I finally got to off in Rhodes!!!

First - please visit the backdated Kusadasi post (http://ridingone.blogspot.com/2011/09/kusadasi-turkey.html), because the waterpark pictures are finally up!!! Including, but not limited to, small fish eating the dead skin off of my body :) And I promise more back-dated posts are to come!

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It took me 3 chances, but I finally got my rear and gear to get the hell of the ship in Rhodes, Greece. And let me just tell you I am so glad I did. It is possibly the most beautiful city I have been to so far. Not just in Rhodes, but all over this part of the world, everything is miraculously blue - the sky, the water, lots of the pottery and clothing, too! :)

The view from the port (above).

The view from where we entered the fort (above).

Above: Some ruins. Below: awesome alleyway full of stone arches.

Below is a view of the fort's center town square area. Very quaint.

I really like this picture of the people sitting on the steps watching the daily hustle and bustle in the square.

A view from the square up the shopping corridor.

Too cool... The fort is HUGE and encompasses what used to be the entire city. There is a more modern area outside of it now, but everything is MASSIVE.

There was a street artist doing pastel portraits and had drawn an eye on this tree. Had it not been for my thumb I would have really liked this picture.

The sequence below is titled "Big People, Little Door."

We walked through a garden outside of the fort. I thought it was adorable that there was communal dog food/water and bird bath stations :)

I feel like the above picture should be a painting.

Iain and Christhian.

Walking back to the ship from outside of the fort.
Below is a shop that is literally on a boat. VERY COOL.

Above is what used to be the main gated/guarded entrance to the fort. Good scale reference with the people in the entryway.

Home away from home :)

It was just too cool....


I had actually had a real shit of a morning. This week is called "Starring Crew Week" and Celebrity does a bunch of nice things for the onboard crew to keep up morale. The night before, they shut down the night club to guests and had a big crew party with free beer, soda and champagne. My whole cast got smashed...

...Flash to the next morning...

I get woken up at 9am by my vocal captain giving me a panicked phone call, screaming that they didn't know that Broadway Nights was scheduled for tonight. (Broadway Nights is the showtune cabaret we do in the night club once a voyage, and for some of the singers is a very difficult show.) I informed her that she had suggested the scheduling previously to the cruise director (although I had disagreed with it from the beginning) and had distributed the final schedule to the dance captain at 2pm the previous afternoon, so they should have all received the information via voicemail yesterday.

I got off the phone with her, only to immediately receive a phone call from the cruise director saying that 3 other singers had tried to get ahold of me during my aforementioned 40minute phone call. I reminded the cruise director that he had scheduled the event for that night, and that I had done my job distributing their schedule over 28 hours in advance.

When I got done with that 30 minute phonecall, I had a singer call me while I was in the shower. I did not answer. When I got out of the shower I had a singer call me while I was brushing my teeth. I picked up and said I would call her back. When I got off of that phone call another singer called me and I refused to pickup the phone.

After I was dressed and leaving my cabin, I called the singer who I had said would call me back. She continued to chew my ear off about the entire situation for another 30 minutes. After that phonecall I called one of the other singers back who started having a go at me. At this point I was ready to slap someone, so I screamed at him and he yelled back and hung up.

I left the ship immediately with Christhian and Iain. I was sooooo done.

From outside the ship, while still in mobile range, I called the cruise director to tell him I was leaving and that I needed a walk. He said that the singer who I had just screamed at was sitting in his office bitching about the entire situation and for how I had spoken with him. I informed my boss that I would speak with him upon my return to the ship.

The two hours in Rhodes were much needed to clear my head. I bumped into the Dance Captain while I was out and yelled at her for not doing her job because, as it turned out, she had never sent out the message with the next day's schedule - the whole debacle was caused by her laziness.

But after 2 hours of strolling through beautiful Rhodes I really settled. When I got back to the ship I called the singer with whom I had been screaming and he popped into my office where we reached a mutual apology. The day went on from there.

Thank you, Rhodes, you are the best therapist a poor production manager can afford.

Hang out in my cabin!

I'll be honest, I am not quite sure when these pictures are from. My best guess is October 16th because I was still drinking then (it would be the day before the biggest loser started). But I really wanted to include these pictures because a: there are pictures of Valeria and she looks beautiful, and b: you can see the beginnings of my cabin mural :) Iain, of course, is there as well.

A night on the town in Istanbul

A few of the shoppees and I went out for a night in Istanbul, Turkey. I had the night off for a change which was very relaxing. While I was off all day, they did not get released until 7:30pm, so we weren't able to leave before 8. The free shuttle stops running at 6pm, so we were forced to divide into two taxis. It is amazing how taxi prices vary. At the port the drivers will work together to force you to pay a high price. They were asking $20 to get to the Hagia Sophia which we were simply not willing to pay. On the street we found a cab willing to run off the meter, and we owed 9 Turkish Lira (about 4 dollars) for the ride. So silly.

When we got out of the cab we just started walking around and enjoying the beautiful night life of Istanbul. There is a general feeling in all of the small shops of "the more stuff the better." Some of these places are so cram packed with stuff that it really ends up looking like artwork, not souvenirs. The pictures below are from the inside of one really cool shop.

Display posters on the face of the steps.

Walls and walls full of magnets and plates.

Ceilings covered in decorative lanterns.

Below is half of the gang that went out with us. Iain is of course on the left, sitting next to Abdul. Then Praful, and Tony is on the far right. Abdul and Praful are really neat guys, and unfortunately they are signing off on the 25th (next Istanbul). We're really going to miss them... and the shop will certainly miss their sense of humor terribly. Abdul used to always call me Mary until he finally read my name tag one day and got really embarrassed. Now he calls me MaddieMaddie. Very sweet.

The rest of the gang, Christhian on the left and JC on the right.

Some street views of the bistro where we dined.

I wish these pictures had come out a bit brighter.

All in all, an excellent evening of relaxed fun with some really good, new friends. Couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my evening off.

:-/

Today is a very difficult day. My grandpa has passed away and it is hard to be this far from my family. I'm glad I have friends out here who love me and are more than willing to take care of me. I am going to go to HR to see if I can be signed off duty for a day or two to just have some time. I feel a bit like a zombie right now, and constantly being around my co-workers is proving to be very difficult.

I can be glad for the fact that he was not in pain and he was surrounded by people who love him very much. I am also glad that I had the opportunity to visit several times in the last year, and my last memories with him are happy ones. Going through photo albums, joking around, and watching classic movies on his brand new huge TV in his bedroom. I love him very much. And he was a caring, loving, perfect grandpa. I will miss him, but he lived a very full and happy life and now he's off to a better place. He gets to be with his youngest son again, he gets to be with his parents and his grandparents. And someday I'll get to be with him again, too.



If anyone wishes to drop a note to my grandmother I'd be happy to pass along her contact information. I am sure it would mean a lot to her.