scene: about 100-150 photos for an hour to an hour and a half. Hard work when you have to approach all the guests and tell them they want to have their photo taken. On formal nights there are about 10 portrait stations set up (that’s a lot if you ask me) and its hard work setting them all up, lots of carrying heavy stuff. I’ll have well toned muscles from all the weight lifting by the time I get home.

Part of our job is selling the photos we take. This includes helping the guests find their photos (every single photo is printed and put up in the photo gallery on the wall), answering any questions about prices, other products we sell, and being a general security guard to make sure the photos aren’t stolen. 8 x 10 photos cost $22 which seems quite steep, although I worked it out that if I were to do a family photo shoot in a studio and produce 5 to 10 images for someone I would be charging them a lot more per image. They’re getting a good bargain – take as many photos as you like, no obligation to buy anything and if they do want to buy they choose their favourites from all that were taken (which is often quite a stack). We are using D300 cameras with an 18-50mm lens. The lens can get quite a wide angle in – often necessary for many of the VERY large guests. Large and not particularly bright either. The other night I was asked “Whe(re) da formalidies at?” so I politely replied “well tonight is a formal night sir, is that what you’re asking about” with that he mumbled “never mind” with his back to me while he walked away. I’m still puzzled. I’ve had other guests come up to ask me questions and not understood a single word coming out their mouth; they were speaking a different English language.

While in college we’ve had a midnight curfew. Tough when you’re working until 11:30pm most nights. Doesn’t leave much fun time, but we’ve done our best. The curfew was relaxed a few times and we could enjoy ourselves at the crew bar. Drinks are very cheap: $1,50 for a gin and tonic which is more like equal quantities of gin and tonic. They can’t serve doubles on board and shots come in small wine glass – they’re not supposed to serve shots either. We had a little farewell party last night (no curfew) and I think I got less than four hours sleep before I was up again this morning to finish packing then leave the ship in Nassau (Bahamas) and fly to Miami before flying to Houston.

It’s taken a while to get used to the movement of the boat, now I think I finally have but things have reversed, it feels like the land is rocking when I go ashore. That could just be that I’m tired too. Otherwise adjusting to boat life hasn’t been too hard as everyone is so friendly. It was sad to leave all my new friends this morning, hard to believe I’ve only been there a week. The boats all have a share a smile policy – Say Hello And Respond Enthusiastically (SHARE) a smile. Everyone is in the same boat (figuratively and literally) and it just helps everyone get by. There is always food available – healthy and not. It is OK. I thought it was fabulous to begin with, but the menu doesn’t seem to change much so it gets a bit repetitive. Soft serve ice cream is also always available – very nice in the heat! My uniform is HUGE, ugly and uncomfortable. One shirt is an extra small and still slightly too big, they didn’t have my size for the other shirt so I got a large – am swimming in it! I shared a room with Ana from Croatia – we got on well which was nice. We also had one of the smallest rooms on the ship, a bit of a challenge. If the room’s tiny, the bathroom’s minuscule – I don’t know how anyone bigger than me manages.

We are beginning our decent, so that’s all from me for now, Ecstasy awaits!

xxx

Letter 3 – I could write a book about waiting

I got back this afternoon, wondering if I’d have another roommate, I did. The best so far! A South African girl from Cape Town AND she speaks English (bonus!). She is my third roommate I’ve had since I got here! I know the point of travelling is meeting interesting people from different places, but after being here a few days it’s so nice to be able to chat to someone from a similar background.

I say this as last night the phone rang. I was dead asleep and didn’t know what was going on. Then the voice on the end of the line says “You have a grroommaate” – what – “a grrooommate” OH a roommate. “She’s on the way up”. Huh?! It was 12:45am! My stuff was strewn all across the room, case open on the spare bed with piles of things around it. Oh dear. Very quickly, out of bed, bag off bed, stuff into bag etc. All while I’m half asleep and wondering if this is real or not. A few minutes later, in came my new roommate. A Russian girl who couldn’t speak much English. She’d just flown in from Russia and was exhausted. I can’t even remember her name and wouldn’t recognise her if I saw her again. She left before I got up this morning. I’ve been struggling to find the stuff I hastily put away all day.

So, more about my time in Miami. I landed on Tuesday afternoon. Getting to the airport was a bit of a mission at the London end, but luckily I have a fabulous cousin called Louise who helped me on to the tube. The flight was pleasant, I had a window and isle seat to myself, so could put my feet up and partially lie flat (head on seat, legs up side of plane by window). Once I landed I thought great, I can be in the hotel in an hour and maybe take a walk around the area, get some fresh air. Not so. It took an hour to get through passport control. Then at passport control the official said “you haven’t done this before have you?” – “Yes, I’ve been to America before” – “No I mean work on a cruise ship thing. You’re going to be here for a long time still. Go wait over there for someone to collect your passport then follow them.” At least I’d had some warning. I followed official man number 2 into a room filled with about 30-40 people, all waiting for their name to be called. I waited in that room for 1h30mins then my name was called and I could go. They were checking my contract was authentic.

When I finally got to my hotel – The Comfort Inn – I was told I there was someone already in my room. My first roommate. Her name was Gay, a Filipino girl who worked as a sales assistant or something. I was pleased to note that she had MORE luggage than me. It made me feel a lot better. When I asked her about it she said “I’m such a girl, I can’t pack light”. Same for me! All roommates are Carnival employees. I suppose I can’t expect to have an en suite room with two double beds all to myself for 5 nights. Although, roommates 2 and 3 did come as a surprise as roommate 1 left her room key in the room. I thought this meant she never checked out and the hotel thought she was still here. I guess not.

As my contract stated I had to be in Miami on 16 June, I thought this meant I would sign onto my ship on the 16th June. Before you sign on, your name has to appear on the Carnival notice board and mine did not appear for sign on on the 16th. When I asked the front desk about this they said if your name does not appear, just wait for the next list which would come at 7pm the following day. Fantastic, I had a whole day in Miami to myself and decided I should see some of the city. I did a city tour with Oscar (my tour guide). I was the only one on the tour. He drove me through the residential areas of Little Havana, Coral Gables (a separate city within the city of Miami) and Coconut Grove before stopping in South Beach/Miami Beach. I took a quick walk on the beach – so long, white, wide and flat – felt the water (VERY warm), then got back into the van and got taken to Bayside. At Bayside I did a boat tour and saw the port of Miami, the Miami skyline, Fisher Island (the most exclusive island to live on – it can only be accessed by helicopter or boat), Millionaire’s Row (you have to be a millionaire to live there) and Star Island (you have to be a celebrity to live there). There were amazingly huge and over the top houses on these islands!

After my tour I headed back to the hotel and packed up my bags as I was pretty sure I would be leaving the next day. When I went down to check the list, there was no list. By 10pm still no list. I kept asking the front desk about it and they said they’d tried calling Carnival but there was no answer and nothing more they could do. Again they said if my name was not on the list I would not be signing on to my ship. I even woke up early the next morning to see if the list was up, but no such luck. I phoned Carnival later that day and they said I was supposed to be signing on that day. But I had missed the bus so I would have to wait and sign on the next time the ship was in America. Sunday. More waiting! Luckily I met another girl, Landé, who was also supposed to board that day to start photo training but had also missed the boat and been told the same story by the hotel front desk.

Landé and I did some shopping together at the Dolphin Mall and then planned a night out on the town. This is when we met my roommate number 3. She joined us for our night out. It was great fun. We tried to find a club to go dancing, but never found what we were looking for. Well we did find one club that was very popular; we were even given VIP passes for this club – Mansion. Unfortunately the passes only let you skip the queue. Once inside the entrance was $25! Quite steep, so we just walked straight out again. The evening turned into more of a pub crawl and we finally got home at 3am.

There is so much more to tell about my time waiting in Miami. For instance the shower, I couldn’t work out how to make the water hot! There was only one tap to turn. After a rather cold start to my first shower I figured it out. Only once the volume of water coming out of the shower head was on full would the temperature kick in. The more you turned the tap on, the hotter it got. Cleaver.

Must be off now. More to follow at some stage. xxx

Letter 2 – The last of London

The rest of my time in London: After visiting Derek and Helen I took the train back to Waterloo, got an eat-on-the-go lunch, dumped my stuff in Louise’s flat then made my way to Green Park station where I was meeting Alice for HER Big Bus Tour. I was most impressed! A solid 2h30min tour, and so interesting. Alice had told me to bring my iPod, food and things to do as I would get board. This was not the case, and Alice was impressed by the amount of information I retained. The tour passed: Marble Arch, Madam Tussauds, Houses of Parliament, the Eye, Royal Courts of Justice, St Paul’s Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, and much more. I was particularly amused by the bricked in windows. Back in the day, taxes were paid based on the number of windows you had in your house. So to avert paying high taxes the wealthy, with many windows, would brick in the ones that weren’t needed. Hence the term ‘daylight robbery’. 

Another interesting fact: Portland Place, the street down which the Langham Hotel faces, is exceptionally wide for central London. This is because the only way to please the tenant (of the Langham building) was to make sure the views from his home were uninterrupted to the north (towards Regents Park). The street is about the width of the building.

After the tour Alice and I met Louise for some soccer celebrations. We had passed Trafalgar Square on the tour and it was packed with soccer supporters watching on a big screen so we decided that would be a good place to go. When we got there later on (about 10 minutes before the second game would begin) the square was empty. Security told us the celebrations were over and the square was closed. So much for that. In the end we found a little pub and enjoyed a drink together – with no soccer on in the background.

 Hamleys

The weekend was full of treats. On Saturday evening Louise and I met one of her friends Haley in the west end for a show. We saw Jersey Boys – The story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. It was excellent! Great music! On Sunday afternoon Louise and I met another of her friends Heike for high tea at the Langham (the hotel I mentioned earlier). We had the G and Tea option which included a beautiful looking gin and tonic, followed by sandwiches, scones and other sweet treats. Delicious!

My last morning in London was spent looking at buildings. I took the bus with Louise to her work then walked a block further to look at the Lloyds Bank and Gherkin building, where I enjoyed a nice hot chocolate – it was a bit chilly outside.

All in all, a great time in London.
xxx

Visiting Derek and Helen

Day 1: Walk around Badbury Rings (remains of a fortified ironmonger settlement from 2000 to 2500 years ago) to see wild orchids - found two.

 Finally - a wild orchid!

Day 2: We drove through Arne on the way to Corfe Castle where we had lunch.

Wild orchids on the roadside in Arne

Corfe Castle

Oxford St, Regent St and Carnaby St

London Lomography Store

Funky Lomo Diana F+ camera

Elephant Parade London 2010

Wimbledon and Alice

On my way to Wimbledon I got off at the wrong train station. There were no buses or taxis so I had to walk through the park, the directions I was given were terrible and I ended up walking in circles, but the park was beautiful.

The Wimbledon Museum which included the ghost of John McEnroe - quite freaky and realistic.

The All England Lawn Tennis Club [Wimbledon] Court 1

Lunch and afternoon with Alice some shopping and walking around Leicester Square and Covent Garden

The truck was off the ground!

V & A Museum

Hanging in the V & A foyer above ticket and info desk

V & A Cafe

Hampton Court

 

Letter 1 - So where should I begin?!

So where should I begin?! Time flies when you’re having fun! I have been away for almost a week already. I am currently staying with my great aunt and uncle, Derek and Helen, in Wimborne. I got up early yesterday morning and left Louise’s flat at 8:30am to catch a train at 10am. Lots of time to get there... Well... I caught the bus (with all my luggage – yes, for 2 nights – we all know I can’t travel light) and was making progress towards Waterloo despite rush hour traffic. Then all of a sudden the bus announced it was no longer ending at Waterloo. I thought this might mean it would go past Waterloo and terminate further on. Next thing the bus stops and the announcement said the bus terminates here, please get off and don’t forget your luggage! Luckily the woman who was sitting in front of me said she’d help me get to the station as she worked in a building nearby. It would be about a 15 minute walk. We walked towards Waterloo, got to a bridge started crossing the Thames and found the pavement on our side of the bridge was blocked to pedestrians, so we had to walk down about 2 stories to the street below and then back up again to the other side of the bridge. All with my (now much heavier) luggage, and the sun shining brightly too. Luckily the rest of the walk was simple and there were signs to follow. Happily I got to the station with half an hour to spare and was relieved to finally get onto the train.


I have been staying with my cousin Louise in London. We visited Hampton Court and Kingston on Saturday. On Sunday we went to the V & A Museum to see a quilt exhibition - which was amazing with quilts dating from 1700 to 2010 – as well as an exhibition on Grace Kelly and the Gilbert Collection, a collection which includes micro mosaics (so micro you can’t always tell that an item is a mosaic with the naked eye!) - click here


My time has been so full! Hardly time to download photos, let alone look at any. I have also been to Harrods (with Louise) where we had the best hot chocolate EVER, like drinking a bar of chocolate mixed with cream. I enjoyed some time shopping on Oxford and Regent Street. I loved looking at all the new toys in Hamleys. It’s amazing what’s available these days. The store was even more festive as this year Hamleys celebrates 250 magical years. I think that would be a fun place to work – there were many demonstrations by 20-somthings with groups of children looking up in wonderment at the latest rainbow sponge painting kit; walking, barking, jumping/360 flip dogs/cats/penguins; magic tricks etc. I still cannot work out how the magic tricks worked! The first with a pack of cards. When the 8 of diamonds was put on the top of the pack EVERY card became the 8 of diamonds. The pack was cut numerous times and they were all red diamond 8s. Then the top card was changed and the whole pack of cards became normal again – 52 different cards! There was also a trick with disappearing and reappearing coins that was just MAGIC.


Tomorrow morning I get the train back to London. It has been wonderful to see Derek and Helen again, we’ve had great chats and it’s been interesting hearing about this side of the family. Again, I cannot believe how time has flown. Tomorrow afternoon I’m seeing Alice again – she’s organised me a ticket on her Big Bus tour. We were planning on watching the soccer world cup opening ceremony and first match in a pub tomorrow evening. This however will not be happening as I was dismayed to discover the SA game is in the afternoon! We’ll still be going to a pub.


I almost forgot, I also visited Wimbledon! I’ll have to write about that another time....


xxx

2010 adventures

My 2010 travel adventures have begun!