Here are a few more updates:

April 4th

Things keep happening too quickly to write it all down, but I'll try and write the best stuff down.

on the 31st where I wrote my last blog, I was in Piraeus again. That was my second and last time in Greece, so I walked around the port area for a while before taking a train into downtown Athens. Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time to spend there, but it was a cool area, right at the foot of the Acropolis. The area I was at was a shopping district with lots of vendours, but there was also some ruins around the area to check out.

The experience was soured a bit by going to a bar and being ripped off the price of a couple drinks - well, not really since they did charge me the menu price, but the menu price for the two drinks came out to 60$ USD - but I guess that's also part of the Greek experience.

One more day in Izmir was well spent, I walked all through the city to the local Bazaar. I was tempted to buy all sorts of things but ended up just buying a pipe for 40 lyra - less than half the price it would have been back home. 

It was a friday and thus the Islamic holy day, and it was interesting to see Muslims throughout the city kneeling down in groups, listening to a voice coming from loudspeakers throughout the city, presumably a sermon. 

Saturday, the 2nd, we got back to Istanbul again. It was pouring rain and cold that day so I didn't go out during the day. That evening we had a show with a singer, Katy Setterfield, who is a singer from England who won on the british tv show "The One and Only", a show seeking to find the best tribute act in the UK. She performed with us tributes to Dusty Springfield, Annie Lennox, Cher, and Tina Turner, each one progressively better than the previous. It was a really fun show for us to play since as it went on it became more and more rock oriented, and playing 80s and 90s pop is a genre that seems to be lacking on cruise ships, so it was fun to fill in that gap.

After the show a whole bunch of people went out to Taksam square, the night-life district of Istanbul. Between saturday and sunday night, I must have seen at least 15 different musical acts in that area without even trying.

The music scene in Istanbul is extremely inspiring. The way that music is integrated into the culture is very powerful, and there is a huge appreciation for music here. Every performance was profound in a different way, from the haunting solo woodwind player playing middle-eastern sounds in a near deserted street in the dead of night, to the rowdy 3-4 piece bands playing a fusion of middle-eastern and western pop-rock to a a highly energetic and receptive crowd. The open air setting of nearly all of their bars works in the musicians' favour, and in every case the locations with the music were much busier than the other places, to the point where we were turned back a few times before finding places with space. 

I don't believe there is any other city in the world like Istanbul. It has a bit of everything in it, culturally speaking - Middle-eastern, Western, Asian, European, all mixed together into a very unique culture. When walking through the city you are incredibly aware of the depth of history that the city has grown through, and it really transports you away from the rest of the world. 

Yesterday (sunday) I spent most of the day walking through the city, and managed to get lost for a good 40 minutes somewhere on the other side of the Grand Bazaar before finding my way again. I unfortunately discovered the local shoe-shinning scam the hard way. While walking behind a a shoe-shinner I noticed that his brush dropped onto the pavement, and so I called out to him to give it back. He was super appreciative and offered to shine my shoes in a way that strongly suggested it was complimentary, which it obviously turned out not to be. 30 Lyra. Throughout the day I had two other people try the same scam on me, dropping their brush in front, but I learned my lesson and brushed them off.

We are now at sea for two days. Musically speaking, we will have three days in a row of nothing but jazz sets, which is fine by me - we played for two hours last night, today for an hour and a half, and then tomorrow for another hour and a half. Jazz sets are especially fun because not only do we not have to read charts, our bandmaster, Alan, does not play with us, which makes the whole set much more relaxed and pleasant. 

April 9th

My last cruise before going home.

Overall the experience on this ship has been a very different one from the one I had on The Dawn. While this ship has been more satisfying musically, as well as having a cooler itinerary, I was much more emotionally attached to the Dawn, due to it being my first ship, and the length of time that I stayed there. Simply knowing that I won't be on this ship for as long has made me more detached about the entire experience, and less concerned with forming lasting relationships with people. As a result I am more looking forward to going home than I was at the end of my contract on The Dawn, even if I don't exactly know what my immediate future will hold.

Seeing these ports in Europe has given me a much better perspective with which to measure Vancouver, than did any of the ports in the Caribbean. The Caribbean ports were smaller and purely tourist destinations, whereas the places we've been to in the Mediterranean have been larger and tourism has been just one of several industries in the local economies. You have to be away from home to appreciate it, but unfortunately I know that I will cease to appreciate it again the moment I return. Still, it's nice to at least know intellectually that there really is something to appreciate.

Yesterday was my last day to spend in Barcelona outside of the airport, and I spent it walking along La Rambla street, and getting some wifi and americanos at a local restaurant.

Tomorrow will be the first day of my last shows of the Polka set, as well as Shout, the production show. 

April 11th

Yesterday I went on an amazing tour of Casablanca, which gave me a real new perspective and appreciation for the city. Our tour guide was very enthusiastic and informative, and clearly very proud of her country. She took us to an amazing mosque, which is the third biggest in the world, bigger than any of the ones I saw in Istanbul and much more beautiful. It was completed only recently, and so boasts such modern luxuries as a remote operated roof that can open to air it out, heated marble floors for when it is cold, chandeliers that can be lowered remotely in order to clean them, and artistically placed loudspeakers and amplifiers for prayers to be heard.

She also took us to a beach restaurant hub of the city, with some great views and cool looking nightlife. I was very pleased to have my initial bad opinion of Casablanca changed for the better. Last night we played my final dixieland set in the atrium, which was excellent, and a number of passengers who I talked to on the tour earlier on in the day came out to see it, which was nice.

Today we were in Agadir again, but with only limited time because we had a boat drill and entertainment meeting before we could get off. I went off for some quick wifi at the beachfront restaurant I stopped at last time I was here, before returning to the ship in time for rehearsal for tonight's show. 

The show tonight was put on by a singer named Marcus Jefferson, who was singing a tribute to Lionel Richie. Marcus did an amazing job, and it was a great show. I hardly knew Lionel Rihie before, so it was an educational experience, and was definitely one of the most rocking shows that we've played on the ship. An excellent second to last guest entertainer show for me.

Las Palmas tomorrow.