Wednesday, May 9th

The famous “Crossing” cruise is officially over. I’m actually going to miss these people. They finally know their way around the ship, Rascal Scooters zipping around hallways and the like. And Steve and I grew attached to a lot of these folks. Interestingly enough, 180 guests are staying on for the next cruise, which is a mere 12 days long, and includes a little trip to a little country called EGYPT!!!

We docked at the port city of Piraeus, wished the debarkers well, and walked for about 15 minutes to the train station. We popped a few Euros into a ticket machine, hopped a train and shortly
thereafter found ourselves on the streets of Athens.

I cannot stress enough how lucky we are that we go to the majority of these ports at least two or three times during our 4-month contract. We get to do some re-con. We get to wander around without the This-is-Our-Only-Time-to-See-This-Place-Pressure that the guests on the cruise have. Simply put, we get to do some guilt-free farting around.

Today our little group didn’t feel like seeing the Acropolis. Yeah, I said it. We didn’t feel like dealing with the steep, often treacherous tour. We just didn’t feel like seeing another ancient part of a city. We weren’t in the mood. And that’s okay. We’re going back to Athens three more times.

Instead, we shopped and ate our faces off.

We wandered around the shopping areas, stopped for coffee, wandered some more, stopped for a snack, wandered some more, and then went crazy in a couple of stores including ZARA, my new favorite H&M-type place. Jennine and Amanda, one of the youth counselors, accompanied me as we ransacked the main shopping area in Athens. Steve and Dave were having Greek coffee and reading newspapers in a lovely square, very far away from their shoe-salivating partners.

We eventually all met up, including our musical director, Dave, and Kris (dancer) and Tony (wardrobe supervisor), and proceeded to be pummeled with one of the best meals we had all ever had. We just sat down at this big table, ordered a few things, and the food just kept coming. "Lamb Kabobs....for you, for you," our server said. "Yogurt and honey...for you, for you," another server said.

And when we got the bill, the stuff we didn't order and even some of the stuff we did order, was nowhere to be found, charge-wise. We chalked it up to the Greek Hospitality, but then figured that we were a big group at a restaurant on a main street and the more food they put out the more passersby leered. It worked. By the time we left, the entire restaurant was full.


Then it was wander time. Get sort of lost time. We went through parks and public squares, saw lots of tired dogs (don't worry - I had saved some of the chicken from our big feast and made sure to dole it out to the pups), had a drink, and watched others do the same. You know, life.

It was a great day in a fantastic city. And we're going back very, very soon.

Monday, May 7th

Escort work again.

Today it was time to take the guests to Olympia. Olympia is the birthplace of the Greek Tradition of Arbitrary Plate Smashing. Kidding. It is, of course, the birthplace of the Olympic Games.

I freaking love the Olympics. I cry when people win, and cry when people lose. I love watching human beings perform things that seem impossible – watching people do things I could never dream of accomplishing. I had butterflies in my stomach on the way there. The place where the Olympics were born!
The ruins of the Temple of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World! The complete frustration when I realized that I probably shouldn’t have escorted a tour that I wanted to take myself!

Yep, such is the rub. You go on the experience for free, but you pay dearly with a lack of really experiencing the place that you go. I tried so hard to listen to Nota, our lovely tour guide, and take pictures and enjoy the fact that I was walking through the arch that so many athletes, worshiped as Gods, passed through so many years ago.
But that wasn’t what I was primarily there to do. I was primarily there to make sure the guy in the Fredericksburg, Virginia shirt didn’t get lost.

Things I was able to glean from Nota:
*”Hitting the showers” meant jumping in a filthy river behind the gymnasium.
*Everyone on the grounds was a nudie. This was to make sure that no women were in the area. A bunch of naked, severely athletic guys running and jumping and ... hoo boy.
*As you entered the stadium itself, there were various statues of Zeus lining the pathway to the entrance. A criminal paid for each of these statues to be made.
The criminal’s name was displayed prominently upon it. It was considered to be an extremely severe punishment to have to commission one of those statues, as everyone would mock your name as they entered the stadium.

And…that’s about it.

I’m going to take a break from escorting for a bit. We get 20% off the excursions anyway. Jennine, Steve, and Dave, who also went to Olympia today as escorts, feel the same way. It’s worth the $50 or so to have someone else be the Mama Duck. Quack.

Sunday, May 6th

Katie here, your friendly Shore Excursion Escort. Since we last spoke I have graduated from zipping around on a bus with disabled folk to actually doing walking tours. Of ruins. In Greece.

The first place I went to was the ruins of the Palace of Knossos. "Palace," in 2,000 BC meant, "A big place where people hang out." Sort of like a mall.

The Palace of Knossos is also considered the home of the mythical Minotaur, a half-human, half-bull creature that lived in the Labyrinth.

Anyway, Katerina was our tour guide. She had never given a tour in English - only Italian. She also was a low-talker. Hence, all the guests hated her instantly and I spent most of the tour trying to get them to relax. Instead of relaxing, most of the guests just replied, "You should give the tour - you're loud enough."


These holes in the ground are speculated to be "sacrificial wells," which is a nice way of saying, "We found a bunch of dead, rotting bones in them. The bones of young girls"

A rich white guy named Sir Evans is the one who uncovered the palace complex, and he seemed to think that the area I'm standing in was a theater space. So, I got to stand in a real Greek Theater. The guest who is taking my picture made me recite a few lines from the show so I could say that I had actually performed in such an ancient place.



I wonder if, in 2,000 years, people will be perusing the ruins of The Mall of America, marveling over the remnants of the giant Snoopy balloon. And an aspiring actress like myself will stand on the ruins of a mall stage that once hosted not-so-prolific acts such as "A Salute to Flag Day," or one of the American Idol contestants from Season Four who got voted out in the first round. And standing there will mean much, much more to her than it actually did to anyone way back then.

A Bit From Steve Re: Egypt

I would just like to point out that this is not a joke. This really happened as we were leaving the site where the Step Pyramid is. Here's Steve:


Steve: "Egyptian street merchants don't like to take no for an answer.

We were warned about it, but it was much more intense than I expected. They want to sell their wares and they are willing to haggle, small-talk, barter, walk with you for miles, whatever it takes. You can't afford to show any interest or make eye-contact because you will likely invite ten-minutes of conversation consisting mostly of you saying the words "No, thank you."

They've learned to take advantage of Westerners' mostly polite way of dealing with strangers. They know we won't just ignore them, so they stay in our faces until we buy something just to get some peace. And I'm sure it works.

As we were leaving one of the pyramid sites, I got an interesting offer on what someone perceived as my wares. An Egyptian merchant spotted Katie and yelled at her, "Shakira! Shakira, I love you! I want to marry you!"


He then proceeded to follow me asking, "How much for the girl? How much? I give you fifty-thousand chickens! Fifty thousand chickens, sir! Good chickens!"

Fifty thousand chickens? What am I going to do with fifty thousand chickens? How would I get them home?

"Sorry," I said, "She's not for sale." I felt very authoritative.

As we boarded our bus he plaintively yelled, "Sir! Sir, I promise, sir! I will send you twenty camels every year for her! Every year twenty camels!"

Katie and I sat down on the bus. I turned to her and said, "That's crazy. How would I even track this guy down when all of sudden, after a couple of years, the camels stop coming?"

She didn't think it was funny."

It wasn't funny. I got low-balled.
Anyway, we'll talk a lot more about Egypt soon.

50,000 chickens. Sheesh. I'm worth at least 60,000...(Katie keeps muttering to herself, even though this blog entry is over...)

Friday, May 4th

Perk number 7,234 about our job with Norwegian - we can sign up to escort tours and shore excursions and therefore get to take the trip ourselves for free. Well, not totally free - we have to make sure no one gets left behind, answer some pretty inane questions, and write up a small report about the day. So, it's basically free.

For our 1st day in Naples, Steve and I decided to sign up for some of the tours. We can't be on the same tour, so Steve picked the excursion to Pompeii that included a very intense hike up the volcanic rocks.

I chose a bus tour for disabled people.

Walkers, wheelchairs, leg casts, you name it. After all we did in Rome the day before, it was just my speed. The tour consisted of an air-conditioned bus tour around Naples, with a stop at the top of the hill to take photos and another stop at a cafe to have an ice cream, which was included.



Our tour guide was Umberto, who had to be all of 22 and all of 5'4". He was fantastic. Tour guides provide for some wonderful psychoanalyzing. When a person is talking that consistently for that long, you learn a lot about their subject, but even more about them if you listen closely. I loved how Umberto would throw in little bits about soccer anytime he could and how he flipped out about how boring all the buildings built during the Fascist Regime were.

These lovely ladies were the biggest pains in the ass. They were sweet and eager but they were always about 75 feet behind the group and would buy ANYTHING from ANYONE. I mean it.
They bought absolute crap for ridiculous prices - like a postcard for 2 Euros or a ball that could stick to a wall for 5 Euro. Nothing says Naples like a cheap Koosh Ball that can stick to a surface for 30 seconds.

This bus tour was popular not only with people who weren't really into walking but also with people who were scared of big cities. Naples isn't the nicest city in Italy in the sense that it is unafraid to hide the fact that it is a big city, with crime and poverty and graffiti and loitering. You know, life. The way people acted when they saw a pack of kids outside a building with a shoddy facade and spray paint on it you would have thought they were looking at militants in Anwar Province.

We weren't let out of the bus until we got to an area where the buildings looked like this:
and none of the balconies had laundry hanging from them.

Openly drying laundry seems to be the international sign for "I'm going to get jacked in this part of town." Laundry hanging out to dry, however, is also a very popular photo subject, as people went nuts with their cameras every time they saw it.


We were also let out for ice cream at a cafe called Gambrinus. Sorry, Gelato.
Gambrinus is a legendary king of Flanders, and an unofficial patron saint of beer or beer brewing. Of course we weren't allowed to get a beer. Ice cream is safer.

It was definitely more of an anthropological study than a study of the city. But, I enjoyed my safe little tour. We're coming back to Naples very, very soon. I'm looking forward to exploring it on foot and taking pictures without a bus window in front of me, as taking pictures of something through the window of a bus is kind of like watching fireworks on TV.

I just know when I see clothes-pinned garments to grab my purse a little tighter.

Thursday, May 17th

You get what you give. The love you take is equal to the love you make. You need input for output.

I’m not talking about the gastro-instestinal issues again. I’m talking about how, as a creative-type, you have to always get stuff into your mind so the stuff that comes out is richer and more vibrant than just your own junk that’s been knocking around up there.

As of right now, my mind is drunk on input. In the last week I have seen the Palace of the Minotaur, the site of the first Olympic games, and the freaking cities of Athens and Cairo, not to mention our little jaunt to Italy.

I will write about it all soon, but right now my mind has the spins and needs to sober up. It was a lot to take in and I find myself going a little crazy.

When I need to mentally sober up I usually channel surf. We have six channels on our TV, so it doesn’t really work and I usually end up having to settle on FOX News.



Here is a sampling of five minutes from today’s edition of "FOX and Friends," which is like Romper Room for Right Wingers:

*The exploration of the question “Are Trees Contributing to Global Warming?” followed by comparing trees in warm climates to trees in colder climates by using the word, “ironic” inappropriately.
*This was followed by a discourse on why the black chick was voted off American Idol.
*Keep in mind this was all facilitated by my least-favorite FOX News Anchor Trollop, Megyn Kelly. Your first name is spelled wrong, you flat-ironed haired skank.

Now I feel like I'm on acid. And it’s a bad batch, man.

Please forgive me if I nurse my Amazing Sights and Adventures hangover for a couple of days. With the television off, of course.

Monday, May 14th

The first grey hair on the head of a twenty-something woman. A slight shaking on the streets of a major city above a fault line. A long dormant volcano emitting a wisp of hot smoke. These are bad signs, heralding something really awful. The cruise ship equivalent of a grey hair or minor tremor is a passenger or crew member reporting to the Medical Center stating, “It’s coming out. Both ways. And it won’t stop.”

The alarms sound. We have a “Code Brown” - the first sign of a gastro-intestinal disorder, or simply, “G.I.”

G.I. is a nightmare for a ship. We are in a very enclosed environment, breathing the same air, touching the same food, sharing the same over-priced cocktails. It is very difficult to contain, and for the past couple of days we have been getting used to our utensils being handed to us by a rubber-glove wearing crew member, our hands sprayed with sanitizer every time we enter a new room, and our ears perking up every time we hear the words, “I’m not sure I feel so well.”

Today was supposed to be the debut of the Second City, our first public appearance as performers on this 12-day cruise.
We were scheduled for rehearsal at 11:00 AM today, but Jennine was doubled over in the medical center waiting to hear the inevitable – You. Have. G.I. So, the four of us (and our musical director) began working out a way to do a four-person show – we’d done it before (Blog trivia! Why did the cast have to do a four-person show in the past? Answer at the end of the entry!).



Then we got a call that Jennine would be fine, but would have to be quarantined – a standard procedure on ships – for at least 24 hours.

And, so would her husband and roommate and vital cast member, Dave. Even though Dave felt fine, this ship isn’t taking its chances.

Hence, no show tonight, and a lot of DVD watching, room service, and trying to stay sane for Dave and Jennine.

The show has been rescheduled for Wednesday. Our Cruise Director made the announcement several times today that our show had been changed due to a, “Misprint in the Freestyle Daily” which is the ship’s newsletter.

I’m a little nervous that people are going to think this is a scam. The Second City cast finally has to work after being paid to traipse around in exotic lands and suddenly they are “quarantined?!” Well, here’s a bill for not holding up your very, very miniscule end of the bargain – it is labeled, “You aren’t going to hoodwink us, you free-loading hippie actors. Nice try.”
(Trivia Answer: Our very first show on the Jewel was a four-person show because Steve went to L.A. to become famous.)