Friday, December 31, 2004

Creepy Vacation

I went on a cruise. It was fun. I went with eleven other people. Now I am not going to go on a day by day telling of what occurred. That would be really boring. I am just going to explain how it was fun.

The ship was huge. Well to me it was huge. To others it might be small and not huge but hey this is my first cruise lay off. First I will start off with the rooms. They were small. There was enough room for two beds, a desk and a closet. That’s about it. The bathroom was even smaller. It was so small I could not get in there and take a picture of it because all I would get was wall. It really didn’t bother me that it was all small. I mean we were not about to spend all our time in there. We were going to be spending time all over the ship.

The toilet gets its own paragraph. It does not flush like a normal toilet. I can’t say it actually flushed it was more of a suction thing. The toilet sucked out the waste. Funny thing is I could feel the suction as the toilet flushed. Not when I am sitting on it—nope—when I was standing I could feel it from underneath the toilet. It was weird. And it made me laugh every time it was done.

Speaking of toilets let me tell you about the food. There was breakfast, lunch and dinner that was served on this ship. Breakfast and lunch, for me, was at the blue room. It really wasn’t called the blue room but it was really blue so I nicknamed it that. They had several things to choose from in there and it matter what time of day you went and stuff. It was a whole buffet thing. The one thing that I really liked there was the hot dogs. MmmmMMm. Plus the blue room was 24 hours and that rocked. There was free juice, coffee and some water. The water had a weird taste to it but I got use to it. It wasn’t as if it was horrible just a weird taste.

Dinner was awesome because I have never had a three course meal. It was also cool because there was no prices on the menu. All I had to do was pick what I wanted. That’s it. Pick. I could do that. First was a starter then salad and then the real meal. It was really good stuff. They had strawberry soup. That sounds odd doesn’t it? It sounded odd to me too. But I had to try it no matter how fruity it would be for me to do so. It was quite good. It had a hint of mint but I liked it. Oh and we had desert. All the time desert. Yum in my tummy that was. It was great.

The weird thing was allowing them to be a napkin in my lap. I thought about just doing it for myself but hey I may never get this odd chance again so I just let him do it. Yeah that sounds weird get over it. The silverware is many. There are about four forks, two spoons and two knifes. It is weird but I was told it was used from the outside in. So that made it a little simpler. What was interesting is that the waiter knew what to take away from each person when the main course was coming. They would take away whatever we didn’t need for the main course.

The waiter was very funny. They did little songs and the last night they had this song that went to the tune of “I’m leaving on a Jet plane and I won’t be coming back again” and it had me laughing. He was very good and a very good sport. It was great to know that we would have a great dinner because our waiter wouldn’t be boring.

There was live music all over the ship and sometimes it was good to watch or just listen too. They had shows in some of the rooms. They even had a comedian who talked about southerners. He stated that there was y’all – which is a group of people – and then all y’all which meant everyone. So it went something like this y’all can come but not all y’all. I laughed because that is true. I’ve heard it used like that. I’m not so sure I’ve used it that way but I am very sure that I’ve used the word y’all. Ha ha.

Mexico was nice. They have clean beaches where we went and it was very relaxing. It was good that we had people that spoke Spanish with us because these people try and get the most money they can out of us for things that really shouldn’t cost that much. I would state I was just looking and they would say, “How much you willing to spend?” The funny thing was that it wasn’t just one person saying that every single one that we went too—stores—practically said the same thing. I wanted henna on my arm and this guy wanted 25—I didn’t have it. He then proceeded to go down and down and down to 15. That was good because it was huge thing and it took a long time for him to put it on my arm. My arm fail asleep while he was doing it. I still have that one and it has been over a week. The funny statement was that they would say is, “I needs the money.”

They had tequila shots there almost like water. It was good stuff. I’ve never had it before but it is really good with lime and salt. And I learned that you have to do the lime and salt at the right time---unlike my friend Dez did. She told me the wrong way and I did it and I wanted to cry. Ask me the right way and I won’t remember but I will when I try it because it makes it taste bad. Ick.

Any way the best part of the trip to me was karaoke. Me and Dez went there because everyone agreed to be there. Well not everyone was there. So we waited. These people sang crap. I know it was Christmas season but I was really sick of the Christmas songs after about 5 in a freakin row. It was horrible. We almost left. We switched seats and stuff and I took a book to look through it and see what they have. This one guy got up there and sang Neon Moon and it was really good. The crowd was dying out so I thought I would try this out. I go up there and tell him I want to do All Star by SmashMouth. I go and sit down and wait. Then the other 11 come in and sit with us. Not only that but the place started to fill up. I was like, “what in the freakin world?”

The guy calls me up and says that there is no All Star because he doesn’t have the CD. So I had to pick another song. And I did. I picked Addicted by Simple Plan. It was my turn and everyone cheered because it wasn’t country again or some slow song. Then I started. It wasn’t really singing because I mainly talked. It was in a sarcastic tone and stuff and people laughed. I would sometimes go faster then the actual words would. It seemed to be hard to follow the highlighted words. I did entertain though. Especially when I said HEARTBREAKER!!! Ha ha.

Karaoke occurred two more nights after that. Then that was it. But every night after that there were more and more people. And the thing was said because of me. That made me laugh because I didn’t believe it. The next night I did the song This Kiss by Faith Hill and I had to stop mid way because I forgot that the song stated Cinderella and Snow White and a white knight. I finished the song and everyone was laughing but I forgot about that. I did Blink 182 All the small things. I did Girl loves the boy. I did Creep and I did all star for my last song. I was the last to do one on the last night. The Creep on had people laughing because of the way I said Creep and stuff. It was so much fun I missed it on the last night we were on the ship. I really wanted to do it again.

On the last night me and Dez had been at the club thing and we danced and did a little line dancing and watched others act like freaks. It was fun. Then we went to the blue room to eat something. I got apple juice and she ate ice cream. The top decks were closed off because of high winds ----

Okay let me just stop right there and explain something this last night was very hard to forget. The ship was going through rough waters and the boat rocked before but during this time it really rocked. People would be walking down the hall and all of the sudden the would veer right in a massive group it was freakin funny. I would think I was walking straight but then end up a the wall and it just made me laugh how bad it was. Okay back to story.

---so we were not allowed up there. The Ledo deck was open but was not above the ship it had like the pool and stuff. We were allowed to walk across it. Dez was interested in doing that so that is what we did. Halfway across the deck she decides that it is too cold. Is it cold? Slightly. But I tell her we are already across halfway let us continue. And right when she turned around the wind gusts and I get apple juice up and down the right side of my body. It was awesome. Any way we get back inside and I decide we should go and see what cool music they are playing in the club.

We walk passed this group and a guy shouts out “Hey – my name – we liked your karaokeing can I have your autograph.” I laugh and say I don’t have a pen and he states neither does he. He tells me I should get one and come back. We go and sit at the club and there is nothing but crap and crap dancing so we leave. We pass them again and again he asks me if I have a pen. I inform him that I do not. We head back to our rooms. I then decide that I’ll get a pen because I always carry around pens. So I grab one from my room and we go back. He like jumps up all excited with his paper and I sign it to three guys and I write “love and then my name.” I take their picture of my fans. It had me laughing.

They were not the only ones that would say hi to me. All around the ship there were people. About five or so people that would say “hey and my name” it had me laughing. I decide to call them Creepers because of the song Creep and because of these little boys that told their mother—look there’s the creep. Ha ha.

When we left the ship one of the guys there said that he liked my singing. That was the end of my 15 minutes of fame. Sad it was to say good by but nice to know that no one will be just running up to me saying hi. It weirded me out a little, though it was great at the same time.

About two days afterwards I kept feeling like I was still rocking on a ship. It was funny being off that bad while I was walking or peeing. So dorky.

The ship was fun and I would so do it again in a heartbeat. I might even go karaoke here in town. Or not.

Dork Lesson # 17 Being recognized for singing karaoke on a cruise ship is dorky. Being recognized by little boys as a creep is weird. Rocking on the ship and unable to walk and finding it funny is dorky. Being off the ship and still unable to walk because you say it is rocky is very dorky. All in all I was a dork the entire trip. Not to mention the fact I wore a really bright orange shirt in Mexico that screamed TOURIST. I am such a dork.