It's hard to believe but I am now over half-way through my contract, and I thought it would be good to summarize what the cruise-ship lifestyle has the potential to offer. Working on a ship has a the potential to be a destructive experience, but it also has a lot of potential be an incredible growth opportunity on many different levels.

The obvious destructive habits that people pick up on these ships begin with heavy drinking. This ship in general is actually not too bad for this, since the access to alcohol is not quite as limitless as it is on some other ships I've heard about, although it still is incredibly prevalent. Musicians and production cast in particular can get into the habit of compulsive drinking even during the day, since there is so much free time to kill to the point that they do it out of boredom. Luckily that has not been the case with the people I've known on this ship, but I've heard many stories about it on other ships.

In addition to excessive drinking as a potential destructive habit on ships is excessive eating. There is 24 hour access to food on this ship of all different kinds, and if you know nothing about nutrition or just don't care, then you can really eat as much as you want of some terribly unhealthy food. Again, the risk is greater for those of us with more free time, and some people get into the habit of watching movies in bed all day, snacking on chips and leading very lethargic lives. This is okay obviously from time to time, but gets pretty bad if it's your entire life. 

A third destructive habit on ships, again specifically for musicians and others who have lots of free time, is a destructive outlook and attitude. For those who have never experienced this kind of lifestyle on a ship, it's pretty difficult to imagine what there is to complain or be negative about, but human beings are incredible at adapting to new situations, and a lot of people seem to forget very quickly just how good they have it on ships. With no real-world problems to complain about, they start to complain about pretty trivial things. This I think is principally a result of wasting their time on the ship and losing motivation to do anything, which is thee danger of having too much unspent free time. 

As I said, there is a lot of potential for a very unhealthy lifestyle. There is, however, plenty of good that can be achieved on ships, and if you decide to focus on these things it is actually a lot easier to get them done here than on land.

For myself, One of my main things that I've been devoting time to on the ship is going to the gym. It adds structure to my days, and obviously has great health benefits not only for my physical health but my mental health as well. The nice thing about having health as a focus on a ship is that, because I don't want to hinder the positive effects of going to the gym, it has encouraged me to eat healthily, and limit my drinking to a reasonable amount.

In addition, for musicians, there is plenty of time to get practicing done. Of course the material that you perform on the ship you will adapt to and learn very quickly and not need to practice after a couple of weeks, and so you will have to come up with your own materials to work on.  Practicing is one thing I would like to focus on more for the last half of my contract.

There are plenty of other good uses of your time to come up with on this ship. Writing a blog is a great habit that I've been able to get into to help keep people up to date about my experience as well as giving me a time to focus and reflect on what I'm experiencing here. I spend a lot of time reading as well. Other people I've talked to have mentioned things like writing music, practicing gymnastics (for the gymnists in the production cast), learning new languages, drawing, playing basketball, watching tv series, and more. 

Perhaps the best experience to get out of working on a ship is life experience. You can become a more worldly person not only from traveling to the different counties, but also from meeting hundreds of new people, forming friendships very quickly and also having to see new friends go home at the end of their contracts. The range of personalities you encounter on ships is pretty vast, and keeps things interesting.

And of course, being on a cruise ship is a very sheltered existence without any real-world stresses, like deadlines, agendas, having to make food, clean stuff, plan stuff, remember anything important, etc, not to mention you have very little access to the media at large which means you are not constantly being overloaded with information. 

I will stop this post here as I could go on and on about this stuff, and I might add more to it later.  

Thanks for reading!

This post is from a couple days ago. Enjoy!

December 2nd

I can't believe that it's been 10 days since I last wrote anything, but the longer I am on this ship the faster the time seems to pass by.

Things have been pretty routine for the greater part of those 10 days, but the last few have had a few blog-worthy happenings.

Tuesday, we were in Grand Caymen. I went to a local bar for internet and some beer with the ship's guest DJ, and had a great time, but came back to the ship about an hour later than I was supposed to. For the most part it turned out okay except that it was payday and I did not get back in time to get my cheque at the alloted time, which really isn't a big deal in the scheme of things but I did get some minor grief for it. It was worth it though, and I had a long un-deserved but definitely appreciated nap upon returning.

The evening brought some new interesting turns of events. We had two sets, one jazz set to back up the ship's comedian, and also our regular Tina Turner set. However, our guitarist, after seeing the nurse, was diagnosed as possibly having G.I (Gastro-instestinal something), and since this ship doesn't take any chances on these things, he was promptly quarantined for 24 hours. To make matters worse, our piano player without warning had to leave the ship to go to hospital for eye surgery. I've been told that he's not coming back, so we are now down a piano player. As a result, we had Fabrizio, the piano-bar entertainer, sit in for our jazz set.  As for our Tina Turner set, we had no piano player, but we did have the guitarist from the ship's cover band, Next Stage, sit in for our guitarist. Despite not being able to read music, he pulled through amazingly after having listened to the recordings and gone over the music with our band, saving the day.

Wednesday we were in Cozumel, which was nice but a little rainy and overcast. I went out only briefly, before returning for a late lunch. I spent the afternoon by watching some tv, and going to the gym. I went to Bamboo Restaurant (the ship's sushi and asian fusion restaurant) for dinner with the now un-quarantined guitarist Andrew. It was excellent sushi except it had far too much rice proportionately on each roll, causing us both to overestimate how much we could eat. It was a good meal nonetheless, but at 15$ a cover charge seemed far too expensive, being accustomed to an overflow of good and cheap sushi in Vancouver. Afterwards we went for some cigars in the cigar lounge, where we chatted with our saxophonist. Later I went to watch the end of rock night, played by Next Stage, and then headed to bed.

The unfortunate result of stuffing myself with sushi, or really anything, right before going to bed, is that my body doesn't let me sleep until it has digested most food, which I apparently have yet to reach. It did however give me an excuse to write this post, which I would have otherwise continued to put off.

There is a huge change-over of crew coming up shortly on this ship. Between December 12th and sometime in early January, no crew finish or start any contracts due to the busy-ness of the Christmas season. As a result, December 12th will be an extremely hectic day of embarkation and disembarkation of not only of 2000+ passengers but hundreds of crew members as well.

Before that, however, on December 3rd, our cover band, Next Stage, leaves and a new one will embark. It will be sad to see them go as they are not only an amazing band are also amazing people who I will miss. However, my experience so far with every change-over of this nature has been positive, and I am sure that the next band, once adjusted to, will rise to the occasion and do a great job.

Something that I just found out recently and am excited about is that in January and February we will be having two chartered cruises. I don't know much about the January one, but the February charter is a Rock cruise, and it is being headlined by The Barenaked Ladies, who will be supported by a number of other bands, including Great Big Sea and The Odds. I am incredibly excited to see these great Canadian bands, and as it will be happening on my last week on the ship it will be a terrific send-off for me.

That is all for now!

It's been awhile since I've posted anything about the happenings on the ship, so I thought I'd try and come up with a few details to let people know that I am still alive and doing things.

I am obviously very settled into ship life at this point, and feeling very at home, but no matter how long I am here I never cease to reflect on the whole experience and life on the ship, because it is still a very surreal and unique sort of experience. One thing about it is that the time goes by very very quickly because there are so many ship routines that are repeated every week that start to blend together. Our tribute and production shows, boat drills, other entertainment acts on the ship, the coming and going each set of passengers, weekly cabin inspections, episodes of Two and a Half Men and The Office, weekly entertainment meetings, the rush to get free internet at a lucrative port, drinking coffee and reading outside of Blue Lagoon Restaurant, going to the gym, hanging out in crew bar, and of course meals and sleep.

The one thing that doesn't feel routine yet, is the ports themselves. Between the actually cities we dock at, the surrounding areas, and the shore excursions, there is really quite a lot to explore and experience and there is always a new side to see of these islands.  I would very much like to go on some hikes through the mountains in Tortolla and St Kitts, both of which have port cities surrounded by very close-by mountains.

The biggest recent change is that two days ago our old guitarist, Glenn, finished his contract and has gone to England to play some jazz there for six months. Our new guitarist, Andrew, is now on board, and he is a fellow Canadian from Toronto, dismantling my status as the only Canadian musician onboard. He is also in his 20s and so I am no longer the youngest by 20 years, as I had been for the last few weeks since we got our new sax and piano players. While Glenn was predominantly a jazz player, Andrew is definitely a rocker. They are both good players with their own personality in their playing, and so more than anything it gives a different colour to the sound of the band, which will keep things interesting for the rest of us as we adjust to it.

The key cards that we are given to open our cabins and to buy things on the ship have the weakest magnetic strips you could imagine, and if they come in the faintest of contact with anything electronic they de-magnetize. I got to experience this all too annoyingly at 2:30am last night (the fifth time so far on this contract), when, after briefly leaving my cabin to get a drink of water at the nearby fountain, I discovered that my card wouldn't open up my door. I knocked and knocked on the door and went to a nearby phone to call my cabin, but my roommate was passed out stone cold. 

I went to find the security guard on duty, who told me that he wasn't authorized to open it and that I should go get my roommate. Having already tried to contact my roommate multiple times, I politely told him so, which he seemed to completely disregard and told me to contact my roommate. I humoured him and returned to my cabin with more knocking, and then more phone calls, and then more knocking, but to no avail. I returned to the man, who unhelpfully gave me the same frustratingly stupid and blatantly wrong answer as before, because as the security guard on duty it is in fact his job to let in people who get stuck out of their cabins.

At any rate, after posting at the top of my staircase waiting to see if anyone more helpful would walk by, I eventually spotted another security guard, who promptly called the first one and told him to come open my cabin. 

When the first one came and recognized me as the one who had asked him in the first place he was quite definitively pissed off, although for no reason that I can quite fathom. He made some vague threat about what he'd do if my roommate was in fact in the cabin, to which I responded for the umpteenth time that yes, he in fact was in the cabin, but was fast asleep and seemingly unwakeable. He didn't seem to know what to do with this brand new piece of information, mumbled something about the crew bar and after opening my room, searching it briefly and spotting the passed out form of my roommate, he left, angrily.

Needless to say I didn't dare leave my room for anything else, until the Personnel office opened in the morning and I went to get a new card. In the past whenever I've gone to get a new card I've tried to come up with some excuse as to how it got demagnitized so that I don't feel quite as foolish, but today I just handed it over, grunted and left without a word, still annoyed about last night's episode.

My fun episode of today immediately following, when I went on deck to wait for the sound of the emergency alarm, being under the impression that we had a boat drill at 10am. I waited a good 20 minutes (boat drills always start late) before realizing that no one else seemed to be waiting for it, at which point I went back downstairs, discovered that the boat drill wasn't until tomorrow, and that I was now 30 minutes late for a rehearsal with the rest of the band and the production cast in the theatre for tonight's shows.

Dramatic as it sounds, everyone was good-humoured and amused as I discreetly walked onto stage in the middle of one of the numbers, although the deal in the band is that you buy a round of drinks for the others when you miss a rehearsal, which is perfectly justified and that I will honour when I get the chance.

All in all, nothing too bad, and at least I got some fresh material for my blog. 

I am currently sitting on a patio in Tortolla, just outside a "Best of British" shop, which exists in honour of the fact that Tortolla is one of the British Virgin Islands, and is well stocked with things like tea, british magazines, canned soup, and advent calendars (which look very out of place in this climate).

I intend to go walk around and explore Tortolla a bit more before heading back and probably napping/reading/watching tv series until our shows tonight. There is a crew/passenger deck party afterwards which should be a fun time.

That's all for now!

With all of my free time on this ship, I have slipped into the pleasant habit of reading quite a bit. I find that on a ship of thousands of people, finding somewhere quiet to read is one of the most restful and relaxing activities available to me, and happily there is not only a bookshelf from which to borrow books for crew in the staff mess, but we can also take books from the passenger library which has a much larger selection. Being a sucker for psychological self-help type books, I took out a book called "Play" a few weeks ago, and have just finished it, and decided to inflict my thoughts upon this blog.

Play, as defined by author Stuart Brown, is one of the most defining attributes of human beings, and is what likely has put us so far ahead of any other species on earth. Play and learning go hand in hand - hence infants and children who are learning at the quickest rate do so by playing and exploring to the greatest extent. As centuries go by, humans have started to extend this period of play and learning for longer and longer, and this has been a great asset to us, and has led to the varied achievements of technology, art, culture and more that we have attained. 

Brown talks about how most animals grow new nerve connections extensively only during their juvenile period. When their period of play stops, their brains effectively stop growing. 

The reason that animals stop playing is that eventually the benefits of learning and growing smarter are outweighed by the inherent dangers of play, such as its distraction from other critical activities like protecting the young, finding food and shelter, etc. Eventually they reach a point where they descend into narrower, more compulsive behaviour patterns. 

This is not as much the case with the most intelligent types of animals, such as dogs and dolphins. Both of these animals are extremely playful for most of their lives, and are thus always learning and reaching new levels of mental sophistication.

Brown makes a comparison between dogs and wolves. Wolf and dog pups are very similar when they are still young, but as they grow they start to become very distinct. Dogs, which have been bred to coexist with humans, have a much more fluid and flexible social structure, are more adaptable to strangers and new situations, and are obviously much more playful. Wolves on the other hand have a rigid hierarchal system, are generally hostile to strangers, and as they grow up lose most of their early playful nature. 

Of course, in the wild, this is to the benefit of wolves, and most domestic dogs would not last long in such conditions. But since dogs are given the luxury of a relatively safe environment to grow within, they are free to explore, play, and learn throughout their lives. 

Humans have stretched the juvenile period longer than any other species - to 15 years at least, and usually much longer For people who are well adjusted and who are safe, play can prompt continued neurogenesis throughout our entire lives.

So, on to Brown's description of play. As a general guideline, he says to look for the following characteristics in play: 

Apparently purposeless ( done for it's own sake), 

Voluntary

Inherent attraction

Freedom from time

 Diminished consciousness of self

Improvisational potential

and Continuation desire (we want to keep doing it).

The Benefits of play according to Brown are that it provides a safe environment within which we can explore and evolve social boundaries, and also puts us in a frame of mind where we are opening ourselves up to new possibilities, or thinking outside the box. In the words of animal play scholar Bob Fagen, "In a world continuously presenting unique challenges and ambiguity, play prepares [animals] for an evolving planet."

In a nutshell, the idea I found the most captivating of this book is that the activities that you are drawn to the most for their own pure pleasure to you are the activities that your mind already knows will stimulate the most brain growth and learning. There are some obvious limits to this, but to simplify, the notion of pursuing your passions and hoping for the best has been given a new degree of merit.

The important thing that he stresses throughout the book is that you don't want to look for anything productive in the play activity - the need to be productive is an unfortunate thing that our modern society has imposed upon us, driving us to feel guilty about the idea of doing something just for the sake of enjoyment. The fact is that in the most seemingly trivial and impractical of play activities your brain is being activated and making new neural connections, filling in gaps and preparing you for life's challenges in ways that we are only just beginning to understand. Enjoyment of play activities is not an arbitrary neurological phenomena, but is rather our brain's way of trying to steer us into activities that will stimulate it's own growth. 

A playful attitude also lends resilience to life's challenges, and a sense of irony and humour helps us to deal with failures and unexpected circumstances without taking ourselves too seriously.

One other thing to keep in mind is that anything at all can be a play activity, it just depends on the individual person's perception of it.

Anyways, that's all for now. Next up is "A Tale of Two Cities" - this will take me just a little bit longer.....

Well, this has been my longest break so far without writing a blog, but that's because I've had the distraction of entertaining my parents on board. It has been a very full but fun week spent with them, aided by the fact that they came on the nine-day cruise in which my work schedule tends to be quite sparse.

In our first port, Samana, we went on an excursion called "Discover Samana", which was a bus tour which took us all around the Samana peninsula, starting at the first Church of Samana ("El Churcho"), before going to a place that sold local crafts, jewelery, and cigars. We were then taken to an area with a beach, restaurant and a few other stores. The majority of the tour took place in the bus, in which our tour guide, Carlito, gave us a very detailed history of Samana, about it's education system, economy, and culture. Overall it gave me a much greater appreciation of the port that has been the butt of many jokes on the ship for it's seemingly lack of appeal to tourists. 

Just about every night we went to one of the fine dining restaurants, from The Venetian which is free but still probably the most elegant of the restaurants, with a spectacular menu with specials that change daily, to Salsa, the text-mex restaurant which overlooks the centre atrium of the ship, to Impressions, the local italian restaurant with an excellent selection of food and decorated by some amazing pieces of art. 

Usually after dinner and my shows for the evening we hung out in a lounge drinking either wine or whiskey and listening to a piano player, whether it be Ariel playing old jazz and pop standards, or Fabrizio, the ship's "Italian Stallion", spreading love and playing just about every popular tune you can think of.  

In Barbados, me and my parents went to visit the parents of some of our friends from church, the Goodriges. We had a great time with them, and it was a refreshing break for me because it was the first time I had eaten or really set food in a private residence in two months. 

One of the highlights for all of us this week was the excursion we went on in St Kitts. It was a Cattemaran ride which first took us to a spectacular snorkeling spot, and then to a remote beach resort on the nearby island called Nevis. The Rum-punch and beers were limitless, and lounging on the netting at the front of the boat with rum in hand under the Caribbean sun was definitely among the most perfect Caribbean experiences I've had. 

Another interesting element of the week for me has been being able to see the ship a little bit more from the passengers' perspective. This has been the result of spending time in my parents stateroom (which made me feel less bad about the small size of my own room), eating in formal restaurants each day rather than just getting a quick bite at one of the buffet's as I normally would do, going on several shore excursions, and generally mingling more with the passengers. I have also indulged in far more food this week than is my norm as I have been eating vacationing passenger portions rather than everyday life portions, which has been pleasant but is not really sustainable all year round.

I managed to get my parents VIP passenger status, which among other things let them (and by extension, me) eat every breakfast and lunch at the most upscale restaurant on the ship, Cagney's Steakhouse. Cagney's is an exceptional restaurant with amazing steak, egg dishes and other things, but probably best of all is the privacy it gives from the rest of the ship which is always bustling. 

Today is sunday and so my parents disembarked, and I hung out with them briefly in Miami before heading back to the ship, leaving them to make their way back home. It has been a great week and has been nice to have a reminder of home from hanging out with them for the week, and I feel like I've had my fill of home again and am happy to be on the ship still for a few more months. My schedule is looking promisingly different this week too which should keep things fun.

That's all for now - I swear I will get some more pictures up one of these days...

St Kitts is a pretty cool place, and went way up in my books after I discovered the potentially endless free rum samples of many different kinds right near the ship.

 As a town, St Kitts seems decently well off, although some of the houses were pretty run-down. I did manage to find free internet which was a plus, but it is a relatively expensive area so I think I will leave most of my shopping for Miami and Cozumel, Mexico. 

The last two days of the nine-day cruise were relatively quiet and uneventful. Sunday we began our first five day-cruise, which heads down to Grand Caymen and then to Cozumel. That evening we had a passenger halloween party, which was pretty entertaining. Monday was a sea day, and was back to our usual monday routines of busyness - Big band brunch, two Band on the Run shows, and Viva Las Vegas. The difference this time however was that everything was quite poorly attended in comparison to normal. The passengers of the five day cruise are a different sort of clientele from those of the nine day cruise. Since it's cheaper it caters to younger crowds as well as a more diverse group ethnically, both of which are great things: however, the one advantage of having an old white audience, as in our 9-day, is that they are a very appreciative and attentive audience, and on the nine day cruise all of our shows had a much greater attendance. This cruise attendance has been slimmer although the people who do come bring a lot of energy.

Yesterday, Tuesday, we were in Grand Caymen, of the Caymen Islands. Grand Caymen is very wealthy, with the 12th highest household income in the world. It was also struck by a Hurricane six years ago that destroyed or damanged 95% of the buildings in the main town, and so it is a very new looking place. Again, it is not a place to go buy stuff, but it is a beautiful, modern town with a lot of good places to eat and explore. 

Tuesday evening, after playing a dance set and a Tina Turner tribute set, we had our crew Halloween party, which was great fun what with the free drinks and high spirits of everyone there. I attempted to go dressed as a hobbit but ended up looking like Sherlock Holmes and ended up introducing myself as him. It was a fun night and I had a really good conversation with Clayton, the drummer of the Jamaican calypso band, Caribbean Wave. We talked a lot about music, Reggae in particular, and also Jamaica and it's history and culture. 

Today we were in Cozumel, Mexico again, which is my second visit there. it is a great port with some excellent shopping for good prices. I did a little bit of christmas shopping for some things that I will turn over to my parents when they arrive on friday, and I also bought some cheap cigars for smoking in the Havana Lounge on the ship (which I am in fact doing right now as I write this). 

After hanging out in Cozumel I went back to the ship and relaxed for awhile and watched some tv, before eating dinner and playing our one show of the day, supporting the comedian as he switched between jazz standards and his stand-up routine.

I am doing my best to keep everything up to date on this blog. My entries are becoming less frequent not because less things are happening, but I don't want to bore those of you who keep up with this regularly with details on shows that I have already described before - I am trying to limit this mostly to new events and reflections. I still very much enjoy writing this, as it makes my adventure on this ship feel like it is serving a greater purpose, though what that might be I am not quite sure. At the very least I hope I am entertaining you and giving you a happy distraction from everyday life.

Tomorrow is a sea day on our way back to Miami, and I have the entire day off. I am very much looking forward to getting to Miami on friday since parents will finally be getting on for their nine-day cruise. At the same time it will be a sad day because one of my good friends on the ship, Anton, who is the piano player from the showband, is heading back home to the Ukraine. Another big change will be that we will be getting a new cruise director in Miami while our current director goes on a two month vacation with his girlfriend, who is the current saxophonist of the showband. On top of the arrival of parents, departing friends and a new cruise director, I am also starting a marathon of general safety training courses including things like basic first aid and firefighting, which will be a pain but is probably good stuff to know.

I hope that everything is going well with everyone who's reading, and I really appreciate all comments and feedback I have gotten from this blog. I would love to get emails (sent to M_J_W_87@hotmail.com) from you filling me in on anything new happening in your lives, and I promise I will respond to them. 

Also, just so you know, if you click the "follow" button on the right hand side of the blog, you can have the site inform you whenever I write something new.

That's all for now!

This is from yesterday:

October 27th

Sunday we were in Samana again, where I just went off very briefly to get some free internet at a local restaurant. 

On Monday we went to Tortolla Island, which is one of the British Virgin Islands. Since it is a bigger and wealthier place were were able to dock right at a pier instead of having to take tender boats, which made it much less of a headache going ashore.

Compared to Samana, Tortolla quite a wealthy island, and it obviously gets a lot of tourism. It is situated in a beautiful cove of a small valley surrounded by mountains lush with greenery, and the water is a piercing shade of blue. Immediately outside the ship is a row of vendor stalls selling clothing, souvenirs, jewelery, sunglasses, hats, and various other accessories at inflated tourist prices.  As you kept walking in you approached a main street which is full principally of clothing stores. Tortolla is under Britain's jurisdiction but nonetheless it uses the american dollar for it's local currency. One of the principal clues that it is under British rule is that people drive on the left side of the street there, which is surprisingly disorienting. Tortolla, like most of the islands in the Carribean, has a history that is very much entwined with the slave trade, and as such a vast majority of the locals are descendants of African slaves, with an extremely small minority of white people who's principal role seems to be to run a few English style restaurants for tourist appeal. My overall opinion of Tortolla as a tourist was that it's greatest asset is it's natural beauty, cleanliness of the city and a some interesting looking buildings. However, it is quite a small town with pretty limited retail outlets, and I found it to be eerily empty of pedestrians relative to every other Caribbean port. A more positive way of looking at it is that it is less of a tourist trap and has other means of making money.

Next, on Tuesday, we were in Antigua. While not having quite the same degree of natural beauty as Tortolla, Antigua is a much bigger and denser town, filled with shops of very kind. The streets are narrow and bustling with pedestrians which I always find comforting in a place. I found it to be most reminiscent of Coracao as far as the layout of the city. It is clearly too intriguing a place to take in one short visit so after walking around for a little under an hour I settled down for a Pina Colada and some free wifi usage. It will be an interesting port to explore each week. My main criticism of Antigua is that it is surprisingly expensive, but I expect that if you know where to look you can find most things, and if you are patient and walk further in I wouldn't be surprised to find some much better prices.

Today (Wednesday), we were in Barbados. Barbados I believe is the most well developed country in the Caribbean, and one of the largest. We docked in Bridgetown which is it's capital, which is an extremely popular cruise ship destination. As such, the port is large and a little bit removed from the downtown core. Still, it is a pleasurable 20 minute waterfront walk into town and if you go just a little bit further there is a beautiful scenic beach overlooked by restaurant patios. I went to one, The Boat Yard, which is the local hangout area for crew, with a 5$ admission which includes a drink, access to their waterfront facilities, internet access, and a shuttle back to the ship afterwards. In the future I intend to do some biking around Barbados to so as to see further into the downtown area. 

After going into Barbados I came back and played a jazz set with the ship's comedian as well as our Tina Turner Tribute set. It was rock knight for the ship's cover band who were playing outside by the pool, so I checked that out for awhile before coming down to get some food and do some writing.

Tomorrow we are in St. Kitt, which is the final port of the nine day cruise, before we make our two day journey back into Miami. The showband will be supporting a guest singer tomorrow night for two shows in the Stardust Theatre, so that will be nice to look at some fresh material. 

Time for another update. 

After Roatan we went to Cozumel, Mexico, which is so far my favourite port of the Carribean. It has a lot of good gift shops and things to buy for cheap, a lot of great looking restaurants with nice patios, and best of all there's a hotel right next to the port with a waterfront restaurant called "No-name Bar" which is a bar designed for ship crew by ship crew, with wireless internet access, amazing waterfront access, good drinks and a picture-perfect patio atmosphere. I look forward to being able to return to Cozumel every second week.

We arrived in Miami on friday, which was a bit of a pain since we had a US cost guard inspection and boat drill, which left us with only 1 hour to get off the ship. I walked around the port area a little bit and found a wifi hotspot not far away, but it wasn't enough time to get into downtown Miami and properly explore it - I will hopefully get a chance to do so at the end of this cruise.

Today is our first sea day of our first nine-day cruise out of our new home port of Miami. The nine-day cruises look like they will be a pretty relaxing itinerary for the showband (not that the 7-day cruises weren't already), as we are essentially playing all of the same shows but spread out over the whole nine days. As such, today, which would have ordinarily been extremely busy (with a big band brunch, two production shows and a casino show) was pretty light with just the two production shows (band on the run). Today was my first day running the show without any sheet music to fall back on, which was a little intimidating and was not helped by the fact that the sound guys got a new mixing board which in short has completely changed the sound that the band hears on stage. All of this is just a convoluted excuse for why I came in early on my bass line for "YMCA". Luckily I fixed it pretty quick and everyone else on stage caught on and kept it smooth, and hopefully the audience didn't notice. At any rate, I will definitely not make that mistake again.

Afterwards I played in the Gatsby's Lounge with Ariel the piano player, and am currently hanging out in the 24-hour comfort-food place, which has become my favourite late-night hang spot and has somehow been the spot where I've had the best conversations on the ship.

Tomorrow we are back in Samana, where if I am organized and motivated enough in the morning I might sneak onto a shore excursion, but if not I will go into town for some free internet and whatever else I can find.

Today we are in Roatan, Honduras, which is a very poor place, not unlike Samana. 

Yesterday we backed up a Celine Dion tribute singer, which surprisingly to me turned out to be a fantastic show with great energy. It turns out that Celine Dion's songs actually are pretty fun to play on stage, and everyone appreciated the humour of playing "My Heart Will Go On" on a cruise ship in the atlantic.

The last three days of this repo cruise are extremely relaxed for the showband with very few shows and a lot of free time, which is nice although also means having to find ways to entertain myself. 

I've been noticing a lot lately how important it is to find time to be away from crowds of people, which can be difficult on these ships. I really love being around all of the people here, but being an introvert at heart, I really need to have quite a few hours in a day to myself to just relax and recharge. 

That's enough musing for now. I have posted a number of Caribbean photos and will continue to post more as I accumulate worthwhile amounts.

Here is another post from two days ago:

October 17th

Today was a sea day. This morning we had a soundcheck at 12:30 for our Neil Diamond tribute shows tonight. I spent the day doing laundry, playing ping-pong, sleeping, watching tv, eating and reading - very relaxing.

 One of the guest performers on the ship during our repositioning cruise is a hypnotist named Brenda Kaye, and she put on three shows tonight - two passenger shows, and then a special crew show at 11:30. I checked out part of one of the passenger shows before going to play my two Neil Diamond tribute shows. 

The passenger show was pretty funny, but the crew show was absolutely hysterical. Brenda had a group of volunteers (for someone to be hypnotized they have to be completely willing and wanting) come on stage and slowly put them into a trance, which was ultimately effective on all but two out of about eight people. She had them playing imaginary pianos and guitars to start, and then got progressively more ridiculous as the night went on. She had one person shouting "man overboard" whenever the acronym "NCL" was said (Norwegian Cruise Line), which in turn would trigger two other people to feel that someone had pinched their butts. 

One girl was convinced that her belly button had disappeared, while two others were given imaginary m & m s which would pleasure them. One guy was made into the laughter police and he started to get quite upset with the audience whenever they would laugh. Another guy was speaking in his perception of a martian dialect while another girl was told she could translate it, which she did. She had them believing a number of other hilarious things, before snapping them out of it, with a parting shot to one guy of having him convinced that he was stuck to his chair until the cruise director came up and shook his hand, which he did. Another was told that she couldn't leave the stage before doing three jumping jacks, which she performed, and finally another girl was told to bark three times whenever she went through a doorway on her way back to her cabin, which I found out later that she did.

I've never seen anything like it - I spoke to several of the hypnotees about it afterwards and they said they felt extremely relaxed, and most of them remembered everything and felt conscious during but also said that they felt compulsed to do what the hypnotist asked or said. It was fascinating and really good-natured fun for everyone involved, and they all enjoyed themselves immensely. I spoke to the hypnotist about it later and she said that people who are hypnotized will not do anything they feel completely uncomfortable or unethical doing, and that they still ultimately can prevent themselves from doing things if they are very much against them. She also spoke of how it can be used to help people quit smoking, help with weight loss, and a number of other things. She is doing  a few seminars on it this week which I will try to check out if I get the chance. 

Afterwards I went out on deck to check out a a thunderstorm. Lightning looks amazing from the deck of a ship in the middle of the night, since you are surrounded by complete darkness, and when a sheet of lightning darts across the sky the entire world around you is illuminated in an awesome bright light and you see everything up to the horizon for many miles. It is a spectacular sight. 

October 16th

You can't leave Samana without a feeling of ambivalence. On the one hand, it is a beautiful Caribbean island with many kodak opportunities, lots of nice shops to check out, beautiful beaches and some good cheap food and beer.

At the same time, just past the fancy tourist spots is a poverty-stricken town, where you will be approached by small kids no more than 8 years old trying to sell you sea shells. Still, the local people seemed happy enough, and the very fact of being on my first Caribbean island made the experience enchanting. I walked around the town, and then settled in a restaurant where I ordered a 4$ beer which turned out to be a full litre, as I took advantage of the free wifi. After Samana, me and the rest of the showband got to eat at the Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant, in which the chefs cook your food in front of you while doing tricks with their knives and telling jokes. It was an entertaining and satiating experience. I had the seafood diablo, which is Lobster, Scallops and Calamari. The food was spectacular but a little bit overwhelming as just one of six courses.

Thursday was a sea day, and on that day we accompanied our guest pianist, Juan Pablo, once again, playing a mixture of classical and latin tunes. That evening we played a big band set which went over very well.

Yesterday (Friday), we were the city of Willemstad in Coracao, which is a colony of the Netherlands. It is an amazing place in that it is an island with Dutch architecture right in the middle of the Caribbean, which seems bizarre yet somehow looks perfectly natural when you get there. The local languages were English, Dutch, and Spanish, but most of the signs of restaurants and stores were in English to accommodate the majority American tourists who visit. It is a very picturesque place, and unfortunately we will not be returning there in our Caribbean itinerary.

Today, we were in Oranjestad, Aruba, which is another colony of the Netherlands. I signed up for a crew excursion to a remote resort island, De Palm island. The resort featured unlimited food and drinks, a water park, snorkerling, a banana shaped-boat that you can ride on as you are toed by a motor boat driver who will try and knock you off, volleyball equipment, and more. Snorkeling was very cool as it was my first swim in Caribbean water which is very pleasantly warm, and it was amazing to see all of the different coloured fish from so close. I went on a banana boat ride, ate food, played volleyball and basked in the sun, and with all that somehow managed to not get burned. After the resort, we went back to the downtown area in which our ship was docked, and I had a Marguerita on a nice patio. I then went to a dunkin' donuts for a coffee and some free internet to skype and upload photos.

When I got back to the ship we had a South Beach Rave production show, and after that there was a crew and passenger party up on the deck by the swimming pool, with the cover band playing, free alcohol for the crew, and a barbecue. It was a cool party, and the timing was superb since it started just before we left Aruba so we got to watch the city lights as we sailed away.

I then went down to our local fast-food restaurant, Blue Lagoon, and proceeded to gorge myself on two orders of fish and chips, while chatting with Anton the showband pianist as well as several passengers. I just finished talking to one fellow who is from Vancouver and works for Air Canada, and am getting ready to go to bed.

We are at see for the next two days and then we arrive in Honduras and then Mexico for two quick stops before our last voyage to Miami where this cruise ends. I am continuing to enjoy life on board, and I can't believe that it's only been three weeks that I've been gone. In two more weeks my parents will come on board which I very much look forward to. 

October 13th

Today we have just arrived in Samana, Dominican Republic.

I last updated on saturday. Sunday was my last time in New York, and so I spent a lot of time trying to take in the city as much as I could one last time. I spent the first few hours just wandering the streets as different things caught my attention. I could never get bored doing that in New York, since there's always another street, another statue, another park, another major attraction. In addition there are some places that no matter how many times I see I will not get over, like Time Square. Of all the New England ports, there is none that will take your breath away the same way as New York. 

I topped of my New York expedition with a trip to the top of The Rockefeller Centre - The NBC studio building. 

The view from the top is spectacular. the building is situated just a few blocks from the souther end of Central Park, which is in the centre of Manhattan itself. You can see the entire city as well as into New Jersey and Brooklyn and elsewhere from the top, and just taking it in all at once is pretty amazing. I took a good many pictures from the top, and as usual they are going to be posted on facebook shortly. 

Afterwards I returned to the ship. There was a very energetic vibe on the ship as all of the new passengers had arrived and were excited about their upcoming cruise. It was also a significant moment for the ship itself, as this will be it's last time departing from New York - next year when the ship returns to the New England - Canada route, it will be departing out of Boston instead.

The new batch of passengers includes a larger proportion of younger people, who put a lot of energy into the shows which is great for all of the performers. This cruise is also quite busy as it's a one time repositioning cruise to Miami, after which we will do the same two cruise itineraries for many months.

Also on sunday our new drummer arrived as our old drummer departed. His name is Bartosz (Bart) from Poland, and he's a very solid drummer who's been on the ship before and so already knew a lot of the shows which made for a very smooth transition. He's a nice guy but I feel badly for him as he has really young kids back home who he is away from for four months, which is hard on him. 

Monday was our first sea day sailing down towards the Caribbean. I got a chance to check out the new Caribbean band, called Caribbean Wave, who are from Jamaica and have been on the ship before. They are a good band and create a great summer atmosphere at the pool deck, lively but not overbearing. 

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Monday night we accompanied the first guest performer, a Cuban pianist named Juan Pablo. It was a mixture of Latin American and Classical styles, and we played the show twice. It was a fun show and he's a very talented performer - we will accompany him one last time tomorrow (thursday) for a matinee show. 

Yesterday was our second sea day, and was the exact itinerary of what used to happen on mondays on the New England cruise: big band brunch 11-1, Band on the Run production shows at 7pm and 9pm, Viva Las Vegas show at 10:15. Except this time everything was even better attended and our audiences were especially receptive and made the atmosphere a lot more fun for everyone.

Here in Samana I am still on the ship and am going to disembark probably in a couple of hours. We have just arrived, and it is a port with no pier we can dock at, so instead a group of smaller boats will ferry us to and from the shore. Passengers of course get priority, so I expect I won't be able to get off until around 1:30. That is fine with me however as we are at this port until relatively late (8pm), so that should still allow ample time to get acquainted with the place. 

I am in Newport today, and I have 20 minutes to kill as I upload photos, so thought I would write a brief update.

Yesterday was our last visit to Boston and I had a lot of ground to cover by bike. I left at nine in the morning, and started by heading straight to Harvard, in Cambridge.

Harvard is a really cool little area of Cambridge with some amazing buildings, and a sprawling campus reminiscent of UBC but with older architecture. I visited Harvard Yard and found the dorm where my dad stayed in his first year at Harvard (Hollis), and just took pictures of whatever looked significant.

After Harvard, I biked back into Boston to the south-western area, to check out Berkley School of Music. It was a pretty cool area, with obviously much more money than Capilano University, and taking a quick glance inside it looked like they had some really good quality computer facilities for music production and scoring. I then biked to Fenway Park which is just near there, and then biked through downtown and back to the ship.

We played our two variety show sets and our Frank Sinatra tribute, and then I headed to the spa. I did two cycles of heating up in the sauna/steam room then plunging myself into the very cold plunge bath, and topped it off with the jacuzzi. All of my biking aches vanished.

Today is the last day of our New England - Canada itinerary, so to celebrate we went into Newport and ate some lobster on a restaurant patio in the harbour. I am now a in starbucks uploading a number of photos from Boston, and having just skyped for a half-hour am going to head back to the ship.

 Final stop in New York is tomorrow, and I am thinking of going to the top of the empire states building, but we'll see what happens. Tomorrow evening we start our 12 day trip south to Miami.

One other thing - here is a website that has my ship's full itinerary so you can keep track of where I will be when:

http://cruisett.com/ships.php?ShipID=1&date=26

As of yesterday (wednesday), I will not be in Canada until February 11th. Today we were in Bar Harbour, and we now slowly make our way back down to New York for Sunday, before beginning our 12 day repositioning cruise down to Miami.

I spent the day yesterday in St John mostly just trying to take it whatever ounce of Canadiana I could from the city, before before leaving Canadian soil until next year. The rest of the day was predictable for a Wednesday, with two South Beach Rave production shows and a Tina Turner tribute which went very well. That was followed by hanging out late night at the ship's 24 hour Americana comfort-food semi-fast-food restaurant with a passenger from New York who is accompanying the ship's cover band for the two weeks that he is onboard. 

Today I didn't have any time to get off the ship because of a badly timed sound check, as well as a training session on crowd control, which sounds a lot more horrendous than it actually was. The safety instructor who trained us was an intense but hilarious English guy who actually made some sense of why we're required to do all of this training, with the perfectly valid point that since we're crew we would be required to take on certain leadership duties in the events of an emergency, which was given more credibility by a couple videos from the last couple decades of ship based disasters which could have been averted with the proper crew training.

With all of my free time on the ship, i've decided to start giving the gym a serious go for probably the first time ever, and as a musician I am allowed to use the high-end passenger gym. I went on tuesday, hopping on the treadmill for a bit (fully equipped with it's own personal tv) before hitting the weights, with the help of one one of the ship's personal trainers. I went again this afternoon doing the same things, and after that I played some ping-pong in the crew gym with Anton, the showband's Ukrainian piano player. I now feel like I've had a pretty productive day and have since eaten and showered and am basically killing time until our two Neil Diamond tribute shows tonight. 

Last time in Boston tomorrow, so I will hopefully be able to hit harvard square and berklee school of music.

This is from yesterday. Today I am out at sea but felt like splurging a bit on internet. Nothing new really to report, except that I am confirmed to stay on for one more month until February 11th!

read on about yesterday in New York...

October 3rd

Today we were in New York again, and this time I explored it on my own, by bike. Generally speaking, my route took me south-east through Greenwich Village, all the way down to the financial district, Wall St, and the southern tip of Manhattan, then back north and a little east up to the Empire States Building and Time Square, then back west again to the cruise ship terminal. I saw the Village Vanguard in Greenwich, the jazz club where many of my favourite jazz records were recorded. It was cool to see, although having anticipated it so much I was surprised by how small it is on the outside - it is a basement club so all you see from the outside is the sign and a door which opens to a staircase down. Unfortunately it doesn't open until 8pm, so that was all I got to see. 

There was a random parade for Poland happening in the middle of the city, with dance bands and lots of people with flags. I asked an NYPD officer about it, and he told me that countries like to do this in New York - pick a random day, and make a ruckus - I was amused by his lack of parade spirit.

There are a number of specific details to remember about New York which I will try to write down before I forget.

-You will often hear and even feel the passing of the underground subway when you walk down the street, even through what feels like a pretty thick layer of cement underneath you.

-Biking is a great way to experience New York. Not only are there lots of bike lanes, but since nobody obeys traffic rules, no one will ever honk at you or even give you a dirty look for darting in and out of traffic, crossing multiple lanes and other such biking antics that would work a Vancouver driver into a rage. Rules of the road in a nutshell seem to state that so long as the means don't kill anyone, the ends will justify them.

-In addition to Central Park, New York has a number of small but very well tended parks scattered through-out the city, some with a fountain and/or statue in the middle, or in at least one case a chapel.

-I am constantly surprised by just how conspicuously clean a city New York is . I am told this is quite a recent development, more or less since 9/11.

-The amount of tourists in every part of New York at any given time is mind-boggling. I naively assumed that because I was going to be visiting it during the fall that most people would be back to work or school or some such place, but the tourism in New York seems to ignore the changing of the seasons; to see it this busy at this time of year makes it difficult to imagine what the summer season must be like.

-New York is so filled with significant and picturesque buildings, signs, statues, streets, parks, people and everything else, that as a camera trigger-happy tourist, you have to raise the standard of what you consider photographic, because really just about everything there is, at least by the standard of any other city.

-When going into a tourist shop, leave your polite Canadianism at the door. I entered one such shop and expressed a vague interest in a t-shirt, the clerk instantly zeroed-in on me and would not leave me alone. I, having only expressed the interest out of politeness as a way to try and justify my window-shopping, had no real desire to get this t-shirt, and when I hinted at this fact the clerk asked me if I thought it was too expensive (which it was), and offered to mark off a couple dollars. When I insisted that I just didn't want it, he persisted and kept asking what I wanted to pay for it. This cycle repeated itself quite a number of times, and eventually he just asked me why I didn't want it. By this time one or two other clerks had joined the first in an attempt to make me buy this t-shirt by sheer force of will. Eventually I saw that I was getting nowhere and that there really was no polite mutually acceptable way of me getting out without buying the t-shirt, so I I gave up on tact, turned my back, ignored their parting shouts of "Sir! Sir!" and walked out as quickly as I could. Lesson learned.

-There are a lot of cool and cheap items for sale in these tourist areas, and I came close to buying some a couple times for fear that I would not be able to find another store that sold those items. As it turns out every tourist-spot in New York seems to sell all of the same things, so that concern was ungrounded. One cool tourist attraction was that all over New York are artists who will draw a caricature of you for only $5. I have never seen these people elsewhere, but in New York they are a dime a dozen. 

-There technically are a lot of Starbucks' in New York, but because the city is so full of other far more interesting places they didn't seem particularly noticeable to my Vancouver eyes;  Starbucks' are far easier to find (or rather harder to avoid) in Vancouver.

-American Macdonalds' all seem to have free wifi, which makes my internet-less life at sea a great deal easier.

I still have a lot more of New York to experience and I know that I can't cover it all in just one more visit (next weekend being our last cruise out of New York), but I would at least like to explore the north and east ends a bit, as well as ride to the top of either the Empire States Building or the Rockefeller Centre for a view of the entire city.

After getting back to this ship, we had a sound check and then two Welcome Aboard shows for the new set of passengers. The Groundhog Day effect of working on a cruise ship is starting to set in - every day it feels like it was just the day before that we last played that show, when it was in fact a week ago. So it was tonight, and it definitely didn't feel like a full week ago that we last played these shows.

 the days are starting to pass very quickly. It really is strange how the cruise ship lifestyle warps your sense of the passage of time. 

Tomorrow is our busiest day and also one of my favourites, with the big band brunch, two production shows of Band on the Run, and the Viva Las Vegas show. 

This is from yesterday:

October 2nd

Yesterday, me and a couple other of the musicians biked through Boston, which was great fun. The weather was mostly warm and overcast. When it did start to rain later on, it was too warm to really matter.

Boston, I maintain, is a fantastic city, and is superb for biking. It is perhaps slightly on the dangerous side what with all of the stops and starts, weirdly curving streets, pedestrian and car traffic, and lack of bike lanes, but there is so much to see and explore in Boston and biking takes you through it at the perfect pace with the greatest amount of flexibility.

We started by biking from the cruise terminal to downtown Boston. We had some coffee, then biked through to Cambridge, which is just to the west. We hung out in the mall there for awhile, before going back downtown, heading to a clothing store for a bit, stopping by Quincy Market, and then finally biking back to the ship. Having biked Boston once, my goal for next week (my last time there) will be to bike to Harvard Square and also to Berkley School of Music.  Having done those two things I will be able to leave Boston without any regrets.

Last night was "busy", which for us only added up to two and a half hours of playing, spread over two short variety show sets, the Frank Sinatra tribute set, and supporting the ship's comedian with some jazz standards during his late night comedy set. After that we were offered some free drinks at the bar by the cruise director in compensation. I tell you that some people on ships (white people..) seem to very quickly lose perspective of what amounts to a lot of work, and anything and everything I've done here so far does not come even close to it.

As if yesterday was too much of a burden, it turned out that we had the entire day off today, which while was not really needed was still kind of liberating. I got offered an opportunity to go on a shore excursion into Newport to visit mansions from the late 1800s. It was mind-blowing.

I have never before seen so much wealth. These mansions were built by the wealthiest people of the gilded age, with French and Italian influenced architecture. The first one we visited was called Marble House, which was a French-style mansion made, as one would assume, principally out of marble. The second, The Breakers, was of an Italian style, with a Roman look to it, with massive pillars and arches everywhere, and a powerful fortress look to it. The interior of both mansions was magnificent, filled with beautiful statues, stone carvings, gold plating, lavish paintings that filled the ceilings, chandeliers and more. The sheer size and ornamentation of the rooms was almost absurd, and to my eyes could have passed for castles.   I don't have the architectural or artistic vocabulary to describe what I saw, and unfortunately no picture taking was allowed inside for the unbelievably obtuse reason that it would somehow INTERFERE with preserving the site, which is so ludicrously dense that I will have to leave it at that. I did take many picture of the outside, however, which as usual will be posted on my facebook account. The Breakers was so named because it (like the Marble House) is situated right on the water, and the waves crash quite violently upon the shore below. It is a magnificent view. There is a path whose name escapes me that travels right along the water, separated from the mansions by a metal gate, and walking the path is apparently on the list for things you should do before you die. I hope I will get a chance to walk it next week in Newport.

I am happy to say that this excursion absolutely changed my impression of Newport for the better. Seeing the history, the cool old buildings that you start to see only as you get a little further in from the dock, and also just getting a second chance to look at the marina itself has made me feel much better about it, and I can now say that I would recommend it to most people. If you do go to visit Newport however you'd better make sure you check out the inside of the mansions, or at least walk  along the path along the water next to them.

We have just arrived back from the excursion and I have just eaten dinner and am debating how to finish off my evening. I will probably sit in on Ariel's lounge piano set, and then maybe watch a movie before trying to get to bed in relatively decent time - tomorrow we are in New York again, and this time I am going to bike it with some friends, and hopefully cover a lot more ground.

One more point of note is that I have been asked if I would like to stay on for one more month, up until February 11th, rather than January 14th. The bass player whom they have lined up for after me cannot make it until February, and it would be difficult for them to get someone in for just one month. I think I will most likely do it, but I want to confirm first that I don't have any other obligations scheduled for that time period, and as far as I can recall I do not. Also I need to give thought to the fact that by then, lots of people I know now will be gone, lots of new people will be here, I will be on a different itinerary, and I may feel very different about the cruise ship experience by then. I would like to give an answer in the next day or so though, and I think I will likely take it. I will mention it again when whatever I end up deciding is confirmed. 

here's yesterday's post:

September 30

It's been a few days now since my last blog, and while I'm now repeating the same itinerary this week, as I will again next week, I feel it's time to give an update on my perspective on things.

First of all let me cover a few more things about the places we've visited. I posted my last blog from Newport, which was relatively boring and so I will skip over that for now and maybe write more about it when we visit it again next week. 

On Sunday, after much anticipation, I finally got to check out New York City. As you can imagine, it is an incredibly overwhelming city to try and make sense of in a few short hours, and it feels premature to really say anything about it having spent so little time there, but I'll at least give my initial impressions.

The Showband drummer, Jay, showed me around the city, for which I was extremely grateful, having been intimidated by the prospect of trying to navigate the city myself. We walked from the cruise ship terminal (12th avenue and 48th street, I believe, on the west side of Manhattan), and walked to and through Central Park, Time Square, Carnegie Hall, as well as several other landmarks. It's difficult to do justice to everything I saw by writing about it, being as there was such a huge amount to take in. It might be helpful to check out my photos on facebook , the album titled "Norwegian Dawn 2".

New York is a great city to walk through. It is very straight forward to navigate through since it's on a strict grid system, with avenues going north-south and streets going east-west, all numbered. The best best word to describe the architecture as a whole would be overbearing. It's not just the presence of a lot of really tall buildings, but more so the distinct lack of any buildings that are NOT tall. There is a relative uniformity to the buildings, although there were quite a few distinctive older buildings mixed in as well. Having just come from Boston two days before however, I didn't think it had quite as much character as Boston's architecture and general city layout. Remember that these are very superficial first impressions, which I'm sure will be amended as I get to experience more.

New Yorkers have the same affinity with Fitness as Vancouverites, and the marathon that was being run at the edge of Central Park felt quite like the Vancouver Sun Run. The people are generally quite good looking and very diverse culturally, and for the most part quite friendly.

I was shocked and pleased by the prices of things in New York. I bought a hat in Time Square for a couple of the shows we're playing. It cost 10$, and am quite sure that the same hat would have cost $40 in Vancouver. They were selling "I Love NY" t-shirts for  2$ each, and Jay informed me you could find them even cheaper than that. No wonder everyone in the world seems to have one. For myself I decided that I needed to actually see enough NY to decide whether or not I loved it before buying one, and even then it will probably be somewhat reluctantly.

I've gone on enough about NYC for now and will talk about it more after my next visit. I plan bike around it next time now that I understand the layout. I should probably try to make a list of things to see before I get there next so as to better organize my time, but I quite doubt I will be that organized.

Monday was another at-sea day, as well as my birthday away from home. It was a very busy day of playing, as mondays always are, but I still enjoy all of the music we are playing so it was a good way to spend a birthday, and it was nice to end it at the casino where we get free drinks. Tuesday in Halifax I got to go on to facebook and email and read numerous birthday greetings from home which was very nice. I didn't spend much more time there other than to check out a notable tugboat in the harbour ("Theodore Too"), and to check out a few other landmarks.

Yesterday  (wednesday) we were back in Saint John. Last week I was not especially impressed with the city, probably due to having been pressed for time while there. This week, I had a lot of time to walk around, and I was very impressed with the amazing old buildings and atmosphere. It was an extremely foggy day, and that combined with the relatively deserted streets and old architecture made it feel like a ghost town, which I thought was great. Most of the buildings there are red brick, but there are a few much older looking ones, in particular churches, with a gothic castle look to them. 

That night, we played the South Beach Rave production show again, which was a lot of fun. Since I have memorized most of the show, I was made to walk around the stage a bit while playing, choreographed and timed with the dancers and other musicians so as not to run into them. It was very rock and roll. As a bass player this kind of thing is extremely rare and unfamiliar (at least for me),as I usually never stray far from my post next to the drums and keyboard towards the back of the stage. I enjoyed my brief moments of stardom. After the Rave show we played our Tina Turner tribute show, which was a blast and I enjoyed it more this week now that I know my parts better. The singer from the duo that we support for the tribute is extremely charismatic and energetic, and it's really fun to be a part of the show.

Today we were in Bar Harbo(u)r again. In town I had a sample of some beers from the local brewery, including a blueberry fruit beer, which was surprisingly good. Unlike some other fruit beers, it was not overpoweringly sweet or syrupy, and the blueberry flavour was subtle but significant. Afterwards I went for a walk along a coastal path which kept our cruise ship in view for the entirety, and showcased some pretty amazing looking mansions. I'm afraid I went a bit overboard with pictures on that walk, but it was just one of those places. Bar Harbour has to be one of the most enchantingly idyllic places that I have yet visited, and I've seen my fair share of friendly coastal towns. Even the prevalence of noisy tourists does nothing to destroy the serenity that pervades. It put me in an extremely good and reflective mood. I still can't believe that I get paid to go visit such amazing places. Someone told me that as a crew member, if I go to the shore excursions desk on the ship at the last minute I might be able to get a free spot in one of the numerous excursions for free, which would be pretty cool. A bunch of people went on a river rafting expedition yesterday in Saint John which I unfortunately missed out on due to a rehearsal, but I might see if I can swing it next week.

Onward to some general thoughts about life on the ship. I feel like I have now settled into the routine here, having been to every port on this part of our itinerary at least once. A big thing to think about as a musician on these boats is what to do with all of your free time when onboard. I have been taking every opportunity I have to sit in with other musicians who have solo lounge sets, although that is not until later in the evening. There are video games, gyms, books, dvd movies and tv shows, endless food places, napping time, an art gallery, and of course a few thousand people to talk with. I've started to take a lot of pleasure in talking to passengers. They are all very excited to hear about what it is I do and where I'm from. I've getting accustomed to being watched by smiling, knowing grandmotherly faces, elderly passengers to whom I probably bring to mind their own children or grandchildren. I've even had a couple passengers want to take pictures of me. I find the tiny amount of celebrity that I acquire when people find out that I'm the bass player for the showband quite amusing, since in any other context the bass player is entirely overlooked.

The only other subgroup that has the same kind of empty schedule as the musicians is the singers and dancers, who are together part of the Jean Anne Ryan Company. because of our matching schedules I've gotten to meet a number of them who,  and they are all very cool and talented people, mostly from the US and other commonwealth countries. 

A few other miscellaneous thoughts:

- I've started to notice that every single hallway in this ship seems to have it's own private little music station of various different styles, and so far I haven't run into any bad music, which is refreshing. 

-It is very peculiar with this run that we change our clocks twice a week to accommodate the time change from New York to Halifax. After it happened the first time I've become used to it, but it does add an extra random factor to the week.

-Today was my first pay-day, and it felt so good. I like being paid in cash, though it requires more effort to save. And yes, even though they don't deduct any money for tax, it is still unfortunately my responsibility as a Canadian citizen to declare it on my tax return. Oh well.

-Tonight we are going to play two Neil Diamond Tribute shows. Last week we did only one and had a number of people complain that they couldn't get into the room due to its popularity. Tomorrow will be a day in Boston again which will be great - I plan to try and bike through it this time round, weather permitting.

-I also just realized that tomorrow is two weeks from my first day here. The first week felt long but the second one has gone by extremely fast, which I guess must mean that I'm enjoying myself.

I was going to start trying to write this blog a little less often now that my initial rush of familiarization has mostly passed, but  as I write this I am finding that if I leave it too long I amass to many thoughts that I want to write down and then it takes me twice as long just to remember and organize them, so I might try and keep it up a little more often. I am really enjoying having this outlet, and having people who actually seem interested on the other end of this is encouraging.