French-speaking places!

October 4, 2013
So much to say and so little time! Yesterday, Megan and I wandered around Monaco. It’s such a small place, but I still managed to see some stuff I hadn’t before. We wandered around the back of the casino, then back around to the front. The back of the Casino is to the water, and there’s a pretty pathway with lots of plants surrounding building with appartments (spellcheck is telling me I keep spelling that wrong, but the correction it gives me looks so wrong. I’ve been using French spellings too much if the right spelling look misspelled) below. It’s a very pretty view. We took some pictures at the front, of course, but it was a bit sad because the pathway up the hill directly in front of the casino where there used to be a lot of fountains and steps and stuff is completely blocked off and being re-done. So, you can only see the Casino from very close right in front of it. So, we walked around the ‘exotic gardens’ there for a few minutes before heading back down towards the marina. I had to stop in at the supermarket to check and see if they had finally restocked on Dr. Pepper. They had! So, I ended up buying 5 (hopefully it’ll last me the next month), and going back to the ship to drop them off before going back out. This time, we went up the hill through the gardens on the other side of the marina, closer to the ship. We walked all the way up to the Oceanographic Museum/Aquarium and the palace before we decided to go back down to find some wifi and lunch (after all, it was nearly 2). We found a place and stayed there for about two hours, really until it got too chilly for me to stand it any longer. It was a windy day, like a storm was coming in, but there was never any storm.

Back on the ship, I just hung out and talked to Emily until dinnertime, then had work. Olympic night was out of the question because it was so windy outside, so I extended free time a bit and let them play Kinect Sports instead of forcing them to face the wind outside. I changed into formal quickly and went to the show. It’s one of the better cast productions on this ship called “Cantare.” It’s just the four male singers, who are all really good. I think I’ve seen this show three times now, of course this is the first time I got to see the beginning (because the kids left by 9:50 and I ran downstairs to change as fast as possible. After the show, a few of us went to the Northern Lights for a little bit before going up to the OB. Megan came later but we didn’t play Skip-Bo because we were both tired and ready to go, and all she had to do was get the phone from Ryan (she had port day in Marseille).

Now, onto the excitement of today! I went ice skating in Marseille! 

Malcolm (I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned him much, but I met him first on the Oosterdam, he’s a cadet engineer) invited me last night to come with him and a group of others to go skating. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do today anyway, and of course it sounds like fun so I found out the plans. I had a lazy morning: breakfast, visiting the crew office, and getting ready, before meeting the other four, getting off the ship and getting a taxi to take us there. We were an interesting group: youth staff, cadet engineer, electrician, engineer, and stage manager. We made it there in about 20 minutes, and were on the ice in no time! Lee (the engineer) and I were the only ones who knew how to skate already, so we had to teach Jenn, Ben and Malcolm how to move around, and attempt to teach them how to fall properly. Our falling lessons didn’t seem to take for Malcolm, every time he fell, he would hit the ground hard, and swing his feet around. I made sure to stay away when I knew he was going down; at least he didn’t hurt himself too badly. I relearned some of the things I used to know, like crossovers, regular skating, stops, turns, and spins, and the others just went around in circles, taking a lot more breaks than I thought necessary.

After about two hours, the other group finally arrived (they told us they’d leave right after drill, so only about 15 minutes after we ended up leaving). It got crowded then, but it was fun; the other group consisted of half the cast, a few musicians, two of the photographers, some techies, and various others. Basically this was an unofficial crew tour. We may have to suggest this as a crew tour for next year! I had to tie laces for a few people when they got their skates. Well, I kind of demanded them to get off the ice and sit back down; they’d tied their laces really really loosely, and were about to twist an ankle. They were pleasantly surprised at how much better they could move with the skates on when they couldn’t move their ankles. So, we all had a blast going around, trying not to trip over one another, watching the few Canadians race around on their hockey skates, trying to convince me to try to remember some jumps. A lot of falls happened, but no one got seriously hurt, just a few bruises to appear over the next few days. It was a lot of fun. We had the people working take a group picture for us, then it was decided that I lead a “conga line” around the ice.

That was difficult. I ended up having to use all my strength to pull 5 people who were just holding on, not helping to skate as well. That was interesting, and exhausting. I was happy when Ben let go of me. So much so that I was already one lap around the ice before they realized I’d been set free, their reactions were pretty funny. I am going to be very sore tomorrow though, especially since I was using the plastic rental skates with absolutely no give and that don’t tighten in the right areas of the foot. Mine were so loose in the toe area, but extremely tight around my lower calf and the arch of my foot. I never really thought about it way back in 5th grade how much better it was to have my own skates than having to use the horrible plastic ones.

About half an hour after the second group arrived, they started to get tired so we all ended up returning our skates and leaving in search of lunch. Much to the dismay of a few of us, we ended up at McDonalds (it was cheap and fast, good since we only had an hour and a half to get back to the ship. But still we’re in France! Why McDo?!?). Anyway, we had to walk a while to find a taxi station, but we made it back in plenty of time (in 5 different cabs, they must’ve been happy making all that money from us). Once back, I hung out with Emily in the room for a bit, then looked through my pictures until dinner (I’d forgotten to put pictures from Dubrovnik and Monaco on my computer).

Dinner was fine, just the normal pasta. Work was busy. I had 6 kids, most of which showed up right at 7. Oddly, they were fine for free time, and I would’ve been happy to let them have free time all night because “Brave the Night” is really hard with such a small group, with no snack, and with so many little ones (this theme night is definitely for the tweens and not kids). However, when Ryan came up early, one suddenly started asking what we were going to do tonight. So, I divided them into teams (boys vs girls; I had to separate the two sets of siblings, they start to fight after a few minutes of any activity together), then set them to work on their team flag. The boys finished in record time, two minutes max. Then they just got wild, I told them they either had to draw more on their flag or just sit and wait for the girls to finish. They decided to throw markers at each other instead. To stop that, I gave them a new task, which they complained about of course. They were just a mess tonight. They wanted to do something, but not anything I planned. Once I finally gave up on normal “Brave the Night” activities and told them we’d play team Ickle Bickle, they calmed down slightly. Lightning started outside then and it all just got out of hand, with constant questions of where Ickle Bickle was, what he looked like again and all sorts of unrelated things. Even Megan, who had come up because she was bored, was getting frustrated with them. At least a few parents came then to pick some of them up. With only two (brother and sister) left, I completely gave up on Brave the Night and let them play Kinect Sports for the 30 minutes before their parents finally came to get them. It was a long night, and for some reason I just didn’t have the patience to deal with it like I usually do. Maybe I’m getting to that point of my contract where my energy/patience levels are dissipating so I need a break? Who knows, it’ll help that next cruise we have different kids, although our numbers seem to keep rising. We went from 7 to 15 to 30 for next cruise, all through the course of this cruise. And for the crossing, apparently we’re going to have 6 kids! They’re going to hate each other after 7 days straight at sea, especially 3 teens and 3 littles. Not sure what we’re going to do about that, but I guess we’ll see when the time comes.