Tuesday – At Sea

Today, we are at sea, heading North-West towards our next port-of-call, Reykjarvik in Iceland, and I have my second classes this afternoon (Tonal Study).

Yesterday afternoon, after lunch, I took the shuttle bus back into town to use the wi-fi in the library again, but found it unresponsive and highly frustrating. I’m pretty sure it’s because there were more people in there, on the network. After battling for about an hour to get online and maintain a connection, I eventually gave up and returned to the ship.

Earlier, I’d seen people busy working, building an outdoor stage and erecting sound equipment and wondered what they were preparing for. On my way back to the ship, I saw what must have been a huge proportion of the townspeople marching through the streets with bright, garish banners; not chanting, just walking. All in high spirits, and enjoying the walk. I’m not entirely sure what it was all about, but from some of the banners, I got the feeling this was a gay pride march…

Last night, we were entertained in the Marco Polo Show Lounge by our resident comedian, Les Bryan, who finished off his act with an electric guitar, playing a couple of shadows hits. The problem with watching a lot of cruise ship comedians is that the same jokes tend to surface. I think I’d heard all of his jokes before (in fact; I think I’ve seen him before, on another ship), but he went down extremely well, and was very likeable.

To avoid another 7:30am knock on the door, I had a quiet word with my cabin steward, who just kept apologising profusely, and I started to feel a little guilty for even mentioning it. I think he got the message, though; this morning, my alarm went off at 8am, I enjoyed a 15 minute snooze and bounded out of bed intent on beating the breakfast rush in Marco’s. It’s not so much that I don’t like the crowds of people; it’s more to do with the fact that, when it’s busy, I end up having to share a table with people and making conversation, when I’m much happier sat by myself, and reading while I eat my breakfast. I know that makes me a little unsocial, but hey… just call me grumpy-breeches.

I’m writing this post early today because I’ll be teaching this afternoon, and this evening it is the first formal night. I hate formal nights at the best of times – all that dress shirt and dickie-bow nonsense – but I hate them even more when I’m by myself. I plan to get a take-out beer from the bar and spend the evening chilling in my cabin with a movie or two (I have a backlog of films that I haven’t watched yet, and the first season of ‘The Wire’, which I’ve never seen).

I had a phone call from the entertainments office yesterday evening. It was Reece, the Assistant Cruise Director, asking me if I knew where the whereabouts of the Craft Room key. I explained to him that the last I saw of it was when I dropped it off back at reception after my class on Saturday. As far as I knew, this is the same arrangement regarding the key that there has always been in the four years that I’ve been working on the Marco Polo. Last night, after the show, Barbara, the other crafter (she makes cards and things) who I share the room with (she has mornings) asked me if I knew where the craft room key was. I repeated the same answer that I’d given to Reece, explaining that it was what I’d always done.

‘Oh No’, she explained, ‘It was the key with the blue tag. That should live in the wall-box in the entertainments office, which is where it should always be returned to. It’s always been that way. The key with the green tag belongs to the Reception’. This was news to me. I told her that both keys, then, should now be at the reception, and that I would ask after it on my way past.

At Reception; I was told, yes; they had both keys… and both keys belonged to reception. And, no, he would not let me have the key with the blue tag to take back to the entertainments office. Barbara, who was passing by at this moment, waded in; ‘but the key with the blue tag belongs to the entertainments office…’. The man at Reception then ranted on about the fact that the keys go astray; on a cruise last year, he ended up with no keys at all and had to go running around the ship trying to locate them. The only sensible option was to keep both keys in reception. I spoke to Reece in the entertainments office a short time later who though all this was highly amusing and vowed to get the key with the blue tag back… Watch this space…