Goodbye NYC

Cruise # 10-This cruise was our last out of New York. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary happened this week. Just another ho hum 8 days at sea. It is good though, I needed a week like this with all the stuff that has been going on with previous cruises. Things are going well with the shows and I still love my job and life at sea.

The fly-ons this week were JC McCollum, Karen Grainger, Phil Hughs, Thien Fu and Happy Cole. JC showed up literally five minutes before he went on and I didn't see him after the show. I didn't even listen to his show because I was doing things backstage. So needless to say I don't much about him. Karen is the loveliest woman to work with. As Jenn put it, "She is the right kind of crazy". She's fun on and off stage. She is very appreciative of what we do as a technical crew. She bought us all a beer in the crew bar after the show. Phil is a ventriloquist who is fun to hang out with. We play darts til the wee hours of the morning every time he is on. I'll tell you about Thien Fu in another paragraph. Happy Cole is pretty funny. He is one of Carnival's veterans and has been in the business for a long time. He looks kind of scary because he is ripped and smiles very seldom.

Thien Fu, Thien Fu, Thien Fu! This is the most obnoxious person I have worked with to date. I'll label him the "Juggler from Hell". Last time he was here I was an audience plant for him. I was able to this because it was during my hand over and there was an extra technician on board. As I mentioned before, I switch off with the automation tech for these smaller shows. So it was my night off. I didn't go to his rehearsal. The automation tech hurt her back on the beach and was signed off of work for several days. I had to fill in. I got to the show and set things up. He shows up five minutes before he is supposed to go on and asks if I was going to be his audience plant for the show. I told him no. Upon hearing this he goes ballistic and starts cussing me out for the next fifteen minutes. He was mad because I wasn't at his rehearsal and because I told him no. He was threatening to not do the show and at one point he picked up one of his juggling knives and made a motion towards me. At which point I walked away. He then started yelling at the Assistant Cruise Director. He said he couldn't do the show because act was soooo dangerous. It took all I had to hold in a laugh. Every urge in my body wanted tell him about Marcus Monroe juggling flaming knortches on a unicycle. His big juggling bit is juggling a knife and a torch and a hatchet for about 3 seconds. When he finally calmed he did his little amateur show. I left as soon as it was over. Normally, I would stick around and clean up and talk to the performer after the show but I wanted nothing to do with him.

The first port of call was Grand Turk. I slept in that day. When I woke up and found out no one was going ashore I decided to stay on as well. Oh well, no big deal. There isn't much to see there anyway.

The second port was Half Moon Cay. Jenn and I got off on the early tender and swam in the ocean before the guests arrived. When they started to pollute the beach we went and got some lunch in the crew area and then headed back to the ship.

Our last port was Nassau. Scott(Sea Miles salesman), Jenn(light tech), Greg(sax), Jay(guitar soloist), Robbie(trumpet) and I went to the Cricket Club. It was just the street from the park we went to a couple of weeks ago. It is owned by a British guy and serves authentic English food and beverages. We all ate a proper English breakfast. I had English bacon for the first time. We sat out on the porch and watched a live Cricket match. Jenn who is from England explained what was going on and I think I actually understand it now. The teams stopped in the middle of the game to eat lunch. This something you will never see in American sports. They literally just stop at a certain time and eat. We left at their break. Jay, Robbie and I walked around downtown some and then headed back to the ship.

New York was rainy. Greg, Yetro(guitar) and I got off and rode the subway to ground zero. There isn't much to see there but I felt like as an American I had to go see it. It is essentially a big construction site. It was raining and we decided to go back up town and do our shopping. We had to find paint for our Halloween costumes. We bought some from Home Depot(sorry Mike). After that we went to Murray's and got a bagel. Greg's friend met us there and we went directly to the original Ray's Pizza and got some Pizza. This is the Ray's that is mentioned in Seinfeld. We went back to the ship as soon as we could because of the rain and cold.

Talk to you soon,

Chris

Picture #1-The only church in Half Moon Cay

Picture #2-Cricket at the Cricket Club

Picture #3-The courthouse in Nassau. To the left is offices for the government officials and to the right is the assembly. If you have seen the John Travolta stuff in the Bahamas this is where they have been coming.

Picture #4-The library in Nassau with Robbie and Jay. I have no idea what they were doing.

Picture #5-A church in New York

Picture #6-A church near Jefferson Square in New York