week one continued

August 20, 2012
In Halifax, Alyssa and I went to a coffee place to get a snack and internet. The internet there was very slow, all sites except for Facebook. Oh well, at least I got to post the blog. After Alyssa went back to work, I ended up wandering around for a while. I wasn’t sure where to go, so I walked next to the water on the boardwalk. It kept going and going, but there were some pretty views. I had to squint a lot though because the clouds were so bright. I wandered for about 30 minutes before I stopped at what looked like the main area; there was a museum and a few food places. I ended up getting a personal pizza, Hawaiian! It was good, although sad to sit at a big picnic table and eat a pizza all alone. I sat eating for a while, then decided to walk back to the ship to drop off my laptop. I’d forgotten how far of a walk it was. I was halfway back to the ship when the shoe started to rub the back of my heel again (I got a blister the other day that’s been very frustrating), so I decided to sit and rest and enjoy the sea air for a while. For some reason I thought about looking up internet on my phone since my computer died earlier and found free wifi. The water walkway had its own internet!
I texted mom and looked up stuff on the internet for at least an hour before I decided to head back to the ship. I saw quite a few kids from Club HAL walk by, some of them stopped to talk to me, others didn’t see me. It was funny; I recognized some of the parents better than the kids. I walked through some shops on the way back and saw quite a few cool things that I’ll think about getting one week. One place did have cans of…. Dr. Pepper! I hadn’t seen many sodas in any of the stands or restaurants so it was a nice surprise to see it in one of the terminal shops. I’m back on the ship now, about to study Italian for a while before Alyssa and I go to dinner.

August 21, 2012

Alyssa was actually on time to go to dinner yesterday, so I had plenty of time to eat my not-so-impressive pasta. It’s the same food every night on the staff side of the Lido. I’m not sure I mentioned this before but the staff has one side of the Lido reserved for us from 5-7 every night. Guests can’t eat on our side and we can’t eat on the guest side. It’s definitely interesting this way as at any one point, we take up maybe… 1/3 of our side.

We had about 8 kids last night as well, quite a few left right after free time ended because they came for the video games. The theme nights aren’t really that planned out in my opinion. Mostly it’s arts and crafts, which some kids get bored with really easily so they start disrupting which leads to other kids getting distracted and then the whole group ends up having to be silent for 5 minutes before we move on. That’s what happened yesterday; it wasn’t good for anyone.

After they all left- we had a talk with one of the parents because their child wouldn’t listen to us- Alyssa and I changed and met up with Chrissy at the show. The show had a ‘country’ theme, which was interesting because I found out last cruise that some people just can’t sing country well at all. Luckily, this group didn’t really try to sound country; they just sang the country songs with their normal singing voices.
After the show, we went to the ocean bar and met up with some of the photo staff and socialized for a while. We finished our drinks and went up to the Crow’s Nest to see if anyone else was there. There, I found the closest thing to the Northern Lights, a dance floor and screen in the middle of the bar. We did a little bit of dancing because there was some good music, and we had gotten tired of sitting down.

Sydney:
This morning, I was up and ready when Alyssa called to let me know she was almost ready to go to help with Kids in the Kitchen. I think I know now where most everything is on the ship now, I actually looked at a map to get it in my head for the first time today. Oh, another difference from the Oosterdam is that we’re not allowed to use the guest elevators. The maps are near the elevators, and the days of the week are on rugs in the elevators. That’s part of why I’ve been having such a hard time this week I think. They made “silver dollar pancakes.” Basically really tiny pancakes and we added lots of toppings to them. That was my breakfast! I had a few and ate strawberries with them. About 12 kids showed up to that; the most kids we’ve had at an event so far. After that, Alyssa and I went to the Lido to get a real breakfast. I had French toast with powdered sugar on top! Finally, it’s not just syrup to go on it!
Over breakfast, Alyssa convinced me to to ashore for a bit, even though I only had an hour until I needed to be back on to get lunch before I went up to Club HAL. I was going to get internet, but the internet was a 15 minute walk, so I ended up just walking around on the boardwalk and taking a few pictures. By the time I got on the ship and changed, I had about 20 minutes to eat. Then, I got up to the Lido and stood in line for about 15 before I got my food. Needless to say it was a quick lunch and I took up my tea to Club HAL.

There were 5 kids in Club HAL today and none of them were going to lunch with parents, so Jacob and I took them down and got pizza and burgers. I took them back up to Club HAL and they put on shows for me for about an hour before other kids started coming. Quite a few of the other kids who came in were French, so I got to be the translator for a bunch of kids. That was an interesting task. I need to look up some vocabulary tomorrow when I have internet!

I have a cabin inspection tomorrow. I won’t be here for it though because I work from 8-12. I also have the safety drill for new-crew; Jacob is going to come up to relieve me so I can attend that one. I really don’t think many people are going to come tomorrow morning though. We haven’t had many in the mornings, after 2 is when it gets busy.

August 22, 2012
Club HAL theme last night was Brave the night. We made it through a grand total of three activities. They have some listening problems, escalated by the fact that Alyssa and I are both rather soft-spoken. It was okay though, by the last activity they had calmed down a bit. Then, a parent called to ask about after-hours for her two sons. They ended up staying for an hour; Alyssa and I both stayed with them and played Jenga and foosball. We were too late to go to the show, but Indonesian Independence day was a few days ago, so the community on board put on a show to showcase their culture for everyone last night. I really enjoyed it! Especially one part at the end where a group had instruments made of bamboo that they shook to have the bamboo sticks bang together to create different sounds. It was really cool.
This morning, I didn’t have any kids until about 10. Not long after they got there, I had to leave for the safety drill, then only had an hour or so with them afterwards. There were just two girls and we colored for a bit, then they came up with an idea for a show which we started to prepare for. I went with them to lunch when Alyssa got there and now I get to get off the ship and hopefully get internet for a while and explore!! YAY!