nearing the end of week 1

August 23, 2012
I’m losing track of the days. On the Oosterdam, we were allowed to take the guest elevators (so we could have more communication with guests), but here we are not, and the crew elevators/stairs don’t have rugs that tell us what day it is. I miss that.

Yesterday I went ashore in Charlottetown. I brought my phone but not computer because I didn’t know there was free internet right in the terminal. I posted the last blog, and then went out into town. I went by all the touristy areas first, then made my way more into town. I just walked, exploring. There’s a gorgeous cathedral that I want to go to when we come back. I ended up spending the last hour or so on the internet. I came back to the room and just hung out watching TV until my cabin steward came in and we talked as he cleaned a bit. Alyssa called and invited me to come with her and Edison (photographer who came on the same time as me) by the Lido pool. It was nice to have something different for a change: tacos.
After dinner, we went up to Club HAL for “Lights, Camera, Action” night. Mostly it was crafts which kind of bored a lot of the kids. We actually ended up with 6 French kids, of the 12 that came! First they decorated a star which they finished in about 5 minutes. The next activity was to create a movie poster. They really enjoyed making up stories for their own movie, especially the French kids. I got to translate the instructions for them, then translate their movie info to the other group! It was very exciting!

After work, we went downstairs to talk to people. We watched some of the show, then went up to the dessert extravaganza around the Lido pool. After that, we went downstairs to get ready for the crew party. It was interesting, not a whole lot of good music which was sad.

Today was the only sea day on this cruise. It’s not nearly as organized as it was on the Oosterdam; we didn’t really follow the schedule, so it was kind of frustrating having to ask Alyssa when we could move on to the next activity when all the kids were asking to play xbox.

This afternoon seemed really short since we had the parents come to go with the kids on a scavenger hunt at 3. It was a disorganized afternoon of events as well. I did get to help the communication barrier a lot today too. It was nice being able to help them all make friends.

Now I’m sitting in the room watching the Hunger Games on TV. I’ll probably go up to the library in a little while to read on my kindle (and to get out of the room to leave my cabin steward to clean up without me being in the way). I work in the morning in Quebec and then I’ll be online in the afternoon!

Jacob’s assigning me to the teens next week. That’ll be interesting as there’s no Loft, so I’ll have to follow the schedule so they know where to find us. They spend various amounts of time in Club HAL, the Crow’s Nest, the Half-Moon meeting room and the Lido. It’ll be fun; there’s only supposed to be 16 on the ship.

Friday, August 24, 2012
The kids made their own board games last night. I wish that we didn’t have so many arts and crafts things; some of the kids just don’t like them and it makes it diffult to keep their attention, expecially when I’m dividing my attention between keeping everyone under control and helping out the French kids. They actually took pretty much the whole time to make their games, so we didn’t even have a chance to play them. At least they managed to work together somewhat quietly.

It was also formal night so Alyssa and I went down to the show for a bit and then changed into nice clothes and went to the Crow’s Nest to hang out with people. We danced there for a while and just talked with two of the photographers and a friend on board. It was fun, but I was tired so went down to my room after a short time. It was hour back night, so a lot of people stayed up late making noise in the halls so it took me a while to get to sleep.

This morning, I had two siblings come in at 8. They were content just to play jenga for a while, but the boy wanted to play video games. So, they got out lego Star Wars and played that for a while, then I got out Harry Potter and started playing it. Just as I began to figure out what was going on, the boy came over and insisted upon playing it as well, and kept telling me what to do even though he didn’t know how to play it either; then would ask me how to complete tasks. It was frustrating. After a while, the girl asked me to play foosball with her, so I gladly gave up the video game and played with her until the boy started complaining about how he needed me to help him play. I let his sister play with him and I started playing another game, which he then proceeded to connect his remote to and tell me what to do. Jacob came not long after and I got to get away from exploring video games.
I went to lunch and now I’m in Quebec!