Letters from The Sea - Part VII - Corsica

Hi all

One more sleep and I'm home! Of course, now that the weather has settled into marvellous mediterranean sunshine, I'm kinda sad to be on my way home. But I think the feeling will only last as long as I'm on land. As soon as I'm on board again I'll be ready to tear my hair out...

Anyway, once gain sipping capuccino, this time in the pretty little town of Ajaccio on the island of Corsica. Only french place I've ever been served within a minute of sitting down, and quite liking it! The ship is berthed right in town, about a half a minutes walk away,so no shuttle bus hell, and it looks quite pretty with the mountains of the interior looming behind it. Unfortunately my camera battery just died and I didn't bring my charger...

Anyways...

Not much to tell about Corsica except that the men are absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I've always gone for skinny white boys, but ten months of screwing a Turk may be changing that. The young men here are swarthy and dark with really striking features. And it seems they turn into really characterful old men. Not very friendly, mind, but let's not forget they ARE technically French. Oh, and apparently Napoleon was born here. Would love to settle into a nice ocean-facing restaurant for lunch, but the ship sails at 1PM in a last-ditch effort to pump money out of the passengers. Tomorrow is Palma and a changeover of punters.

I've met some pretty decent people on this ship, I have to say. If I was staying on board I've identified a couple that would definitely have become close friends, and plenty more that'd be more-than-acquaintances, but seriously, I miss you lot! And the best people I've met (also more my age) are the director and two other people involved heavily in the production shows - and they're all based in London! Micha Borghese is the director (he did the airial show in the Dome) and his resident director and costume designer, with whom I've shared a number of bottles of wine, live in East and West Dulwich respectively, so about 5 minutes from me.

So, off to see if I can find somewhere to send this from...

Lots of love
Dxxx

Letters from The Sea - Part VI: Tunis, Naples, Livorno and Villefranche

Pretty, pretty Villefranche

So here I sit in a Salon de The in the most gorgeous and charming Villefranche - a lovely little town on the French Reviera. It can only be described as "delightful"! Terracotta houses lining a lovely bay, 16th century citadel, little boats bobbing up and down, and two big cruise ships anchored some way into the sea - it was also quite fun that the only way off the boat is by little boat... And YAY!!!!! The sun is shining at LAST! Was planning to go to Cannes to get a photo of something I failed to photograph when I was last there, but missed the train station, and when I turned back and could finally see it from a distance, looked at all the people waiting on the platform and thought, the last thing I really want to be doing is hanging about trying out sunday public transport in France, so have now been sitting here for a while being charmingly ingored by the French waiters.


View from my Salon du The

By now I'm desperate to be home. I am SO bored I am no longer able to give a flying f*** about seeing the same resident singers over and over again, singing off the same "safe" playlist. I mean, they're lovely people, and great singers, but jeeeeeeeeezzzzzzz. Give me some variety! One of them did "Same Jeans" by the View the other day and it went down a storm! Everyone loved it. But it was pretty risky. I'm so glad it worked out cos that means they can venture into slightly less safe territory. Especially since the ship is aimed at 35-55 years olds... (Not that it's succeeding that well, everyone seems more like 65-85 to me...)

Anyway, only 4 shows to go! And all of them are proper "production shows" with dancers and acrobats and stuff, so much more fun for me.

So, backtracking a bit...

The morning we arrived in Tunis, I didn't even get woken by the anchor-lowering process... Had been up till about 5 AM having my ears bent by one of the dancers. See, the crew bar shuts at one. But everyone buys a stash of at least another three drinks just before closing, and we sit and nurse them till we're chucked out at 2. Then there is a general movement up to the Players Bar & Casino where a cheesy disco continues until the punters all finally stagger to bed, any time between 2 and 4AM. We can drink here at hefty discount. When that finally shuts, we either go to someone's cabin who has a stash of beer in their fridge, or we go to Plantation, which is the 24-hour burger bar, where LUCKILY they serve no alcohol. I'm always happiest in the morning when the latter course of action is taken, as it usually means an end to the alcohol consumption for the night. My first few days I was quite good, but lord above, one does need an escape from the dullness of life on board a ship, and since the poker night I don't think I've been to bed before 5... Except last night, but then my alarm was set for 7.30 so I could go on the trip up Vesuvius... I've sworn I will not set foot in Crew Bar after work tonight, but hey, late night's are my time of day and somehow I think it'll be hard not to... Wish me luck!

So Tunis was a non-event for me, and the weather sucked again, and my mood was awful and I had nightmares when I tried to get some kip around lunchtime, and all I wanted to do was GO HOME!!!! And we spent the whole afternoon setting up the band in Crew Bar for a party last night - which shouldn't really be a problem, except Crew Bar is on deck 2 midships - the lift only goes down to deck 4 - and all the gear is scattered between the various venues in the ship, which are generally on decks 7 and 8. So you can imagine how many times we had to trek up and down the stairs in order to get all the bits we needed... It took HOURS! Thankfully there are four stagehands who did most of the heavy stuff, but jeez... What a dull afternoon...

So the crew party was kinda fun, and I managed to drag myself out of bed to get on a coach to Mount Vesuvius. It was well worth it, and I was SORELY tempted to buy some of the souveneirs... I've seen some tacky stuff in my time, but OH-MY-GOD I've never seen anything quite this bad. A vast array of tacky little creatures carved from black lava, and then painted in GLITTER of all things!!! So imagine: two little bunnies hugging each other around a red-glitter heart. A tortoise with a green-glitter shell. An enormous roman soldier with all different colours of glitter festooning his person. I SO wanted to buy one, on the one hand, but SO couldn't bring myself to encourage that kind of industry in the end...


Bad Picture of Mount Vesuvius


The crater of the volcano

Then spent the afternoon wandering around in Naples, which was loads of fun! Insane traffic - crossing the road is an art: find a local and put him between you and the traffic and walk when he does. It works very well - I remember having to do something similar in Bangkok. It's got quite a buzz about the place. Feels vaguely dangerous, with some rough looking characters wandering around. The kind of place in which you expect to be pick-pocketed. And remind me never to wear a crop-top in Italy again. The men were SO leery and lecherous. Ugh. But still, it had that properly Italian look to it, castles and all, and I like a bit of edginess, me. And I managed to get connected...


Naples side-street

The Galleria Something in Naples

The we moved up the coast to Livorno, and descended into bad weather and huge swells - apparently something like 4 metres. But my trusty sea-legs did their job and even though the ship was listing at an angle of about 20 degrees I managed to only feel mildly dizzy.

Livorno was a bit of a mission of a day. It's a gateway port to Pisa and Florence, but I was sent into Livornio to try buy 2 multi-cd changers and a DJ thingy with MP3 capabilities. Yeah right. In a dodgy little Italian dock town? With not a single word of Italian at my command? In the piss-pouring rain? I managed to find two electronics shops, but they seem to have been lost since about 1985. SO much for that. Waiting for the once-every-half-hour (read: once-every-hour) shuttle bus was my next fun experience. So, an hour and at least 4 busses going to a different ship later, the queue getting longer and longer, and moodier and moodier, and the rain not letting up, a bus labeled Ocean Village arrives. It drops off 8 people, closes the doors and drives off! By now there were about 100 people in bad moods just wanting to get back to the ship. Another half hour or so later a coach finally arrives to pick us up, and we have to squeeze everyone in like a rush-hour tube. Bearing in mind everyone is fairly elderly and somewhat infirm, this caused much consternation. When we got back to the ship, I went to tell the manager of the shore excursions what had happened,and he just shrugged his shoulders and said "it was siesta time"... might have been nice if someone had MENTIONED there would be no coaches in mother-f***ing siesta time - everyone could have settled into a nice lunch somewhere instead of standing in the pissing rain. So much for customer care - it has been firmly proven that OV only really cares about the folks who go on their seriously over-priced tours. If you choose to be independent, they want you to suffer as much as possible so people are forced to aceed to the organised tours. Oh well.

But that was yesterday,and today all is fabulous. Just GORGEOUS! This pretty much makes up for a lot of the crap days. I love the south of France! so damn pretty...

Anyway, gonna take another stroll, see if I can find an internet caf and head back for work...

Lots of love
Dxxxx

Letters from The Sea - Part V: Naples

Hiya! finally found an internet caf in Naples, so HELLO!!!!!! I cannot believe how out-of-touch I've been feeling.... There's this massively annoying big red cross underneath the words "internet is not available" on the screens of all the on-board computers...

Since I last wrote, things have been very up-and-down for me. Starting to be so damn BORED I'm losing my mind. The only thing I can find to occupy my mind is eating continuously. The weather has been incredibly crap, so relaxing on top deck with a book is out. This also means that all the comfy indoor areas are occupied completely by passengers, so no luck there. And my cabin is so depressing I really would rather not be in there unless I'm asleep! So I find myself wandering aimlessly around the ship, passing by the Cyber Zone every ten minutes to check if maybe, just MAYBE, they've sorted the connection out...

And of course, the crew bar is another danger... At 85p a beer... And with my poker winnings I now have pounds in cash again, so I can do my share of round-buying... Had another seriously late night on Wednesday, then last night was a crew party, so more lateness, and I'd booked myself on a trip up Mount Vesuvius which left at 8.50 this morning, so I am suffering somewhat! I also missed Tunis completely, yesterday, as I was fast asleep in my dark hole of a cabin...


Crew Bar!

As crew I can pretty much go on any of the shore tours that get me back in time for soundcheck, and Vesuvius was kinda cool. Long trek up the slopes of an active volcano! Last erupted in 1944, and you can see the lava flow where it cooled. It's also the volcano that buried Pompeii in 791AD (or thereabouts). You can see little puffs of smoke coming out of the cracks in the magma, although the actual centre has been "plugged" since the last eruption. And loads of people have houses on the slopes! They all live in daily fear that it will erupt again - there are early warning systems in place...


The outer ring (previous incarnation of the mountain) of Mount Vesuvius and lava flow from 1944. Taken from the side of the current active volcano.

Anyway, gotta go, my battery is dying! DAMN!

Next port is Livorno (also in Italy) and I want to head into Florence, or maybe Pisa... And tonight's entertainment is a Kylie tribute, tomorrow is Elton John.. Whatever...

Love to you all!

Dxxxxxxx

Letters from The Sea - Part IV: Palma Deck Day, and Sex Aboard Ship

Sweet poster in the M1 corridor

Or so I thought… Now, you gotta remember that my cabin has no porthole. So, hangover included (but the suffering reduced by huge poker victory over Big Man Aussie Comedian) I get up at midday in anticipation of furthering my sleep under the glorious sun, ladle on my hugely expensive sun lotion which takes an hour and a half to become effective (hence the planning needed), gather together my pool needs and in-flight entertainment – book, laptop (I’ve been told that one can usually find random wireless networks in this port, and since the ship’s internet has been down for 2 days solid…), bikini, girly dress, flip flops, shades, towel, and head up to deck 14 for some breakfast and a bake in the sun. And emerge to see the day - cloudy, rainy and COLD!!!! I couldn’t believe it! And there are no other ships (read: unprotected wireless networks) in port either so here I sit in long sleeves in the coffee shop wondering when I’ll be able to talk to anyone ever again…

So today is the start of the cruise proper. The last week was an unusual route, as the ship is generally based in Palma, not Southampton. Tomorrow is a sea day again (please, oh god of the sea, keep it calm and the waves piddly…) and then Thursday we hit land again. I’ll let you know where we are as I find out… there are new passengers on board, so more drills (which I can skip, yay!) likely. Easy day today, just one soundcheck at 5.30 and one show at 9.00. Tomorrow is a long one again – starts with death-defyingly dull sales patter at 11, then rehearsals in the PM and two shows in the evening.

I keep having every member of the production staff, even the costume designer, coming and telling me how grateful they are that I’m on board. It terrifies me to think how bad their experience is in general with sound people! And not just the guy who got sacked this time round, but it seems they’ve just never had someone who actually gives a toss! Astounding… And I’m really NOT that good – I’m just prepared to spend time and effort trying to get it right, and am up-front with people about what’s possible and where the problems lie. It seems to inspire confidence. The actual shows (musical-type affairs) are really quite good, and the acrobats are astounding, the dancers excellent, vocalists pretty fine, and lighting is superb! It’s such a shame they seem to be let down by the sound all the time.

In-between the big shows the entertainment is usually tribute acts - some of them are pretty good too! Tina Turner, for example, is a SUPERB entertainer and George Michael is a great performer. I didn’t like the Robbie Williams guy too much, although he did get the mannerisms right. And then there’re “resident” singers who do sets in various lounges around the place and usually warm up for the tribute acts.

No more minor dramas or exciting incidents to report…

Oh yes, about the boat that was adrift… We slowed down and spent a while in the area it was reported as possibly being in (the exact position was apparently entirely unclear) but couldn’t find it, and the Spanish authorities sent us on our way after a while. Hope someone found the poor buggers!

xxxxx


Much later…Still no net, so might as well continue… I’ve been pondering the nature of sex on board a ship. Tradition holds it that sailors have a woman in every port, or at least a brothel. And not much is different, these days, I find… The kind of guys who want to settle, all seem to have a Philippino wife and child. They obviously met her on board, but now send money back to them and see them twice a year. And they do seem besotted by their ladies, but manage quite fine without them. I wonder what their relationships will be like when they leave ships and they actually see each other every day. I suppose they based there relationship on seeing each other daily in the first place, but they’ve been restricted by work hours and silly, hierarchical rules about who’s allowed in which areas and when.

The guys that DON’T have a Philippino girlfriend often have a girl at home, but that obviously doesn’t stop them having a relationship on board. The on-board girl seems to be reliably informed about the “real” girlfriend though, so it seems to be more of a fuck-buddy situation. And then you get the nicest boys of all, who seem to be so innocent and sweet, but when Matt (my new buddy, all of 22 and a great singer, bless) invited one of this type to come with us to explore Barcelona, the response was “nah… I’m just gonna get a beer and a peep show”. I don’t actually know that many women on board, so can’t vouch for what they do with their sex-lives, but when it comes to the boys, I don’t think much has changed for centuries in sea-farers’ lifestyles.

What would I do if I stayed????? Who knows…the be-uniformed guy who kept finding me when I was lost turned out to be security, not an officer so I lost interest. How shallow is THAT?????? Never knew I had it in me to be quite that snobbish. And the 22 year old – it crossed my mind to try seduce him, he is gorgeous - but that’s all it was – a crossing of the mind. Besides anything else he seems very happy with his girlfriend. I think we’re destined to be good mates. We really get on and it’s more important to stay friends with someone you click with, really.


Matt and Lucy - of the Ain't Nobody song incident...

In the same breath, I have noticed 2 guys with crushes on me. I don’t think they see new blood very often. I’m not remotely interested in any of them, but take it as a compliment. There is a real competition for my time and attention. I wonder how it’d pan out in the long term… But not enough to try and find out!!! I’m ready for final disembarkation already, but am not fussed that I have to stay. I’m doing this for the pay-cheque after all, and the experience is vastly different from anything I’ve done before. Even though they’re trying to be different from any other cruise, the institutionalisation is very obvious and very much there. Rules, rules, rules… This Is How We Do It… No Argument.

Letters from The Sea - Part III: Barcelona and Beating Colin Cole!

In my wonderfully random status as part-crew, part-passenger, I get to NOT do the weekly emergency drills. This involves dragging the entire crew out of bed, getting them all kitted out in life-jackets and then making them wait around in their appointed positions. A few of them have real things to do – there’s always a pretend fire somewhere – which keeps them occupied for the hour, but the rest, who are on Stair Guide Duty or Muster Station Duty, just hang about being bored and trying to keep their eyes open. Me, I’d planned to sleep through the whole thing then meet up with my new On Board Buddy to head to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia…. In fact I was awoken 2 hours before my alarm by the excessively noisy anchor-lowering process… Still, I got to have a long, slow breakfast on top deck, with a really quite nice view of Barcelona Port, while the rest were nodding off to sleep with chins resting on life jackets… More and more I am glad this is not a long term thing!

Hooked up with Matt, one of the singers (and quite a good one too), 22 year old from north Wales and missioned into Barna… It’s the second anniversary of Henry’s death today, so I’d planned a little ritual at the church – forgetting, of course that it’s not actually finished being built yet, so no candle-lighting was possible, but managed to find a quiet corner outside to have a moment with thoughts and photos. Sagrada Familia is truly the most beautiful of places, and the only church I’ve thought that, if I was god, I’d live THERE. It’s really a spiritual experience even though it’s still a building site. Gaudi was such a special human being to even have had the imagination to envision such a place… Unfortunately the queues to get up the lift to wander in wonder between the towers was enormous and I had a 3PM soundcheck back on board so we didn’t have time to go up (ridiculously you’re not allowed to walk up anymore, but you have to walk down – quoting “security” reasons – yeah, the security of charging another 2 euros to use the lift…)


If I were God, forget St Peter's... I'd live HERE.

So yet AGAIN the pointlessness of cruising is emphasized. I knew where I was going, and granted I had to be back 2.5 hours before passengers, but it was still a rush just to see this one thing. Matt is staying on for 5 months though, and loved Sagrada F, so I’ve now given him a long list of Things To See in Barcelona every time the ship docks here. As I mentioned previously, you only get to see the edges of things…

I am, however, also becoming aware of just how big a Big Business cruising actually is. There were about 6 or 7 other ships in the section of the harbour we were in, all similar sizes to us, so I’m guessing about 2,000 people on board each. There’s 4 fully functional, newly built, airport stylee terminals, and both Gibraltar and Barcelona had proper, organised public transport to and from the harbour. I imagine most of the ports we’ll be going to are the same. And ships from all over the place! And ours is about the ugliest I’ve seen so far – it’s got a really bulbous front that’s not very pretty – will try remember to take a photo…

Tonight’s entertainment is a group effort from all the tribute acts- George, Tina and Robbie! With band and bad backing tracks.. Still, it’s much easier for me than the full-on shows, and we can leave it all set up for more cabaret tomorrow night, so we’ll be in the crew bar early and there’s a poker game planned.. I KNOW I’ll lose my money, but hey, I do like a game of cards, me! Which means a late night and therefore I’ve planned to not bother leaving the ship in Palma, I’m going to take full advantage of the changeover of passengers and hit the top deck, the pool and a lazy day doing nothing. Only start work after 5PM! Yay!


Backstage with Robbie, George and Tina

Then a sea-day on Wednesday, which is a LONG day’s work (unbelievably dull sales presentations to be babysat and long rehearsals for the evening’s two shows) but then I think we’re somewhere worth seeing the next day. Naples or summat. I’m still not entirely sure where we’re going! I’m keeping the surprise element there just for added interest…

Many hours later…

It is now 6.20 AM and I’m STARVING! Been playing poker since midnight, and while my card-playing friends have gone to bed, I’m too psyched up to sleep… Just won TWO of four rounds of poker – and am £70 richer for my efforts… I don’t really understand the rules of poker that well, I do rely on other people telling me when I’ve got the better hand but somehow tonight it all just went my way… And the best was beating the CRAP out of a huge big giant of an aussie comedian, who relies a lot on obscenities in his act and who took me on as “the bitch” and thoroughly expected to beat me. He went out early in the first game, and when I won, he looked me square in the eye and demanded we all play again so he could beat me. Instead I took his cash off him a second time, and he left the table in disbelief… I also took everyone else’s cash off them, but that gave me very little pleasure. Beating Big Man Colin Cole, however, was one of the highlights of the last few days…


The man is even bigger than he looks in this picture...

Hanging in the crew mess till 6.30 till breakfast starts and then I’d better go to bed at some stage.. Really want to spend some time on the top deck and in the pool tomorrow (today) – only have to work at 17.30… Bugger Palma. Need some time off and I’m convinced it’ll all be the same as the greek islands… Lots of vaguely local restaurants that cater for Full English Breakfasts and present their menus in four different languages. Just wanna bask in the sun and swim in the pool and take it easy…

Letters from The Sea - Part II -Gibraltar

The Rock and I

Land ho!

So yesterday we sailed into Gibraltar, which was quite cool, actually. The sun was shining, the rock is pretty impressive and it was really good to see some land! I had a couple of hours to disembark (see, I've got the jargon down pat!) and stroll around the town.. And cruising suddenly seemed to make a bit more sense to me - if there's a destination, not just open sea, it is quite a dramatic way to arrive in a country! The down-side, of course, is that you only get to see the edges of the country for a couple of hours, which is a big enough down-side for me to still feel I'm unlikely to do it for real.

An, apparently, historic moment also occurred when the two Ocean Village ships passed each other for probably the one and only time ever just outside Gibraltar. It was weirdly emotional for quite a few people around me - most of the crew all worked on OV1 for years before being moved to this ship (very originally named OV2), and have never actually seen it sailing from a distance - you either see the ship right close-up in port, or you're on board. It was quite touching to see how attached people are to their ships, I must say. I'm vaguely starting to understand how people can settle into this life, but it's not for me... Too easy, too organised and TOO CHEESY!!!!! A lot of the "ents" (entertainment) staff come from Butlins, and it seems they've all been sent on a course in How To Speak With An Annoying Fakely Enthusiastic Lilt In Your Voice. It's that that would drive me more mad than being trapped in a small space for lengthy periods of time. But none of the passengers really seem to mind - probably because they're the type who probably grew up with Butlins and don't know quite how to holiday without someone telling them what to do, and when. Heidi hi! (sp???)


Ships passing in the day

The teensy bit of Gibraltar I did see was kinda weird - England in the sun with a Spanish twist. All the UK high street stores as well as tons and tons of duty-free stuff (fags: 60p a pack, litre bottles of rum, £4.95) but I didn't bother (sorry smokers, I didn't even think to bring you any till I was back on the ship). Had a pleasant stroll, bought a bikini and some shorts (having managed to avoid a uniform in toto I find I'm running out of clothes, even WITH a laundry service. Didn't pack very well....) and got back on the ship. Er, I mean re-embarked. Glad I've seen a bit of Gibraltar, but won't be hurrying back.


Gibraltar - the square at the start pf the duty-free shopping spree

The evening's entertainment was a pre-show singer, Lucy, (who does a 4-song warm up set) and then Jaki Graham. Who? you might ask - as I did, but she's actually the one and only genuine celebrity we have on board, everyone else is a tribute act (George Michael, Robbie Williams, Tina Turner). Anyway, Jaki had a no 1 hit covering Ain't Nobody some time in the 80s. The pre-show warm-up singer, like me, had no idea who Jaki was, nor what her hits may or may not have been. So, no malice intended, Lucy, as her second song, launches into Ain't Nobody. The consternation that THIS caused was quite sensational! Now obviously Jaki can't sing it in her set if it's been sung mere minutes before, and it was HER actual hit! Oops, but hey, the hell that decended on poor Lucy when she finished her set was slightly disproportionate, I felt. Anyway, small dramas make life interesting.


Me and my Booth

We were meant to leave Gibraltar around 6PM last night with a dramatic sunset sail-away. Around 6.15 the Captain makes an announcement that they're "just making a few adjustments to the engines" and we'll "be underway soon". A further announcement, in a similar vein, followed at around 6.30. And 7.00. Eventually at 11.00PM he made a final announcement saying that they're having problems with some propulsion thingy, and we'd leave only when it was fixed, good night sleep tight...

We eventually left around 1AM, so are skipping our next port, Cartegena, and going straight to Barcelona (YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!) Which works out quite well for me - I've got two shows to rehearse today, so am happy to be stuck in the theatre on a sea day rather than a port day.

Love and misses to ya'll...
Dxx

PS the Captain has just announced that we're slowing down to try locate a small boat adrift a few miles ahead of us so we can rescue them! Excitement indeed!

Letters from The Sea - Part I: Southampton to Gibraltar

OCEAN VILLAGE TWO

So here I am, at very short notice, aboard a cruise ship that seems to be the preserve of the elderly and the overweight. I'd been told that Ocean Village was aimed at a younger crowd. When I mentioned this to the lighting guy, surprised at how old the passengers are, on average, he said this IS a young lot - most cruises cater for the nearly-dead... Already I'm glad for the fact this this experience will save me vast quantities of money in my old age... A cruise ship is really just a badly decorated trap that forces people into a money-spending environment. There really isn't much else to do. The food is all free, but that's where it ends... Surprisingly bar prices are not too bad, cheaper than in the UK, actually, but that's just cos it's duty free - trust me, it's not the mark-up that they've reduced!

Today is (I have to think hard) Friday 27th April and we sailed on Wednesday night. So yesterday and today are both sea days (i.e. no stopping) and we'll arrive in Gibraltar tomorrow sometime. I've always cursed the Med for not having any decent waves, but right now I'm blessing it and hoping and praying (I seem to have found religion all of a sudden) that we get there soon - I'm having a touch of trouble finding my sea-legs on these Atlantic swells... Spent most of yesterday feeling VERY green and am keeping myself to foods that will be least revolting to throw up... It's not the nausea that's the worst, actually, but the weirdness the motion creates in your head. Lying down is actually fairly pleasant, but once on your feet... And tipping forwards and backwards is OK too, it's when that movement combines with a side-to-side roll to make this gravity-defying SWIRL... THAT'S when it gets to me.

Naturally there is a lot of sage advice going round from old hands, and the ship's doctor is my new god, so I will, no doubt, survive... They also put a million sick-bags in handy places around the ship. Fortunately I've not had to avail myself of their use yet, but I'm glad they're there.

ANYWAY! Enough about illness... The work is better than I expected, in that the standard of the shows is actually quite high. Great acrobatics, half-decent singers and dancers. And the show is very, VERY raunchy... I reckon the medics were hit up for a viagra or two last night... The old dears were getting a bit hot under the collar... I'm in the main theatre and the gear is fairly decent, although the rig itself is a bit pants. Everybody thinks I'm a goddess and the cast are begging me to stay, but there's not a hope in hell. 2 weeks will be QUITE enough stuck in a space this small.

Crew-wise, there are around 600 in total. The system seems very racist to me. All the lowly jobs are done by Indians and Philippinos, who also share cabins on the lower decks. Middling jobs are done by East Europeans. Anyone who's Western and white seems to have nice jobs and be on higher decks, and we all have cabins to ourselves. The cabins CAN accommodate three, but god knows I'd go insane. It's barely big enough for one! But it appears that most crew don't actually work for the ship as such, they're all from agencies who set the wages in India and the Philippines, and at £25 a day it's a LOT more than they'd be earning at home. The other Techs are on about £57 a day (so now I understand the flinch when they realised what I was gonna cost them), but if you consider that they have NO expenses WHATSOEVER, except for the crew bar, they're all squirrelling money away like mad. I've spent about a fiver since I've been on board.

Speaking of the crew bar... It's a nasty dark hole in the middle of the ship, and the stench of years and years of badly air-conditioned smoke overwhelms you two flights of stairs up. But beers cost 85p, spirits and a mixer 90p and a large glass of wine £2... So you can't really complain. Unlike most other cruise ships, crew can drink in the passenger bars at a hefty discount, but it seems most people choose not to. But it's fun and everyone mixes down there, so I see why. Also everyone (excecpt me,it seems)smokes like chimneys and fags cost £1 a pack of 20...

Finding your way around is pretty tricky... One corridor looks pretty much like another. But I'm slowly learning my port from my starboard, for forward from my aft, and words like "midships" and "embark" are flowing more and more easily off the tongue.. On deck 4 (of 12) there is a crew corridor known as the M1, that runs the length of the ship. It's fairly helpful that the staircases that come off it are named alphabetically (crew bar is down staircase Kilo. First thing I learnt) but I'm still getting very very lost. A rather charming be-uniformed sailor-type keeps finding me and pointing me in the right direction - I may choose to continue losing my way for a while longer... ;-)



One corridor looks much like any other... And all the carpets are this bad!

Cabin-wise I've landed a very average crew cabin... It's in the middle of the ship, so no porthole and I find it a bit disconcerting to always be either in the pitch dark or in the rather ugly electric light. If I were on for longer than 2 weeks I'd be investing heavily in lighting! But I am ETERNALLY grateful that I have it to myself... Oh and it also gets cleaned, and my laundry done etc etc. Quite happy with THAT arrangement!



Erm... A space meant for three!!!!

And, on day three, they've still failed to issue me with a uniform, which I am naturally rather pleased about. Hope it stays that way! And my status is somewhat confusing. I'm part passenger, part one-stripe officer (I expect salutes on my return) and sometime crew. It gets a bit confusing. The ship operates cash-free, everything you buy etc is put onto your cruise card and you pay the bill later... Clever... Especially since the normal cruises are an entire week long... But when it comes to me I have to explain myself all the time cos I have a passenger card and a crew cabin number.

This is the Maiden Voyage of this ship in it's new form. It used to belong to the Germans and spent a few weeks being re-fitted. So some bits are new (some passenger areas) and some are old (crew areas). There's a number of restaurants on board, which I can eat in (as a one-striped officer) and some very dull shops (blatantly catering for the elderly and overweight). The top deck is open with a couple of pools, and an outdoor bar. It would appear the sewage system is also a bit old, if the smell in the midships lift shaft this morning was anything to go by!

Anyway, after Gibraltar it's Palma, and then we get into normal cruise routine, which I don't know what it is yet. Naples has been mentioned, but I don't know where else we'll go. The ship is based in Palma, Southampton was just for the re-fit.

Anyway, hopefully will be able to communicate tomorrow in Gibraltar - old hands advice is, when we're in port, to sit on the top deck and see what wireless can be found. I's WEIRD being this out of touch!