I had a really long, detailed entry about my adventures in some of the ports thus far, but my computer died whilst writing them, and lost everything. And considering how little time I actually get to be online or to write entries, I didn't have the energy to do it again. I just have to say that Cozumel is my favorite port so far, Nassau is outrageously and unnecessarily expensive almost everywhere, and port manning is the most pointless and annoying part of my job. Every third cruise, I have to be trapped on board in the event of an emergency [View Full Entry]

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I'm in Miami now, but I started this entry when I was still in Freeport, so I thought I'd post. Since I've been so off the grid here in Freeport (this is the first day I've gone on the internet since I got here a week ago), allow me to give you a brief rundown of what I've been up to. It hasn't been very exciting or varied, but I'll give you the highlights. The dancers (or "twirlies" as the tech crew affectionately(?) labels them) arrived on board about three days before we left Charleston and I've been slowly getting to [View Full Entry]

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So we leave for the Bahamas tomorrow morning. We have a curfew to be back on the ship by 1:00am, so I'm assuming we're leaving port in the wee small hours of the morning. I don't know what I'm going to do tonight. Since I'm still recovering from illness, I can't go too crazy. The last thing I want to be is sick in the humid and oppressively hot Freeport, so it'd be wise to take it easy and work on that recovery. But at the same time, it's my last night in South Carolina. I should enjoy it. I'll figure [View Full Entry]

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Today I went all around downtown Charleston. I also did quite a bit of shopping, but the majority of my day was spent taking pictures. Here are some images of the quintessential Charleston. There were quite a few church steeples poking out of the treetops. I had to contain myself not to take pictures of them all, but that image seems to encapsulate Charleston, or at least that's the impression I'll always have stuck in my head. [img=http://im [View Full Entry]

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So here's a good idea of what most of my days are filled with. There's my cabin. And the bathroom. The shipping yard which rests just on the edge of the getto. If you look off into the distance, you can see a MacDonald's. It's very exciting.[img=http://img.photobucket.co [View Full Entry]

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I didn't realize how much I love driving until I went without a car for a few weeks. I did end up getting today off and I did end up renting a car and oh my god, it's so wonderful. I drove all around downtown today (pictures are on their way once I find a fast enough connection to upload them. And just the act of driving my way from Enterprise to downtown felt so liberating. It's a ten minute drive, but I found my solitude again. Suddenly I was on my time again. I had nowhere to be and no [View Full Entry]

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So I'm sick. This was probably the worst possible time to get sick considering the limitations for treatment. I've had a sore throat since yesterday and my voice has left me as of about an hour ago. The congestion will probably settle in tomorrow. But in the meantime, I don't really have access to hot water for making tea. They keep turning the water off in the mornings, so they can't make orange juice. The ship has dust and fumes everywhere that aren't helping keep my lungs very clean. And the infirmary only has limited drugs available. I got some throat [View Full Entry]

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Thank the lord in heaven, I finally made it to a Starbucks and a wifi connection. The downside is I had to pay $4 for a two hour block. But $4 is a friggin blessing for high speed internet compared to what I've had available to me these past few weeks. It's amazing. You just click on a link and the page just opens instantly. Unbelievable. I'm catching up on all of my downloading tonight. [View Full Entry]

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I forgot to mention that I found a good Sushi restaurant Dowtown last night. It looked like half the menu involved tempura or deep fried rolls, but it had all the essentials. Since South Carolina seems to be some sort of crab capitol, I opted for a roll with crab in it (that counts as eating local food, right?). I got something called the SC Crunch Roll, which had soft shell crab in a roll topped with shrimp and avocado and covered in sauce. I also got Salmon, because it's a compulsion with every Sushi outting. The fish was actually quite [View Full Entry]

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Did I mention that when a ship goes into dry dock that females become a scarce minority. There are about twleve women on the ship and about 900 contractors. Suddenly, one has never felt so self conscious than when walking into any room and having all eyes on you. And they aren't just staring, they're ogling. So far I've been called "deary", "baby doll" and "angel", and none of those terms seem very endearing when they are preceded by whistles or leers. So I've been spending some time off the ship considering all the guys I'm working with are staying at [View Full Entry]

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