Sunday, January 14, 2007

A Nine Day Cruise in Time....

No one any time because everyone is so slow on a cruise ship! The average age for this cruise was 55 - I found this hard to believe because everyone acted like they were 96. Seriously, slow and confused. Ah well, what do I have to do? Not much!

On this cruise we go to Roseau(Dominica), Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and Tortola.

So we did our shows on the Barbados and the St. Lucia days. The shows went well but we did have one bit of controversy this week. We had a scene in our show called BVM. BVM stands for Blessed Virgin Mary. Basically the scene is a spoof on Joseph and Mary going to a marriage counselor to talk about their marital troubles. During the scene, they cover the birth of their child and talk about his parentage.

Many people (including a Catholic priest) love the scene and find it reminiscent of classic comedy routines (ala Bob Newhart making a reservation for the Last Supper) but some of our other passengers were...ah....pissed about the scene. This was ironic because not only was our show very successful--BVM was a particular hit on this cruise.


The few that were offended were upset enough to complain to the front desk and one of them was so upset they wrote a letter. In the letter, they complained about us and then said that the female (not males, mind you) should wear more clothes. So NCL went to Second City and asked that the sketch be switched so we're switching it this week.

I'm surprised but not that upset. I mean, I like the scene but doing it each week and wondering who we were going to piss off and then be trapped with them on a ship was not my idea of a great time. I have to say that we did do a great job on the scene and if everyone would relax it could be a fun scene. I think it's funny that a priest loved it but these people are upset. What gives?

Roseau, Dominica (not to be confused with Dominican Republic)
Roseau was very nice. We went to a historical museum and then we hit the public tin roof market and then we wandered the town. The tin roof market has been on the same spot for the last 300 years. Roseau was friendly but I guess the real beautiful stuff is outside of the town so we'll have to visit all that next time. We enjoyed our time there even though it was as hot as a griddle or a lava pot or something else really hot. While we were there we climbed up to the church, this started a whole series of going to churches in each of the places we visited.

Barbados
We went to Bridgetown on Barbados. Barbados was fun. It's a great mix of a beautiful city, a bustling business center and a beachy resort. We wandered around and went to the Catholic Cathedral. The church was very old and solemn and on that particular day there was an organist practicing. It was great to hear the organist play in the huge old church.

Surrounding the church was a very old graveyard...most of the graves were above ground. After that we went to the harbor, the harbor was pretty. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a run-in with a street vendor. We stopped to look at a street side shop - they usually have knick-knacks and jewelry. Frankly, there was nothing I wanted and I was really just waiting for the others to finish looking.

Well one of the ladies working this shop took it into her mind to sell me something...anything....so she began showing me things. Bringing them to me and demanding that I hold them. I held onto one or two things and then put them down. She then held out a bracelet she wanted me try on and I said "Oh, no thanks. I'm not interested."

At that point, she just went off on me. Basically she said that I was scared of black people and that I was kicking her with my shoes and that if I fell on the ground she would call an ambulance and I would get the best care--but no I have to be afraid. I was to say the least, shocked. So I apologized to her and turned away. A few minutes later she walked back over to me and said I looked thirsty. I said I was and she asked me to join her at a bar where it was cheap and "you and your friends will have a good time." Needless to say we did not join her. This took the wind out of my sails but I'm looking forward to going back to Barbados and not getting yelled at.

St. Lucia
The town in St. Lucia is Castries and not much to look at. It's interesting but fairly run down. We visited both the Catholic and the Anglican church. The Catholic church was...and I don't use the word very often....exultant...it had a beautiful painted ceiling and some great modern stained glass windows and some older ones. It was lovely. The Anglican church wasn't open but it was up on a big hill and it had pretty gardens around it. We wandered around several of the neighborhoods and while the people were friendly the stray dogs were terrifying. They weren't agressive at all but they are diseased.

While we were there we also visited their tin roof market, it's huge. We looked around a bit and found an unusual mask store. The guy who owns it makes most of the masks and he explained much of their symbolism. They were pretty cool. I bought a switch doll....you can flip her both ways and she's a doll upside or downside....does that make sense? She's cute.

Antigua
Antigua is fun. St. John's is the capital and is a very pretty and friendly town.

Down in the Bahamas and the Carribean, hair braiding is a big thing. Many of the women on board the ship, have their hair braided by day 2. Frankly, it looks awful. They either get the Bo Derek doo or they just have a couple of braids put in on the side. Ugh. Well, in Barbados near the dock, I attracted the attention of one of these hair braiders. We were passing one another and she pointed at me and said, "You're going to get your hair braided." And I said "No, I'm not." And she said, "No, you don't understand. You need to get the island into you." And I said, "Not today, no thanks."

So we went and walked around a bit and then we saw her later and she said, "Hey, are you going to get it braided now!" I declined again.
After that we went to the bank and exchanged U.S. money for the E.C.D. Easter Carribean Dollar and then we went to lunch. We tried a local soda called Ting. It's a Carribean Grapefruit soda and it's delicious. We also had some great pizza there - it was like real pizza - yum. Then we wandered around and found the Yoda Guy store. The store is owned by the guy who was an artist for the Star Wars films and was responsible for creating Yoda. He sells paintings and Star Wars memorabilia.

After that Larrance went back to the ship and I decided to wander around the duty free shopping area right by the ship. There were a couple of great galleries there and a cute little wine shop.

On this trip, a lot of what we were doing is recon for our future visits. I also spotted a smoothie bar that looked pretty good. While I was doing this, my braiding friend spotted me and yelled out to me that it was time to come and get my hair braided. I shouted back that I didn't want to do it today and cut through the mall. I stopped to take a photo of the ship and who should appear in front of me but the braiding lady. She explained to me that she really just wanted me to be a part of the island (funny though since her hair wasn't braided at all).

I told her that she really seemed to have it in for me which made her laugh and I felt like we could talk. I explained that I didn't want braided hair and she explained that she wanted me to have braided hair. Maybe we can't talk after all....I told her I would think about it and that if anyone was going to braid my hair it would be her just for sheer tenacity. She liked this and bid me farewell.

I went back to the ship and did one of my favorite things. I went to the gym as the ship leaves port...it's cool to watch the island float by.

The last stop was Tortola. This was our second time in Tortola and I really like it there. Not only do they have chickens with babies and roosters hanging out they also have a cool laid back friendly attitude but not so friendly that you feel weird. The town is very pretty.

Unfortunately, we only have a few hours there since it's a short stop. We also got up late so we had even less time. We walked around and found a great spot to get hot sauce and a bakery. All in all a good day....I also took a bunch of photos of Roosters & Hens.


Today was a sea day. I'm looking forward to getting rid of some of these passengers...especially the ones that complain...which is a lot of them. Boo. Both last night and today, the seas were very rough. The boat was a tossing and a rockin'.

Our cruise director, Matt, is also leaving. So we'll have a new cruise director as of tomorrow. I hope we like him. More on that later...

~Jen

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