The dates that blogger.com has at the top of my posts doesn't necessarily reflect the actual day that I actually wrote any given blog, as I usually write them mostly one day and then fix them up the next day or so.

With that in mind, I will write down the actual date at the start of each blog.

Dec 13th 2012

Day two on the ship. There are some things that I remember extremely well from last time I did this, and there are also a lot of things I had forgotten about life on a cruise ship.

I can find my way around most of the ship quite easily still, which is a bit of a feat because of the size of the ship and the maze-like layout to some parts, particularly in the crew areas. The food, varied and plenty, is more or less exactly as I remember it being. The smells of the ship, each area distinct from the others, are just as I remembered them.

I had forgotten how closely nit the crew were. Everyone  mostly knows everyone else(or at least the north american and europeans), regardless of department, and are very welcoming to newcomers.

I forgot how nice it felt to have literally no responsibility or obligations beyond playing your instrument. Yesterday, aside from having to go through some silly safety training, my sole work responsibilty was attending a 10 minute sound check, and then playing one 3 minute Mambo tune for the welcome aboard show. 13 minutes. Plus, we apparently get another full day off sometime during each cruise. Most days we play two 45 minute sets, which is ludicrously little work for the trade-off of getting paid to live and hang out on a cruiseship. Life is incredibly uncomplicated.

I forgot how cheesy some of the other entertainment on the ship is. Some of it is quite exceptional, but lots of it caters to the lowest common denomiator type of passenger who is easily entertained by extremely un-profound performances. The phrases that the cruise director uses to address the passengers should only ever be used ironically. 

Thankfully the material that the showband plays usually has musical substance. Having now played once briefly with the band, I am quite looking forward to the rest of the contract. All of the band members are really easy-going people, and also as far as I have heard are all great musicians. I also have the added bonus of replacing a bass player who was quite unpopular in the band for a number of reasons, so just by showing up on time and playing the bandleader is extremely pleased to have me, which is always a good thing.

I am constantly amused by how unused to remotely cold weather people over here are. It's definitely not summer weather, but even when it's cold it doesn't seep into your bones the way that the cold in Vancouver does, and It feels fine to walk around outside in a short-sleeved shirt. Whenever I mention this people will tell me knowingly that it's because I'm Canadian.