A quickie from San Juan

"Puerto Rico, my heart's devotion. Let it sink back in the ocean...."

West Side Story. I can't help but think of this song every time we are in port here.

It must appear as though I hop from island to island, coffee shop to coffee shop, doing the internet thing, but really, internet is such a commodity that it's a HUGE deal to have it. I have limited access in my office, but to do anything interesting/social/fun I have to pay per minute when I'm on the ship. Right now I'm in a super cool super chill coffee shop in old San Juan, Puerto Rico. I had a blonde moment when the guy at the counter asked me where I'm from and I said "the United States." And then I remembered that I'm technically still in the United States. And then I felt stupid. And then I ordered my latte and smiled politely and pretended not to notice. I'm awesome.

I got off the ship earlier than I thought I would today, but then again, I have to get back earlier than I wanted. My boss, the Cruise Director, invited some of his managers (myself included) to dinner tonight at one of the restaurants on board. Considering that I have not eaten at a single on board restaurant (the cafe and the panini place and the buffet do NOT count), I had to take him up on the offer. So I rushed into town, up the hill, to the coffee shop "Poet's Passage" to do some interwebbing. Fun fun. Really cool vibe here though. Someday when I have more time I aim to try one of their sandwiches... looks good.

Anyway, things are still busy at work. A friend of mine left today, transferring to another ship as the Activity Manager there, which is an awesome promotion and super exciting. Looking forward to hearing his updates. We're getting a new Musical Director this weekend. The current one, Martin, has been doing this since January as a fill in until Ian gets here this weekend. If there's one thing I've learned here (I've said it before and I'll say it again), change is the only thing we can take for granted. People come and go all the time. Wow. And people get fired too. Two guys in the department (not my guys) were fired the other weekend for partying to hard and kissing guests. Let me just say, kissing guests is BAD. When you do that you get fired. And so it happened that they kissed guests and got fired. Bummer too, because they were pretty cool.

Anywho, that's my super brief update from San Juan. Gonna run and do some super quick errands before I hop back to the ship for dinner.

I miss everyone!

D

A quickie from Miami

10:59am

Sitting in Starbucks in Miami at a shopping area (tourist trap) about 15 minutes from the ship. This is my "usual" hangout on Saturdays, as it's a quick getaway and has internet, which is usually all I'm looking for.

I had a surreal moment last night (this morning) as I was going to bed-- glanced out the window and saw lights and buildings and trees outside... and other ships! Crazy. Sort of unexpected at 4:00 in the morning. I would have sat in the window and watched everything until we docked, but I figured it was probably time for sleep. Eh. Don't worry, the 4am thing is super unusual for me. Some people can do it all the time but I might keel over dead if I tried-- my work days start early and end late, not leaving a ton of time for other things, but oh well, such is the life.

I'm at a point in my world where I'm trying to figure out how to deal with taxes for last year... apparently when you freelance in different states and different countries things get complicated really fast. And then when you're on a ship with limited/slow interwebs for 98% of the week, that makes finding/accessing forms and such kind of tricky. Oh well. I can't possibly be the first person in the history of cruise ships to be dealing with this. It's just a pain in the butt. And as I've learned thru my numerous dealings with the payroll office on board, money and numbers are NOT my forte. Every time I drop by with an important form that I've spent days gathering signatures for, he takes one look and shows me what is wrong and makes me do it again. Talk about frustrating.

Anyway. It's another typical crazy Saturday around here. Still waiting for some "normal" type of day. Today I have to drop off/pick up things at head office AND take care of two new cast members when they get on board. Last Saturday we had FULL CREW immigration where all 1200 of us had to be processed by 3 immigration guys before anyone could leave the ship. And then the weekend before I had another new cast member. There's always something. Miami is an important day because it's a turnaround day-- one shipload of people leaves, another comes on board, and we don't have to entertain them until the evening, so there's a bit more time to do other things during the day... like to go Starbucks!

Eventually I will post more pictures I suppose. I just don't have my camera with me! Eventually I want to find time to do more island exploring, because being stuck in tourist land is not my idea of paradise. Hopefully some cool photos will come of that. Will keep y'all posted.

And that's my "quickie" from Miami. Not much new. Just busy. Always busy. Looking forward to my vacation already!

D