Lazy Day At Sea

Monday, February 13, 2006

After blogging last night, I decided to go up to the Cosmos Nightclub. It was about 12:30 and I wanted to see what it was like. There were a lot of people dancing, and there were a few groups of staff who were hanging out.

I ordered a beer and decided to stick around for a bit. A few more staff came in and the dance floor got pretty busy. Mostly it was staff, with a few guests thrown in. Many people were in their twenties so that was nice for a change.

Since I was sitting by myself, one of the waitresses kept coming over to me to find out why I was all by myself. I told her that I was with my Dad and he had already gone to bed because he had to wake up early for a course the next morning. She seemed confused, but I told her that I didn’t mind. I didn’t want to get into the whole long story of why I was here and all that.

It wasn’t too long after that that a guy named Edward introduced himself and asked me to join a group of staff. I accepted and went over to the staff section of bar. I met a lot of people and chitchatted for a while. I met the captain and I talked with him for a little while. He’s from Greece and was a nice guy. Even though he was chatting up a girl, he gave me some of his time. I excused myself after a few minutes, because I knew he was busy.

Nothing really exciting happened, but I just had a couple of beers with some of the crew. They were all excited about missing the Falklands and having an overnight in Montevideo. It was nice to talk with some younger people and to get the lowdown on the ship and how things work. They told me that there is a staff bar on the first deck, and that it was totally rocking last night, but very crowded. The drinks are much cheaper and it’s exclusive to staff. The staff don’t really have to pay for drinks since most of them are good friends with the bartenders and they just help themselves. This is the real life of the ship that I’m really interested in.

I headed up to bed at about 1:40 and crashed. My Dad was up at about at 8:00 so that he could get ready for his course. I tried to get back to sleep but didn’t have much luck. I looked at the schedule for the day and decided that I’d go to another Abs Blast class at 9:00 so I got up and headed off.

My workout wasn’t that great. My stomach felt fine, but I must be doing the exercises wrong because my back got quite sore and my neck was very stiff. I don’t think that I should keep doing it if I get so much back pain. Maybe I just need to focus on posture and mechanics so that I can do them right.

I had some yogurt and fruit for breakfast and then I returned to the room and took a shower. I was going to play a table tennis tournament, but everyone was way too good. I’ve played ping pong about 12 times in my life (no joke) and I wasn’t ready to be pelted by 76 year old experts.

I bumped into my Dad. He and the other dentists were on their break, so we sat in the café and talked for a while. There was a ton of debris in the water. It looked like wood, or plastic floating on the surface of the water. I wonder what it was. It looked almost like the remains of a boat or something. Maybe it was just garbage that floats around on the open seas. We are a long way from land so I was intrigued, but haven’t cracked the case yet.

I headed down to the card room to play some scrabble with some strangers, but no one else showed up. I decided to just sit there and people watch for a while. It was interesting as always, but not very exciting.

So I’ve basically been wandering around the ship all morning trying to find something to do. I’m going to have lunch soon and read for a little while. I have a Sudoku puzzle in my pocket so I might try that too. “The March of the Penguins” is being played at 2:30 so I’m going to check it out since I haven’t seen it. After that it’s Bingo and I haven’t decided if I’ll go. I’m planning to go for a run later on this afternoon. I’d like to see about playing some cards or board games, but I don’t know what my Dad’s plans are for today. Most of the time I like to spend time with him and to keep him occupied and distract him as much as possible.