Round six: Baltic cruise, pt. 1

Sitno >>202<<

Yay! Paddie, meet Mark. Mark, meet Paddie. I've no idea why it never occured to me to get a camera-iPad adaptor... Maybe because I never needed one or had the money for it? Sounds about right. But now, I can just link the two and voila. Pickies! 

Holy fuck. I've taken like 1700 photos since I got here. Mind, the first 500 are just of Amsterdam architecture, because it was the first town we went to and I was still blown away by novelty.. Also, I take a lot of photos of food, for some reason. 

So, the grand todal of food eaten... And not eaten on this glorious off-day...

Rice pudding times four (don't worry, they come in thimbles)

Asian flan

Asian something white with corn in it

Two pieces of wholewheat toast with some butter, nutella and jam

A small croissont

A mini pie pockett

One spoonfull of a strawberry cream something

A brownie

A coconut macron or however those are called

Peach american pie

Yoghurt raspberry roll slice

Bit of french fries

One bite of a hot dog (didn't like it)

Three chocolated from the bar

A coconut Lindt (made me sick)

Few spoons of pasta with pumpkin

and a sea sickness pill

..

Haven't gone to Palms once. And didn't really have the apetite. We're crossing the Bay Of Biscay in high winds. Ask anyone who's tried that and see them wince.

+2

Sitno >>201<<

Took another pill, to tend to the bazaar, and around ten the sickness kicked in nonetheless. Offed to the doctor, who gave me more medicine, and I passed out until four. Then we had the 2nd formal and although I thought I was gonna suffer, it was nice. It was a nice day, regardless. I still can't really focus on editing the pickies for the blog, mayhap because I am not sure iPad will alow me to load them such as they are, but I'm gonna go up to the grand buffet to shoot some pretty food and on my way down I ran into a Thai goddess and her ensemble. The dance band is leaving us tomorrow. As I understand, they are not being paid at all, they're just being offered lodging and food - and a free cruise year. I've not the chance to speak to any of them, they are unlikely to socialize with anybody beneath them. They're mostly just very long legs and very big hair. Occasional pair of fake boobs on an otherwise oddly thin girl. Conversation, not so much.

+2

Sitno >>200<<

My, my, we are almost out of 200+ pocket change, are we? Days certainly go like soap bubbles.

G tells me that my dad is totally psyching himself out - that every time he, the General, phones up to report on my comeuppence, dad picks up the phone with a worried voice, than gradually relaxes through the report provided. I have gotsta tell my dad about the Moominpappa, who made a pact with his family, so that they will never worry about him when he travels, which will enable him to have total liberty. Liberty is important. You cannot think about making people worried all the time. That's why I bullshit the General so much, and only take his calls when I am happy. I cannot abide the thought of more people being worried about my wellbeing. I cannot worry about people at home too much either. Worry begone! I am fine. I get pissed off, I get lonely, I get horny, I get tearful, I get depressed, I get excited, I get into a fight, I get lost, I get challenged, I get sick, I get humble, but I weather through it. It's been forty-one days. It feels longer. It's why I keep messing up the Sitno dates. Sitno dates are actual. It's the Real World that's lagging. *

+1.8

*Also as it turns out I had my phone set a day late. Not unusual.

Sitno >>199<<

Ah, a new... day. Yesterday I wrote down nothing - d'ye hear me?! Nothing! (Phonesex joke.)  - though the day was easy and nothing much occured of any variety of thrill or horror... Come to think of it, I don't even remember much of it... Good Gods, brain, do you not love me no more? 

Oh, right: I went out to Honfleaur, where I indulged in a spot of melancholy (I've reserved the last days of cruises for such), sitting on the pretty pier, eating a sweet French dry pastry, sharing it with sparrows. Are sparrows the exact same everywhere in the world? It is still risky for me to wander too far from the sea - I needsta be in the earshot or sight or at least a seagul of water, otherwise I forget where I am and the road distracts me... Because it leads to another road... Where there is grass ... Maybe a forest ... Where there can be a path ... Leading to a village ... Where the road connect to another village ... And there is land ... And a crossroad... And I choose eastward ... 

I would be in a shitload of trouble, if I strayed too far from the sea, faster than you can say 'hitchhike'.

Though after seven hours of gallery (these have been an odd pax lot. The least pleasant yet.), I finally hit the gym, watched OnePiece, rode my bike for forty minutes and then ran or walked very quickly for another forty, holding the little green weight lifts. After an hour you are so hot and blood is going so well, you just don't wanna stop. But enough is enough. I am not doing two hours of gym in the middle of the night. What am I, Rambo?

We start loading merchandise and people embarcationy-style at around 11:30. Or at least that's when we set up the screen. Nobody will actually board until 2.p.m. It would not suprice me if the pax start coming at three. But, uu, Skandinavia cruise! Am thinking me will enjoy this one. :p

Another thing that would not suprise me would be a new rule, that we can never walk faster than a passenger... Really, I am holding my breath until there is a complaint regarding insulting the less able by walking quickly around them, and we will have a new order implemented, that we may never do that. Can you imagine? Oh, why, yes; yes, I can.

Showtime.

Dinner break. After 'embarcation'.

I learned a new trick! I call it the 'Retarded Magician's Assistant'... Namely, when people ask 'What is this for?' or, my favorite, in a really godawful English accent:'Is this compulsory?'... instead of trying to explain or convince them, go full retard. Seriously, just go full retard. Just one step away from drooling and picking your nose retarded. And just keep smiling until your jaw gets stuck, yelling: Hallou! ... When they ask:'Is this compulsory?' just give 'em the full onslaught of: Yes, yes, picture good! Nice photo! Photo good!

... We got SO MANY. My roomie was shooting, I was directing them, and we got SO many pics... Once or twice someone said:'Poor girl, you've no idea what I am talking about, do you?....' But mostly they just gave in and took the damn snapshot. I wouldn't even try to pull anything like this if I didn't know that in three hours they're gonna be circling the gallery, going:'Oh, are the pictures up already? Oh, that doesn't look half bad, no, does it.'

You can get pretty far among British tourists, pretending you're a witless Eastern European girl with a big smile. 

Eve.

How about a bad poem #9?

This dress of a thousand sighs

Will not fit me again tomorrow

I've eaten like a thousand pies

To swallow down my sorrow.

I am chased around this ship

By a gherbil with a broom up his *

I'll kick further that miserable stick

And we'll see how then days pass.

The humans on this iron, like ghosts

Slide aroud, or whoosh, through the motions

I practice deep fondness for some

And others get bile, not emotions.

Though in the hazy horizon at times

A giant strides, cursed by his wonder

Sometimes his gleaming blind eye

Inquires if I choose to surrender.

Titan, as much as my feet are grass-bound

My adventurous soul ain't for sale

But some day, in storm, ask again,

And I'll hitch a ride home on a whale.

Sitno >>198<<

"I do like you. I've liked you since the moment I met you. I didn't even know what your rank means; I had to google it."

Have posted the mail-me-if-ye-wanna-pickies sign on the message board in the hallway. Let's see how much trouble THAT puts me in, before AND after I send the pics. No good did, right?

There is something about ship life that has you in constant mode of paranoia of doing something wrong. Always on the verge of being attacked, always on the verge of being fired. Which is a problem, because I am starting to really like it here and dun't wanna be fired anymore. SLSB handed me a note today over breakfast and my heart stopped it was going to be something ugly. It wasn't, it was just a passenger leaving me a list of recommendations for beautiful photography locations around Whales. I am desperate to connect, perhaps, but my nature continues to come through, same as it did in the army, same as it did on Aurora, actually. I want to commit to this clownshow, I truly do, but I cannot help but to suspect that as soon as I show my joy for here, they will throw me overboard. Course, I could just continue telling everyone I am miserable. That ought to ensure me a spot on deck until either mine or the ship's retirement. :P

Do ships ever stop? Do they ever turn off EVERYTHING on a ship? Every engine, every pump, every light, every door? I don't mean like on a dead ship, those are far too frightful. I mean like sleeping ships. Can you imagine what that would be like, walking around a sleeping ship? Provided there is enough oxygen aboard. Do you have any idea how many doors a single ship has? And how very much I dislike doors? Hehe, I will likely have a problem with doors in the real world once I return, should I return, since the doors on ships are very heavy and you reall have to push them hard, even just to go to the restroom :D

Bought another David Mitchell book, the Bone Clocks. Reading Time Traveler's Wife ATM. Since all of a sudden we are working in shifts now, I have time to edit the pics and read AND write. Mad world. Couple sea days in the Baltic. The shops are selling Russian dolls. Sailing towards brand new shores again. Several fjords first, then Aalborg, Denmark... Aal, eh? Well, that sounds ominously intriquing... :)

Eve

Studios set up, waiting now for the show to start. Am in the dining cafe, having just murdered a brownie and a spoonfull of cream, and coffee. My ankle still hurts; sprained or strained something the other day in the gym. Fuck, I'm rusty. If I roll my shoulders, it sounds like a stack of wooden logs falling.

I think I know why they hire Philipinos to do the waiting jobs, and why the English like them so much. I watch them now, as they bring me coffee, call me 'ma'am' and smile with their surreally pretty faces. Because there is a natural servitude in their performance, an obediant little attitude that turns the rich old English people on. It's an act, clearly, but it's a good act. That is why the Enlish like to have their photos taken with them, why they faint from joy when the waiters remember their name, why they feel good when a 70 pound girl in a pristine pearl outfit and eyes and hair the colour of black gems serves them a coffee AND a smile. They are seen as wild beasts, tamed for serfdom. It makes the Brits feel good old colonnial again.

No wonder I suck at guest service. One look into my eyes, regardless of the smile, and you can see the animal right there. Friendliness comes as unnatural to me as does the tamed bit. Is perhaps why smiling hides the eyes. Smiles bullshit. Eyes refuse to.

Weird shoot. For some reason, when you ask people to pose during dinner, they start to laugh and continue to laugh, their faces twisted, while you shoot... Though the rollcount is okay, these passengers are just odd. Big difference between Dover and Southampton tropes, big. 

Didn't appretiate that DOo continues to suggest fidelity is a myth, regardless of how nice it is to hear his voice over the ship 's walkies when he's parking, or seeing his face unexpectedly in a crowd, so decided to kind of say goodbye to him. Dude, a woman can think of a man fondly without being a whore, stop disrespecting us like that. People are leaving all the time anyway, and he should be gone in a few weeks, so will just ghost him until then. He will notice the lack of me, I think. It may teach him a lesson, I hope. Disrespect is loathsome. I was gentle, though. Took his hand and planted a lipsticky kiss inside the warm palm, closing it and saying: goodbye.

Sitno >>196<<

Yesterday was actually a really nice seaday. Don't wanna jinx it. 

The dense fog ("Odin! Wake up!") lifted just enough to shine on some incredibly beautiful Swedish fjords. A shrimp fishing boat lcked with us and they opened the ship gates and bought fresh shrimp. :D I ate two tacos! Tacos are awesome!

Today we're in Aalborg. Finally, land! Don't care if it's raining. Was fog 23 hrs yestereve, though it did clear for a bit when we were going through the fjords and that shit's mesmerizing. Though I was in the gallery A LOT, we sold a lot and people were in a good mood. I've never seen such an eager lot. This could turn out to be the best financial yet, though considering it's half a month, I doubt it will ever be as good as two one-weekers. 

My roomie did something really cute the other day. We were doing embarcation and I was inviting, she was filming and SLSB was shooting, but she said 'let Nina do it' and then filmed a few seconds of me to add to her video. Awwwww! She chose me over SLSB! Amazing! I'm on cruise video now! :D  

I had a Polish lady who truly hated the idea of being photographed, so I just took the one and she warned me that if it's bad, she will strangle me and cut her wrists, but if it's good, she'll let me take another one. Well, she didn't strangle me. SLSB offered her studio time or Seascape and I assured her that he is very good, a lot better than me and will take good care of her. Since we are having two more formals, there should be plenty of time for me to get her to relax until we come up with a really nice product up in the end. 

Am spedning less time trying to talk to them. I spoke to a sixteen year old Grandson of somebody, home schooled, dark minded, trying to be nothing and everything. Can easily see him torture small animals and inherit mansions. But you can do a lot with one like that if you catch one young. If find time, I'll give him a ohotography lesson, so he'll have something to direct his wayward thoughts towards.

The dumbest people are not necessarily the worst. A lady just couldn't comprehend that if the waves are going one way, it means the ship is going the other way, but that was 20 minutes of fun between five strangers, trying to explain the differences between aft, front, port and starboard. The other not so fun stuff is people saying: oh, but this is not a good photo, you cut me in half... Er, sir, you CAN see the photos are places one a little over the other so we can fit more and the whole of the photo is properly framed, no? For fuck's sakes. Or: I'm looking for the ones with the captain, I can't find mine here. I must have broken the camera.

That's because these are the Restaurant, madam. The captain you were standing up and there was usually a captain next to you. 

She took quite a lot of photos of last last night, but I can only see one.. That's because they're in a stack, sir, there are many more behind, see? 

It's okay the first two dozens of times. It gets depressing as fuck after eleven hours. 

I have just enough time to either get a free hotdog and shoot some impressive architecture, or Skype G, try some hot skypesex and edit my blog, listening to Lana Del Ray sing Kinda Outta Luck...

Skype it is. :p

Ok, lemme try to post some pics...

.. Neup. Not fucking happening :/
But i loaded a buckettfull on Instagram, so that'll have to do for now... Just google Paper Kay Instagram. I'll google 'how ... to ... load ... pickie ... on freaking ... iPad ....blogger...' 

Fifth round: Spain and France, pt.1

Sitno >>206<< (While it was still a bad day..)

"You have makeup put makeup on you eyes it looks you been crying all night."

"Yes, that happens sometimes to people with a heart."

So, the last two days were less than fun, but I gotsta give it to the old boys, Hermes and Triton, for going out of their way to try and cheer me up. First, the sunset three days ago was surreal. Water was like oil, not a single wind ripple in sight. It looked more like an expressionistic painting than real nature. The giant burning flourescent orange and pink ball cut across it like a spear stabbing the indigo skin of someone primordial and sleeping. It reached all the way to the ship. The rest of the sky was cobolt and intense and the white contrails scarred it only scarcely. 

Second, I needed to talk to someone, I needed a friend, but I was looking for the wrong person and they did everything they could to prevent me. Is this person a snake as well? Would they betray me? I picked up a phone in the lab, but a coworker came in. I went down to my cabin to use the phone there, but it fell down and wouldn't work anymore. And I haven't seen them since. Only once did they come pass while we were having the bazaar yesterday and when they asked why I am sad I replied: There are evil people on this ship..,  

DOo came, saw me, positioned himself next to me and asked: Okay, what's wrong now? But his entourage arrived at the very moment and he vanished again. It reminded me a lot of how the General would ask that question. It's something that people who are not in the same situation and think I am over-feeling something ask. 

Wrote to the Land Manager to ask if they didn't want me, why did they drag me down here. He called and suggested I switch ships, that there is one awailable for my consideration. Yes, I hear of it often; it is always under some kind of medical outbreak. I don't want to do that. I like this ship, the good is really good. And I will not be banished by a single person, no matter how big a nightmare he is. (Actually, that's just it, he is really small as a man. A lonely little man.) 

I ate more than was agreed, and drank coffee and ultimately, because the sea got angry, took two sickness pills, which, yes, you remember, tranquilized me. In the end it was the Comedian who offered to cheer me up by buying 24 hrs worth of internet and, after having used it himself for a few hours, gave me the code for the rest, so I can Skype the General. Whether or not he delivered it in the end I don't know, I passed out in my cabin, but the thought was beautiful. (Ye, he did, he asked two of my shipmates via text to give it to me.) Genuinely nice. 

We're in Dover now. We are not picking up any passangers here; we are going down to Southampton, which means there will be no embarcation today. Which is weird. No idea how we will remedy that one. This cruise was unexpectedly amazing, with many happy campers, many people shaking my hand, many positive feedback, lots of individuals saying they loved my work, respectively. Course it's policy that one negative obliterates all positive, regardless of how many or what an asshole that pax was to begin with. Somebody continued to complain we were only ever in industrial ports... I spoke to that person twice and tried to explain that an industrial port looks a lot different, mainly there would be several CARGO ships around, not small sailboats and our medium sized cruiser, but he insisted. They were tiny ports, used for merchant stops and fishing and there was usually only room for one ship. But no. No glass terminals, I guess, to satisfy our determined pax. He just HAD to go online and file an official complaint. 

Imagine Hermes and Triton were drunk or busy and we had rain all the time? There would be no postcards, no magnets, no gangway, no sailaway parties, no cheer, no friendly conversation starting with how blessed we had been with the weather. Even the footage of arriving to port, gently and elegantly, wouldn't make the videos so attractive, because it would just be a bunch of miserable fools trying desperately to steady a flailing ship into a dock the size of a glove. 

I mean, sounds like good footage, but the passangers appreatiate only weather perfection, coctail parties with a handsome captain and excursions where they are carried to every point of sight and not a moment too late to have sunsets on every location. 

Sitno >>205<<

France and Spain cruise start, moving between ports

Holy acorn, something really weird just occured to me! I am being bullied!

I didn't think of that, not until I began to argue against it!

- No, it's not so bad.

- I am too strong a woman for that to ever happen to me. 

- No, really, it happens to everybody. It's not a big deal.

- It's just me.

- It's just how he is.

- He probably means well.

- He's under a lot of pressure.

- Sometimes he isn't mean at all.

...

Holy fuck! I'm a textbook victim of an abusive relationship! 

It was when DOo said something strange today, he said: We can't be having this conversations, not even as friends, because if I learn of something like this, I have to report it.

...

What? But... It's nothing, it's not so bad, it's just me, I'm just being overly sensitive ... What?

To begin at the begining:

Morning. 

That was the fastest dumping of passengers I've ever seen. (Also later, when we arrived to Southampton late, fastest parking I've seen. Poor buffers.) I came out of my cabin at nine and asked what time do we sail for Southampton and we've already been at sea for an hour. It takes two hours to get people to come to a bus!

(I really should stop using the word 'sailing'; it's rude towards sails.)

Have no idea what our schedule is today, only that we meet in the lab at five to make a plan. Making plans to make plans, you know? Like a pro. Anyhoo, we pick up the new lot tonight and nobody has any idea how we'll shoot embarcation, or when, because those photos cost more than the other ones and people like them better than gangway. You kind of introduce yourself with them. And it doesn't matter if it's rainy, because it's indoors. They're a safe bet. And we're without it today, as we have no real place to set it. And the passangers have been waiting and will be in a bad mood, hungry and tired. As is SLSB.

Ah, well...

I've to write, so that's something. 

I was gonna write about the petroglyphs from the other day, but got distracted by trying to commit tripple murder suicide on account of being bullied, as it turns out. Will post the petroglyphs in a separate post, k?

The email that I sent to the Land Manager somehow managed to make a full circle through some very strange channels. Land Manager told me that he spoke about me with some other person who's on this ship to get an oppinion and I have no idea whose those people even are. That is a really weird thing about this ship life - you cannot blink without someone reporting something about it. I don't suppose I expected anyone else to see it, but I just spoke to DOo, who told me that Hotz told him about the email... How the fuck does everyone already know about that email? Don't these people have more important things to worry about?

Also now think I should have probably used better grammar :D

The Land manager told me to consider switching ships. It is the most common solution around here, running. DOo told me to consider filling an official report. But the most important thing, ironically, he said is to write everything down... So please, my beloved blog, don't backfire. Because if anything, I truly do put everything down, don't I?

It is a bizzare day. And it's only two in the afternoon. The ship is being cleaned and repaired while rushing to the new berth port. My head if full but my heart is afloat in some dark waters sorrounded by white chalky cliffs. I sat in the corner of the officer's mess and wrote. First I was joined by the guitarist singer, because every other mess is being sanitized and he was told to eat here. We talked about issues with jobs and photography. Almost everyone else started coming in, starting with the captain. It was the second time in a row DOo met my gaze, but did not smile. Not even half of his fake smile. Sth was up..

Five leaves of salad later, I offed up to the officer's deck to talk to Hotz. I had a list of questions, all quite trivial, of course, but I kinda needed to know - where can I sit, what can I drink with whom, what may I wear, how late at night can I be up and so on. The highest up is probably the one who can really answer that. DOo was there, I thought maybe they will try to corner me, but he only looked at me, got up and left the room. The Hotz seemed to have been expecting me, though. He took enough time to explain certain things, which will help me. Which was decent of him, I think. And yes, my tattoo is soon going to become such a problem that I will be allowed to wear trousers! Finally! You have any idea what it's like having to photograph people wearing a small skirt?

After I told Hotz that it is nowhere near in my agenda to appear rebellious or stubborn or lazy or rulebreaking or disrespectful, but I am unfortunatelly receiving very mixed messages, he assured me that when I do something wrong on purpose, he will know and until then, a newbie is tolerated. He also stated that violations make him calm, because if there are no violations on a ship, something is being direly overlooked..

But I will not be a newbie for long. And it begins to take a toll on you, when you feel like there are a thousand people on the lookout for your mistakes. Everybody knows everything. The problem occurs when a half truth is said of you and suddenly you have no idea which accuser to face, nor have the opportunity to explain yourself. 

This is where DOo's advice comes in. I knocked on his door and after a long moment of smileless staring at one another,"Yes? What is it?" "Nothing." More staring..  he told me to come in and have a seat. He knew about my letter to my and knew about me going to see Hotz even before I knew I was gonna. And knew of my clashes with SLSB and that the Bar keeper reported me. He refused to admit he knows more still, but I didn't press. He told me that these conversations should not be happening between us: he cannot know of a wrong happening on the ship and do nothing about it. I told him to leave it for now, that I am handling it, for now. He thinks I should switch ships. I said there is no guarantee another ship would be better. After all, this ship is good. The good here is good.

However. I have no witnesses, no proof and my shipmates do not deserve to be in a possition where they would have to choose sides. *I* do not choose to put them in a position where they would have to choose sides. Fine, he said, that is your decision to make - but write everything down anyway. Just in case. BEFORE I start to sink in a depression and quit over some spiteful bad superior. He said he didn't believe me when I was joking about 'one month and one day' - as SLSB promised to be rid of me in one month and I was here one day longer than that still... He believes it now. 

I got up, told him not to move, kissed him on the cheek for a few seconds, he said thank you and I walked out, saying I am not going to let people push me off a ship so easily. He couldn't get me fired, so he is trying to make me quit. Well, so far I am still here. Well at times and at times barely, but still here. One month and four days. 

Walked back to the mess. Though the corridors were empty, I am 100% sure there will be talk of me seeing Hotz officially and seeing DOo privately and writing the report. SLSB has, after all, specifically called me out when he was leaving lunch: bye, everyone, have a good day, bye, Nina.

...

Scary.

Sitno >>206<<

Times diet broken: onceeeee, after lunch, because they were serving coffee freaking ice-ceeam and I cannot pass on coffee ice-cream and it has to be eaten with coconut and chocolate cake..s

Times yelled at by SLSB: None? Unnatural. The man is being POLITE and chatty. He THANKS us after shift... Wtf? Okay, so he does repeat the same thing four times and after we are done for the day he holds a mini meeting to repeat everything one more time, but come on. Polite! I swear, if they find a kilo of coke in my camera bag one of these days, I will not even be able to act supriced. 

Almost 205. It's midnight. We are heading to Spain via France, where the dock workers are on strike, so our itinerary had to have been adjusted slightly. Today was the first formal, also known as getting to know people. I took quite a lot of portraits, oddly enough, and restaurant work, which is never easy. Even shot the doctor, who was told to repeat his session, for he was not smiling enough the first time. He was so sweet, trying to speak my language. Ultimately we just switched back to English. It's the easiest language to be marginally friendly in. I have, however, noticed that the people you don't really know, you call 'darling', the people you do know, you call 'guys' or 'babe', and the people you like, you call 'beautiful', or 'baby'. "Good morning, beautiful. That dress is amazing, you look so good!" .. "Baby, WHY are we not moving yet? Who's driving this ship!?" ..

I should really go to the gym, because my knees are LITERALLY making rusty old door noises. I'm not clowning, they actually make a 'craak' craak' 'craak' noise when I use the stairs. I should do some joga or something, but I am too tired and just not in the mood to force myself to strain some more. I KNOW it would make me feel better, clean up my blood and get some lubrication going (Is that scene from Eat, Pray, Love true? That when you don't have sex for too long, your joints get all scratcy?... O.o), but no. I'm not lazy. I'm just freaking beat. 

Sitno >>205<<

"The constancy of my heart is not for sale. (And the cunt doesn't get a vote.)" 

(Me, on Skype with G.)

Except for having made an old widdow cry, t'was a good day. (Her husband died recently and the very mention of him brought on the waterworks... Thing is, when we are helping peeps find photos, we ask: was it just you with the captain, or...? .. 'Yes, my husband died this christmas.' Bloody fucking Hell.)

Was THIS CLOSE to snapping at a guest. He was giving me a dirty look, up, down, up, down, then shook his head in disapproval:'You should not be having a dirty tattoo, it is not fit for a young lady.'

And I almooooost said out loud: "Oh, I got it in Russian prison, where I served twelve years for killing a nosy old neighbour."

THIS close.

But I don't want to be fired :D

The comedian's wifi code enabled me to do some slow browsing and a few minutes of skyping with sweet sweet G, who looks so handsome and alive it's almost surreal. He asked me for some photos in my uniform for gran and some out of the uniform for himself, so I took some sizzling selfies to send next time I'm online. Also, on a related subject, washed my laundry. Someone moved it all from the washer to the dryer and this was the first time it all actually dried.

It was a good cruise, the Mystery one, me thinks, I made the most money yet, over 400 bucks. At least financially this isn't as sad as I feared. Soon, soon I will have a new lens and a new bag and new books! :* 

Chatted w/DOo, who started going to the gym since I told him he's eating too much low density cholesterol, which is why his blood sugar is high and his iron low and he has to sleep so much. (It was total bullshit, of course - he has to sleep eight hours per day because he runs a 25.000 ton vessel and I've no idea if sugar and iron out eachother :P) I said: "I though of something you can tell me. You won't tell me a secret, because you don't trust me as far as you can throw me and my discretion level is nonexistant. All your stories are sexy, which, I imagine, is supposed to convince me you're good in bed, which isn't how it works, so we'll skip right over those. But there is something you know that I don't and I want you to teach me. I want you to teach me how one person can move this boat."

"Er... My dearest, it has taken me forty years of living on ships and 15 years of schools for an engineer and captain and I still couldn't move this ship alone. You think I can teach you in one hour?"

"Of course not. Don't be silly. It will probably take us at least five. I'll make notes."

Also heard a good quote, which I magicmarked on the ceiling above my bunk, by Bukovski:

"Find something that makes you happy and then let it kill you."

 

Sitno >>204<<

Gatxo, close to Bilbao.

Not seeing Gugenheim, not even from afar. And that big spider gives me bad dreams since I saw a freak Jake Gyllenhal movie so I hid all it's fridge magnets we have for sale.

Gangway from 8 to 9:30.

Gallery from 17:30 - 21:00*

British night from 19:00 - 20:10

Serving drinks at a crew party: 0:30 - 1:00

:D

8)

*Course SLSB forgot about this schedule and I had ten minutes of diner and then worked until ten thirty like I always do. But I knew that was gonna happen, so didn't even bthink of it until I saw it was already ten.

A pax went a little psycho on me today, at the gangway. My task is to ask, in a high pitched voice: Hello, would you like a photo? or Just here, close together, nice smile?... or: Will you stand for me?... You do this very nice, in a friendly but determined way, so they kind of either obey or say No, thank you, and walk by, in which case I wish them a nice day or comment or the weather. The nice ones chat for another two seconds, then hurry to the shuttle bus. But a woman today snapped: "Don't you dare waste my time!", and she meant it, too, it wasn't a joke. I thought I heard it wrong. I thought maybe it was a bad attempt at humor. But then she snapped again: "What do you think you are looking at?!"... 

It feels a little bit like being punched in the stomach. It takes you a couple of minutes to snap out of it. Did we ruin some photo she was hoping it would come out right? Did I inadvertedly make some promise which I failed to keep? I had no idea. Her husband needed the aid of two canes to walk, and all the while he struggled to make the lenght to the bus terminal, she was snapping at him. Crickey. I do not envy the weather in that woman's world.

Walked alongside the pleasant promenade of the city, where some ambitious, though not overly original architects erected posh villas, and got to a chanel with a cool suspended gondola service for the people to go across, sometimes with cars. Found another big church, moorish a bit, in style, and a postcard, though no ice-cream. Had a little bit of a cherry cheesecake later, after lunch. For some odd reason, the town totally reminded me of Cairo. May be the size and shape of the buildings or the trees and the jasmin bushes or the wide pavements. Made me nostalgic for a city I only had a pleasure of for one week. But I loved it then. I'm sure I must have been some kind of a scoundrel there in 1920’s :p

The sexy pics I sent to G had the desired effect and for a couple of minutes we talked really juicy stuff to one another. We pitied my clothing or what will happen to them, once he catches me.  However, it is not easy having phone sex while there is a whole lot of happy and loud Philipinos in the same hall, and you are trying to focus on the heavy breathing and the resonance of your fuck me voice without drawing attention. It doesn't matter you are speaking in a language nobody understands. Some sounds translate :D

One of the hosts whom I told this story later mocked me, during the party, where it was really noisy, proposing I try the phone sex session now: "Can you hear me?! I'm wearing nothing! NOTHING! Hello?".... :D

Off to bed for a bit now, it's around one, midday. We are sailing on already. Next stop Bordeaux, where hopefully I will be able to buy some Apple gadgets for my iPad-meet-camera, and wire the rest to the nest, where the wild things are. 

Eve

Been an oddly good day again. Things are too nice, it is too quiet. But we'll blow up that bridge when we get to it. Mental note to try and sign up for Normandy Landings excursion. That would be awesome to see! 

Grabbed some rice pudding and flan and fruit for dinner (early off day) and am on my way to shoot photos of the party before my bartending shift starts. I asked the ...something Manager to ask some other manager to ask Hotz if I may ask some third manager to take pickies of the party. Hotz said ai, but I can only sell them to the crew, not the guests... Sell? Who the fuck sells party photos to your own shipmates?? Sometimes I just don't understand these people. Anyhoo. Called DOo, who just woke up to meet the pilot and may drop by later, and the chief security guy, the cutest Asian man I've ever seen, made sure I was gonna be there, so I will at least have some company, even if everyone else is dancing. Ugh, I haven't taken party pics in eons. Step one, charge the flash batteries. ;)

Two a.m.

Well, finally got my calling back, taking pictures while everybody else is having fun :D I missed it so! Though I did enjoy bartending for an hour, except that I kept giving away bottles of wine when I should have been handing out cups and even that just for tickets. Don't think I collected a single ticket. But did spend about 30 litres of wine. Quess that makes you friends with people. I though someone was asking me to take a photo of them with their phone when in truth they wanted a selfie with me. Was so supriced I smiled like an idiot :D

The best bit was that we were in the absolute aft of the boat, where they keep... Mooring or moating or something to do with docking ropes equipment. There are few walls there, just large cage bars and I could stand in the wind and watch the two-o’clock-in-the-night ocean, the moon, the lighthouse, the near crescent bedazzled coasts. Everything was satly. I love the taste of sea salt. As if I wasn't dehydrated from jumping enough :D

I took some hundred plus photos of the party. The question now is, how to distribute them to anyone who would want them? Not interested in having them printed, because paper is too singular in this case, and on most photos there are many people posing and they would want reprints. What I really wanna do is get them all on-line and get an all-crew mailing list and just send them to everybody. Or load them onto someone's hard drive and hope they spread? Hopefully no-one will have a problem with that. Will try to find an easy solution, as I want to do this more and want people to know MarkII and I were here..

Fourth round: Maiden Mystery cruise, part 2

Sitno >>211<<

Times told taking someone's photo will break the camera: 8

Times SLSB yelled at me yesterday: once, because I went on an excursion that brought me half an hour late to the gallery (because you need three people selling photos on an empty ship, two hours before everyone returns onboard. Not that I didn't ask permission beforehand. Not that it mattered.)

Times I wanted to cry or hit somebody, or both: almost none, actually. Almost.

Food not eaten: two kinds of chocolate cake, strawberry pie, chocolate rice pudding. And lunch.

The excursion took us aroung Nyburg or somesuch, Newcastle.. Mote-enclosed center small enough to blink and miss it and I was on the afternoon bus, which drove through some interesting locations that make Danes proud. Say up to a place called Valdemar Slot - the Danish... Denmarkian ... Dane version of a summer princess palace. No, really, though it was built for some king's second son, it now belongs to some girl who divorced some other king and is remarried to the son or grandson of Ian Flemming. So the place isn't being used, which in my oppinion is criminal. Why have a beautiful home and not use it? Fucking sell it. Make it into a school. Make it into a national library. Burn it. Don't have a house that's cold. I did like the story about the original prince, though - he was such a loser that when his dad gave him silver to go woe some hot Russian honey, he got turned down, his ass kicked and his silver stolen. They still bicker about it till this day.

The Danes have a humble sense of royal real estate - though impossibly pricey, everything is very small and very neat. This castle consists of the main building, stables and a garden house/glass pavillion type deal, where you can go to the tiny beach from, or listen to a string quartet. It was mostly empty and for tourists. But for the name, it was very cute. Very stuff of Cinderella legens and the like. The name, of course, is too important for me to throw around lightly. The name belongs to the dead. ... It just occured to me. I always assumed Valdemart was Norwegian or Swedish, because that's what I always assumed the Norse men to be. He was probably in fact a Dane. 

...

Hold. Tove Janssen IS Sweddish, though, no? Or Finnish? Fuck. My brain's geography compartment cache is getting full.

... Oi! But! Met a lady who does Geocaching!! :D So cool! We totally compared notes. 

...

We drove by a beautiful lakeside house, where once upon a time a pretty girl lived, whom some royal dick fell for and chased. Her mum wouldn't have any of it, though, so when he swam the lake and climbed the wall to her room, it was actually some other hottie he knocked up. Legend says he then paid the girl the baby's weight in gold... So... Two and a half kilos? Yay. Generous. 

These stories always confuse me. First, how do you not know whom you're bonning? Was she waiting on the bed on all fours and a bag over her head and he just parked it? Or... How does that work? Second, did the replacement have any say in any of it? And lastly, people sure used to get pregnant very easily those days. Five minutes of conversation and bam. Stork brings gold. 

We drove pass a church where two starcrossed lovers were burried, and by starcrossed I mean some diva soldier dude with a wife and two kids back home, porked a circus ballerina and whole drama ensued. They tried the elopeing strategy, but that didn't work, so they decided to go full Goethe on one another. Got a picnic basket and a pistol, had picnic first. There were some inconsistencies regarding the bodies found, such as a mess made of the picnic blanket and her clothes, which I would like to think was a result of lovemaking, but rumor has it she tried to back out and he murdered her. Anyhoo, dumb story short, nobody wanted to bury them, but in the end they were forgiven, the widdow came with the kids to say she holds no grudges. That's nice of her. I'd burn the fucking church to the ground.

The third almost stop, more of a drive-by, was a hotel where H.C. Andersen liked to eat and sleep. He was a poor illiterate shoemaker's son and his mother was so hungry and cold she began to drink to feel less so, until that was all she did and did no more, but the kid could sing and dance and write and wanted to work in the Royal Theater. Those were the days when you just walked up to the gate and declared yourself the best thing ever and they took you in. But supposedly the director liked him and arranged for his tuition (though he was 8 grades behind everyone else and miserable for it) and he had charm enough to get sponsors. They taught him German, because an ugly saying applied to those times: you speak Danish to your dog and German to your friends...

Nice.. 

Well, the kid grew up, had some bitter love affairs, wrote some incredibly depressing fairy tales and went into legend. Not my fave. Died childless, toothless and old and his money went for schooling of poor kids. Or something. They're building the expensive museum now, milking the legend while it's still worth something.

... And me personally, I am in dire need of reading me some Moomins. 

Got back, got yelled at, then shot British night. DOo showed up beforehand, to chat. I asked if he ever goes out not dressed like a dictator. I sent him an Instagram request. Aww, and he can play ukulele. That is so cute. I've been in love with the idea of learning to play that since I saw how Penelope in Criminal Minds did it. The guitar is too precious for me to try. When in Stranger than Fiction the lead character picks up a guitar and plays the one song he knows, he is so talented he instantly gets the girl and you can see why. But ukulele, something I will always associate with Iz singing Somewhere over the Rainbow... That is really nice thing to know how to play in a random lifetime. That and speak Spanish and Farsi.

Afterwards, after my shift was done, I went to my cabin and dyed my hair, and cut it a little. It's deep red mohogany, very cool. I'll need to get some shampoo and conditioner (and sun block) to wash it again, as I am still spotty from the paint. Hope we got to Germany next, I need a DrogerieMarket.

3+

Sitno >>210<<

Been here a month. Seven to go.

Times told will break camera: 9

Times broke diet: had a croissont, biscuit and apple for lunch, and ice-cream later

Times been yelled at: haven't been to work yet.

Yup, we're in Germany. Shot gangway in the morning, then went out. The light kept changing, so it could be sticky. We'll see. Ran into the magician and we walked around the town until I stopped for wifi. We found the biggest church I have ever seen in my life - or the one most vast, as it was completely empty and... Well, that is how you enclose space. And I've been to pretty big fucking mosques in Egypt. It was bigger than any temple I've been to, any underground sewer system. Just massive. It almost kind of makes you dizzy looking up. Reverse fear of hights. An ant syndrom! :)))

Bought cheap ice-cream in Burger King (Gods, that place is like an even cheaper version of McDonald's. Ugh. Not like.) and skyped the General. It is hard to talk to him. I have to struggle not to cry, I just want to stare at his face. That should make my whole day, but it sinks me off the mountains and into the dark waters and I always feel torn afterwards. 

But managed to get my blog back, phew. That would have just made me want to kill myself, if suddenly I was cut off from my blog. I mean, come ON. How much of the literate cellibacy do you wish upon me, Internet?!

Will go back soon, alive and sunburnt. The magician left me a fedora, which belongs to one of the hosts. I like it. So not my style :D

At home everything is the same. Rockstar has a new haircut and a new girlfriend and I seem to have a new resto druid called the Hybernator. That's what happens if you leave a teenager with your Warceaft account. They inform me Jon Sow was brought back by Melissandre. So, there's that. Out here it's just me, exploring, adoring, taking in the culture that is so similar to home it's almost scary and yet so different I am looking forward to seeing which maiden port of call we discover next. I saw a million jellyfish today, by the ship. No idea how that creature functions. It's more like a tiny happy ghost - but a happy ghost of what? 

Sitno >>209<<

It's two in the morning, I'm drinking in the bar (the virginPinaKoladas, everyone else is not quite so virgin) and the rest of the entertainment gang is either dancing to some weird eighties music that's been stuck in a loop, or drinking some more. We've been though early eighties' greatest hits, some philosophy and post-show mood. The comedian had his show today and it was funny enough to pee myself. Punters loved him, because he often referred to old British pop like somgs and TV, old enough for these people to feel related. But I loved some other jokes as well, even if they were about cheating or discimination. Like when after a man stabs his wife's lover fifty times (and the man was also his best mate), the wife says: ye better settle down, you, if you carry on like this you won,t have any mates left...

Or, when a police officer says who stops him on the road ('Nature's most effective laxative.'): ..'Everything you say will be recorded and read ina court of law.'

'Please don't hit me again, officer.'

:D

Or, twenty minutes in: ... 'I don't really know what to do next, I've never been allowed to be on stage this long before....'

... "Carry me up the stairs and make love to me!"

"Choose one or the other, give us a chance!"

"You like the food here, ye, it's great? Bit weird, though, to come on as passangers and leave as cargo, tho..."

...

Every night she flet old age creeping up on her. Well, an old man. 

...

He sang and played the piano truly well. Some people just have that, that universal communicative side. The: keep the crowd up side.

He is another one hiding on ships after the divorce. I like him, I will well upon him. But life seems to get in the way of people's serenity.

Aw, man. Straight men dancing after four pints... I mean together. Handsome boys drunk happy and coordinativelly challenged... Trying to replay scenes from Dirty Dancing and ... Well, I can't explain it.  But they are having fun. And since we're officially closed, we can do whatever we like. Except sit at the same table, for some reason. I wanna look into that - why can't we sit together even after hours? No matter. We improvise. But it's so funny I am laughing my knickers off (or I would if I wore any, too lazy to have them washed). The liveliest host and the magician are tearing up the stage, now performing the choreographies of Thriller, KungFu fighting (ties turned to bandanas), Jump jump... The rest of us are RoFLing... I can't help thinking if DOo was here, he would acheive the Heisenberg effect - I would want him to be here, to have fun, to chillax and laugh, but I doubt people would dare behave like this with a senior officer in the room. (The only one worse is Hotz, the Hotel Manager, but he would never be able to enjoy himself anyway). It's the rub, innit? Full onset of Heisenberg.

One of the boys from the band asked me to explain how I can be so lonely when I am sorrounded by fun people. I said that being alone or in company is a biological thing and being in fun company makes me extremely happy. As does travelling and photographing. But the darkness inside me, the void in shape of G, means my soul is not connected to this reality. It's stuck in another reality, at home, where The General is and my bathtub is and my shops and shoes, Tinka's food and there is never any money, but is always an enormous amount of being seen as a person. This is a ship sailing fast through a cold night. It feels like being inside the belly of a great black blind whale. 

Today was a long day. I can't sleep, so I wander, and write. SLSB hasn't shouted at me all day. I thus far found him to have two redeeming qualities: he says 'Excuse me' when leaving the dining table, and when he DOES go out as a human, he has a tiny pocket camera. Aww. 

Was long, though, today, and it still lasts. I ate at a midnight Asian buffet - an occasional special treat for the crew, compliments of the chef. We grabbed the food in the crew mess and ate it in the officers' dinning room, and it was already midnight, so technically it's already my off day... Now it's three and although this giant iron casket is sleeping, three in the night is a surreal time.. The young band lad has decided he is going to giggle at every tile on the ceiling (there are very, very many). One of the drunk passengers is determined to swim across the marble fojer on their way to the room. The crew talent - cooks, cleaners and the like, are in the theater, rehearsing Makarena. A woman in the uppermost deck, in the Observatory, is reading a goth YA novel, knitting and passing the time, as 'himself', as she calls her husband, is suffering a cold and keeps sniffing and sneezing in the bed ... Some solitary soul is texting somewhere, some security is checking us out, some cleaners are polishing the railings or desinfecting the handles... The ship humms, it's freezing outside and the lights I can see through the windows are mostly other ships, with a rare distant lighthouse. Going north, northwest. Not enough stars to see where exactly we are. Not enough ambition to find out, either. All of these ports so far have been okay. And I learned of a new concept I ought to google when I get the chance: hanseatic. After some Hans. By the sound of it, it is something one should know about.

Morning

Too bored to sleep, I got up at eight. I look like Hell, but my hair is nice. We're back to Denmark. A little dissapointing, since I thought there will be more countries and for a moment I even though it has to do with the spot of "engine trouble" we had yesterday (usually a code for something else, though when I mentioned this to DOo over diner, he said: oh, please.), but all of that is silly, of course. Denmark is awesome, this town looks awesome, the weather is sublime, people are in a good mood and I know it's going to be a wonderful day ... I just dislike the fact I can't buy anything here. I have a handful of krone, probably not even enough for a postcard. 

Can it be? Is it possible I've arrived at the point where every day is good except for one or two a month and ship life is fun? 

* Somewhere on another plane of consciousness two Gods, Hermes and Triton, collapse from exaustion: Yes! Thank you! We've been working our assess of to make this impossibly beautiful and fun!! Did you notice the amazing sunsets every evening? The thorough lack of rain in Denmark? The warm wind and the parties? Finally you get it.!

A host girl told me to stop counting the days. I've lost count, to be honest. Thirtyone days? A month. And today is an off day. I ate all I could for breakfast, with butter on top, drank a gallon of grapefruit juice (and coffee, so maybe I'll finally be able to use the bathroom properly, it's been ages.) My hair looks hot, my smile looks hot, my dancing looks hot. I no longer feel like the fat old newbie. The ship has gotten very small to walk around. I am waiting for the nights to get warmer, so I can sit outside at night. Not that I've managed to find the bridge yet. It elludes me. I walked around the upper decks, where the uppermost officers live (no idea what they look like on the inside, but I hear from the guests that they are pretty sweet suites.) Exept for the Chief Security Officer, he has to sleep downstairs with us. I wonder why. What's so commonplace about security? Shouldn't he also be as close to the bridge as possible? I suppose there is something sacred about the bridge and I would be afraid to knock on the door and say: can I just spend an hour or five sitting here, looking out over the dashboard with binoculars?

I'm sitting in the posh dining room on the sixt floor, writing. Nobody's told me off yet. People around me are talking about either how upset they were when there was traffic in the towns they went to, or how supriced the drivers stop for pedestrians (well. Yes. You are not supposed to hit them.) or how nice they are to the 'servants' or how tiresome it is to go to a new port every day - cause, you know, you gotsta explore it, otherwise you have nothing to talk about over dinner. I know it's tiresome. I should get a nap later, if I am not to die standing in the gallery for seven hours. But drill first and exploration later. I have two voids in my heart, the burning empty black cavern the shape of G and another one, the shape of a map and a camera. The other is slowly being filled :D

The drill was CodeOscar first - man overboard, but I didn't run up in time to see how fast they put the boat down, I just saw them throw a doll around and practice collecting it. We just stood in the designated muster station and Ay! when our numbers were being called out. SLSB was telling a girl beside us how awful and stupid some guests are, to make her laugh. He told me off for having my phone visible in a public area. Then we move to the designated LifeBoat and stand around some more, wearing the big old LifeJackets, answering some safety questions. The Host sang his answers and we all danced a little. Then the signal comes and we're free to go. I think I will go eat some more. And yes, I've been to the bathroom thrice. Grapefruit and coffee do the trick.

Food eaten today:

Midnight:

Spicy noodles with veggies and chicken

Rice and corn flan

Vanilla pudding

Dough dumpling with honey.

Breakfast:

Three small croissants

A small apple pastry

A muffin

A chocolate pastry

Three small butters

Lunch #1:

...forgot, but it was yummy, if brief

Also had coconut egg something

Piece of cake that wasn't very good, too dry

Chocolate roll slice

... Grabbed a small glass of something ricey, hadn't eaten it yet

Dinner:

Pannacotta

Hot apple pie

Lemon tart

Something passion fruit, not that good

Crunchy apple pastry with cheese

Late dinner:

French fries

A meat ball

Coconut flan

Apple pastry with cheese

Okay. I might have overdone it.

Sitno >>208<<

Midnight

Again, the best part of the day was it's end. Although some fun stuff occured beforehand, some pleasant stuff (and fucking lots of food), when that bell sounds the end of shift (SLSB's voice), my brain is OUTTA there. It's half naked before that as it is, telling itself dirty stories or scenarios in which I would be required to move this ship on my own... I will learn if that can be done. I see videos of people doing it, DOo docks it all the time. And we have a batallion of meckanics to maintain the engine. But can one person start it and move it? Will ask and will report.

Was gonna have the last gangway duty tomorrow - later today - but I was told by SLSB I have to go urgently to one of the excursions. They need an escort. There will be a boat and lunch involved. I tried SO hard to look crushed and bothered. Are you freaking kidding me?? An excursion?? To a UNESCO site?! NoooooooooOOOOOoooo!! Gods, no, anything but that!

:D That just made my whole day. :D Didn't even have to buy the three obligatory chocolates. Ran downstairs, changed some of the clothes, grabbed the iPad and the camera on 50mm lens, ran up six stories, knocked on DOos door to drag him to have drinks with us, no answer, ran back down and then walked between Coral club, where the band was playing and my mates were, to Neptune Lounge, where some cabaret number was being served, and the pianist was. In between was a guitarist singer guy, who told me to pick the next song and when I picked Life On Mars, he sang it for me, so I sat down and listened to that. I grabbed the pianist and the comedian and went upstairs to eat the last meal of the day. Later we returned to the Coral bar to listen to the band and watched people dance. I took some pickies of my friends, some moody dim light late night bar scenes. Made myself leave at one, knowing I will need at least half of my brain to pretend in the morning that it had some sleep. Met one of the band members and had a nice chat as well. We talked about travels and Cardiff and Torchwood. 

Oh, and the best part of the day - when I went to Fredericia, a small waterfront town with ramparts, I walked into a bookstore and found tiny cards with tine envelopes of MOOMIN!!... Moomin! It was ten danish kronen. Though I only had nine, the three shopkeeper ladies said it's not at all a problem. They asked if I was from the big ship. I said Moomin is as close as I come with religious images. I put a hole in the card and hid it between my ID and evacuation cards to wear around my neck. Fucking Moomin. Hugging a birch tree. Honestly, I wouldn't be able to feel better if I wore something like St.Nicholas's little image, the patron saint of seamen, merchants, hitchhikers and thieves.

Yes, please.

:p

Sitno >>207<<

Been a long, shitty day.

There are some seriously evil people on this ship. Some Hannah Arendt level of evil. There is something damaged in their hearts. I would call them snakes, but snakes seem pure and gentle by comparisson.

I get so angry, I could breat the world. But I can't. I have it in me to break all the coffee cups on this ship. I have it on me to break the ship in half. I want to kill, I want to die. But I can't.

There is a good man out there somewhere, who would get very sad if he knew this.

So I can't.

I feel like I'm sinking. Like I'm in a grave. I can't breathe. 

I want to break the sun in half. Though it's already bleeding. I can tell you why the dark waters taste like dying.

It just sucks, this day. There are some seriously messed up people on this ship. It started well, I liked the excursion, loved the pictograms and the fishing villages and the salad and the pizza bread and the coconut biscuit and the thoughts and the photos and the colour of my skin and lips without makeup. 

Of course all good comes with an ugly price. With being reported for behaving badly. (1) For drinking. (2) For fraternizing with wrong people. (3) For sitting down in the wrong rooms. (4) For wearing the wrong clothes. (5) For working not enough hours. (6) For taking not enough photos. (7) For using the elevator when I am told to use it. (8) For sleeping too much and going out, off ship to much. (9)  For not standing in the gallery enough. (10) All these things I do wrong. And there will be consequences. My final warning.

1 - No fucking clue.

2 - Not alcohol, literally just putting liquid in my face at a bar.

3 - The comedian and other hosts.

4 - To listen to the singer guitarist play

5 - Eleven per day is just slacking. Changes will be made.

6 - Never mind SLSB LITERALLY pulls the camera from my hands when guests come. I am not allowed to shoot.

7 - He will order me in, then say I am breaking the rule and will be fired from the ship if caught

8 - Two excursion per months? Two out of fourty? Am I crazy?

9 - I have to stand more. I am not standing enough. i have not sold enough. I am the reason we are not making targets since I came here.

10 - He will have a meeting with hotel manager tomorrow to see what to do with me. 

There is a limit to how much longer I can be treated like a dog. I could really use a friend tonight. But there's only me. And no fucking way G can ever know about this. 

Cruise 4.1: Maiden call mystery, pt.1

Sitno >>217<<

Got a package from the General! Full of tiny socks and lotions! Now I won't have to wash my socks every five days. Face and body and hand cream galore! Oh, he sent me some such dense vaseline for hands that have made my paws and nails softer and more moisturised than they've been since I wept into them on the Ljubljana airport... And some baby wipes for makeup removing and red hair dye. And some old shoes with heels that were once part of the parade uniform for the army, but they are too ugly. :D

Land manager delivered the box and he seemed happy to see me. I like him, I feel bad for the situation he's in. He asked how I was.

Am I being fired?

No. 

Then I'm grand.

Why would you be fired?

There's a rumor going around my manager told everyone he'll be rid of me in a month.

I know what is going on, I have eyes and ears. Just bear with me for a little while longer ...

I am fine, really. I like this ship, I like my job. I'll be fine. Thank you for bringing me the box. 

If there is anything you need, just ask. You got my email?

...

I got back from lunch three minutes too late, as I missunderstood when I have to be back (usually it's on the hour or half hours) and that was several bonus minutes of shouting at me. Now he won't be able to get lunch, he yelled, he will have to stay hungry until the evening!!... (Because, you know, we only have three restaurants and they only serve food for five minutes every day...) I bowed my head, admited it is deeply my fault and was truly sorry, it will never happen again.

Something tells me SLSB never got a little package from anyone in all these years.

I wonder if I should mention to the Land Manager about his spitting dirty words after people, because one of these days someone who can understand him will hear him and that'll be reported. 

You know I answer to no less than five bosses these days? Four of which only care about money and one which maybe cares about quality? The ship owner, the ship master, the hotel manager, the land manager and my manager... That's cosmic karma for ye right there.

Now. How does one dye their hair in a tiny windowless bathroom without poisoning oneself? :D

3+

Sitno >>216<<

Yesterday:

Times told I probably "broke the camera": 27

Times diet bent: thrice, once for a blueberry crumble pie, once for a chocolate praline and once for a PinaColada.

Times yelled at by SLSB: only twice!

After the gallery was done last night, I joined some people for a drink and later some food - I had no idea you can get food from eleven till twelve, though I do remember being warned about what kind of food that is - it's good, it's salty and it's greasy - a buffet of comfort food, like sausages wrapped in bacon, pizzas and french fries... Wasn't at all hungry, so wasn't tempted, but oh dear. What if someday ... I dare not think about it. 

So, a stand up comedian, a pianist, a magician, a travel booker and a photographer walk into a late night snack buffet... Stop me if you heard this one. 

Naa, 'twas nice. There was some existencial philosophy and linquistic comparative and stuff like that. Is welsh langauge older than slavic? People keep asking me how I feel about my life lately, meaning my job and living here. And lately my answer is: 'I honestly don't know.. I am extremely happy, yet I keep looking out for an opportunity to piss somebody off and they'll throw me off the ship..' Which is precisely how I feel. And it's weird. It almost feels kind of idealistically fatalistic and it's been a while since I felt so proud of trying hard to be normal.  

3+

Sitno >>215<<

Seaday, first formal. Been okay. Wasn't allowed to take studio portraits, because reasons (and I am too slow) but it's okay; I took some when boss wasn't watching and actually spoke to people. It's easy to give them compliments, because everyone looks really nice on formals. Good Gods the bedazzle on some of these people! It doesn't even have to be expensive, it can just look awesome. I also learned a really good line - if someone says: I don't take a good photograph... - I answer: but madam, I am the one taking the photograph... :D

2.5+

Sitno >>214<<

Ha! I was right! We are in Norway! ... And by 'i was right' I mean the General has been keeping me posted on our satelite location :D Still. I suspected I was right, because DOo was teasing: "So, where are we going?"

"Norway."

O.o

"Er..... No we're not. How you know that?"

...

It is good to come in from the sea after two days. I know it doesn't seem like much, but you are kind of disoriented were it not for the sun, sorrounded by only horizon anywhere you look. Everything seems like an anomaly: every school of fish, every bird, every ship, be in tanker, freighter or a fishing thingie, or an oil rig, or an oil discharge trail, everything is just this weird interruption of a very ample entity. There is too much freaking water on this planet. Yes. I know. It's the only reason we are here. But truly. The sea is just too fucking big. Mind, the arrogance of man's achieved we could get from Europe to America in five days. Which is also weird. It wouldn't be the same if that dick Columbus 'discovered' Cuba in a week. 

I got told off for not locking the lab, though I always leave the key in the door so I don't forget. Turns out I DID lock it, but not closed it enough (doors on ships weight a ton) so it kind of just stuck, but you could pull it open still. Now I know. Double chech every time, everything. 

So, as far as I can tell, Larvik was that place where they tried to make heavy water or some such, to get some nuclear warheads going, but that sub sank and never came up again. There are a lot of war memorials around here. Even though the weasle Quisling (and I apologize to weasels) or whatever his name was, sold Norway to the Nazis as fast as he could, people fought, teeth and claw. I can relate. My country capitulated and threw a parade on top, but nobody messed with the Nazis like the partisans. Paid a terrible price, but boy oh boy did they make the aggressors work for their money.

Hm, someone told me the fleet owners used to eploy the Gurkhas for security officers. Must check if that's true. It would be pretty guardcore. 

Morning spent shooting gangway, which wasn't horrifically busy on the best of norms, though I think I did well. I no longer try to paparazzo people, I just invite politely and 80% turn me down, but until I find a way to get people more willing, it'll do. I remembered what the Seascape guy told me - when people are awfully lit by strong and clear sunlight, facing the sun, use the 1/1 flash - maximum flash ability - which for some truly odd reason worked perfectly. I think. I always think I did great until SLSB shits all over it. Dad called and mum was angry with him for he talked too long, which kind of made me feel bad, but I asked G to give her some money, so that she'll feel bad. Dad said i've been gone for a month (28 days in fact), which he counts from the time he last saw me.. Eh. Feelings.

My shoppie shipmate and I explored the waterfront, finding a school, a church, a graffiti, a Noah's Arc project, built possibly by the same character who restored Kon Tikki, a wooden watchtower/water diving ramp, a sea bomb made statue, a sleeping train and traditionally dressed wedding party. Then we had to return to the ship and stand in the gallery for 8 hours. My heels look like that of a lepper, scabs and skin everywhere. But people were in a great mood. There was a normal people "sail away" party going on on the sun deck and I took some shots there. There's a crew party scheduled to happen on the deck zero as well. Am waiting to see if anyone from my circle calls me and we go together. Otherwise I'll just go to bed and get up at five again. Can't sleep sometimes, so I just walk around, wondering whom to bother ... 

Every time DOo comes by and we start talking about something interesting while I'm in the gallery or on the gangway, SLSB interrupts us or eavesdrops. It is not allowed for affairs to occur amidst the higher ranks, so it would be just like SLSB to start dirty rumors about people. Ask me how many flying fucks I give. But it could be dangerous to DOo. This ship services rich old Englishmen - the company would not suffer a reclamation of senior staff getting cosy with the lesser or any other kind of crew. And if you are chasing skirt around ships, sooner or later you stick your dick in stupid and that never ends well. No matter how much I think Highest Ups are knights and gentlemen, you'd be amazed by the the sexual harassment suits. Look at the Costa Concordia asshole captain - they punished him by giving him house arrest with his wife. 

So there's supposed to be this oath thing taken. Which I kind of like, really - you swear yourself to a sort of priesthood while in the fleet. Poor DOo. Selling your fun side for money to a floating retirement home. I think there's even a ring involved. How kinky is that. The church of ShipShip.

Instead of the gym, I offed to the crew party and danced for two hours. Mostly to hide the fact I am the only person not drinking. And I missed my camera like oxygen. It was odd at first, everyone sober, nobody dancing, lots of food. Baloons, yikes. Hate baloons. I made an effort to hide behind a paper ribbon. But half an hour and fifty free beers and cheap merlot later, the room was in a rave. Some unusual crew members showed up, some danced, other just drank and smiled and chatted. I danced until I felt dehydrated and hot, so took a shower and set the alarm for five hours later. Need to do laundry. Mustn't forget. Ran out of the unmentionables and it's weird to wear a skirt and no undies.

3+

Sitno >>213<<

An oddly melancholy day.

I've been thinking how odd the seamen are. They spend all their days on ships, on the merciless water, under merciless weather, and when they come home, they pack their dogs and their rods and their drinks and go sailing... I can't think of people this connected to anything else. Well, no, of course I can. Writers. Cooks. Crooks. Me. 

Yesterday I saw SLSB grab a camera and go out and I thought, quite happily, that perhaps he can see that we are in a very pretty town we've never been before and he will enjoy some free time and take some nice shots.. 

LoL. Ye. Like that would ever happen. He only did it to get some postcard material to make more money. Cause, you know, never in a million years would he ever look at any of mine, yet alone use them. But that's okay. It used to sadden me. Things that sadden me today could not be further removed. And one of our pax and his wife passed me and I heard him say: That girl is one of the photographers from our ship. She's the only one with the decent camera. 

We're in some Danish town whose name escapes me today and it's so pretty I can't stop crying. It's just weird, full onslaught of depression; I'm probably getting my period again. First the phone company informed me I spent 170 eur this month and I was like WTF, we are the seventh of May and last month we spent only 60 eur... Alas, as it turns out, damn Denmark isn't in our constract something and all those calls we made and texts we sent (in april) on perfect signal, were Danish. For the first time ever it's not the money that upset me at all, but the thought I am far away from the General again. I've gotten too used texting him twenty times a day. Now we're back to looking for wifi to Skype, sorrounded by strangers (very hard to flash boobs and dicks via Skype in McDonalds, just saying.) and a text per day. So the part that saddens me today the most is being unable to tell him how happy I am and how cute the little fishing boats are and how I can totally see us living in such a minute town where everything smells like vagina (rotting seashells, as I can find on the bottoms of ship bellies) some day, salty wind making my hair and his beard stand tall, and there's vikings. No, really, when we got to port the whole town was waiting for us, along with fighting vikings and ladies with very long copper (or brass, dunno) horns. It was DOo's turn to get the little plaque from the major, and I offed to explore. Another perfect day. The locals are wearing shorts and flippyfloppies or bike leather, the Philipino crew are wearing winter coats and Uggies boots. I'm sitting in the shadow of an old fishing shacks row, turned into a sunday art market. The vikings that performed for us are now handing out pamphlets and the viking boat that met with us is sleeping somewhere, waiting for the wind to pick up. The reconstructed viking village is supposedly an hour's sail away. 

I want to tell G how happy I am, how in love, how alive. 

There is so much beauty in the world. And I am so alone. 

I miss him through a thousand tears.

Thinking of the kisses I'm not having is like nails being hammered in me.

I can see him in these shitty little fishing boats.

I can see us on these wet smelly piers.

I can see us in these old sunburnt couples.

I miss him too damn much.

I am too much his for this not to hurt like a bitch.. :,(

..

Hehe. A tall norse lady, a retired alternative healer and schoolteacher, saw me crying and stopped to ask what time it is for she is going to catch a ferry to go across the bay dancing. (I mean she is going to A dance, not that she is going to dance across the bay. Anyway.) We chatted about how beautiful the spring and the wind and the boats are. Fuck. Now I'm even happier and am crying even more. It's getting hard to type, the iPad is so wet and salty. 

...

I found a road! I only had two hours to walk it and it ended with me going up and down two times barefoot ankles deep in freezing ocean, but I found a road! It was so much like the home roads that I suffered both extremes thorough the trek: full joy and full despair. But I think despair was just ordinary homesickness supported by thirst (I've emptied two half liter glasses of drink over diner once I got back), and now that I am home, showered, no more sand in my shoes, I had coffee and my salad diner, I think the day has been okay. Stupid phone company. Isn't there a way to cap the spending? Limit it to 50 bucks or so? 

Off to work again. I said a little prayer to Hermes and Triton on the silty beach, where kids splashes around and played in water that would probably kill me in ten minutes. You know, I was thinking, if I ever see a ...school?...flock?...band?... A lot of whales swimming and we are not in full throttle, I might jump off and swim with them. If they killed me or the propeller chopped me up, when my family was informed I got killed jumping off a ship to swim with whales, they would go: ye. Sounds like her. 

3+ with a little touch of 3-

Sitno >>212<<

Went to see a magic show last night. An hour of fun. Though I was able to see through some of the tricks, the best part was the 'comedy' bit, as the guy was cute and funny... "Now look in your bag, at the very bottom of your bag, there will be a 100 pound bill there!... Is it? No? Would have been really cool if it was, though..." :D The highlight was a levitating table, which he ran around with, around the room. That actually looked like magic and I have no idea how it worked, only that it had something to do with the cloth he was holding (but waving around plenty).. There was a bit of a mentalist thing going on, but it was a tough crowd. And I am not easily manipulated, because my imagination is too wild. Even if I tried very hard to pretend I am part of the audience. 

We docked in Denmark again today, not sure where. I keep waiting for the Captain to anounce: ”Good morning ladeez and jentlimen, we have arrived at X. It is 15 degreez Celsius on a beautiful sunny day, with the wind speed of 2 knots and we are 20 cm under the keel. Have a nice morning and we sail away again tonight at seven.."

..ye. 20 cm under the keel sounds possible. We might have ploughed there a little bit... Although, gotsta say, these dock pilots people, they can really parallel park!

Woke up early to see the docking, but it was nothing to see, really. By now I know we pick up the pilot - literally - a man comes with a fast little boat and we actually open the hull door and he jumps in. He then maneuvers the ship to the dock, sometimes pivoting it, often times just sort of sliding it sideways. These ships are remarcably agyle. Like, it takes no time at all of it to stop and you can bring it to a dock within a meter without any contact ever being felt. The dock workers then grab the lines and tie the ship and when the lines are tightened, the ship is pulled into the tires on the wall. Depending on the tide, we then lay a gangway, which can go up, but mostly down and no matter how easy it is, someone will complain about it. Though, you remember what I said about gangways, ye? They are much too tempty.

Hehe, the CCTv that's on the bridge, showing the ship's view of the dock, is usually playing Bach or Chopin or some odd opera, but today it's soundtracks time and I can tell each sountract after a second: The Phantom Menace (D.Maul fight), Gladiator (Now We Are Free), Lord of the Rings (main theme), Harry Potter (Welcome to Hoghwarts)... :D

Waiting for the Crew Accounts to open, so I can change some money and stop walking around with British pounds and Norwegian krone like an idiot. Alas, no Danish coins here. I'll end up with a dozen tiny plastic bags of various currence that refuses to go euro..Why can't people just use bitcoin or something, or one singular currency. I'm losing half my pay in exchange. And don't say because banks have to make their living somehow, because if there is someone who makes too much money...

... Or you just use euros and pay five bucks for a blizzard in McDonalds. Again, it's an okay price to pay for an hour of Skype with the General and blog posting... Though for some reason the blog won't let me in, thinking I'm an intruder... Great. Eh. 

It's hard, talking to G. I have so little to say. I don't want to talk. I want to lie on top of him and listen to him breathe and sleep. I want to be quiet with him, like we used to be, in a room for hours. That silence was like a snuggie, the warmest, most comfortable silence there ever was. 

Cruise 3.2, German waterways pt.2. Almost through.

Sitno >>222<< or >>221<<

Bad poetry #6

I'd sell my soul for my weight in cakes

But I am my own strager here.

This smiling is hurting my eyesight

And I'm thinking about cutting my hair. 

General never allowed me to cut my hair, so I may take this secret opportunity to get a bob. One of the girls is a former hairdresser, still got the scissors... Hmmm. :D Tempty, too tempty.

Not sure what day it is today - I know it's May 1st in the Real World, because a marching band back home woke my babe up at five - but yesterday was a good day, as good as they can get on this ship at this hour. SLSB was being minimally assholish, even permitted me to go on a tour as an escort, though he made a big deal about me having to work the next time... What do you mean next time? When am I not working? He's the one who opens in the middle of the day for no reason, then signs up all the requests people made via the request box (which we have for when we are not at the counter) and tells everyone how much money he made for opening... Dude. The requests were already in the box; you would have made that money anyway. Anyhoo, tour means I will not be working the precious two hours tonight and will instead go around some Hamburg lakeling with a little boat. All I have to do is make sure nobody gets lost or left behind. Help old ladies up ramps and if it gets too cold, just distract them with pleasant banter. No worries. Am looking fotward to it. 

Hamburg has a load of cannals, did you know? I had no idea. I've never thought anout Hamburg before in my life. But it's a fun town. Big buildings, lots of red brick or, better yet, brown clinkers, the double baked tiles. Lots of bridges, up to 2500 I think. They are very proud of this fact. "Lil'Amsterdam" and' all. Maaaaassive merchant dock and an old harbour, which is now being dried up and remade into a posh residential area. The dry dock is used mainly for repair of the big Aida cruise ships, Germany owned, with lips on the bow. Did I tell you about the time I asked at the reception on which deck the front of the ship is? :D Retarded questions galore :D I was referring to where the bell and the pole are.. Anyroad, went out last night, just to get off the ship, to photograph the city, but didn't find any fun places, just the big red storage buildings from back in the day, when the Dutch had colonies. Got back and Skyped G for a good long while in the seamen's lounge, then had drinks with a guitarist singer, then slept a bit and in the morning did gangway for two and a half hours. *I* thought I did good, though I am certain SLSB will find a way to completely belittle the effort. If not to me, then to the PowersThatBe. Hopefully along with their scolds, they bring my package.

The life rafts were being taken off for maintenance; captain and his entourage came out to look for something. Not sure what is up. The flirty old officer who ranks high up enough to be able to go anywhere and not look suspitious - and never misses an opportunity to talk to me, won't tell me what's the haps - he just says 'I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill/shag you...' (i tried explaining that if he's shopping for a mistress, they should always be young and uncomplicated and I am a) neither and b) unseducable.) I wouldn't think much of it, but the singer I hanged around with today, looking for Beatles, told me that last year while he was onboard and a storm hit them in the mediterraneum, the ship was THIS close to being toppled over and that would be the story of it. The draft is very shallow here, and no keel to speak of as for the last century or so all ship keels are flat. Kinda really defeats the purpose of a keel, though, doesn't it? That's supposed to be the heavy bit that drags us back into the proper possiting if we capsize. If the balast fuel in the double bottom and the balast water sway with us, we'll have At The World's end situation on our heads. I really don't want to be entombed and burried here, in these so called watertight compartments. What good is a watertight place if you're sinking to the bottom in a big iron grave?

So, as the singer suggested, we offed today to explore Hamburg and look for it's infamous red district - to see where the Ultimate Boy Band had such a good time, got their hair cut and mingled with hookers, tweakers and pennyless artists, ah, the fifties.. At first it was cold and nothing much interesting except big and bigger architecture, (Germans really like their big.) but then it picked up. Most of everything here was rebuilt after the carpet bombing. The reason UNESCO won't register the beautiful red storage buildings as a heiritage site is because they should be at least 75% original and these are only half. My mate was a Brit and he said he still feels like he should apologize a little bit. That was a thorough bombing. Still. These days. The town hall is tremendous, with a fountain in the yard with some Greek Gods that just so happen I thank a lot lately: old Pan was there, my Hermes and Ship God, probably Poseidon. They were all young and beautiful and cool looking. Lots of goats. It was a hot fountain. Me gusto.

The red district, where I had some ice-cream and G helped us regroup and find the spot, located in St.Pauli, is really a poor, shithole after-party looking few streets, lots of soul and vomit, just near the docks, where in the sixties the five or four boys transformed from British nobodies to bohemian success and then slowly took over the world. We found a statue to them, their silhuettes, and if Keiserkeller is the place they played at, there were many other famous people who once performed there as well. Not sure, though. I was always more of a David Bowie kind of a person that the Beatles. My music-savvy companion said he will sing the Space Oddity to me sometimes. I'd like that. The brothel street was just a long, empty street with lots of windows and mostly everywhere there were broken bottles and garbage in the corners. Past are the days when the mafia used sex slaves to please the sailors, the guide ensured us. My other shipmates went out and didn't come back until dawn. Not at all tempted to disco nor rave, I AM the nerd who goes to the red district at noon to photograph the architecture, but I could see why this part of town has appeal, still. There is something fundamental to us, seamen. We are adressless and timeless and at the mercy of an element that is quite unforgiving. Fire will annul your existance back to the top of the periodic table, but water will consume your soul. You go back to primordial soup. Hamburg is the kind of a city that exist because clever water traffic and they pray and tribute to it aplenty. Lots of different nations come through here. Chinese slowly taking over. Arabian kings with their harems of wives, their sisters and mothers in law taking over the most beautiful hotels. A philharmonica building the size and shape of an ocean, also with flats for sale. It's got a good vibe. It had it for a long time, especially St.Pauli, transients and hookers and everything artistic in between venting here, and now it has it because of young ones looking for fun. I am not exactly a tourist. When our big ship rolls in, sometimes for everyone to see and wave at us, the first question an outsider gets is: you work on that ship?

Back to the waterfront, at the massive parallel ponton promenade at this point all of the city came out to bask in the sunny day, building and ferries brilliant and the bridges bustling, the occasional riverboat Luisiana-style spraying by for tourists' amusement. G called to check if I was okay, mwaaaahahaing his anouncement of an of day (McDonald's!) and several texts arrived, saying my postcards have landed. Looks like some took their time anyway. We got back and I went to sleep a little. My tour starts in two hours. Will go eat some, check the field photos and read a little, mayhap. 

   

Sitno >>221<<, let's say.

Offed away from Hamburg before dawn, and towards Bremen. I think I remember that name for the photos after the second warld war, where there was no Bremen. Uh, second formal tonight; I'll need coffee... I've taken a shower and if I wear a dress again, I should got up to the higher deck bathrooms where there's free hand lotion and get my skin smooth and oily. 

Also, found out what's bugging the High Ups. I tested my theory on the horny old devil, which we shall call DOo for good reason, and poking around and putting clues together will probably get me killed in the night some day. Ah, well. It IS a good way to make a man stop following you around and flirt all the time (don't these people have a ship to run or something?) : I wish I could say what I found out, but we'll see what happens during our infamous Maiden Mystery Cruise. If we end up in the news, we end up in the news.

Whatever happens, save the camera bag first! The bag is buoyant! :D

Eve.

MOTHERFUCKING little  *** erased my private photos from my personal memory card. No, he did not incidentally clear the card. I use that card to shoot this ship stuff, but is it MY card, and if he just formatted it and cleared everything, saying I should keep it empty always, I would understand that. No, he left some test shots with me on them, some ship landscape and some land band photos and erased all the pictures of my ship friends, the photos of the Seascape guy, DOo's portrait which I liked, because one of the lights didn't fire at first and it was all in cool half-shaddow, and some pictures I locked to safety that I took during the formal evenings that I was proud of. He couldn't incidentally have done it, because I secured them. Fuck me LEFTWAYS. He just went and deleted my private photos. Probably armed with an argument that what I take for the agency is not mine and he can do with them as he pleases. Well, no, because the shot of the Seascape guy was a random test shot for the lights in the dining room and some of the shipmates coming down the ramp were never going to be company property. Naw, man. That was my property. Un fucking believable.

I hope he was expecting a reaction, because he got nothing. What I got was my ship friends telling me that even before I came, he was telling people he will get me fired in a month if he doesn't approve of me. Why the fuck would someone say something like that about someone, before they even met them? I got that same shit in the army because I was married too much for their preferrance. What kind of freaking agency are these people running here? If they didn't want me, why the fuck throw me at this character to mistreat? I could have just gone to some place they clearly think I deserve to go, like Celebrity Cruises (waaaaay beneath them or so I hear), make twice as much money and have a party while doing the exact same thing. Here I'm in a virtual tomb, working for dirty looks and a constant threat of being sent packing. On a private ship with a really questionable itinerary ahead of us. Fuck this. The only time - the ONLY time he speaks to me like I am a human being is when instructing how many Seascape booking we should attempt to get and how many he's gotten. Yes, I know, you are a genius, you are a hundred times better at this job than me, you tell me every day.

Landed in Bremen, but you need to take a tram to town. The only thing near by is a bar in someone's house and a massive shopping mall with all the shops closed, a movie theater where I got some Warcraft promos, a weak wifi and a Pizza Hut. We have a drill tomorrow, so we'll see how much time I have to actually discover Bremen. I only have a few Euros left. Like, literally two. Either for one postcard, one tram ticket or one ice-cream. Ah, decisions :D

Have decided to start rating my days, so that I don't get too obsessed with SLSB. From 3+ to 3-. I rate this day 

2+

Sitno >>220<<

Rain and expensive cruise ships do not go well together. And these are Brits. Imagine they were Arabs - would they just melt and sue somebody for this horror of a drizzle? Stood in the rain for two hours and got exactly a dozen gangway photos. That's be an earful when SLSB finds me. Can you imagine it? I'm sure he would get 400, the magical number of all agency high rollers. But can you imagine it? Cold, rainy day, buses are a mile away and I am standing at the bottom of a trecherous, slippery ramp for the FOURTH time this cruise, fourth time in a welk, very old people with walkies and usually two canes in hands really carefully coming down, wrapped in raincoats, and I'm repeating: "Hello, w...?"

"No, thank you."

"Hello, sir, would you like...?"

"Not today, dear."

"Good morning, madam, a nice pictu...?"

"No!"

"Hello..."

"No, thank you!"

You would think these people have never seen rain before. SLSB will probably write to Powers ThatBe to get me fired again. "There is no bad weather, there is just bad photographers.."

I look at my photos from time to time, my old ones on the iPad, to see if I really ever was any good... And ye, from time to time I really was pretty fucking good. I wish I could show you what sort of photos are being done here. Though I can tell you what his comment would be if he ever saw my work: This is nothing. This kind of photography would never sell. 

That part was almost right. To amuse myself, I imagine my life before the ship and his life before the ship. True, I didn't often earn a grand with just the portraits. Though there was that National Geographic cover once... 

Offed to the mall place to spend my last two bucks on a bad coffee and cheap ice-cream in McDonald's, in exchange for three hours of free wifi. Gotsta be back at four. While I stood outside in the rain, trying to keep the camera dry, the captain came by with a tiny pockett snapshooter and shot the hull. Owners decided they want to paint it differently, he said, so now he, the captain, has to come out and photograph the test paint job they did yesterday. I said: "Yeee.. If only you had a photographer onboard.." He gave me a dangerous over-the-shoulder grin. I think this was the first time we talked like normal people. He now winks at me from time to time. I wonder... Did he NOTICE there is a photographer on board? Or what did he think those people with strange black machines in their hands bothering people are?... :D

DOo asked me what is the difference between taking photographs on ship and taking photographs out in the Real World. Though I did have to think about it, I only though for a second. The truth. The difference is the truth. I wouldn't know how else to explain it. That's exactly how it feels. 

Skyped with the General for an hour, and the day brightened. Gods how I miss his face. Am almost ready to tape his photo to the top of my bunk. Almost. Lately I only choke up when I see a fat old beagle. I make such a face that people probably think I will eat it, they pick it up and hurry away. :D

So far the first half of the day has been nice indeed. Nothing much happened, but it was nice. I like Land. Land is ful of simple things, simple people. I am somewhere, lost in the world, feeling good. Won't see Bremen this time, looks like. The port belongs to some filthy rich individual, some fourth richest character in Germany, and he doesn't care much for cruise ships coming to his yard; he makes no effort to make it appealing. Were it not for the rain, I would find the town on my own. If I had money, I would buy some pretty pretty things in the mall. Instead, I just sit, write, read, listen to the Hobbit soundtrack and caress and old Lego I keep in my pockett, which I call *foundation*. Two more days and this cruise is over. Am working on picking my mood up still, and write in a more... Well, *me* fashion. Gimme two more days. I'll get there. Only been on the ship for 23 days, two hours and 37 minutes, but who's counting :P

Eve

Returned to ship, because needed to pee. Took two sips of that bad coffee and half an hour later I have a full bladder and no money to afford precious German restrooms. Not sure I can loiter at the cafe on the sixth deck, but so far nobody's told me off yet. Had some coffee and some yogurt dessert and sat by the window looking out at the poetry that's salty lines down the glass and a stormy skies behind them, with old gray and moss covered shipping halls in between. Wish had my camera. It looks really good, for all it's imperfection. The Truth, you know? And seaguls. 

Began making an itinerary of the trip I wanna take with G, when we have the time and gold coins to afford it, stopping at towns I didn't get to see enough and would like to. I should buy myself a notebook big enough to make a scrapbook and put all the pamphlets in there. Now slowly I'm gonna go down into the gallery and see what happens. Might take a pill today, to avoid any story seaday epiloques same as before. Last days tend to be odd. Or maybe that's just the English Channel being loud. And full of leaking oil rigs. 

3+

Sitno >>219<<

For some reason (maybe because it was the last day) there were parties all over the ship at midnight. We, some of the shoppies, finished at eleven (I swear every night the hands on the clock get stuck for AGES on four to eleven..) and first went to the Crew Show thingie, in which the housekeepers and waitors and repairmen put on native costumes and performed, either very funny shows or very, very good music numbers. That'll teach me to underestimate the Polinesians. One lady sang like Aretha freaking Franklin. Then we went on the other side of the ship, where the ship band sang to a mostly empty room and one lady dancing hardcore. We drank virginPinaColadas and murdered a bag of marzipan chocolates. One of the hosts fooled around and danced and cheered and we cheered and danced from our seats. The band finished with a King of Leons slow song, very intense. They're really good. Their lead singer weights like 60 pounds and has a voice that carries across half of the ship. This ship has good musicians. They're friendly, too, unlike the dance ensemble, who are too good-looking to talk to anyone. Last was the downstaits party with cake, chips and a DJ, which was still booming as I passed out at one, across from my room in the Crew Dayroom. It made me think of the Hotel Manager, who promised a party for the employees some day... I thought - mister, you have no idea. Though I tried texting G about it, we are too far out in the sea already. I send him my own little kind of a prayer: one tear, lots of chuckling, and orgasm and a sea sprayed salty postcard of the day..

Sitno >>218<<

Another uncomfortably good day. This is the third in a row. I am starting to really worry.

It was an off day, so I ate like nuts:

Salad with some pasta and freeench friiiies I haven't had since boarding, yummeh

Coconut flan

A slice of pannacota with vanille

A soufle ball

Tiramisu cube (3x3x3 cm)

Yoghurt cream with fruits of the forest

A spoon of banana bread

A spoon od something they call pudding but is actually bisquit

Another yogurt cream with berries

Three coffees

Four praline chocolates

Probably something else. It sounds like a lot, but trust me. A mouthfull each, and I have a small mouth. 

It was last day, so people were slightly unhappy, or nostalgic, and again - several nice people and some emails exchanged. We had a bazaar in the morning, which was fun, I think. I don't like to stand in the main lobby, from fear of someone dropping or letting fall down on my head. We probably sold enough to meet whatever target we had this time, since SLSB was almost in a good mood, even offered me a piece of chocolate. He stressed for the eleventh time that we will next have two targets, one for Seascape and we need to book at least ten. Buddy mine, for the eleventh time you only get this face: I booked over 20 last time and you gave me 15 bucks out of it. Oh, you think I should make an effort just to prove myself? So that the company can make a grand and I make 15 bucks? The last shoot I did two cruises ago, wasn't even acknowleged as my shoot, because I didn't yet know how to do the editing. You just ignore my efforts when it comes to the dotted line, so book your own and continue telling people how I'm an ignorant bitch. 

Gods, if ever there's been a NOT ink-worthy subject... Until he does something ugly again, I won't mention him again, deal? 

Starting now. 

Had some pleasant short dialogues with DOo, who opens, like: 'So, how are your nightmares? How is you miserable life?'.. And I am like: 'How is YOUR miserable life, you horny old bastard?'... Hehe. Dunno, for some reason we just click. Mayhap as he is almost as lonely as i am. And I am the loneliest person on this ship. Except maybe Larry, our mess keeper. I had several longer conversations with guests, who think us, eastern Europeans, are to be given a medal for being able to speak and read English... I've given up on trying to explain how Europe is, geographically, structured, since they think anything pass France is Eastern and still eating with a wooden spoon, and I don't really blame them anymore for the tone. You get used to it. There's just something weirdly, purposefully aloof about the Brits that makes you pity them a little. I could start responding to their: oh, but you speak such good english!, with 'We were taught in our schools to speak at least three languages flawlessly and a few dozen others politely. Do you speak Welsh good enough to fool a Welshman?'

Did have a nice conversation with a woman who would hardly dare say Hello to me before, and we talked about tattoos. She asked me if it hurts and I said it hurts like a biiiiitch. She then used that dirty word again and said she doesn't dare, though is increasingly tempted. I told her she should take a page from my book - try everything at least twice. 

I bought a book, some random crime novel, just because I really wanted to. Will now go read a little. Been to the gym and showered. Almost out of Nivea. Not good. Nivea is really important. My skin HURTS from how dry it is, it actually aches from cracking. It's almost half past one in the morning... If I don't go to sleep, I could go out at five and watch the pilot come meet us and drag us to Dover. But I should get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be another long day. Inspection at 9 or 10 or whenever they feel like it, embarcation from eleven to four and shop till eleven in the eve, or so. 

You know, the hours themselves drag like you wouldn't believe. Like, for the love of all that's photogenic and shiney, would you fucking MOVE, it's been 14 past 8 for am HOUR!!... I pace up and down the very short passage of the gallery six hours at a time. It really, really drags.

The days, though... The days freaking fly. 

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