I've been to Greece now!

June 29, 2013: Corfu
I feel like I spent all day waiting. I got up and went to breakfast with April, then I came back to the room and waited for Kristin to call so she, Meghna and I could get off together. Finally she came by around 11:30 ready to go to the Lido. I didn’t realize we were waiting until AFTER lunch to get off. So, after lunch, I waited for Meghna to finish changing, then we got off and found out that Kristin and Ryan had already gotten off and left us. So much for hanging out together. Then, Meghna wanted to take the shuttle to the terminal, so we had to wait for that, only to find out it’s about a 5 minute walk away. Then, we had to wait for the shuttle bus to take us to the downtown area (it would have taken about 20 minutes to walk; and it took the shuttle about 20 minutes to get there). We didn’t get there until around 1:30.

It was nice once we got there because we just wandered around, we found streets of little shops and looked through a lot of them. Meghna was apparently hungry so we ended up asking a lady at one of the shops about cheap, good food. She directed us to a man called George who had a restaurant just down the street. Again, I had to wait a few minutes while he doted on her before we left and promised to come back later. We wandered around and found an old palace, now a museum. That was cool to walk around outside.

We intended to go down to the beach area below it and walk around in the water for a few minutes, but we ended up going back through the streets of shops before Meghna wanted to eat. I wandered around the shops by myself for about 20 minutes while she did that, then I went back to where she was, thinking she’d be about ready to go wander some more. She was a bit busy being admired by the owner, and eating her tazaki (not sure how to spell that) and drinking her wine. So, I got a juice and sat down with her. My phone wouldn’t connect to the wifi for some reason, so I just had to sit there and sip my juice while it took her another 30 minutes to finish. More waiting. :(

Finally, she finished and there wasn’t enough time to do much wandering, so we made our way back to the shuttle bus, to the terminal and then walked back to the ship from here. Now I feel like Meghna and I spend too much time together. We’ve hardly been apart since we met over a week ago. We room together, we work together, we eat meals together, we go out at night together, and we get off ship together (people won’t leave just one person behind, so since we’re roommates they feel they can leave both of us since we won’t be alone.) I’m looking forward to next cruise: Meghna’s on kids and I’m on tweens, and Jessie will be here so I’ll have other friends to hang out with!

port day

June 28, 2013: Katakolon
It was my port day today. A very long day. I started at 8, none of the kids showed up until close to 10. It went a lot quicker once the kids got there. We all took turns on MarioKart, some played Lego Star Wars, and I also had a movie going (since that’s what I’d been doing until someone got there). I’m very glad they all wanted pizza for lunch, because no one came up to help take them to lunch. It was an interesting group to have lunch with. One kid signed in halfway through us eating, and he’d already eaten so he was bored, then one kid ate really slowly so we all had to wait on him, then another girl talked almost the whole time. Finally we went back upstairs and went back to our activities. A few others signed in not long after, so I set up Just Dance instead of the movie, and they all had something to do. One of the teens came by because he was bored, so I talked and played some games on the xbox with him.

I’m very glad all the parents came by at 4, they had trouble yesterday and ended up having a few kids not picked up until nearly 5. However, I had a hard time figuring out how to lock the door. My keys only work for the teen room, apparently they’re all different locks; this morning, I came in through the teen room and just opened the tween room from the inside (they’re connected). But this afternoon, I could not get the door for the tweens room to lock from the inside. After about 15 minutes of trying to get it to work, it finally worked for no apparent reason. I was just glad it did because I was exhausted. I took a nap until dinner, but I kept getting calls (I had the YPC phone because of port day) about the kids in the kitchen thing and I couldn’t get a hold of Ryan to give the phone back and explain what was going on until dinnertime! So, no sleep really during my ‘nap.’
Dinner wasn’t that great, at least they had some type of chicken instead of lamb, pork, and fish; but it wasn’t very good chicken. I decided I needed sugar to help me get through the rest of the night, so I got ice cream as well which helped me feel somewhat better.

The night session was pretty easy. We played “Scene It” until they got bored/frustrated with it, then hung out and watched Brave. I felt kind of bad because I wasn’t being particularly social with them this evening, it’d been a long day I think for everyone so only a few of them stayed anyway.

sea day

June 27, 2013: Sea Day
First and last sea day of this cruise. We didn’t expect many teens to show up right at 10, but we were surprised when quite a few came. We did a few sudokus and two of the girls went to the Lido and brought up hot chocolates for everyone. We all just relaxed and had a quiet morning. A few of the ones that came this morning, it was the first time we’d seen them all week.

After a light lunch, Meghna and I took a nap before heading back to work. A lot more showed up this afternoon, and we sent them on a scavenger hunt before playing more MarioKart and card games. The afternoon went by pretty quickly, and we only had a few at the end because it’s formal night.

We had dinner with the rest of Club HAL, then went down to the room to change into formals before going out around the ship for a while before work. We got tired of just staying in the room between sessions, especially at night. We got photos taken, walked around, samples the show to see if the teens might like it, and went to the Crow’s Nest for a bit. Ana and McKeena were there, so we hung out with them until nearly time for work.

Even though we were in formalwear, we ended up just staying in the Loft. The teens mainly just wanted to hang out, so we did movie quotes and adverteasers before going on to Celebrity Heads. A few left because they were tired and the rest weren’t really sure what to do, so we hung out some more before we finally got a movie from Club HAL and watched Wreck-It Ralph until the night ended. My port day tomorrow, so I went to bed early.

Sicily!

June 26, 2013: Messina, Sicily
We had a lazy morning. I got up, went to breakfast and then came back to the room and kind of took a nap before Meghna and I got off the ship.

We walked around a bit, then found a restaurant with pizza, so we had lunch there. Meghna didn’t understand when I said they were normally big pizzas, so we ended up ordering two whole pizzas. We ate about half each, then combined the other half in a box and took back to the ship for later. Then, we just wandered around, halfway using the tourist map as a reference point, but mainly just wandering around in the less touristy areas when going from “places of interest.” We got back on the ship and then got ready for dinner, Ryan had organized it for us to eat at Pinnacle, so we could all take full advantage of this newly discovered perk! I was Meghnas guest this time, since she was mine last time. It was a really good dinner, as I’ve discovered Pinnacle dinners typically are :) Steak, yum!

Meghna and I still had time after dinner before we had to work, so we ended up going to the Crow’s Nest to listen to the solo guitarist, who we’ve made friends with at the OB. Meghna had a hard time sitting still it seemed, so we ended up walking around and looking at books in the library as well. Then we changed into our uniforms (we got to be in smart casual for dinner) and went up to the Loft. It was sports night, so most of the teens were extremely happy about that; they’d been asking us to play Dodgeball again since last time we let them play. I stayed down in the Loft with those that didn’t want to play, and then we switched off after a while when one of the girls got hurt. I attempted to stop some of them from making the game so violent, but it didn’t work; so, after a few more headshots, I decided that it wasn’t okay to keep playing, so I ended it. The boys weren’t really happy with me, but I think some of the girls were glad to have a reason not to play anymore, and risk getting hurt. We hung out in Club HAL and played MarioKart the rest of the night.

Naples

June 25, 2013: Naples
I really do love getting to eat breakfast, I need to remember that so I will get up in the morning and go. I had breakfast this morning, hoping to meet some of the other girls there and make plans to go out. None of them were there, but I ended up talking to one of the HAL Cats while we both ate. After that, I ran upstairs to see Meghna and see if there was anything she needed. We chatted for a while, then I decided to change and get off-ship for a while and get on the internet. I’d forgotten about the 6 hour time difference so was very confused when no one was online to talk to.

I got back on to help Meghna out with lunch, since there had been quite a few kids there when I left. We took turns watching the kids, going to get food, and going with some to get other food. It was a very long lunch, especially for the two kids that signed in as we got there and had already eaten, they were just sitting there bored.

After lunch, I met up with April and we agreed to get off and get internet together later in the afternoon. So I hung out in the room for a bit, wrote some messages and then we got off.

Meghna came back and took a nap because she had to be up for port day really early. We went to dinner at the usual time, then did stuff around the ship; went to the Purser to try to get reimbursed for our meals on the way here (she’d just finished the cash count for the day, so we have to go back tomorrow), and went to the shops so Meghna could get a watch before we went to work a bit early.

With the teens tonight, we played Two Truths and a Lie, Bananagrams, and guitar hero (once we finally figured out how to get the wii to work). It was a good night. They all were kind of tired so wanted just to hang out and relax.

lazy day on the ship

June 24, 2013: Civitavecchia
Yesterday, I had every intention of going out today and walking around town and getting internet for a while. I didn’t. Most of Club HAL went on the crew tour to Roma. I ended up sleeping in, and then getting ready and going to lunch. I hung out in Club HAL with Kristin for a while, then just went back to the room to see if Meghna was up yet and wanting to go out with me. She wasn’t in the room and I didn’t really want to go off alone, so I stayed in the room and read. She finally got back to the room around 3 (she’d been in Club HAL, probably got there not long after I left) and just wanted to nap. So, I read the rest of the afternoon. We went up for dinner at 6 even though there was a teen bbq at 7 (she’s vegetarian, so no options for her, and I just didn’t want that kind of food. It was good I went up for dinner though, because I managed to finally find the fruit soups! YUM! :)

WE went up a bit early for the BBQ and hung out with the teens that were there already. A surprising number of them came actually, so we had a crowd and just hung out and ate together. After that, we had normal Loft hours. We played Taboo for a while, which they seemed to enjoy, despite not doing very well at keeping up with the score. Meghna took a lot of them down for late night snack at the Lido, so I stayed with the others and played Skip-Bo and Phase 10. That lasted until the end of the night, so that went well!

Pisa

June 23, 2013: Livorno
Last night was improv night in the Loft. They weren’t fully into it. They put up with the activities on the schedule for little over an hour before moving on. First we had an activity “party quirks” where they have to act out a ‘quirk’ and have the others guess what they’re doing (actions instead of nouns, but still kind of like charades). They got tired of that pretty quickly, so we moved on to “Random Line.” That one they enjoyed more. I’d come up with random sentences and written them all down on slips of paper. A group of three came up and each grabbed 3 slips of paper. Another person was the ‘host’ and the others were the audience. The audience came up with a scenario for the 3 to act out; they started to act it out and the host would yell “line” and one of them would pull a paper out of their pocket and read it. They would then attempt to make the line make sense in the scenario. That lasted a while, but these teens aren’t really the most creative, so they got bored with it and we gave up on theme night. So, some of us played Apples to Apples, while others sat around and talked, and others played foosball or air hockey the rest of the night.

This morning, I got up and ready and went to breakfast before the raft drill. Happily, the raft drill didn’t last long, so I changed and read while I waited for everyone else to get ready to go, since 4 of us had planned on going to Pisa today. Meghna had missed breakfast, so ran up to grab a sandwich for lunch; while she was doing that, Kristin and April came by ready to go. They ended up going on ahead, and I had to wait for Meghna to get back so we could go. We took a shuttle to the town, then had to take the bus to the train station, and took the train to Pisa.

At the train station, we found Ana and her roommate, McKeena (HAL Cats piano; they were also going to Pisa) so hung out with them while we waited for the train. Once we got to Pisa, we found Kristin and April, who had actually been on the same train as us because of timing. So, the six of us set of for the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We walked and wandered around, occasionally stopping to take pictures and look in stores. April and I ended up together and got left behind when we stopped to get her some food. So, the two of us just took our time walking around until we got to the tower. We found the tower and also found Ana and McKeena, so took some group pictures and lots of funny shots before wandering off on our own again. We walked around the market, occasionally taking more pictures of the tower, trying to find the best angle. We decided to take the 3:45 train back so we could get some internet before going back to the ship, so left the tower area and walked back to the train station. We made it just in time for the train and had a nice ride back, and a crowded bus ride back into Livorno.



I had just enough time to check Facebook before we caught the shuttle back to the ship. Once back on the ship, we changed and got ready to go to Tamarind. It’s the Asian restaurant on the Signature Class ships. Ryan had organized it so that we could all go and eat dinner together tonight. It was nice, everyone but Kristin came (she didn’t want to rush to get back to the ship from Pisa). I managed to find some stuff I liked (mainly the ‘bread’ stuff, like the chip-things and orange dip they give us at the Chinese restaurant). It was nice though just hanging out, having a nice meal as a Club HAL. It’s awesome because we found out that due to some new thing, all of Club HAL gets the perk of once a month getting one free time dining at one of the specialty restaurants (Canaletto, Pinnacle, and Tamarind), plus guest. Meghna was my guest, so we may end up going to Canaletto or Pinnacle before the end of the month so I can be her guest!

The rest of them had to rush downstairs to get to work, but Meghna and I took our time and went down to the room until we had to go to the Loft. As usual, Meghna took a nap while I read and went through my pictures for a while. I wasn’t tired, but the room was dark, so my eyes were getting heavy, so I ended up just going up to the Loft early just so I wouldn’t fall asleep. Ryan was there, so we talked for a while and discussed the teen BBQ tomorrow evening.

It was movie night for all Club HAL, because it’s Rome tomorrow! We borrowed a few movies from the kids room just in case the teens didn’t want to go downstairs and borrow one from the front office – they haven’t the last few nights. We had a bit of free time before playing Celebrity Heads for about half an hour. Two of the girls actually went down and got a movie for us, so after we finished the game, we voted on what movie to watch and ended up watching “Easy A.” It was an easy night. Meghna and I went through the manifest and wrote room numbers and names down for all the teens that have been coming so we can start writing them notes (most YPCs have us do that for all ages and deliver them before the guest satisfaction surveys go out- Ryan said we didn’t have to, but Meghna wanted to, so that’s our task for the next few days; writing and decorating over 50 notes). The movie ended and everyone left, even though it was only 11:30. We weren’t complaining though, because it gave us time to clean up the room and write a few notes before coming down to our room.