sea day and arrecife

November 1, 2012: Arrecife
I worked from 9-12 today. The girl came up for a little while; her parents didn’t tell me if they were coming back later when she left, so I just stayed in Club HAL until Brian came (since she was gone and the other kids don’t come in the morning, I could’ve left early). I had pasta for lunch again before changing and getting off the ship. I took the free shuttle the 10 minutes to the city (it’s a 45 minute walk) and set off walking along the shore, looking at what was around. It was kind of cloudy so the pictures I took didn’t come out as well as I’d like, but I have a lot of the water, boats on the water, the fort. I walked through the market (purses, scarves, belts and watches were pretty much the only things anyone was selling) and kept going. Finally I decided to head back and look for internet. Halfway back to the bus, I finally saw someone from the ship and they told me where I could go for internet. After that, I kept seeing crew members walking around. I sat down with a few at a café and tried to get internet there, but couldn’t connect; they were closing for siesta anyway so I left in search of somewhere open.
Finally, close to where the bus was, I found some of the cast connected to the internet. I ordered a sprite and sat with them and talked to Mom on skype for the first time in a week and a half. They left to go find postcards while I stayed to talk and listen to the band playing at this café. I got back on the bus at 3:35 because I knew the last bus left at 4. A few more people came in the next few minutes before they told us that this WAS the last bus and we had to wait until 4:05 to leave. The singer and her husband (the parents) were on that bus with me and I had to reassure them that they wouldn’t be too late to pick up their kids, and if anyone said anything, I would back them up because they were on the bus to be back in plenty of time. Finally after 4, with only the 8 of us that had been on the bus since 3:40, the bus drove us back to the ship. That was a bit frustrating, but at least we had good conversation during the wait and the ride back. I called Brian as soon as I got back to let him know the parents were on the way up and that it wasn’t their fault they were late. I went through some of my pictures the rest of the afternoon.
Not much happened at work tonight, just the usual coloring, movies and video games with the siblings. After work, I ended up watching one of the movies Daniel lent me and going to sleep somewhat early.
November 2, 2012: Sea Day
Another sea day, I’m so glad we don’t have many between the long 7 day sets. I went up for breakfast and work this morning. Of course, the girl was the only one there and was constantly wondering where the other girl was and when her mom was going to pick her up. But at least she was content to color and make a hand turkey (which took a surprisingly long time considering she colors so fast most of the time). I took a nap after work because I was really tired despite getting enough sleep.
I had lunch with Brandi after she finished her set and Kayley and Cass and Glenn and Blake joined us as they came to set up to play as well. I sat with them until they had to play and I decided to head downstairs for a bit, not really knowing what I was going to do. Daniel was in the spa as I walked through to go downstairs so I ended up talking to him for a while. He’d been talking about lending me a book and gave that to me so I could have something to do the rest of the afternoon. I turned on the TV to find Lord of the Rings on, so listened to that as I read until Bingo time. Cass was in the room when I got back from Bingo so we talked for a bit, then Kayley came by and we went to her room to watch part of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We finished about half of it before dinner. We went to dinner and chatted with the cast until I had to get to work.
I wasn’t up there for long before the siblings came up. I put in a movie for the girl and the boy asked me to play Lego Star Wars with him. Occasionally I’d drop out of the game for a bit to color with the girl and so she could show me what she’d done. It was a very non-stressful night for which I was grateful.
They left at 10 and I decided not to go to the show, so I went down and curled my hair for the crew Halloween party tonight before helping Kayley with her hair. It was interesting doing her hair because she was Pippi Longstocking, I had to braid her hair, then slide a bent clothes hanger through it to make her braids stick up from her head. It worked pretty well! The Halloween party was fun; I liked seeing what everyone dressed up as, and how creative some people are.
Daniel and I hung out with Edison, Kayley and a few others in the hall afterward because we weren’t tired enough to go to sleep yet, but finally we realized that most of us were getting up early so should go to bed early. Quite a few people were going on tours early in the morning.