Athens, Greece - a return visit, but much more casual

Went out for an afternoon with friends in Athens. Just long enough to grab a drink and head back. It was about an hours walk from the ship (through the sex district) until I bit it. I mean I bit it hard. There was a hunk of concrete missing from the sidewalk and I rolled my ankle in it and went down like a ton of bricks. My ankle hurt, my knee hurt, my wrist hurt, but nothing hurt more than the humility. So we all decided the very next place we found would be the perfect place to stop for drinks. My mood was irrecoverable, so I had a diet coke, chatted for a bit and then hobbled back to the ship myself. Oh well. Here are a few pictures:

My very first visit to Marmaris, Turkey!

Marmaris, Turkey... (gobble gobble)... someday that joke might get old

I can't even BELIEVE how blue the water is here!!!

Today was the first day I got to swim at the beach :D Best time of my life.

REALLY good local beer:

Since we didn't sail out of port until midnight, we only had one performance at 7:45pm. Granted, it's my least favorite of all the shows we do onboard, but one show nonetheless. Which freed me up to book into one of our onboard specialty restaurants - Tuscan Grille. I made a reservation for 5... Iain, Christian, Olgiza, Elizabeth and I. Elizabeth never made it - but thats another really long story in its own right. For $24 (we got 20% off the $30 cover because we are crew and they are desperate for money), you can order as much of anything you want off the menu. I had a calamari apetizer, a tomato basil mozarella salad, and seafood risotto. For dessert - chocolate fondue!!! YUM. We also get 50% off any drinks that are $12 or less, so I had 3 or 4 glasses of Prosecco :D My favorite! This is me all dressed up and on my way out to dinner!

After dinner, and a few more drinks, Iain and I were feeling very sophisticated. He challenged me to a game of scrabble. In which I promptly kicked his ass. Below is a picture of him calculating exactly how bad his ass was handed to him by yours truly.

And this is the shot of the winning board. If you find any words that aren't real don't tell on me!
A WONDERFUL day in every way.

Bodrum, Turkey

So it is awesome that I have a job that allows me to enjoy almost all of the ports we are visiting. However, it is a little less awesome that I am friends with the entire gift shop staff who are always free for every port (the onboard gift shops are not allowed to be open when we are at port, so thus they are never working). Since none of us like to wake up early, we never manage to leave the ship before 11:30am. They usually don't have to be back until 5:30, but I usually have to be back by 3:30 - 2 hours makes a big difference when your day is only 4 hours long. So I always end up either rushing everyone back to the ship, convincing them they are in desperate need of a nap before their 6pm shift, or stuck walking back to the ship by myself and loosing a good time.

More often than not, as soon as we get off of the ship - a source of infinite free food - we get immediately hungry and focus on finding a cafe or outdoor patio-style restaurant to spend far too much money on beer and (lately) shish kebabs.

By the time a group of 8 people agree on a restaurant, find a place to sit, debate beer or no beer, soda or cappuccino, etc. etc. etc., order drinks, order food, get food, eat food, pay for food (this usually takes about 30 minutes to figure out since we all sort of pay separately and in a total of 3 different currencies - turkish lira, euro, and dollars) - that my entire 4 hours has come and gone and I have to return to the ship. They - on the other hand - then get 2 hours of post meal beach time - of which I am endlessly envious.

Bodrum was nice. The lunch was delicious. The water is so blue :)

Just sayin' hi!

It's been a while since I have just plain old written something here. Not that it's an excuse, but it was a 5-day project getting that Athens post done (if you haven't seen it, it was post-dated for the 17th. There are tons of pictures and you should check it out!!! Best day I've had onboard so far.

I have been onboard for just over 2 months now. Just under 6 months to go. I believe my sign off date is officially March 24th.

I am trying like crazy to sign Brian on for a voyage over Christmas time. There are only 2 voyages he can make based on his break from tour, coupled with the fact that no guests can come on the first time we dock in Ft. Lauderdale because we spend the whole day doing Coast Guard inspections. Not to mention that I can't technically sign anyone on because I haven't worked with the company for 6 months yet... so I need to make friends with someone who has single-berth priviledges and who will be here in December and who has been employed for a minimum of 6 months. It's a bit tricky. All of the singers qualify except their contracts end in November so they can't have December guests, and the new cast won't come onboard soon enough for me to ask one of them because I will need to have completed the paperwork prior. I think the Activity Manager, Kirsty, might be my best hope... but she is a stickler for following the rules, so blatantly asking her to break one may not be the best decision I have ever made...

THAT ASIDE,

I think I'm doing very well. I have more than my share of friends, I have figured out how to meet all of my job requirements while getting off the ship nearly in every port. I'm getting my tan and freckle quota. I am trying to be conscious about tan lines prior to the wedding, but at the same time... BEACHES ARE FUN!!!

Yesterday I went to Adaland, the largest waterpark in all of Turkey (another awesome crew tour). I didn't take any pictures, but once I steal some from Christian, you can expect a post-dated blog entry about that, too. It was absolutely incredible. I won't share the best part now, because without photos I cannot do it justice!

I do get a little home sick every now and then - which is really quite normal. I just miss how easy things can be at home... like RUNNING ERRANDS. I can get a tour bus to the Acropolis easier than I can buy pantyhose *sigh*.

I got a postcard from my mom a few days ago - that was really nice. I always feel special when the mail list comes out and my name is on it. :D

Currently we are in OPP Level 2... only a few GI cases away from Red Code. I am NOT looking forward to this whatsoever. Poor Iain was demoted today to forced hand sanitization. He literally has to stand at the entrance to the shops with a squeezy bottle full of purell stuff and force guests to sanitize before entering the gift shop area. If guests refuse, they are denied admittance. Regular cruisers know what all of these extra precautions mean and ask the crew about it all of the time. We are not, however, allowed to say anything about it to prevent hysteria.

All in all, I really like it here. I like the people, the job, and being an officer :D

Hope all is well at home. 6 months will fly right by!

Kusadasi, Turkey

TODAY WAS AWESOME!

I went on another crew tour to a waterpark!

Water slides and tubing all day.

Swimming in pools.

Fish ate the dead skin off my entire body.

It was AWESOME!

I didn't take any pictures but I am going to steal Christian's soon and I'll share what I get!

:D

Freckled & tan in Turkey!

Gobble Gobble (Istanbul, Turkey)

First, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BRIAN! We've been together for 23 months. Wow... a lot has happened in 23 months! :)

Now on to the less mushy stuff. So we have officially finished our transition voyage (featuring over 7 countries in 12 days). We are no longer doing the Baltic Run, and have moved on to the Mediterranean season. Woo hoo beaches! Today marked our first day of the new run with an overnight in Istanbul, Turkey.

I slept in, and got off the ship with Christian, Iain and some of the other shoppees :D We're becoming an onboard family.

Also, note that backdated posts of Sicily and Athens are coming!!! I'm just a bit behind with the blogging and it is very difficult to catch back up due to slow/no internet.

My first view of a Turkish mosque.




My 2nd mosque.

Really big mosque.

Disney on Ice... a universal language.
There was some sort of protest happening in the pedestrian mall between where the crew shuttle dropped us off and the Grand Bazaar. Still don't know what they were protesting. But thought it was pretty unique. Pretty sure I ended up on Turkish TV somewhere... likely reported "fat American takes picture of protestors not understanding that they were protesting America."



First glimpse of the entrace to the Grand Bazaar.

I wish this picture weren't crooked, I really like it.
First side shoot of the bazaar.

Main path of the bazaar. It is about the length of two football fields, total area being probably about 4 football fields. Down this center hallway were all of the fine jewlery, leathers, and fur shops. Not exactly what we were looking for. The side sections were for knock offs and souvenirs! Perfect.
I did manage to pick up something for my mom and Roger here. Let's hope it stays in one piece for the next 6 months.

There are mosques everywhere you look... but for some reason they all pretty much look the same.


There is a major abundance of stray cats here. Like... they are EVERYWHERE.

I really like this picture, good lighting.

We aren't sure, but we think we missed the last shuttle back to the ship (not a big deal since we were there overnight, so it's not as if we were going to get left behind). But at the same time half of us were on port manning (we had to be on the ship from 8pm to 8am during the overnight) and I had a local show, so I needed to be at work by 8pm. Our group split into two taxis to get back to the ship. In 6 minutes, our taxi did what it took the shuttle bus 45 minutes to do. I was scared for my life. Almost broke the present I had just bought, and nearly crushed Iain against his side of the cab during a sharp turn. The other taxi showed up 10 minutes later. *shakes head*

The local show last night was absolutely TERRIBLE. It cost the ship 1150EUR (approximately $1700) and it was a piece of absolute crap. Embarrassing that it was the first thing these guests saw when they got onboard. I immediately went to the cruise director and asked him to cancel the remainder of their dates. We can have dark nights or variety shows, but I can't go through that again. Miserable.

The Hotel Director and the Staff Captain opened the helipad last night for a crew party. I did not bring my camera, but if I steal some of Christian's photos later I will shar them for sure. Istanbul shoreline at night is stunning. And there is one amazing bridge that changes colors, and all of the mosques are lit up and you can see them at the top of every hill. It's quite breath taking.

So I suppose, exept for the very brief part of my day that actually contained work, my day was awesome. And I will fire the Turkish show myself if the opportunity arises.