Coluuuuuumbia

4/28/11

Cartagena, Columbia

For the very short amount of time allowed in this awesome port, I think I got what I needed to see out of it…at least a little taste. I would have to say my #1 impression of Columbia is that women here embrace the curves (if you’ve seen Modern Family, I think you would get what I mean). In old town, where me and a few people spent the day, there is literally a giant statue of a naked woman laying on her side…..a LARGE and in charge naked woman. It’s awesome. I have a few pictures of me right by the giant ass (sorry for not being more pc, but this is really the only word that describes it haha) …

Which reminds me of a side note. Wayne Newton told the funniest joke about a butt and I really want to try to tell it…let’s see. So Wayne was hanging out with his buddy at a bbq in Vegas, and his buddy turned to him and said “yo Wayne, check out the ass on my wife, her butt is bigger than this new grill I bought”…and Wayne looks away and feels really weird about the comment. Apparently his friend had no tact at all. But women hear everything, and his wife turned around and said, “What did you say” and he repeated exactly what he said to her face. She was mad, but continued to host the party….. later on, the group of people were together outside, enjoying some beers, and the husband hinted at potentially getting some action tonight, and the wife gave it back to him and said, “are you kidding me, you think I’m going to heat up my BIG ASS GRILL for one TINY LITTLE WEENY???”  I died….and Wayne Newton was telling the joke, so it was even funnier. By the way, the show was so much fun, and he really does look exactly like he did in Vegas Vacation, filmed 15 years ago. Haha, but for reals, he is so down to earth and I had an amazing time…..

Anywho, back to Columbia. A few of us took a taxi to old town, because the rest of town was just not as nice. In the terminal, there were tons of wild life, parrots, iguanas and sloths. That was really cool. But old town was awesome. The colors were just phenomenal. There were flowers everywhere and the buildings were all shaped and colored differently. There was also a ton of modern art all around. We walked around to take pictures of the town, and some guy started to follow us so we would shop in his jewelry store, we kindly declined, but wanted chips and salsa. So the guy took us to his brother’s restaurant. It was hilarious, we sat down and every 5 seconds, someone else came up to us to sell us something. One guy came up with paintings he “sketched” himself…and they looked so real and amazing, I bought one for 10 dollars, and right as I did that, Heather pointed out that the guy behind him drew the exact same photo….ahhh I was so ripped off. But whatever, he must really need the money and the sketch is cool, but it’s a copy for sure. Haha. There was also this guy who had a hat gimmick, where he was molding this red hat a thousand ways and saying really funny things in Spanish….mostly we could not understand him, but he was so goofy. We never got any chips and salsa, but we did get a show and plenty of street vendors surrounding us at our table. It was definitely a fun day.

Today we are cruising the Panama Canal and we have our show H20 tonight. It should be fun….it’s a really energetic show that I think this party crowd will enjoy. The next port day we are in Costa Rica, and the day after that Nicaragua, here’s to hoping we have some time there!

so long world cruisers

April 19th

Madeira, Portugal

Flowers everywhere! Oh my gosh! This place was beautiful. No one wanted to go out with me to explore, because I only had a limited amount of time before the Wayne Newton rehearsal, so I wandered alone. It was so relaxing. I took my iPod, my camera, and a few Euros, and explored. I went up a cable car to the top of the mountain and sang while walking through a garden. I was smiling so big! I didn’t have enough time to take the traditional basket sleds down the mountain like all of the guests did, but I really wanted to. Instead, I took the cable car back down by myself and just took a ton of pictures while soaking in my last hour on land for a while now. 8 sea days coming up.

Wow, I cannot believe this part of the journey is over. I am amazed at how much has happened to me in these 4 months. Starting in South America, then the Middle East and the med and then Europe. Wow. What a life! Next we have a Panama Canal cruise, and I stop in San Diego once J Yay family and friends! I cannot wait! And then off to Alaska, you better believe I am so stoked to see Alaska, hello, I mean my blog is titled for my favorite movie about an Alaska adventure J

We have 2 more shows and a farewell song coming up, and then we are done. Wayne Newton will be fun. I have seen him several times in the Lido with his family and on tour buses with me. It’s gonna be a blast! And one more Broadway show…where we have added a turn table. Should be interesting doing this when this boat is ridiculously rocky! Well, so long for now. If anything interesting comes up in these next few days, I’ll let ya know. Missing everyone terribly and if anyone wants to sail with me, let me know J it’s really cheap and really fun!

from burka's to bootyshorts

April 16^th and 17^th

Cartagena, Spain

Sorry about the delay ya’ll, the end of this world cruise has been intense. With rehearsals for our Broadway show and learning backup vocals to sing with Wayne Newton and going off at port, these days have been packed! So, Cartagena day was just splendid.  Jess, Eli, Nate and I wandered around in the morning and took tons of pictures before stopping at a coffee shop to get a cappuccino. Everyone began to order there coffees and I immediately said “wait, I want to put my Spanish that I have been learning to use. Hold up!”…..”tres cappuccinos por favor”. Haha not that difficult. However, it was good to know a little Spanish before going because surprisingly not a ton of people spoke English.

The architecture here was old, but with modern improvements. The buildings were gorgeous and the city was soooo clean! It was amazing! With Palm Sunday coming up, there were beautiful floral structures outside of churches. Also, there was a ton of graffiti that was so artistic I felt like I should have paid someone to look at these intricate designs. We then continued to walk up to the castle on top of the hill and kept on hearing really loud bird noises. Turns out, there was a park located there that had wild peacocks everywhere. It was incredible. They were so majestic. One of the peacocks literally put on a show for us….opened his feathers and paraded in a circle. I thought for sure this was a robot peacock cause this was too good to be true. Haha. We also ran into a band member from the Niew Amsterdam, which was docked with us…and had drinks with him. We could have all explored the newest ship in the fleet, but I was far more interested in exploring Spain yah? The end of the day consisted of me burning a hole in my bank account. Sooo much money spent! Ahhhh oh well, people warned me about this first contract world cruise syndrome….guess I couldn’t help it haha.

Cadiz- (Seville)

In the morning of Cadiz (pronounced cadithhh, which sounds like you have a speech impediment…ha) I got up really early despite the fact that we had a late rehearsal the night before. I got up, went to breakfast and was planning on going to Seville for the day with anyone who wanted to go with me. I was really unsure about going though. I was tired, and I didn’t want to get lost, or not make it back in time for rehearsal. Whenever you plan to go far away from port, you take the risk of not making the right train or bus and getting stuck having to fly back to the next port. It can be stressful. However, one of my friends from the casino, Marina and the artistic manager Kat and her friend Tiffany, all decided to take a day trip to Seville, even if it would only be for a few hours. It was Palm Sunday, so there were religious ceremonies happening everywhere, so our time got cut due to traffic and streets blocked off. But let me tell you, it was so worth going to see this place. It was full of flowers and old Spanish architecture and the fashion was just incredible. Even thought it was a religious holiday, the miniskirts and booty shorts were out! Quite a change from the religious clothing restrictions in the Middle East haha. It was a fashion show everywhere. 

The huge parade was probably the most interesting thing of the day. There were men and women in what looked like white long KKK outfits marching through the street. It was almost offensive. In our culture it means something totally different. But it was supposed to be beautiful to them. I felt uncomfortable, but tried to remember that the outfits stemmed from something good originally and then it turned corrupt. It was overwhelming to see that.  

Other than the parade, the whole town was just phenomenal. We didn’t have enough time to even have tapas, in order to make it back on the bus, so we just stopped and had wine and watched the parade. It was so nice to be with 3 random girls who just loved life. I love hanging out with different people all the time. The only bad thing about the day is that I lost my bus ticket back, and I was close to missing the 5:00 bus. Ahhh that made me nervous, but Marina reminded me my health is more important than a few extra Euros spent on another bus ticket. So true!

when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's.....

April 12 and 13^th

Napoli, Italy

Amore! It was great to be back in Italy once again. And so close to where I was before I could actually see Sicily from my boat! The day started out with Eli, Jess and I wandering about town. Wow, the shopping here was just phenomenal. But surprisingly, I only spent 20 euro on a pair of black boots J haaha that’s practical right? The day was just gorgeous. We walked around town and took pictures. We traveled up tiny alleys with Italian women hanging up their laundry to dry, and we stopped to have lunch in a tiny café. The architecture was awesome. I mean, old buildings, but new interiors. I also appreciated after being harassed to buy things in every other country I have been to, the Italians don’t hassle you. It was nice to just peruse. I loved all the colors of the fresh fruit and vegetable markets we passed by. We walked by a homemade wine shop where it was so cheap and delicious. I had to get some J. In the café we stopped at, our waiters were OBSESSED with Jessica. She even got to make her own oven wood pizza. I think it was an excuse for the guy to touch her haha. It was so funny. The guys were cool though, they said we had to come back at night and they would show us where to go.

We then got back to the ship to take our tour to Pompeii, the lost city that was once buried under ash from the volcano Mt. Vesuvius. Apparently, it can erupt at any time and it is really dangerous, but our tour guide said, not today, cause we have a tour planned haha. This place was beautiful. Trees  and vines were growing abundantly  around the uncovered town. It was incredible to see. They had theaters uncovered, whorehouses and entire houses. The whole city was too big to see the whole thing in two hours, so we just got to see a tiny bit of it. I wish I could upload pictures right now so you could visually see what I am talking about. I swear when I get to the states, I will have all of my pictures uploaded and you can look back at my blog and get a better idea haha.  By far, the coolest thing about Pompeii was the bodies they found covered in ash. There were several bodies still preserved, (a dog, a pregnant woman, a gladiator). The natives all watched the explosion for 4 hours, but then the wind changed and they died from inhaling the ash. So sad right?

At night, I had my own kind of fun. It was so funny. Jess, Eli, my friend Nate the pianist and I all went out to find some food. Error of judgment in wearing my heels on a cobble stone street. A night when I thought we would be able to find some live music and wine, turned into a constant on foot adventure. I told them, if I drink some more wine, maybe this won’t hurt so bad haha. We even went back to those guys at the café that told us to see them, and we went to go find the place ourselves. We took a taxi there, expecting to find some clubs or bars, but there was nothing! It was so crazy! We spent ten euro on a taxi just to walk back to our original destination. We sat down, traded shoes with the boys and cracked up! It was really funny! The boys were barefoot, and we were wearing size 13 walking shoes and a dress. Such a night. We ended up just going back and hanging out. Apparently, if we would have walked just a little further, we would have found the bars, but it wasn’t meant to be haha.

The next day, I was going to have an alone day where I observed everything and sat at a café. I walked around town, even though it was really rainy and windy. I attempted to follow a group of school children into an opera house (as a chaperone perhaps) because I thought there was a show playing. Turns out, the guard let me in, but the show was for “babies’” haha as he said. The opera house was phenomenal though…..wouldn’t that have been incredible to see a show there? Cosi Fan Tutte was the show playing the day after….ahh. Anywho, after that, I sat down and reflected at a café until some friends stopped by and we wandered some more. It was really pleasant. Such a good time in Napoli…too bad I can’t get off the boat today in Rome L oh well; you win some you lose some! But, in good news, Wayne Newton is going to be coming on our ship today. We will have a show with him coming up to finish up the Grand Voyage. We get to be the backup singers! How cool is that????? Looking forward to that J for now Ciao mi amore!

Greek Gods

April 11

Wow, I am amazed at how fast time goes when you are having fun…maybe a little too much fun in my case. In the past month alone, I have seen 2,000 year old ruins, experienced several  different religious cultures, and have eaten culinary delights I could have never imagined up myself. What is my life right now? At age 22, I’d have to say, it’s a pretty good life.

So, yesterday, I was in Athens, Greece. A place I have wanted to go ever since I saw sisterhood of the traveling pants….lets be real ladies, EVERYONE kind of hopes to go see that place after that movie haha. Though we were not on the island of Santirini in the movie, I was so stoked to go see a part of Greece.

I have always been fascinated by Greek gods and Goddesses and the ancient city. However, we had several mandatory drills yesterday, so the time to explore the ancient city of Acropolis was slim. A few of my friends and I, Heather, Eli, Adele (our hostess on the ship)and I all decided we just wanted to be like the locals, sit and enjoy some people watching. We could see parts of Acropolis from where we were eating. Oh my gosh, the food here was finger licking good! I had the most delightful plate of eggplant salad, a cucumber tomato salad and some tsaziki. Amazing! We also got the most wonderful, light bottle of wine. What a treat! And for those of you who know me, you know I hate Olives, but have always wanted to like them. I mean, hey, I already can’t eat so many things, I would say it’s just not cool to not like anything I’m not allergic to haha. So there was this Olive Tapenade, and I tried it, and it was awesome! Not bitter at all like most of the Olives I have tried before. I swear I am going to acquire this taste. In Greece, the olives are just the best. Haha (Dad, Loren and Bran, I got some for you to try at home J ). After our lunch, we walked around and did some shopping. I have literally burnt a hole in my account. Especially because the exchange rate from Dollars to Euros is ridiculous. I did a little shopping and walked around the city. I would have loved to have explored more, but time was so limited. On our train ride back to Piraeus (about a 15 train ride to Athens) I met some locals who were just so wonderful that told me, I will come back to Greece one day. She looked positive that I was going to be able to have more time eventually. And I will. I have to see Santirini Island and more of Athens. This trip was just a taste of the places I will go in my future.

Really, I feel like this whole experience on the cruise has been amazing to see and test taste different cultures. Its funny cause about a year ago, I was telling my mom that I really had a travel bug and I have to go see some more places. Well, I guess I got my wish and then some cause this is the coolest job I could have ever asked for.  The job has also made me aware of places that I want to go back to and some that I won’t need to see again for a long time. I know I want to go back to South America and explore more of Chile, Peru and Argentina. And I must go back to the Mediterranean. This place has so much to offer. Next stop, Naples, Italy overnight and a crew tour to the lost city of Pompei. Yay! More Ruins!

Holy Moly

April 6

Jeruselum, Isreal

I cannot believe in my life that I was able to walk where Jesus walked and see this incredible land. I wasn’t sure if I would ever get to see such a place. I have heard about Jerusalem for years and I have always pictured a desert with camels and maybe some huts, but this place was modern! Well, modern in terms of it’s more medieval looking than BC looking. I felt so blessed to be in this holy land that all day, I just smiled and took it in.

We were docked in Ashdod, Israel, and took a tour bus to Jerusalem. Our tour guide was adorable and really funny, so right off the bat, it was a great tour. As we were driving around Israel, getting closer to Jerusalem, as tired as I was, I couldn’t help but stay awake and take in the natural beauty around me. This is not what I expected. There were surprising, lush rolling hills. There were olive trees and large forests in the distance. It was truly a thriving natural beauty area. I was very impressed. I also could not believe the weather. It was a little chilly, but crisp. After being in the desert for so long, I was sure I was going to be sweating.

Our first stop on the bus was at a lookout of Jerusalem of the “desert”. However, this desert was the greenest desert I have ever seen.  We then stopped on another lookout point so we could discuss other places we were going to go. We saw the Wailing Wall from a distance, a mosque, a huge Jewish cemetery and most of Jerusalem. I was overwhelmed by the beauty. We saw a group of Hasidic Jews praying near a tomb in the cemetery. Apparently, all of the tombs feet face towards Jerusalem so when they come back from the dead at the right time, they can just stand up and start walking in the right direction J We then lost some of our “sheep” as our guide called them, and had to wait a while before we went to the next stop….luckily, they found us J It would have been really expensive to get home.

The next stop blew me away. We drove to Mt. of Olives and stopped at the Garden of Gethsemane.  This garden was right next to the rock (there is now a beautiful church on it) where Jesus shed tears of blood for God. I could not believe how tiny the garden was, or how close everything was to each other. I had always imagined these places to be so far apart, but really, everything was in close walking distance. Right when we walked into the garden, there was a rock nearby that Jesus also prayed on to think for many days. I touched it, along with many other tourists and I literally swelled with tears immediately. It was so mind-boggling. I could not believe the reaction I had to that. Everyone around me, even people who were not very religious, claimed they felt the exact same thing. I was so choked up. When going into the church where the rock was, I didn’t have the same reaction, but I was moved by how many people were so emotional. It was really touching.

We then got back on the bus and went to go get our free lunch. Being allergic to everything, I was concerned that I was not going to be able to eat anything…but in the holy land, Jesus was on my sideJ. It was a huge buffet, full of delicious gluten free Middle Eastern food. I was thinking, wait, HOW WAS THIS INCLUDED? Our tour was so cheap; I couldn’t believe how much we got out of it! But after we stuffed ourselves with delicious hummus and babba ganoush….we moved on to the next place. We stopped at a market and did a little bit of shopping before heading into the church located on the spot where Jesus was crucified. We then walked into this magnificent church, and walked around for about an hour. We saw, where he was crucified, where he died and his actual tomb. I didn’t get to go into the tomb, because the line was so long, but I got pretty close. I took a picture of the tomb and freaked out because there was a woman in the picture who was not there when I took the picture. I must have been on crazy pills, cause she looked like Mary to me. Well, I thought, maybe it was. Turns out, Jessica said she actually saw that woman around before. Haha I was a little crazyJ. The church was stunning, but not what I expected at all. Even the tomb, it was very lavish and full of gold. I feel like it was really intense. But it was so amazing to be there. I felt so lucky to have seen this place.

After the church, we made our way in to the Jewish quarters. Apparently it’s really expensive to live there, and I can see why. It’s really beautiful and on the holy land. We then went into the Wailing Wall. Here, the men and women had to enter and pray at different parts of the wall, and the men had to cover their heads. It was really nothing but a giant wall, with people standing next to it, but it was special. I don’t know how to describe it. There were a ton of women rocking back and forth praying and crying and rocking because they felt so much. I wrote a prayer on a piece of paper and left it on the wall, as so many others did. It was totally worth getting to see this place. I really am so lucky. People save up their entire lives for one trip here, and I just happened to get to go here because we were not supposed to be able to dock in Egypt. Wow. What a day.

April 8^th

Kusadasi, Turkey

Wow, I can tell we are getting to the Mediterranean because this place was just gorgeous. The water was so blue and the air was so crisp. Right as you get off the boat, there is a huge Bazaar, where you can buy anything and everything Turkish. And I did….whoopsJ. Everyone was so friendly in these stores, I couldn’t help myself. All I can say is that my Christmas presents this year are gonna be the bomb! Whooohooo! Haha. Some of the shop owners were a little too friendly if you know what I mean. One of them stopped Jessica and I and asked us if we were singers. He said, “oh I have a gift, I know these things” then we asked, “what is my name then?” He replied with “I didn’t say I was a medium” haha. He was really funny, but eventually had an angle and wanted us to come in and buy a jacket. They were expensive so we didn’t. We then wanted to take a picture with him, cause he was really funny, and in the picture, I kid you not, the man licked my face and said “ok let’s be sexy” that’s where it got weird. haha. We then got some fresh squeezed orange juice and walked around town to do some more shopping. In Turkey, they have this huge obsession with the evil eye symbol which wards off evil spirits and it is a good luck charm. It’s even paved into the streets. I surely got my fix of evil eyes haha. The funny thing about shopping around too, was that everyone asked where we were from. Ships dock here all the time because it is such a tourist attraction, so there are always foreigners. One guy stopped Jessica and asked her if she was Latin American….and as she walked by him, he said, no Nigerian. I about peed myself because of ALL places she could be from, he said Nigeria. I wonder why?hahaha. (Love you Jess). We got stopped so many times by people who said they didn’t hassle, and all they did was hassle us. It was quite the experience, but really fun to walk around here.

We had a tour planned to Ephesus (Greek ruins) and the Virgin Mary’s house we had to get back to. The drive up to Mary’s house was very pleasant. Rolling hills, so many trees and incredible amounts of green. It was so pretty. Mary’s house was tiny, but elegant. There were birds chirping everywhere and so many gardens I could not believe it. I drank from a fountain which apparently is believed to give good health wisdom and longevity of life. Let’s hope so right?

Now on to Ephesus. These ruins were just stunning. They are 2,000 years old. I cannot even begin to grasp what that means. Some of the oldest buildings in America are 300 years old. And we think that’s impressive haha. For being this old, they were in really good shape. There was a library, a Greek theater and  columns everywhere. OH it was awesome. I learned so much too. Our guide told us that the word Amazon came from the root words (ama meaning no and zon meaning nipple). This has to do with amazing women warriors who had no left nipple for shooting arrows back in the day. Our guide said,  I guess Amazon. Com wasn’t really aware of this when they chose the name haha. At night there was going to be a concert just for the guests….I really wanted to go. It looked incredible. The arena was huge and the acoustics were to die for. I guess people like Elton John and Michael Jackson had performed there. There were also cats everywhere. It was if they owned the place. Kind of cool actually…. I was just amazed at the area around Ephesus and these ancient ruins. I could not believe I was seeing this. We didn’t even get to see half of it because to explore the whole thing takes days.

A group of us went out at night and went back to the street where everyone said to go to. It was so great; we just relaxed, met some locals and ended up dancing in the streets. Some of the waiters where we went to get coffee gave us what looked like finger mittens. I didn’t get it, but it was awesome. I loved this port. I could totally go back someday. I think I will J

By the way, I am running out of adjectives to describe these epic places…I know beautiful, awesome and incredible are getting dull….haha any new ones???? I will be sure to add them in haha

Petra- fied....

April 3^rd

Aqaba (Petra), Jordan

I never thought when signing on for this job that I would get to see some world wonders for a very reasonable price. Its unreal the places I have been, and tomorrow I am going to Jerusalem. Funny thing is, we were never supposed to go there it was just added last minute.

Petra in Jordan (which was in the movie Indiana Jones) was just the most incredible place. The whole city is built in rock. These are ancient ruins. It is magnificent. The beauty of the rock is inexplainable. Honestly, I didn’t know it would be this amazing. Entire buildings and tombs were carved into the sandstone. There were people living in caves just because it was gorgeous there and the weather was perfect. I would have to describe it as the Grand Canyon on steroids. Or if any of you have seen 127 hours, the sand stone looked a lot like that, but bigger. I was just in awe of the beauty. I met a woman in one of the shops that was from New York. She visited a few years back, and decided to move there just because she fell in love with its beauty.

Now to the scary/ funny part of my adventure in Petra. After exploring the town, my friend Heather and I wanted to take a horse ride back to the entrance so we could make it back to our tour bus on time at 2:15. We had an hour and we asked these two young boys on donkeys if we could catch a ride. They said they didn’t go to the entrance, but they would take us on a short cut there if we paid them extra. We thought, why not? It sounds like it would be fun. So, this 16 year old boy, who smelled like a spicy armpit, took me on top of this poor donkey and started to go up several stairs. I felt so bad for this donkey since my guy was whipping the donkey and shouting “heroin” (which I guess means hurry in Arabic). Heather and I were laughing cause the donkeys would toot when things got too difficult climbing up the stairs. It was funny, but also sad. The view was spectacular from the top. We would see the entire city. But after a half hour goes by, I start to get worried. They said it would only take 30 minutes to get to the entrance and at this time, I couldn’t even see civilization. We asked, how much longer to the entrance…. And they said oh 15 minutes. I was really nervous, because we kept climbing higher and further away from people. These guys hopped on the back of our donkeys, and my guy started to get a little fresh. I realized at that moment that this may not have been the smartest idea to trust two teenage boys to take up back to the entrance in a middle-eastern country. So at this time, 2:00 rolls around…and I am starting to panick. We left our tour guide and didn’t tell anyone we would be going this route. In my mind I thought, oh dear, now we are going to be sold into slavery and taken far away. I told my guy to hurry, but he made me run part of the way in broken sandals. They almost weren’t going to take us. Heather was far ahead of me, and at this time it was 2:15. We were almost in tears, because we had no idea if they were even going to take us to the entrance. We also knew that our buses were going to leave without us since we were so late. We didn’t know the name of our port, or even a way to get back since it was 2 hours away. We were praying they wouldn’t leave us. Finally, we get to the bottom of the entrance and the buses were still miles away. I was thankful to make it to the bottom, but angry that they lied to us as to how much time it would take. It was around 2:25 at this point. I was sure the bus was gone. Heather then hops on a horse, and I hop on another one…I say, I have to go NOW! My horse guider ran with me and we galloped up the hill so incredibly fast. He was really nice actually and assured me the bus driver would not leave without me and if he did, he was going to personally take me back to the port. So, I felt a little better at that point. Heather is still in front of me, and we can’t find our buses. We are screwed at this point. I was so nervous. But then my horse guide told a security guide and he told us our bus was at the top waiting for us. I didn’t believe it until, there we found our buses. I was so relieved to have made it. My tour guide was just about to leave, but we made it. Thank the lord! Oh man, I guess, life wouldn’t have been too bad in Petra right? Haha phew!

My head itches

April 1- sea day

Ok, I never really blog about my life on the ship, because that may be a little excessive, but I figured since I have IPM today in Egypt, I would blog about THE BEST April fools prank I have ever had played on me. I am still remembering details….I am always the Pranker not the Prank----eee haha (I even called my Mom early in the morning and told her I am quitting my job and moving home…haha yea right!)  but this time, there were so many people involved I couldn’t help but believe it.

It all started with the night before. We were all in rehearsal and I began to scratch my head…. (Normal right?) Well, Jess and the whole cast started casually talking about how guests have had confirmed cases of lice. Joey even chimed in and said, “oh yea, on the last boat I was on, we all had to do lice checks and I felt like I was in elementary school again” Jess also said, she remembers when living in India, all the little girls with long hair had it because the lice can jump from strand to strand. It was amazing….everyone had something to say. The next day, mid afternoon, after I played all of my tricks, David walks into my room and says, oh by the way from 6-7 the entertainment department is having lice checks. I said no way….April fools! Haha and he looked at me so seriously and said, “Nope, this is real”. Brad, our company manager, writes everything official we need to know on the board. And it clearly says. “Due to the several CONFIRMED cases of lice from passengers and crew, we will be having lice checks for the entertainment department from 6-7, I will let you know when I find out where “. Everyone was buzzing about it, and Eli said, “Oh god, I hope we don’t have to go into the infirmary and wait there”, and I was thinking, well maybe they will come to our rooms so as to not freak the guests out….that would be easier. (Turns out, I was completely giving them all of the ideas for a perfect prank) haha that was genius….that way it had to be a secret from everyone else, and there is no other department that could get involved. Also, signs couldn’t be up everywhere because lice had to be hush hush.

Ok, so after hanging out and jamming with one of the guest entertainers, 6 o clock came around…I said, “oh jeeze, we have lice checks, we better go”. Jess even made me nervous that we were going to be late. I hate being late to things haha. So, we waited in Jessica’s room, hanging out and 2 spa girls, with blue disinfectant liquid, a comb and a pick say, ok, “we’ve checked everyone else, who is next in this room?
“Not only were there 2 official spa girls, an officer was checking it off. I was so nervous….and all day, I was wearing my hair up, so as to not catch it. And I scrubbed my head so hard in the shower and even still, my head was so itchy. I was paranoid. They check Jessica first, and then Eli and they are both clear. I put my head down …..and the spa girl asked all of us are you sure you haven’t had any itching…( I was thinking oh god….yes a little….but I lied and said no cause I knew I was paranoid) and then one of the spa girls presses hard on my head with a pick and calls the other one over. This was it…I knew it. It was all the wigs I have to wear in the show, and my head was a little itchy, and I DO have long hair…..my heart skipped a beat. They both look at my head….and I am freaking out at this point. Not because I would really care, I mean it’s treatable, but that I would have to miss some amazing tours, and I would have to do the walk of shame that I have lice to the infirmary. My face was beat red. They told me there was an egg on my head and they needed to take me to the infirmary right away. Duncan, the officer, said that if I do have it, it takes two full days of being quarantined in the infirmary….I said, “I’m going to cry that sucks so bad” and I guess I shouted down the hall “crap, I have it!” Then they said I needed to go right away, so they made me wrap a towel over my head and walk up the stairs to the infirmary. These spa girls were so convincing…telling me, yea this has happened before, but they have to check each department and make sure no one has it. They would check the casino department next. Duncan went into the infirmary and told me there are passengers in there and it would be 5 minutes….at that moment, the whole cast runs up and says April Fools. I about died. I was just about to cry because they could have shaved my head! Hahaha I can’t believe I got punked this good. Congrats to Jess and Heather the masterminds of this plot……good game. Good game.

Now I am going to get my hair cut and enjoy some spa time…..no lice. Thank god.

Tis the season to be Jolly......Salalah lalalalala!

March 28

Salalah, Oman

So I realize I haven’t blogged about this place yet. I was going to, but nothing incredibly memorable happened here. So, read on if you care to pass the time haha. So, we get out of the boat, and immediately we are told it’s going to cost 20 bucks a person just to get into the town. The surroundings looked unimpressive by the port. Just miles and miles of desert and brown. Not the pretty kind of desert like Dubai either. I think Osama Binladen may have once been hiding in one of these dunes….(too soon?)haha Anywho, we decided we would take the free shuttle to outside of the port gates and see what kind of deal we could make with the thousands of taxi driver men who were desperate to have us as customers. There were 6 people with us as a group, so we wanted to go in a van….and we negotiated with one of them 5 bucks there, 5 bucks back. That’s it. So, we get into the van, and we try to tell him we want to go to Jobe’s Tomb (which we later found out that this tomb was one of the many tombs and he never actually lived, he was just a fictional figure) haha oh research. But our taxi driver said it was too far. He was yelling at us for about a half an hour and we finally asked him to take us into Salalah. What an ordeal….He kept saying (in a thick middle eastern accent) “ill take you where you want, no problem for me”….but the funny thing is, every time we said we wanted to go somewhere, he would be like,” first, I take you to the 5 star hotel”. No matter what we said, even when we were really specific, he took us somewhere else. I was beginning to think that he might kidnap us….I kid you not.

The first place we stopped was a Frankincense museum and we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside. Funny thing is if people were to take pictures of the inside, NO ONE would pay to go in. It’s really uninteresting. The best part was that there was some air conditioning and a picture of the different kinds of fish around the area (yepp, it was pretty greatJ) so, after, he took us to an outdoor souk and I bought a few things and tasted Frankincense. I was not aware you could eat it, maybe because it’s the worst tasting thing in the world. Well, not the worst, but honestly I love trying new things, but not if I don’t like the taste and then it finds a way to stick into the crevices of my molars. Yuck! After that, we just HAD to go to this 5 star hotel….(honestly, we had no choice…..haha) I think it was a Country inn (something we have in the states..not sure) and yea, it was nice….but why? Also, there was a pool and tons of people from our ship swimming. I thought it was ironic that you must be respectfully covered from head to toe everywhere except the pool. There must be some sort of bikini loop whole haha. Then, we were really hungry and asked if we could head back to the 5 star hotel, but he wouldn’t take us, so then we asked to go to the Hilton…right by the port, so we could get out of there asap. He was so difficult. So, we ate lunch at the hotel, and met up with our driver once again to take us back. But he really didn’t want to. We then gave him our money and a great tip…and he counted it….and yelled at us. He said, “I asked for 5 each way from all of you, but what about paying for my time? “ I was unaware that you could charge for the distance…without including the time. But we stood our ground since he really didn’t take us anywhere we wanted to go, so, he threw the money back at us…and pouted. It must have been a pride thing. I felt so bad after that. I mean, that was probably groceries for a week for his kids. And we paid him plenty. Such an odd day. Next stop, Egypt, yes we get to go, and I have IPM L bummed out, but they can’t see the pyramids anyway….and I get to see Jerusalem and Petra…..so excited!

Oh by the way, I decided after this contract, I am packing my bags, and moving to OMAN, I think this was my favorite port.

April fools J