My Thoughts, My Finds, My Journey

I am happy that I cannot watch the sunrise from my stateroom. My room is on the starboard side of the ship (i.e. the right, when facing forward), meaning that it is the sunsets that I get to view on the first half of the trip. Watching the sun rise will mean that I am headed home, and I am not ready for that yet.

While they charge for most room service, coffee and pastries are still free, as in ‘tip your delivery person, but no charge for the food itself’ kind of way. It’s why I ensured I took a complement of $5’s with me. The coffee isn’t spectacular, but I woke up with a headache. Say ‘hangover’ all you want, but I had two glasses of water after my one shot of Fireball with Nick last night. No, this was one of my classic “lopsided nostril” headaches that are just plain annoying, and happen regularly. My dad has been telling me to get that taken care of for years; this may well be the year I finally decide to do so. This headache also made me poignantly aware that I didn’t pack any Advil this trip. Thus, my first order of the day was to take care of my headache, so yes…Advil…from a gift shop…on a cruise liner that serves a LOT of drinks…yeah, I debated whether to just live with the headache, but I did cave. Once that was taken care of, back to my stateroom to get ready for the day.

My morning routine is generally crap, inconsistent, and half-done. Amongst the things I intended to do on this trip was to ensure that I do everything, every time, and so far, I’m off to a pretty good start, albeit a slow one, due to the aforementioned headache, that took about 90 minutes to subside and sent me back to bed for a little while.

Once done, I headed downstairs to get my internet situation squared away. I hear you judging me right now, to which I say, “…and how, exactly, did you want me to post the update you’re reading right now?” I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had a 1GB plan, rather than a 240-minute plan. I say this because I’m pretty good at keeping my bandwidth usage down – the use of noscript and flashblock takes care of a lot of bandwidth-heavy content on websites, I’m pretty good about keeping my background data using apps off when I need to conserve, Remote Desktop for the unavoidable data pigs, and e-mail clients over browser based access, every time – I still haven’t hit 50MB yet. Even more notably, the internet on the ship, while certainly having high latency, seems only slightly slower than my internet at home. Whether that’s a compliment to the on-ship internet or an insult to my home internet will be an exercise left to the reader. Either way, I spent my morning wrapping up last night’s blog entry and uploading it, then playing Mass Effect for a bit.

I did my “one fancy meal” last night, so lunch was done at one of their standard dining rooms…and by ‘standard’ I mean ‘still upscale and excellent’. The tomato soup was good, and reminded me that I do need to make my ‘unhealthy tomato bisque’ again soon, because it’s amazing. The fish and chips were also fantastic, though unsurprisingly, seemed to have been forged in the fires of Mordor and took some time to cool off, though tasty once it did.

I spent my time at lunch thinking about exactly how much data is crunched by Norwegian, and what kind of profile they have on me. In theory, they know when I wake up and approximately when I go to sleep. They know when (and what) I eat and drink, they know when I’m online (and possibly, what sites I’m visiting), and what I buy and where. Depending on whether they’ve installed beacons on the ship, they may well know exactly where I am, within a few dozen feet, and how I traverse the vessel…to say nothing about the (literally) thousands of cameras throughout the ship. Over the course of a week, it’ll end up being a pretty detailed profile, with virtually no way to opt out. I’m not sure I’m okay with that, but at least this week, I’m short on choices.

I had some time to kill, so back to the wonderful game of “not all who wander are lost”. Of course, the corollary to that would likely be, “they may not be lost, but they frequently don’t blend”. Y’know…because it totally makes sense to be on the pool deck wearing jeans and a button down shirt. Even so I think I learned a lesson today: all those nerdy/technical T-shirts I considered unfit to pack…I should have packed them. I say this because I passed an individual wearing a shirt that said “N7” on it. If you’re uncertain of the significance of N7, Google it until you do. What was intended to be a passing comment ended up turning into a lengthy conversation with the first friends I’ve made on the ship. Jon, his lady friend Lauren, and I ended up talking for nearly an hour regarding games, trips, life, occupations, and plenty of other topics. So, here’s today’s lesson: wear something that can very easily help strike up a conversation. Its corollary would be this: “…just be prepared for a highly specific person to resonate with that topic”. We made plans to meet up for dinner at 6.

I attempted to head over to the solo travelers meet-up, but it was being held in the ‘solo lounge’, an area designated for those staying in a specific set of staterooms optimized for solo travel…and by ‘optimized’, I mean ‘much smaller than my balcony room’. The solo lounge had a keycard access system to limit entrance. I went to the guest services desk, who indicated that it should open up in a few minutes, so I went back up, still couldn’t get in, and then said, ‘the heck with it’.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Jon (and Lauren, to a lesser extent) have ‘adopted’ me as their project for the trip. We had dinner at the top-level buffet area; amongst the things I have always appreciated about cruises was the fact that even the included, non-premium restaurants are still excellent, and you won’t beat the buffet for food diversity and impulse eating. The three of us talked about a number of topics, notably their preference for well done steak, though Jon has learned to prefer medium-well. This came up because they ended up going to the steakhouse last night (incidentally shortly after I did), and Jon made the mistake of ordering his medium rare, not realizing that “real” steakhouses will actually leave the center red if you ask for medium rare – we had a good laugh over the awkward situation. Him being Haitian and her being Caribbean (she didn’t get more specific), they noted that it is at least partially a cultural thing. They ended up inviting me to work out with them, I both appreciated the motivation to go for it and dreaded his ’18 minute insanity’. Also, my pajama pants found themselves pulling double duty as workout sweats.

Several rounds of push-ups of different styles, several rounds of roman twists, and several rounds of planks and reverse crunches later, we were done. It only took a few minutes for the ‘first workout pain’ to set in, but it did. Even so, I was happy I actually worked out, and glad I had friends with whom to share the misery (arguably the reason Jon and Lauren had me join them in the first place). We went back to our respective rooms to shower, and meet back up at the club later in the evening.

“Napping before clubbing” has a downside – you have to wake up to go out and party. I debated just rolling over and going back to bed, but they were expecting me, so I got dressed, did my hair, and headed out.

I ran into them, we started talking, and Jon asked me how well I dance. Here is the difference between Jon and Lauren, and you, the people that know me: you know where this is going, and when I say, “I don’t dance well”, you believe me. Jon seemed to be of the persuasion that he could pep talk me into giving it a shot. He ultimately won out for a bit, but not so much due to his inner Tony Robbins as much as the fact that he did have a point – after taking a look around the dance floor and watching the ~40 guys on the dance floor, there was one dude with a fedora that seemed to somewhat-know what he was doing, one guy who looked a bit like Justin Bieber and was probably underage…and everyone else was poorly foot-shuffling with a drink in their hand, occasionally, even on beat. It’s weird, because this exact scenario has played out dozens of times in my life, but it doesn’t ever seem to get less awkward. Nonetheless, I decided to indulge them and give it a shot, if for no other reason than because his pep talk involved a number of Mass Effect references, which were absurdly ridiculous comparisons that made me laugh. I did dance for a bit, but like most uncomfortable situations, it’s the kind of thing I can do in small doses. I did, then I sat down for a bit to just observe. I didn’t understand the DJ’s logic at times – while Suavamente was surprisingly well received, he played lots of the recent Enrique Iglesias songs (the full-Spanish versions), and after his third in an hour, he lost nearly 70% of his dance floor. I was surprised because, given how well “Be Faithful” was received, keeping it “pop-hop” would have been so easy to have kept the crowd happy. At some point, I lost sight of Jon and Lauren; I felt bad about not having said goodbye to them. Since we’ve got no meaningful means of communication and no set plans to get together tomorrow, it’ll be a matter of serendipity to find each other.

Before I headed back to my room for the night, I stopped by one of the restaurants for a late night snack, and for the first time, I wasn’t impressed. Nacho plates aren’t difficult to make well, but this one was well below my expectations. Perhaps it’s because things were otherwise set high so far. Now though, it’s time to go to sleep, for real this time.

“The universe was created. This was widely regarded as a bad move.”

These were the first words of the book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. If you haven’t read it, you need to. If you’ve only seen the movie, it doesn’t count. Let’s be real though – you’re not here for quotes from deceased British science fiction writers, you’re one of approximately half a dozen people who are looking to see how I’m doing as I go on my vacation to the Bahamas…don’t worry, I’m getting to that.

A vacation was booked. This may well have been a bad move. No, not really…and if you’re the individual who was the one to foot the bill on this, keep an eye on your mail. I’ll spare everyone the details regarding going through security as it was basically uneventful, though I do remember thinking that it was strange that, despite this being my third cruise, I have no recollection of boarding any of the other ships. Regardless, after boarding and walking around to find out where everything is, I found myself with “analysis paralysis” – what did I want to do? Growing up, dad was pretty good about having our days scheduled down to the bathroom break. When I went to Germany and London in 2012, I was was either on a company’s time (and thus went along with their schedule), or trying to visit friends who lived locally and thus had schedules of their own, which I needed to work around. Amongst the reasons why I was looking forward to this trip was the ability to do whatever I wanted, not beholden to the schedule of another. The educational part of this trip was the fact that I would need to actually spend the whole week making decisions between equally-good options, a situation described in the movie “You’ve Got Mail” as the primary reason for which Starbucks exists. Meanwhile, Pastor’s message this morning at church made reference to the idea of living an outward-bound life. Given my relative freedom here, amongst my objectives is to do whatever I can to make the crew feel appreciated. Let’s be real – they spend every day dealing with a group of people who can very easily devolve into spoiled rotten children, and are usually treated as servants. Here’s to hoping that going out of my way to extend appreciation is an effective expression of that.

The staterooms I’ve remembered staying in were usually described as “functional, but clearly designed to be slept in, and little else”. This room is actually pretty spacious – a multi-room suite it is not, but there’s actually enough room for me to make a mess. However, I spent some time actually putting my clothes on hangars, in drawers, and other variants of ‘away’ that don’t involve ‘still in the suitcase’. In fact, my plan is to use my suitcase exclusively for dirty laundry, thus concluding the week with a basically-packed suitcase. Why have I never thought of this before? Oh well. It was an efficient use of my time. Also, I have a balcony. It fits two people, two cups of coffee, and nothing else…but even so, it’s twice as large as it needs to be, given the quantity of occupants involved here…and actually watching the Statue of Liberty drift out of view from my own room is incredible. I look forward to being able to watch a sunset from my own room…tomorrow though – it’s still a bit chilly, and while I packed my leather jacket, a sweatshirt somehow managed to not make the cut. Yes, everyone who has just facepalmed, I know.

The crew seems to have a good sense of humor so far, more so than the passengers. My mustering location happened to be where the crew was assembled for their briefing prior to the drill, and they ran a few minutes over while also having called us there a bit early. Two ladies, independently of each other, remarked, “Why did they call us here if we can’t go in? I could have been drinking more!” Look, the ability to consume large quantities of ethanol without having to worry about driving home is certainly one of the selling points of a cruise…but I’m pretty sure it’d cost less to take a week off work, go to a liquor store specializing in larger bottle sizes, and spend the week completely plastered for about ¼ the price of a cruise, keeping in mind that, once again, we hadn’t yet left the dock when this statement was made. The individual who ran our evacuation drill, on the other hand, definitely had a sense of humor. The Asian gentleman started off by saying that we had the best group, because our drill was being led by Jackie Chan. He had to ask about 20 times for people to shut their phones off (and no, I wasn’t one of them; I was listening attentively), at one point saying, “If you don’t turn off your electronic devices…well, we can’t throw you overboard, but we will give you a spanking. [about a ten second pause] Sir, please don’t make this awkward.”. Later, he stated, “Don’t worry, we’re not carrying a nuclear bomb onboard”. Common sense will tell me that if one must make an announcement that otherwise be assumed, one must question its necessity. The first officer attended, and told me that unfortunately it’s no longer allowed to view the bridge as a passenger…and when I told him that I wondered how many pallets of wine were loaded, he laughed and emphatically said, “A lot”.

They say that not all who wander are lost. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s where on this ship already. I can get to my stateroom from literally any point on the vessel, have a good idea of all the different places to eat and play on the ship, and while the major counterargument is that there’s a bathroom in basically every stateroom, I’m pretty sure I’ve passed more bars than bathrooms – once you’re out of the stateroom areas, it’s a project to be more than maybe 75 feet from a beer, making the meager bathroom count seem to be a recipe for trouble down the line. Maybe it’s the lack of anyone to talk to thus far, and maybe I’ve seen Wall-E too many times (and thus associate the Breakway, its crowds, and its amenities with those on the Axiom), but I just felt this sense of emptiness, like everything was utterly meaningless, and why am I even here…at which point I became poignantly aware that I was thinking about everything way too much and just needed to try and find something with which to enjoy myself.

They had a “solo travelers gathering” at 6. Although a nice thought, it was unclear who was at that bar because they were a solo traveler and were looking to meet other solo travelers and I happened to have gotten there too late to understand the appearances, or whether I’m actually the only person here who’s by myself. Given the thousands of passengers on board, I highly doubt I’m the only one, but it is for this reason that I am starting to second guess myself here. Oh well. They’re having a kickoff party tonight. Perhaps I will end up with better luck then.

My mother is notorious for her “thrifty nature” – she has successfully turned the concept of living within one’s means into an Olympic sport. She regularly accuses me of spending unnecessarily, while I counterargue that she has a tendency to spend an inordinate amount of time saving a seemingly small sum of money. Somewhere between us, there is a happy medium. Given how I was feeling about..basically everything, I decided to embrace my inner Psalm 33 and “taste and see that the Lord is good”. Why didn’t God (through David) say “look and see that the Lord is good” or “hear and see that the Lord is good”, or “smell and see that the Lord is good”? Simple: because food is delicious. I’m sure there’s a deeper theological meaning behind it, but I’ve just spent a paragraph poetically saying, “I decided to go to one of the paid restaurants on my first night”, so I’ll leave the in-depth Bible study for you to do on your own time.

While my mother would undoubtedly give me grief for doing what I did, ffind me somewhere else you could get a filet mingnon dinner for $33…though to be fair, I learned that a wedge salad without the bacon or bleu cheese was basically 1/3 of a head of iceberg lettuce – lesson learned on that. Even so, the food was thoroughly enjoyable, well presented, and served its purpose.

I caught the last half of the “welcome to the big honkin’ boat” inaugural show. The longest married couple on board was 56 years, and they won a bottle of champagne and a diamond necklace. Not bad. Neither the comedian nor the magician were terribly impressive, but let’s be real – they’ve both got their own shows later on this week, so it’s common sense to stick to the simple canned tricks that wouldn’t fool Penn & Teller, rather than start so strong that it’s neigh impossible to follow up well. Once that was over, back to my room, as I was a bit tired.

One of the nifty things about planning to go to a club on a cruise is the fact that it’s practical to do something that is a great idea that’s nearly impossible to do in Manhattan – take a nap first. I woke up around 1:30, put a nice outfit on, did my hair, and headed out. When I got there, it was empty. Literally, empty – only the DJ and the two bartenders were there; I was the only other person there. Yes everyone, you guessed exactly where this was going – the DJ and I started chatting it up, talking software, music, hardware, different events we’ve done, and the fact that, apparently, Norwegian doesn’t like to pay to have their DJ gear kept in great shape. He and I walked into the doorway where it was a bit easier to hear each other and continued talking. Another passenger from the casino came in and started talking to me. He clearly had a few drinks already, and wanted to do shots. I was like, “bro, they just cleaned off the bar, so you’ll be ‘that guy’. He didn’t seem to care, so I sat down with him and the bartender asked if I wanted a shot as well…so, because peer pressure and because free drink pass, I was like, “sure, I’ll do one”. He did two more after that, bragging to me about how he has a government job, and spends 2-3 hours a day actually-working, which is 2-3 times more than everyone else in his building, but since his dad does the budget for the building, he’s guaranteed a job for life, making about twice as much as me, to not-work…because it makes me feel so much better that my tax dollars are being spent that way (/rant). Ladies, I’m certain you’ve all ended up getting stuck in a conversation at a bar with that one guy who Would. Not. Shut. Up. This guy was ‘that guy’, and the fact that he went to the casino to break a $100 bill and didn’t come back was something that, honestly, didn’t upset me, and poignantly reminded me that sometimes being alone with my thoughts is the more desirable thing to do. The DJ and I talked a few more minutes (him explicitly stating that he appreciated the company), after which I went back to my room and played Mass Effect until I fell asleep.