Sitno >>195<<
Today I wanted to explore the city without any map, without any design, just as dancing with a stranger with your eyes closed.
Yesterday I was in a poor mood. We were in Aalborg, but I had no desire to look for him, not even for a clue of him. I took not a single photo of the impressive architecture on the waterfront or the city; I took not the camera from the bag. I was desperate for privacy and wifi. Which I found, in an old abandoned factory turned youth center, after hours, minus a creep sitting enough behind me to be able to see what we were using the Skype for. Ah, well, envy will be envy and it's better than getting arrested for public indecency. Or 'pubic', in this case.
Today, though, I just dived in. Forget about the maps and pamphlets, Boedecker, plans or companions, I just finished with the gangway (best rollcount to date, though some were forced and crappy, granted), stopped the tumbledry mode on the dryer, spread my undies and socks around the room and just DIVED out. It was a brilliantly sunny day, hot even (24'C), we were smack in the middle of a bustling Køpenhagen, and this city is LUMINOUS. Bronze statues everywhere, channel promenades, waterfront with museums across, street art classes, bicyclists, hordes of tourists, students, souvenir sales stands, parks and handsome architecture. All of it in a flawless sky. There was just one tiny whisp of a cloud on the entire canvas and even that one was shaped as a jellyfish. Large machines called 'cherry pickers', of all things (<3) elevated our deck hands to wash the salt off the hull. Entourage came out some, but for no interesting reason. Still a complete incommunicado between DOo and I. Even if we are alone in the dining room, he sits with his back to me. And I am still temporally out of sync with most other shipmates, so I go alone and have not the heart to tell anyone alone is how I am at my best.
For some reason we only stayed in the pretty K until 3pm, no idea why. Was it too expensive to linger longer? I took almost 500 photos, which I have loaded now onto the Lr and am editing to feed the insatiable Instagram and its complete disregard for any chronological orders :D The General started following me, so he can show pickies of places I go to to mum, but was angry I haven't stopped to find wifi and send him some photos of my bewbs. (Did eventually. Now it's his turn, once he's done baptising them..).
Today is also an off day, so I ate (starting yesterday dinnertime)
Two turkey tacos
Seven hours of sleep, pure excess
A croissont, plus butter
Some other yummy stuff with butter on it I forget
Three chocolates from the bar, from the list
A hash brownie, some kind of fried potato, the least healthy food imaginable
With a slice of ham and cheese on top
Some salad for lunch, with cheese and spinnach filled pumpkins
Three different bits of desert, forget which, all okay
Another three bits for afternoon tea
... And many cups of coffee
Which I think I am done with now..
Except for the two lemon tarts I cannot resist.
I took a shower and am hiding in my corner in the officers' mess, editing now. People will come for dinner soon. I refuse to look out the window so as not to see all the spectacular sites I've missed. Next time. This city is big. I only licked it a little. It is going on my list of places I want to visit not-in-a-hurry, of course. Seems a bit unfair, really - it mostly has to do with the beautiful weather. But then again I saw not one but TWO statues of my favorite two gods these days: Hermes and Triton. Looking hot, obviously. Looking out, for me.
Eve
Day ended shitty and I may have hurt my hand a little bit, though it's not broken, just bruised. The wall was worse off. But good days ending badly ain't nothing new. I loathe, hate and fucking detest every breathing second of being here, and still I am madly in love with this adventure, with the ship and ports and with myself for being this nuts. And dark days, they quickly pass, too.
Sitno >>194<<
Yup, hands are okay, just a bit scratched. There is a scale, you see, a tipping scale, between my misery and SLSB's - when I am upset, he is rejoycing. He is literally humming to himself. When I am smiling, he will not speak to me at all. And to see me happy? That's just like waving red flag to a bull.
I ran twice, again, down to the tailor to finally catch him and asked for trousers, because wearing a 120 den black stocking at the end of sunny May made me so hot and sweaty I was getting nauseated. The tailor would not give me a piece of thread until I confirmed it with his supervisor, the housekeeping manager. SLSB did that for me and I ran back down, third time that day, to get my trousers. I am a transvestite now, because of course they had none of the ladies' uniforms bottoms available. It's okay, I look okay in pants. And they're nice to wear. But they were too long, so I ran back up and returned two hours later for the mended version, at which point tailor said it's okay, the managers just called him I don't have to wear them. I can wear the stockings.
I just grabbed the pants and ran. I just wore them. They will surely take them away from me, but for as long as I can, I will wear them. It's spectacular, this preocupation with my legs, isn't it? They're such a problem, so indecent. You would think I am covered in swastikas or cocks or fucking bunnies or something. I wonder when will they notice my tattoo of a wedding ring?
We just landed in Vispby, and it's so pretty I have an urge to go skinnydipping off the bow It looks like the Carribean, minus the Baltic sea temperatures. I have an excursion in a minute, so no bathing for me today, but soon. The days are getting warmer. It's really quite too beautiful to stay miserable for long. I miss DOo, though, I miss having someone to talk to that's an adult and loves ships and a seaman's life. He now makes sure to never pause in the gallery and though our eyes meet sometimes quite by incident, quite often in fact, we never linger enough to do but an appropriate nod or smile, the kind you give to a stranger. I've missed him the most yesterday, I think, or the day before. I will miss him less tomorrow. And soon I will forget how nice it felt to confide in him. No matter how many of my Instagram photos he hearted. Uu, Instagram is becoming my favorite passtime, as I need no wifi to set them all up, only to post them. All the pickies I take make sense once they're on-line. That is certainly my comfort food, except for actual food, obviously. We had Mexican food buffet today, in the officer's mess, so two more tacos for me! :D But I am an official size 14, jacket size 12. Two more stones down, four more sizes, and I will be hotter than I was when G first met me. Which certainly is something to aspire to. Indecent legs or not. :P
Sitno >>192<<
Hihi, post excursion yesterday: OF COURSE we were 20 minutes late, so imagine me jumping off the bus, sprinting across the vast parking lot, sprinting down the endless ship coridor, into my room, out of my clothes, into my uniform, comb the hair, apply makeup.... Slowlllyyy... Sprinting up again to the hotel deck, down the corridor to the gallery and, stop, slowly, casually around the corner, as if on a gentlest stroll. Oh, I am four minutes early? Oh, gosh, I didn't know the time..
:D
One of the nice shoppies suggested I get a 'sleeve' for my tattoo, basically just buy cotton tights the color of skin and cut out a long enough tube to keep it on. Funny none of my oh so experienced and protocolled superiors thought to mention such a simple and an elegant solution? That would be far too easy, now, would it?
A passenger told me a really cute story about an ill-fortunate soul called Harry :D Poor Harry. What a life. Okay, in a hurry - so, Harry was a poor lad from a poor miner's town and mining coal was what he did since he was a wee lad. Those were shitty mines, too, always flooding, filthy, very bad on your health. He never married or truly pursued the possibility of a female in his life, though he did like to keep safety in numbers with some of his mining coleagues. He invested in a fishing boat with the two he was friends with, which was a mess when they bought it, but once fixed, after many moons, it was okay. Guess who did the fixing? And guess what happened to the boat once it was nice again? Oh, it got 'stolen', though of course everybody knew one of the other guys just sold it. Poor Harry only worried his two friends would feel worse. So, some day, one of his mates sees an add that they are looking for gold or diamond miners in Australia. Back in the day it cost 10 pounds to go from England to Australia, that's how much they needed people. Those were called something like 10poundPons or somesuch. But, because they didn't have permanent residence, once they arrived, they couldn't get jobs and because they didn't have jobs, they couldn't apply for permanent residence. They found a solution in moving to New Zealand, where rules were more limber and they could do OPAL mining. Mining was pretty much the one thing they did. They COULD apply for citizenship and after two months or so, two letters landed in the mailbox for Harry. One was 'congratiulations, you have sucessfully been granted citizenship of New Zealand' and the other 'congratiulations, you are now a New Zealand citizen and are being drafted to a New Zealand military service'. Off to North Korea, Harry goes and gets shot in the lungs, losing a half. Problem is, he has not been a NewZealander for long enough to have insurance and as a useless citizen, he is now no longer welcomed. Thus, Harry gets shipped back, full circle, to England, minus half a lung. But at least his mining days were over.
The passenger desperately wanted to find Harry, just to see how the story goes on.
We had another formal tonight, minus the restaurant bit. Just as well, since some man told me he will file an official complaint about me having interrupted him during a diner conversation the other night... I said, as meekly as possible, that I didn't do it because I want to, but because I must and if complain is something he must do, than by all means. My coleague tried to photograph a woman who threatened to smash her camera on the ground. The same woman hissed at me on another occasion: don't you touch me! (I was nowhere hear her, I was just shooting.) Actually, more and more people seem intested in violence. A man nigh bumped into me today, though I am not sure if he was trying to or trying not to. Either way, if he did, he would have knocked me off balance and I'd have landed flat on my hip. The trick is to protect the camera, though, and scream for help of the official security. Not fight back. Never fight back. Scream, call for help of the security and play the poor, innocent victim. As disgusting as it sounds, that will serve you far better in the long run, than being a normal human being and just ripping the old balls off the bully. In truth, while you are in 'costumer service' mode, this attitude catches you so far off guard, you can't react properly, you're just confused.
Sitno >>191<<
"What is your cabin room number, madam?"
"FourOhFourFour."
"That sounds just like a short poem! ... Four, oh, four...four... Why art though four? Why art thou not more?...."
(As happens when coffee kicks in :D)
St. Petersburg, half way through the cruise. So far, Hermes and Triton have been ironing the sea like crazy - we haven't sailed so smoothly in RIVERS, yet alone the Baltic! It is getting colder and cloudier, though. I suppose I would mind my iron tower prison more, if it was sunny outside. But the General sent me some very agreeable dick pics and one can weather a decade in a buddhist cloister with a good amount of General's dick picks. I'll be fine. I'll catch up on my mail. I'm eating normally today, just because. Not off day, just normally. Maybe, because I am on a verge of a cold from standing ouside for hours. Or maybe just because I enjoy good food. Have a skype date with grandma at two. G&Rockstar are off to see Warcraft today, though it seems Duncan Jones finally made a shitty movie for a change.
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