| "in 2008, i..." |
[Jan. 13th, 2009|10:37 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  reflective | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Foo Fighters - Let It Die | ] |
I am taking this idea from a video that Lizz made, only I'm doing it in blog-form because I don't have cool things like a video camera or video-editing knowledge. I tend to get kind of depressed around the new year, and because it's so close to my birthday, which also depresses me, I tend to feel sad through most of December and January. I thought that maybe having a nice list of the good parts of the last year, and maybe even some of the not-so-good parts or the silly parts, would help me feel better about things. So here is a list of things, not in chronological order because that would involve too much thinking, that were memorable for me in 2008.
In 2008, I...
-Applied to graduate MFA playwriting programs (although that overlaps with late-2007).
-Took the GRE.
-Got rejected from two ivy league institutions. woo.
-Turned 26 way back in January '08.
-Saw my 8th Foo Fighters concert [EDIT, 1/14/09, 10:41am: I realized that this was 2008 rather than 2007 as I'd originally thought.]
-Went inside the Somerville courthouse for the first time.
-For the first time since college graduation in 2004, did not attend at least one wedding.
-Helped my youngest brother go to France.
-Saw one brother graduate high school and another brother graduate college.
-Saw Brian get accepted into a PhD program.
-Went on a Disney cruise to the Bahamas, which encompassed several "firsts" and important events:
-Left the US for only the second time in my life.
-First time on a boat that holds more than 10 people.
-First vacation Brian and I took alone.
-First time in the Bahamas--learned that Nassau, at least around the port, is kind of a dump.
-Tried (very basic) snorkeling for the first time.
-Swam in clear water where you can see the bottom.
-Got waitlisted at Boston University; learned that being proactive and contacting the program helps and was offered a space in the program.
-Deferred the BU acceptance.
-Became more confident in my writing (even if I don't always feel that way).
-Moved to Sunderland.
-Lived both within the city limits of Boston and in probably one of the smaller towns in the state. Learned that I can appreciate both of them.
-Went to a gay club called Paradise with some coworkers... it is one of the seediest clubs in existence and is probably a five-minute walk from our office. hehe.
-Stayed up till 6:30 in the morning with the high school friends during our yearly gathering.
-Not counting the month I spent in Europe in college, lived more than an hour away from my parents for the first time.
-Was interviewed by ABC News for an online story about the possible relation between stress and illness.
-Wrote a 75-page play in less than a month for NaPlWriMo.
-Took my first graduate-level course.
-Got my learner's permit for the first time mere weeks before my 27th birthday. Name is misspelled on it.
-Went to a few Red Sox games, including a game in the bleacher seats, where I hadn't sat since maybe 2003. It was Brian's first bleachers experience.
-Saw the Celtics win the NBA finals, the Red Sox fall short in the ALCS, the Patriots just miss a perfect season, and the Bruins just generally suck.
-Voted in the presidential election; for the first time voted via absentee ballot.
-Finally got my headaches looked at by both a regular doctor and a headache specialist.
-Began working from home.
-Learned that living in a completely different environment from your hometown doesn't change who you are, and for the first time felt confident that I could live someplace far away from where I grew up and be happy.
I think that's all I can come up with for now. A nice balance of the important and the silly. Worst months of the year were definitely February and December. Best month was May, especially the Disney cruise week. If I could go back to one point in the year it would be the cruise, specifically the afternoon on the private beach. It is definitely a time I will never forget.... I think making this list did help me feel a little better. |
|
|
| NaPlWriMo win :P |
[Nov. 28th, 2008|10:01 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | watched the Foo Fighters "Live at Wembley" dvd tonight... so good. | ] |
I uploaded my 75-page piece-o-crap script to the NaPlWriMo site today. I technically finished writing on Tuesday, but I was hoping to do a few quick rewrites to particularly bad parts before uploading. Then I realized that the whole thing is in such dire need of help that I couldn't do much with it in the limited time I have, so I decided to take a little break from it and pick it up again after my work for my Renaissance Lit class is all done. It's really disjointed and a mess. And several scenes and lines are still at the phase where they embarrass me whenever I think about them. My thesis play from college only has a small handful of those "oh my god, I can't believe I wrote that" moments, but this script is full of them. Not because of the subject matter or anything... just because it's so poorly written. And I'll be going along not thinking of my play at all, like in the shower or watching tv, and then one of those particularly bad scenes will jump into my head and I get this awful wave of panic and embarrassment. Just rereading this first draft is going to be a miserable experience. :)
Writing this month was really great though. I enjoyed the process, even on days where I really had to push myself to get my writing for the day in. What I have may be terrible right now, but it's at least something I can work with. I need to get over my total embarrassment about the first draft though so that I can work with it without cringing at every line.
It's going to be hard switching back over to devoting all my free time to the Faerie Queene for class. I have to crawl along the text at a snail's pace in order to understand it, so it's really been challenging just getting through. I still have over three hundred pages left to read. I have to let myself forget about all the bad parts of my play and just focus on something entirely different for a couple weeks. Then after December 10 when class is over I'll be able to go back to the script with some distance from it that will (hopefully) allow me to think critically without going into hypercritical mode. I should try to get a little more reading done tonight before going to bed. Or at least get myself to a good stopping place. |
|
|
| fun stories involving stressful dreams and almost lighting myself on fire |
[Nov. 19th, 2008|09:24 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  i feel stupid. | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Schadenfreude" from Avenue Q | ] |
I sent the following email to Jack yesterday and was told it would make a fun blog post, so here you are. I just changed the second person to third person so it would make sense. Some background info, Dan is the big manager at work, and Jack takes over on days when Dan is out. Dan was out on Monday, and the dream I mentioned happened Monday night. And for my class, I have to give a presentation on the Faerie Queene on the last day of class. I am the first of two presentations to go that day, and I have to present on how the Red Cross Knight is different as an epic hero from Guyon. I have a meeting with the professsor before class today to discuss how to approach the presentation and accompanying paper, and I'm really nervous about the meeting (and about the project itself, which is due in early December). So here is the email:
I had a dream last night that Dan was the professor in my class instead of the real professor, and then Dan had to be out for one class so Jack had to take over as professor. And I was supposed to have my pre-presentation meeting with the professor to discuss my presentation that day, so I had to meet with Jack. And he told me how bad my presentation was shaping up to be, and he used a big word that I had never heard used that way before so I felt stupid. Only then magically the professor became my real English professor again and it was the day of my real presentation, and this time Jack was in the class as a student and he was doing part two of the Faerie Queene presentations that day, and I had to go first with part one, but I was worried because I had wanted to talk to the professor before class about it but he'd forgotten. And I was stumbling through my presentation and had to stop midsentence to google "epic hero" to make sure I was talking about the right thing, and it was awful. You can tell I'm just a teeny bit stressed about this presentation in real life. :)
Also this morning when I was making tea I almost lit myself on fire. I had just taken the tea kettle off the (electric, not gas, thankfully) burner, and I was slightly leaning over the burner so that I could warm up my hands and arms on it because it's so cold this morning. And I was standing on my toes as I was doing this, and still in pajamas. And then the drawstring of my pajama pants came in contact with the burner and I panic as I notice that the corner of the drawstring is smoking. But I got it out before there was any actual fire (not sure if an electric burner could start a flame anyway, but I was still scared). Brian got a late start getting out of the house today so he was there for this. He said to make sure I don't light myself on fire making soup this afternoon. :P |
|
|
| NaPlWriMo halfway point |
[Nov. 13th, 2008|02:22 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Full House theme in my head, leftover from lunch | ] |
My profile page looks different now. It's a little weird and will take some getting used to.
My play update: as of yesterday (November 12) I am officially at the halfway point! 37.5 pages. It's a little crazy... I've never written close to 40 pages so quickly before. Tuesday was hard because I was feeling kind of sad about everything and pushing through the writing was especially difficult. And I'm really starting to worry (even moreso now that I'm halfway to the 75 pages goal) that I don't really have much of anything. No really great characters, no actual plot, no structure. I know it's the first draft and that first drafts are allowed to be terrible. Part of what's kept me going and producing pages this past week and a half is the resolution not to reread and edit until a complete draft is done. I've been using the "index card" feature in Final Draft (best software ever!) to scribble little notes if a continuity error or new idea occurs to me, and I can go back and refer to those notes later when I'm revising. But I'm still getting panicky that I have no real conflict (as usual for my plays) and that nothing has really happened over 37 pages. Each scene should have some sort of purpose for being in the script, otherwise it shouldn't be there. I don't yet know if my scenes are earning their place in the script. I got freaked out because I read a blog entry by a "real" playwright (someone who actually gets work produced) that was meant to be encouraging, but one of the things he mentioned was that he didn't know the "ideal monologue-to-scene ratio." I was like, "There's supposed to be a ratio? I'm supposed to be writing MONOLOGUES?" I have some speeches by characters that are longer than the average line or so of dialogue, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them monologues I don't think. And I consider them PART OF whatever scene they're in, so I don't think of it in terms of a ratio.
I still don't think I know how to get good ideas as a starting point. I know ideas can be found pretty much anywhere, but it's the hardest thing for me. It's something I'll really have to work at. But I can't think about things like that now. I still have another 37.5 pages left to write before the end of the month. I really don't know what I'll be left with when the month is over. The revision process will be interesting. Maybe at some point I'll get to the stage (ha) where my first drafts are better and have some semblance of quality to them. Anyway, this was supposed to be an entry celebrating my reaching the halfway point pagewise. Instead, it turned into a criticismfest, letting out all the "internal editor" worries that I've had to suppress in order to churn the pages out. I need to put the internal editor away again so that I can write after work tonight. If I stay on pace I should hit the top of page 40 tonight.
|
|
|
| NaPlWriMo update |
[Nov. 3rd, 2008|03:02 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  productive | ] |
| [ | music |
| | I have "Time Warp" from Rocky Horror stuck in my head | ] |
I decided to go for it and attempt NaPlWriMo. Even though I've been scrambling to finish the reading for class as it is and even though my big presentation for class will be coming up in early December. A 75 page play is an average of less than three pages per day, and I can at least attempt to pull it off. I'll definitely have to do more than that in addition to work for other classes in grad school next year, so I might as well get used to it now.
So we are at day 3. I haven't written yet for today, but I'm on page 7, so I've made my three-page goals for the first two days. After work I'll have to switch between writing at least another three pages and trying to finish Dr. Faustus for class (it's Marlowe week, so last night after I did my three pages I read the 20-page poem Hero and Leander and the opening scenes of Dr. Faustus... I also need to read Edward II, which I've never read before, for Wednesday). Complicating this even more is the fact that even though I ordered it last Wednesday morning on "expedited shipping," my The Works of Christopher Marlowe book has not yet shipped to me. Seriously, Amazon... I'm using your service because I couldn't afford to buy the books all at once from the bookstore, so the least you could do is ship me my books on time. Luckily, Hero and Leander was in our Renaissance Verse anthology I already own, and I found Dr. Faustus for free online. I'm not sure if Edward II will be online too, but I'm also hoping to have the actual book by the time I'm ready to start reading that one.
So yes, I hope to get to page 10 by tonight to stay on course for making it to 75 by the end of the month. I have no class next week, but I need to do a ton of reading for two weeks from now... 800 pages of Arcadia. woo. But I at least already own all the books from here on out, so I won't be waiting on Amazon anymore. I hope I can write and put together my presentation at the same time though. All of that and having to go home for Thanksgiving will be the hardest thing to get through.
|
|
|
| my abc news "fame" and NaPlWriMo take 2 |
[Oct. 30th, 2008|05:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  just finished a busy work day | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's "Somewhere over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" | ] |
I have a few things to update/think about... first, most people have heard this already, but my most recent entry, in which I complained about how I seem to get sick when I stress out, caught the attention of someone at ABC News who must have been searching out blogs for a story they were doing on stress and illness. Someone sent me my first-ever private livejournal message and asked if I wouldn't mind giving the writer a quick phone interview, so after I googled out the writer's name to make sure she was legitimate and actually worked for ABC News, I sent her an email and we had our interview the next morning. I am terrible at interviews, especially over the phone. I like being able to think my response out and put it down in writing. So I never expected her to actually use my story in her final piece. But, to my surprise, I got an email from her that Monday saying that she had actually used me in her story. crazy! The whole situation was just random and bizarre. The story can be found here by the way. It was yet another case of my blog attracting attention of random people when I assume that no one outside of the small circle of friends reads it.
The first time such a thing happened was when I wrote this entry about a year ago on "National Playwriting Month" or "NaPlWriMo." An arts blogger from the Guardian must've come across my journal in a search for "NaPlWriMo" and quoted me in his article about it (horrible overly cute spelling and all). It was embarrassing and was the first time I ever realized that people might actually SEE what I'm writing. I've since cleaned up the cutesy spelling a lot even though I miss it. I reserve it for emails and IMs with close friends. So, I'm bringing that entry up because it was found again today, by a livejournal user who is involved with NaPlWriMo. She asked if I'd consider participating this year, and I took a look at their spiffy new website. I admit, it does sound like fun, and I do feel guilty for snarking on them last year. :) But do I have the time to write an at least 75-page play over 30 days, on top of my job and my UMass class? I do not know. It would be great though to get another play written, and having the community of the website might help me stay motivated. I wanted to have a few things to work with when I (hopefully!) start at BU in the fall, so I guess now is as good a time as any to get started. And I have had a couple ideas floating around in my head, but I haven't thought them through structurally at all yet. They're sort of mini-ideas. And I'd hate to start something and not accomplish it. I'd feel guilty and beat myself up for being a total NaPlFailure. But we'll see... I have tomorrow to think about it anyway.
The third thing I was thinking about was just the whole journal font size issue again. Livejournal screwed me up a few months ago when they added "smaller" and "larger" to their font size drop-down menu. I hate the way "smaller" looks on IE. But I used to use "extra-small" and that looks smaller than it did before and is unreadable. "Smaller" looks better on Safari than on IE, but I haven't checked it in Firefox yet. I don't know if I should go for "extra-small," which is bigger than "smaller" (this sounds completely stupid, I know) and increase the legibility of my entries while still having small font. But then it will look gigantic to me because I'm used to my teenyfont. So that's something else to think about. The "should I write a play next month?" decision is a bit more pressing though. :) |
|
|
| once again i stress myself into getting sick |
[Oct. 6th, 2008|10:05 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  blek. | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down..." | ] |
I'm not feeling good today. When I get really stressed out it is not uncommon for that to result in my getting sick. See, for example, the week I took my GREs. I was so stressed out between studying for that test and lots of problems going on at home that I ended up with a really bad cold during the exam that I'm pretty sure was at least part of the reason why my verbal score plummeted. This time though the cold has been really slow to progress. It hasn't gotten incredibly bad, but it's just really slow and has been sticking around for awhile. Most of last week I had a scratchy feeling in my throat. Then around Friday it developed into more of a cough, and just now I'm getting the stuffy-nose feeling. Usually it's sore throat for a day or two followed by congestion and bleh for a few days. But it's just weird that whenever I have something to stress out over, such as the GREs or this fellowship application, I often end up making myself sick in the process. I used to get sick after auditions or after the run of a play in college.
I dragged the wires out as far as they would go so that I could plug in my work computer in my bedroom and copyedit from my bed today. Our wireless connection still won't work, so I had to really stretch all of the wires to be able to get the ethernet cord to reach all the way over here. But now it's nice. My tea got cold though and I want to make another cup of it later.
My fellowship got in on time though. I got my transcript and my second recommendation on Wednesday and then the final recommendation came on Thursday. Thursday night when I was intending to pack everything into the envelope and walk to the mailbox, I noticed that they have speicific guidelines for showing "proof of mailing" in the application packet. I needed to have a clear postmark date or a mail receipt from a commercial carrier or something else to that effect. And they said that post offices don't necessarily always put a good enough postmark on things automatically, so I had to wait until Friday morning and walk half a mile down the (sidewalk-less) road on what is more or less a very small highway to the post office before work. I had them make sure the date was all nice and clear and that I'd get signature confirmation when it is received. So now that's all sent in and done, yay. But I have pretty much no chance of getting a fellowship though them since they only hand out about 50 or so nationwide. It's for PhDs or MFAs in the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts for study in the US. I'm just happy it's done and I don't have to deal with it anymore until they give me the "no" letter this spring. Now I need to deal with figuring out how to pay for this semester at UMass.
|
|
|
| craziness: work, class, fellowship due date, etc. |
[Sep. 30th, 2008|03:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | busy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "five... five dollar... five dollar footlooooooong" | ] |
This is a pretty busy week for me. Work is busy because it's Dan's annual week off while Neuron is getting it's big issues that it sends to the Society for Neuroscience conference in October put together, and we also have a Dev. Cell deadline this week too. I also spent a lot of this weekend (I was in Somerville) helping my mother edit and organize her paper she has to hand in this Friday for her Masters class. She had to plan a special teaching project (she chose to start a book club to see if it will affect her students' motivation to read) and do a bunch of research on the topic and get the project launched. Her next class will be on actually gathering and interpreting the results of the project, but this one was mainly just planning it out and writing up the research.
I also have the deadline for a fellowship I'm applying for coming up this Friday too. That deadline really snuck up on me. I think for most of September, I was somehow of the mindset that it was a week earlier than it actually was. It hit me when I was home (as in Somerville) on Thursday night that I had just one week left to get the fellowship application together. I quickly wrote a rough draft of my statementt of purpose and sent reminders out to my three recommendation writers. Friday when I had my half-day in the office I faxed in a rush request for a transcript to Holy Cross. It is now Tuesday, and I have the application form itself completed, feedback on my first draft of the essay and a second draft written, one recommendation here already, and notice that the other two have been mailed. I don't have any word on the transcript situation. I'm nervous because it seems like the mail is slow out here and I'm worried that I won't get the two recommendations and the transcript in time. I'm hoping that by Thursday night I have everything and can package it all up and get it sent in without having to stress about it.
I also have a ton of reading every week for the 16th Century Lit class I'm in. It's a good class, but it's intimidating because I think a lot of the grade is participation based and it's very hard to force myself to speak up. It's also hard to get through lots of the readings because the main anthology we've been using doesn't modernize the spelling, so I'm left with "eche" for "each" and "mete" for "meet" (which, of course, does not mean "to be introduced to" but rather "fitting" :P). I'm kind of used to Renaissance meanings of words (such as "meet" and "happy" and all that) because of all the Shakespeare I've had, but the spelling still throws me off. Tonight I get to read the Defense of Poesy online because my book I ordered has not arrived yet. I started it at lunch... it's not too bad. And it keeps my mind off the fact that I'm still missing two recommendations and a transcript. |
|
|
| (new) umass class! |
[Sep. 16th, 2008|09:42 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  relieved | ] |
| [ | music |
| | debating whether or not to listen to the radio while I do proofs | ] |
Shortly after my last entry, I decided that I'd had enough of that class I had signed up for. The one on Major Texts for the Study of American Culture that had zero literature on the reading list. I got the first book last Tuesday in the mail from Amazon (I forget whether I mentioned in my last entry that the bookstore didn't have it), and I settled down Tuesday after work to spend the night pouring through it, and oh my god, it was miserable. It was called Culture in the Age of Three Worlds, and it was all about how culture changed and evolved in the Cold War era of 1945-1989. You know, that weird part of history that high school courses never get up to and that time in my life before I was eight years old? And it was boring. The only time he talked about literature was when he discussed the global trend of novels being written by people who weren't professional writers or something. Which would have been ok if we'd actually been reading one of those novels rather than a critical commentary on it.
Brian got home later that night after I'd been reading for five hours straight, and he said I looked totally dead and that I should probably think about dropping the class if I'm not getting anything out of it. I think that was all the convincing I needed. I hate feeling like I'm taking the easy way out of anything, but when I thought about how I was just going to hate the class for the entire semester and not get anything out of it, it seemed to make sense to at least try to drop the class and switch into a better one. I knew that the only other night class that had been available was 16th Century Lit, and at first I'd wanted to avoid that one because I didn't want to be squinting through olde Englishe texts every week. :P But at that point, I didn't care anymore about rereading the Faerie Queene. It at least is actual literature, not sociology or "culture studies" or whatever my last readings could be considered. So that night I checked online to make sure the course was still open (thankfully it was) and emailed the professor to make sure that it was ok if I added the class. And the next morning I talked to the English graduate secretary and dropped that horrible American Culture class and added 16th Century Lit.
That was Wednesday afternoon, which means class day, so I went to 16th Cenury Lit and didn't even need to attend a second meeting of the original class. It was nice. The only weird thing is that my new class had moved from the usual English building on campus to the Renaissance Center, which is I guess this library/resource center in Amherst that all five colleges have access to even though I think it's technically owned by UMass (I could be wrong on that though). It's way out in the middle of nowhere on the extreme edge of the campus map, probably a 20-25 minute walk from the bus stop. It's fine now, but in the winter I can imagine it being significantly less fun. Someone the class offered me a ride back to the campus bus stop on the way home though, which was very nice of her. The Renaissance Center looks like this little old farmhouse sort of. The grounds are beautiful and overlook the mountains, and I saw a bunny hopping around. Plus there's a courtyard with little statues and flowers. The room our class meets in feels like a seminar room in Fenwick at Holy Cross, which is nice. It's basically a library reading room, with an adjoining kitchen where people were making coffee. The overall vibe of this location and class is just better to me. There's a LOT of really smart PhD English nerds though. Which is great, but I kind of feel like I'm in over my head in comparison. A lot of them are Renaissance concentrators and have like presented at conferences and everything, and then there's me. There are others without a Renaissance background though, so that is somewhat comforting. I actually saw one of the MFA girls from my original class sitting behind me in this new class, and I wonder if she'd bolted out of that first class as fast as she could as well. :)
So anyway, that's how everything is as of now. I'll have to elaborate more on the new class later. I have the second meeting tomorrow night, where we're discussing Catholic writers. woo. I have a ton of reading to get done still, but tonight is Brian's late class night so I'll have all night to devote to John Skelton and co. fun times. |
|
|
| umass class |
[Sep. 8th, 2008|03:24 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bored | ] |
| [ | music |
| | I don't think I have anything stuck in my head for once. | ] |
This is me attempting to update more frequently, even though last time I said I'd inevitably have more time on my hands and now I'm not so sure if that's true or not.
I had my first class meeting last Wednesday (it is now Monday). I was 15 minutes late and the last person there, which was horrible and not at all the way I wanted to begin the semester. I'd been on the phone with Jack right before that learning about Dev. Cell, and then I had to email an author in Spain and run out the door. Then the buses were not running anywhere close to the schedule that had been posted, and I waited over 20 minutes for one. That got me to campus after 4:00, which is when class starts, and on top of all that I had to try to find the building when I'd never been on the campus before. And it's not exactly cute and tiny like Holy Cross's campus is. So I got into class at 4:15 and had to squish into the circle while everyone else was going around the room giving introductions. The only good part about that is that one of the only empty desks left in the room was a lefty desk, which I love. I write with my right hand, but I love being able to lean on my left arm and hold the paper almost horizontally as I write with my right hand. I really don't understand the lefty-desk hatred so many people seem to have.
I missed the first few introductions, but I walked in on a girl who was talking about how she is in the MFA poetry program. I was jealous. Not because I want to do poetry at all (judging by how that turned out on the undergrad level, I should not be allowed anywhere near an MFA in poetry), but because she's already started and settled into her MFA program. Most of the people in the class were PhD English students, some were terminal MA English students, and a few were random other humanities-related grad students. There was one girl focusing her PhD on African drama, so she was the closest thing in the class to someone with a theater background. One other girl was also in the MFA program, and there was one other nondegree student besides me in the class. In my little introduction, I wasn't sure whether I should mention BU at all, because I didn't want to sound like I was taking advantage of their university and just using them for their cheap classes. Except that well, that's kinda true. But I ended up telling them that I'm a nondegree student taking my first graduate course, that my fiance is beginning his PhD in chemistry, and that I'd gotten into BU's MFA in playwriting but was deferring for a year because of the financial aid situation. And I said I'd wanted to take advantage of my year out here by taking some classes, and that I'd always had an interest in modern and postmodern American literature, which is why I chose this class in particular.
When we finally get to reviewing the syllabus, I notice that there is NO ACTUAL LITERATURE on it. Maybe I should explain--the class is called Major Texts in the Study of American Culture. I knew it would be partially American Studies, but I thought it would be "American Studies" the way that my Emily Dickinson seminar at HC had been "Women's Studies"--that it would be a literature class that could satisfy an elective for the American Studies program. I thought we'd be reading iconic American works and then discussing what they show us about American culture and how it's evolved over time and things like that, and that any American Studies essays would be supplemental reading to the literature. But no. There's no fun 20th and 21st century American novels to read. It's all like sociology-type essays on different aspects of American culture, and I guess those essays and books touch upon literature here and there. So it's not exactly what I was expecting. It feels like it's going to be way more of a sociology class than an English class, and I don't have much experience with social science courses. But the subject matter is at least interesting, which is good because the weekly readings are all 200-300 pages. Eight of the fourteen weeks I need to write a 2-4 page reflection on that week's reading, and then on one additional week I need to make a 15 minute presentation on an aspect of the weekly reading. And at the end there's a 15 page final "review" paper that brings in one of the weekly topics plus a cluster of other related readings that we didn't cover in class. It doesn't sound too bad at all, but I don't really like talking for fifteen minutes and would rather do an eight page paper or whatever the written equivalent is.
I went to buy the first two books for the class on Saturday, planning to save money by ordering the rest online, hopefully used. The bookstore didn't have the book we need to read for Wednesday. Neither did any local Borders or Barnes and Noble. I had to order it overnight on Amazon that night, and unfortunately, "overnight" on a Saturday means a Tuesday arrival date, meaning I have about 24 hours to read the entire 200+ pages before class, plus full-time work Tuesday and Wednesday. I guess I won't be doing one of the response papers this week. It's really annoying... it would be nice if the bookstore actually carried enough copies of the books for the entire class, especially when it's a graduate course so it's not like there's 200 people in it (more like 25). Big for a seminar, yes, but not big compared to the average UMass class. So it should get here tomorrow and then I will work my way through it as quickly as possible. The good thing is that Tuesday is Brian's late night for class, so I won't have any distractions or anything and can read for a few hours once work is done. So yeah, that's how the class is shaping up so far. It's not what I thought I'd be getting myself into, and I wish that the course description had been a bit more accurate, but I think it should be interesting enough in and of itself.
|
|
|
| new apartment! |
[Aug. 29th, 2008|09:53 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | new apartment! | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | bored | ] |
| [ | music |
| | I have silly iCarly kid tv on in the background | ] |
Wow. I haven't updated in six weeks? That's pretty pathetic. But it's not all my fault. I had/have one or two more Disney cruise updates I wanted to do, but as you know, I like to include a photo with each entry. It's one of my OCD-like traits where if I do one cruise entry with photos then all of the cruise entries therefore need to have photos. But flickr has been problematic the last couple times I tried to upload photos. I also think I need to pay to continue my "pro" account soon, possibly now. But since I haven't been able to easily upload new pictures, I haven't been able to write a new cruise entry. So I decided to break the cruise entries up for now and do a regular catching-up sort of post.
So here I am. yay. We moved last weekend so that Brian could start his new program at UMass. He's had orientation all this week, and tonight he drove back to Boston to see some now-former coworkers because someone else was having a goodbye party. I felt exhausted earlier because I have a cold (probably brought on by the stress of moving), but now I seem to be more awake, and I just unpacked a couple more boxes. So as you can see, we're still getting settled. I haven't even unpacked my clothes from this big giant box yet. Most of them need to be washed, so I'd just be unpacking them to the laundry basket, but I can't yet because the laundry basket still has all my shoes in it. And it still has shoes in it because our old apartment had a shoe/coat closet but our new one has no easy place to store all that stuff, so it's stayed packed for now. But the rest of the bedroom looks ok (aside from the lack of tv in there, because there's no cable connection in the bedroom so we'll have to run wires from the living room), and tonight I focused on unpacking all the contents of the entertainment center.
I also started working remotely as of this week. Not having a commute, at least for now, is nice. As is getting to sleep till 8:00 (I could get up a little later if I really felt like it too, but I like having time to make tea and everything before work). Having a window right in front of my computer that looks out at a tree rather than a big office building is also nice, as is not being freezing like I always was in the office. It is weird not having everyone around, obviously, but I'm doing ok. There were lots of adjustments to the new office laptop and lots of little computer issues this week, but I think it's started to settle down. They mailed me a monitor and a keyboard. No mouse, but Brian has one he doesn't use. I think it was because (before I realized the touchpad of the laptop they gave me would be so bad) I told IT I didn't need a keyboard and mouse, and they remembered "no mouse" but sent a keyboard anyway. And new monitor plus new keyboard is kind of pointless with no new mouse. And they sent some weird thing that I forget the name of. Then today they also sent me my printer. And it just happens to be the exact same printer Brian and I just bought ourselves with Connor's printer rebate from his new laptop (Canon Pixma MX310). :P I figured the work printer wouldn't be anything good, and since we had to finally retire Brian's college printer, I had wanted to get a nice-ish one for us. I need to hook up the monitor and the keyboard this weekend... and also find a place to store that second printer. And I need to buy myself a desk at some point... I've been using Brian's for now, but his desktop computer has no place to go while I'm using his desk. The office room is going to be packed when everything's all set up... it may not even be able to fit our air mattress when it's inflated, so guests may have to end up sleeping on the air mattress in the living room. But that's not a big deal so much anymore because the living room in this place has carpeting whereas our last living room was hardwood floor.
The move itself went well I think. We did it all in basically one trip. Brian had brought up a few boxes earlier in the week when he went to get the key and wait for the cable/internet to be switched to the new place, and we also left behind the cleaning supplies so that we could go back and do one final cleanup before we left, but everything else went either into the truck or into Phann's or Andrew's cars. Kevin, Phann, and Andrew helped us load everything into the truck/cars and drive up (Brian and Kevin in truck, Andrew and I in Andrew's car, and Phann alone in his car since he knows the way pretty well because of his sister). Phann took a different route and got there way before us because we hit traffic. But when we got to the new place, Brian's two friends Kirk and Frank were there to help with unloading the truck. And Brian's father stopped by a little later to help too. That made the move in go much faster than the move out. And we're still unpacking, as I said, but all of the main stuff is unpacked. Most of what's left in boxes is just because of storage issues that need to be resolved.
Oh! And I registered to take an English class at UMass. UMass lets you take classes on a nondegree basis provided that space is open in the course. Supposedly the registration went through--the graduate English secretary had to add me in herself because it kept saying I didn't meet the course restrictions even though I did (only restriction was grad students only). But in their online system it still says I'm not registered for any classes. I've heard it takes a few days for it to show up in the system, but I might need to just confirm with the department next week if it hasn't shown up yet. I also need to buy books and possibly get an ID and learn where the class meets and how to get there from the bus stop. And I emailed Dan at work to ask about working different hours on Wednesdays (the course time got moved at the last minute from 6:00 to 4:00), and he hasn't written back yet, so I hope that ends up being ok. If not, I need to hope that a class that meets after 6:00 has spots open. I'm hoping to take a class now and another in the spring semester, and BU has already told me that they will transfer over when I start their program. It's going to save me like 10 grand because classes at UMass are so much cheaper. Classes start Wednesday. I hope it all works out ok. I'm a little nervous.
So I guess that's it. New apartment, new class (hopefully), new work environment, and new schedule for Brian. It's nice to have a break from the usual routine that we'd gotten into over the past four years, but I'm just hoping it all ends up working out. I am just waiting for something to wrong with this class that I added--work won't let me "leave" before 5:00, or I somehow won't be able to afford it, or the registration won't have gone through and I'll be shut out, or the bus will be so erratic that I'll have to leave work too early to get to campus on time. I tend to over-worry about things. And I hope Brian's first real week of school goes well next week. I will try to update more now that I'll inevitably have more time to myself without a work commute.
|
|
|
| disney cruise part 9 - golden mickeys, pirates dinner, and night 3 |
[Jul. 14th, 2008|12:47 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  I want to see Wall-e again :P | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Put on your Sunday clothes when you feel down and out...." | ] |
Night 3 of our cruise is the night of the biggest show in the Walt Disney Theater, the Golden Mickeys. It's sort of set up to be like an awards show, with statues being given out to honor Disney classic movies and characters (Best Villain, etc.). The lobby leading to the theater is decorated with banners and a red carpet before the show. The best part (to me anyway) of the show was the preshow entertainment going on outside the theater. One of the actresses wearing this big fancy gold dress was picking people (little kids) out of the crowd as they headed into the theater and asking them questions a la red carpet reporters on Oscar night. So she was pretty much 100% ad libbing and dealing with shy kids or kids who you can't understand when they mumble, and she did a great job. She'd ask what they were wearing (lots of kids were dressed up either for pirate night or in Disney princess costumes and things), and who their favorite Disney characters were, were they were from, and all of that. And everyone she talked to got a special "VIP" seat up front and was also given a special part in the show later on. We watched her outside for a few minutes and then went into the theater to get a seat, and we discovered that the lobby events were being broadcast on big-screen tv's inside the theater. The kids were cute. There were two little girls from Massachusetts. I also remember a group of three or four boys who were hard to understand because they talked fast and/or mumbled.
So, the point of this show is basically to showcase Disney musical numbers, and the plot is obviously secondary and really flimsy. Kind of like how the plot of The Nutcracker kind of sucks and is just a lame excuse to showcase the really impressive dance numbers. The basic story was that the original host of the Golden Mickeys was sick or couldn't make it for some reason, and the poor low-self-esteem assistant gets forced into the spotlight taking over hosting duties. She doesn't think she can do it and is shaky and nervous. This is where I think they could've taken a few easy steps to make the plot better. Instead of having a musical number for each award or something, lots of the musical numbers just seemed to come out of nowhere or follow one right after the other with no real reason, as if the "award show" idea were temporarily suspended. There were scenes from lots of Disney movies and taped sections on the big screen tv's with "interviews" of Disney people. There was another Toy Story scene, where I was once again disappointed with the dancing. There were little army-men dancers, and they didn't move or act like army men at all--they just acted like dancers in green makeup. It could've been really creative and fun to do a dance where your leg movements are kind of restricted because of the whole army-man thing. And the cowboy doll-dancers had lassos and then didn't DO anything with them other than hold them and maybe swing them over their heads once or twice. No fancy twirly tricks or like dancing with partners or anything. The same thing happened in the Mulan scene where the dancers had big long Donatello-esque bo's as props. They didn't do any fun things like even twirling them in unison (which looks really cool from the audience) or fight choreography. Props like these are just asking for fun choreography. Anyway. One place where the dancing was really good was the Tarzan scene, where three "vines" were suspended from the ceiling and each one had a dancer monkey hanging from them doing spins and acrobatic tricks. It was the one place where I was really impressed with the dancing and thought "wow, they're good." They didn't always spin in exact unison though, and I wish they had tightened that up a bit. And even that was more acrobatics and less straightforward dancing. The kids who were interviewed before the show got to come out dressed as dwarves with Snow White. There was also a Cruella de Vil scene where the girl who'd played Sid in the Toy Story musical the night before was Cruella. She once again was one of the best performers of the night. The Pocahontas dancers kind of sucked and couldn't act or dance very well, especially the guy. Anyway, so at the end, of course the assistant-turned-host learns to believe in herself and I think gets a special Golden Mickey just for her. Which would have made more sense if they had actually paid more attention to her character and made a nice overall theme of believing in yourself and always pushing yourself to new heights and all that, but they really didn't. Not enough to make the ending feel like it was cohesive anyway. Sorry for complaining about what was obviously a show designed mainly for kids. It just wouldn't take much for them to improve things even slightly. Our college ACT shows were better, and these people get paid to do these shows as their full-time jobs for six months.
After the show it was just about time for dinner, the "Pirates IN the Caribbean" theme party. I hated how they always felt the need to stress the "IN" in the theme title. I didn't really have anything pirate- or tropical-themed, so I wore my strapless brown sundress thingie and decided it was "tropical" enough. Brian had a woot "Say No to Scurvy" t-shirt with a pirate orange (as in the fruit) on it. I kind of wish they'd organized it so that the Golden Mickeys night were scheduled on "dress-up night" so that it would give the feeling of going to a big fancy awards dinner and the that pirate night were on another night, but they probably want to do pirate night on Castaway Cay day because of the whole Caribbean thing, and they only have four nights to juggle all the events into. Dinner for the theme night was where you had eaten dinner on "dress-up night" the previous day, so we were back in Triton's. The menu was different and pirate-themed and there were red bandanas at everyone's place setting. The German lady at our table fussed about how to put it on without looking ridiculous, while I pulled a tip from summer 2000 out and tied the bandana like a headband with a triangle hanging down the back. Brian said it looked cute and not overly stupid, so I decided to leave it on instead of just taking it off right after I'd tried it on. Buster and Lucille were not at our table that night, but a new middle-aged couple from Louisianna were there in their place. At first I thought I'd be annoyed by them since their accents were so thick, but they were actually very nice. As were the older couple from England (who, in a self-fulfilling stereotype, had really bad teeth :P). The American guy with the German girl was again pretty quiet. When it came time to order, I got some sort of fried mozzerella for my appetizer while Brian got something with fruit, and we both got the mahi mahi for dinner. All the meals had silly pirate names like "Captain Hook's Walk-the-Plank Chicken Strips" and such (that wasn't a real meal... just an idea of what the names would be like). The mahi mahi was good... it surprised me that I'd picked fish over chicken at every meal, but usually the chicken option seemed like it would be too plain, and I like chicken when it's in something like pasta or a sandwich rather than just a plain piece of chicken. For dessert, I got a cheesecake of some sort while Brian got a chocolate cake. There were more brain teasers involving crayons at the end of the meal, but we didn't get this one. It was a cheap answer anyway though.
After dinner there was a deck party on the pool decks where the pirate theme would continue. There was going to be a buffet on the deck and dancing and some sort of skit involving Peter Pan and Captain Hook that culminates in fireworks being set off right from the ship. I was mainly only interested in the fireworks part, as there is way too much food on cruises and I didn't feel like I could eat much at a buffet. We also really wanted to see the Celtics game that was on in Diversions that night. So we opted for the Celtics. We were going to leave around the time of the fireworks, but the game got really good and close. Luckily, I was sitting right by a porthole window, and I could lean over and see the fireworks when they were set off without having to leave the bar. So I got to experience both the game and the fireworks. And when the game was over (and the Celtics had won again, yay!), we wandered up to see the buffet winding down. Brian may have tried some sort of meat thing that didn't interest me, and I took a cookie or a brownie or something. And free soda from the deck 9 soda fountains.
When we got back to our room, we had my favorite of the towel animals we received waiting for us--a towel monkey. He was hanging on our wall from a clotheshanger and was wearing Brian's sunglasses. Our little green puppie was sitting on top of the monkey looking confused. It was adorable. We left all the towel animals up and around our room for the rest of the cruise. That night our chocolates were also pirate-themed like little gold coins, and our final full-length Navigator was for the next day's day at sea. I'd wanted to take advantage of the room service because it was free, even though we both weren't hungry. I just thought it would be cool to get. So we got a cheese and crackers and fruit platter, which is like the smallest thing they offered, and had it delivered. It was good, but we didn't finish the whole thing. After that, it was time for bed. It had been a really long day but overall was my favorite day of the cruise. |
|
|
| disney cruise part 8 - triton's breakfast and castaway cay! |
[Jul. 13th, 2008|09:32 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | remembering the beach | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Foo Fighters - Summer's End | ] |
I woke up to day 3 of our cruise just after the ship had docked at Castaway Cay, Disney's own private island in the Bahamas. They dock earlier (and also leave earlier in the afternoon) than they do at Nassau, so they were at the port by I believe 7:30am. I had a good view of the island and the back of the Flying Dutchman ship from our verandah, so I took a lot of pictures before getting dressed for breakfast. (The full-sized ship/moving set from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie was moved to Castaway Cay after filming rather than just scrapping it. It was actually pretty cool.)
That day, aside from the buffets in Beach Blanket Buffet and Parrot Cay, Triton's was also open for a table-service sit-down breakfast. The buffet yesterday at Parrot Cay had been ok, but nothing special, so we decided to try Triton's even though we'd been there for lunch and dinner yesterday and would be there for the pirate-themed dinner again that night. We figured why not try to hit every meal at least once in that restaurant. Breakfast there was pretty good. Preferable to the buffet. Brian got some waffles with dulce de leche and I got an omelet with cheese and tomatoes. And we split a side order of a couple slices of bacon. No biscuits with gravy to be found here.
After breakfast, we went back to up to our room to change into beachwear and head out into Castaway Cay. "Cay," by the way, is pronounced like "key" and I believe is a Bahamian word for "island." I wore my blue tie-dye-looking bathing suit and tied the matching sarong around my waist like a long skirt (thank you, Balinese dance), and I threw my navy blue Nessie woot t-shirt over that and just headed out like that. Now would also be a good time to mention that people on flickr are disgusting. :P I was uploading a bunch of pictures on Friday afternoon, and I'd forgotten to prescreen the batch and pull and pictures I didn't want to be uploaded before I clicked "start." So then I had to wait for the entire batch to finish and scan through them. They were seriously only up for like half an hour, maybe an hour at the absolute most. Most pictures had zero or one views so far, which is normal. But there was one of me wearing just my bathing suit top without the shirt over it (I still had the wrap skirt on but it wasn't visible in the photo) sitting at the lunch buffet table with my tray of food, and that photo had ten views already. Another one of me ( that I actually thought was cute) in the similar dress of wrap-skirt and bathing suit top where I was sipping the really good frozen drink I'd got at the beach had 12 views. One of me walking to the ocean with my back to the camera had six views. eww. They weren't titled anything other than like DSC00310 and such, and they weren't tagged with anything other than like "disney cruise" and "castaway cay." There was no mention of "girl in bathing suit" or "girl in bathing suit drinking." :P How do people find these things so fast? yukky. Needless to say, those pictures have now been pulled from flickr.
Anyway, the beach. It was absolutely beautiful. We got off the boat and decided to just walk to the family beach rather than take the tram (the Passporter told us it was about a 10-minute walk) so that we could take in the scenery and get some pictures. At the family beach, the only place open in the snack area that early was a smoothie stand, and since it was getting hot already, we each got a smoothie in a souvenir coconut-shaped cup. We took the tram the rest of the way to Disney's adults-only (18+) beach, Serenity Bay. It's really too far to walk unless you're up for a good long walk. The tram ride itself is like 10-15 minutes. The adult beach (note that it is not THAT kind of adult beach :P ....just not open to kids) has its own bar and snackbar that is open for lunch, though the food selection is not as varied as the one at the main family beach. There's also a small teens-only beach at the far end of the family beach and staffed children's programming in case adults want to get away for a little while.
The adult beach is on the far end of the island and is nice and quiet (serene, if you will :P). On one side of the bar are a few open-air massage cabanas where you can get single or couples massages if you book a time in advance. On the other side is the beach itself, with settings of an umbrella, lounge chairs, and low sitting chairs that you can bring down to the water like in the photo. There's enough of these umbrella/chair settings to go around for everyone usually. The only thing there is a shortage of is hammocks. They're scattered about here and there, and of course everyone wants one. You're not supposed to be able to throw crap on them and "reserve" them, but people do anyway. The Passporter book recommended just setting people's stuff aside if they do that and using the hammock, but we weren't brazen enough to do that. Brian really wanted to have a hammock, so he was getting frustrated to see all of them empty but with bags thrown on them. I accidentally walked through a beach yoga class at the far end of the beach that I had just thought was a group of people lying on towels. oops. Then we just settled into a couple lounge chairs and gave dirty looks to the hammock-reservers next to us who were currently in the ocean.
Usually, as most of you know, Brian is not an ocean fan. But since you don't usually get the chance to experience crystal-clear warm Caribbean waters, he decided to at least try going swimming with me. We had an instant waterproof camera so that we could take pictures in the ocean. It was so nice compared to northern East Coast waters. You could see clear through to the bottom. The water was light blue rather than murky green. And it was warm even in early May. The water up here doesn't really get warm until about August, and even then it's kind of cold. For me anyway. It was so nice. We took some water pictures and then went back to our chairs to dry off for a few minutes, and then we decided to pack up and head back to the tram to the family beach for lunch. We'd wanted to get lunch on the main beach because the food selection is better. And we also wanted to see some of what we'd been missing away from the crowds.
Back at the family beach, the big barbecue was already open. It was much louder and much more populated than the adult beach had been. There was lots of buffet-style barbecue food... burgers, corn on the cob, grilled chicken, hot dogs. My absolute favorite were the mahi mahi rolls. I usually don't like much seafood in roll form, but these were amazing. There is way too much food on a cruise. I think while we were eating the children's programming was doing a frog-jumping contest with some of the kids because we overheard some of it. After we ate, we went to the gift shop so I could buy the shirt I'd seen on the way in (the Finding Nemo seagulls with "Mine! Mine! Mine!" written across it. yay), and then Brian wanted to rent snorkel gear and try it out. There's a section of the family beach ocean marked off for snorkeling where you don't have to actually pay to do an excursion, so we went over there. He took the camera with him and when he was done I decided to try the snorkel gear out for myself. The flippers were heavy and annoying, but breathing through the tube was easier than I'd expected. I was afraid it would make me all panicky and give me "I can't breathe" freakout. I only saw a few fish, but it was still really cool. I took pictures all over the place because it was hard to aim and see. I had contacts in too, by the way, so I was nervous about heading into the water with them in too on top of all this. I got one or two pictures of the fish though, so yay.
After our snorkel time, we returned the rented gear and went back to the tram for the adult beach. We hadn't booked excursions and were just planning to spend the couple hours in the afternoon on the quiet adult beach. The tide had gone out considerably since before lunch, and the beach was also much more empty. Lots of people probably either had afternoon excursions or had dropped their kids off with the counselors in the morning and spent the afternoon as a family. Sooo there were hammocks open! They also had people from the bar walking down the beach taking drink orders and delivering them to you, which was nice because we were almost all the way down the beach and walking all the way to the bar takes awhile. I got a (I think it was called) Konk Kooler or something, which is the island's signature drink (or so I've heard). It was so unbelievably good. We got our drinks near the end of the afternoon, after we'd spent some time just lying in the lounge chairs, Brian reading a magazine he'd brought with us and me listening to Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace in its entirety. It's a really nice summer/beach album. I was trying to get a tan but of course ended up with a sunburn, particularly bad in some places, especially right around the tie on the bathing suit top on the left. That's the only spot where the tan line remains two months later. I also went into the ocean one or two more times, including once right before we left. At one point, there were only a small handful of couples left on the adult beach besides us.
We didn't wait for the warning whistle that calls everyone back to the boat because we weren't sure how often the trams would run. So we reluctantly left the beach and walked back to the tram stop, which we took past the family beach back to the first stop. Then we walked back to the boat and were soon back in our stateroom. It's sad that they have to leave so early in the afternoon on Castaway Cay day (I think it was around 3:30 or 4:30). I took some more pictures from our verandah of the island and a ton as the ship left the island. The sun was at an ideal spot at that point, so the water looked especially bright and clear, and I didn't want to forget it.
Since it was so early and dinner wasn't until 8:30 for us, we wandered around the pool decks a little. It's where the free soda is available, and Brian got a free taco while I got some Pinocchio's pizza (this may have been the day we found the free tacos, not the day before as I'd mentioned in my previous entry. I'm not sure). I'll write about that night's show and dinner later. Starting with the cruise right after ours, the four-night cruises through the rest of the summer were making two stops in Castaway Cay rather than having a day at sea on day 4. At first, I'd been happy that we'd get a day at sea because I liked that concept, but after spending the day at Castaway Cay I was wishing we'd been on one of the two-stop cruises. It was definitely the best day of the cruise by far. |
|
|
| disney cruise part 7 - toy story musical, dress-up dinner, leaving nassau |
[Jul. 10th, 2008|08:54 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sleepie.. slept badly all week | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Baseball Tonight on the tv | ] |
After the spa, since we already had our bathing suits with us and most people were still out in Nassau, we got a few minutes in one of the two whirlpool tubs at the adult pool. For some reason the jets on the one we were in kept temporarily shutting down every now and then and then coming back up. The other (occupied) tub worked just fine. I think this is also when Brian finally found where the tacos on the ship are offered--they are at Pluto's Doghouse, one of the snackbars by the Goofy Pool. Those snackbars, by the way, are also all free (unless you buy a fancy and/or alcoholic drink).
Since we had the latest possible dinner seating each night (8:30), we had to go to the early show if we wanted to see a show that night. The shows were I believe at 6:00 and 8:00. Every night the stateroom host would drop off a Navigator (a cute little guide to what's going on on the ship) for the following day, so we'd known that that night the show was Toy Story the Musical. It was a brand-new show... before this the Wonder had been running Hercules the Muse-ical (ha. :P). So we went back to the Walt Disney Theater, where the juggler had been the night before, carrying some of Brian's peanut-butter-filled pretzels he'd brought from home as a free snack (the snack bar by the Buena Vista movie theater is NOT free; I don't even know if food is even allowed in the Walt Disney Theater but we had it anyway and no one said anything). We were way in the back because we barely made it in time.
The show was pretty much a scaled-down version of the movie, with lots of the same dialogue, but it added songs rather than using the Randy Newman ones in the movie (aside from the "You've Got a Friend in Me" song, which was in the musical). There was also a song probably called "That's Why We're Here" that all the toys sang at the beginning, some song about being a spaceman when Buzz Lightyear shows up, a song about the claw machine that all the little aliens sing, and a song Sid sings about being evil (lines like "DaVinci of destruction" and VanGogh of violence"). There were probably more but those are the ones I can recall offhand. Most of the cast was just ok. The girl who played evil-boy Sid stood out the most to me and was the only one I really liked at all. The costumes were impressive, as most of the nonhuman toys were in these big full-body costumes that looked exactly like the movie characters. The nonhumans also seemed to have the same voices as in the film (and were in some instances probably just lifted directly from the film). The sets were minimalist, but impressive when you think that they have to have three separate sets for the three different shows on the trip and completely assemble and then take apart each one every night. The choreography wasn't wonderful though, and with the whole "toys" thing there was a lot of fun playful things I felt like they could've done. I especially was a little annoyed by the guy who played Woody. The shows are definitely fine and entertaining enough, like my mother for example probably would've loved them, but for someone like me who is picky about writing and acting and choreography, I went into critic-mode a lot.
After the show we had to change for dinner because it was "dress-up night" that night. I took a shower and used the straightening iron I'd packed to dry/straighten my hair a little, and we both wore what we'd worn to Palo the previous night. I also took some pictures of the sunset and leaving Nassau out on our verandah while we were getting ready. Dinner that night was in Triton's where we'd been for lunch that day. We got there a few minutes early and had to wait in a line outside while the dining staff finished resetting the dining hall after the early sitting. We saw dressed-up families getting portraits taken behind a backdrop in the lobby. I should mention that overall there tends to be less small children in the later dinner sittings, so our shift had a lot of older couples or families with teens and older kids. The crew was passing out hand-wipe thingies for people to use before entering the dining room (they were good about health/cleanliness on the ship).
At our table (35) at Triton's we got to meet our dinner table for the first time, since we'd missed the first night at Palo. There was a mother with her grown (older than us, at least mid-30s) son, an older-than-my-parents couple from England, and a woman from Germany with her friend (non-boyfriend, we'd later learn) who was from the US. Our head server was Miguel from Mexico and I feel bad but I can't remember the name of our beverages server who was from somewhere in the general somewhere-near-Serbia area. She was very nice though, as was Miguel. They follow you through your restaurant rotation, so you have the same staff each night, and they make an effort to know your names right away. They also start to know your food and beverage preferences and can recommend things based on that if you can't make up your mind.
Triton's at dinner is fancier than Triton's at lunch. The lighting is deeper, with more sea tones, and gradually shifts from either blue tones to green tones or green to blue throughout the meal. For appetizers, I got tomato basil soup and Brian got ratatouille (yes, like the movie :P); for main courses, we both got the halibut; and for dessert, I got creme brullee and Brian got crepes suzette. I thought we did a pretty good job at holding up some dinner conversation with everyone. The mother and son team gave us a weird vibe (we started privately referring to them as Buster and Lucille :P), and I remember that they each got a soup/salad AND an appetizer, which I didn't realize was allowed. The guy with the German lady was very quiet and didn't seem to be enjoying himself (more on that in a later entry). We did ok talking to German-lady, and I'd mentioned how I went to Luxembourg and parts of Germany a few years ago and how it was beautiful and all that, but she seemed kind of cold and I was never sure if she was rolling her eyes at me in her head or something. It was a good dinner overall though. It ended with a couple brainteasers involving crayons that Miguel left on our table for us during dessert. A photo of one involving a horse is on my flickr. Brian solved that one. :) On the way back to our room afterward, we saw Goofy, who was also in a suit in honor of dress-up night, signing a few autographs for kids.
When we got back to our room, our second stateroom servicing of the day had been taken care of, and we had two chocolates, a Navigator for the next day, and (best of all) a towel elephant waiting for us on our bed. I'd read (yay Passporter!) that if you have toys or props such as sunglasses with you that the stateroom host will often "incorporate" them into the towel animal setup in a cute way, so we'd brought a few beanie babies with us to see if this was true. :P And it was. Our stateroom host had arranged the animals we'd left on the bed around the tv remote, turned on the tv to the movie station that was playing a kid-friendly VeggieTales movie nonstop, and made a towel elephant to sit next to them and watch tv with them. It was adorable. I took pictures of them from a few angles.
I'm now at the point where to continue with my blogs I need to first upload some more photos to flickr, since as of now I only have up to the towel elephant up there so far. I have a half-day at work tomorrow so I can hopefully do some of that in the afternoon when I'm home by myself. |
|
|
| disney cruise part 6 - triton's lunch and vista spa |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|09:49 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | steam room! | ] |
| [ | music |
| | I saw an episode of Doug today have the theme in my head | ] |
After getting back on the ship after walking around Nassau for a couple hours, we had a couple options for lunch. There is usually a buffet in Beach Blanket Buffet, and on certain days one of the real restaurants will be open for a sit-down meal. That day, Triton's was open for lunch, and I'd read that they have a really good lunch there, so we decided to check it out. It was great. I almost think I liked lunch there better than dinner there later that night. The sit-down lunches on cruises operate the same way as the sit-down dinners--where you get your own appetizer, main course, and dessert--only in smaller portions. I got really good hummus with pita bread as my appetizer, a mushroom rizotto for my meal (which was seriously like the best non-Palo meal on this trip), and a chocolate peanut butter pie for dessert. Brian got a burger and key lime pie, but I am blanking out on what his appetizer was. I apparently missed it in my obsessive food-picture taking, and even looking at my photo of the menu, nothing seems familiar. We also got peach (mine) and strawberry (Brian's) smoothies. Lots of yum.
It was our first time in Triton's, the fanciest of the three non-Palo restaurants, and we'd be there again for dinner later that night (and on the third night). The lighting has lots of blues and greens, and there's a big mural of Triton and Ariel on the far back wall (see photo). Luckily, lunch was nearly empty while we were there, and I got to take my time getting the entire mural in the photo. Unfortunately, I couldn't get in any closer to see the detail without cutting the edges off. At night the lights actually dim to deeper sea-like tones as the meal progresses, but at lunch all the lighting is normal and held to one tone.
After lunch, we decided to check out the Vista Spa, mostly for Brian's benefit. Since most people are off exploring the port, the spa often offers port-day specials with reduced prices and little added bonuses like champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. We'd read about the spa beforehand, and I knew pretty much the only treatment I'd feel comfortable with was the "exotic rasul" because it does not involve a spa staffperson touching you in any way. :P You get your own private spa room for up to three people and they leave you this mineral mud to rub over yourself/each other and then you let it evaporate off in your own private steam room. Now, this is where Disney confuses me. As I mentioned before, they saw the need to edit "am I sexual" out of the Backstreet Boys song. Yet they offer a private spa room for one, two, or THREE people? Like Donald wanted to get in on Mickey and Minnie's spa action or something? One person alone I understand. Two, obviously. But how can you see "three" and not take it sexually? :P It's not the type of thing a group of girls would go do on a bachelorette party or anything. I have no problem with Disney offering the treatment to up to three people... it just didn't strike me as particularly Disney-esque. :P There's probably some way to have three people there and have it be completely innocent, but I couldn't easily think of one.
Anyway, we were given robes to change into and a locker to put all our stuff in. I had to change into the robe in the bathroom stall because I was afraid someone would walk into the locker room in the middle of my changing. Then we were shown into our little private spa room, and the spa coordinator lady explained how to first use the exfoliator lotion and rinse that off in the shower in our room, and then there was a face-specific exfoliator, followed by the actual mineral mud. I was worried that I'd be all grossed out by the texture, but it was not bad at all and was fun. There were also towels folded in the shape of two swans with I think a red bow in our room too. It was cute. After we'd used the exfoliating lotions and gotten the mineral mud all applied, it was time to open the door to our private steam room to let the mud evaporate off and (allegedly) make your skin feel much better in the process. I personally loved the private steam room. I wish we'd had more time for the treatment so I could have used it longer. But Brian was not a fan because it was too hot in there for him. :P He said it felt burning on his foot, but he was standing on like the hottest part of the floor. He only lasted a few minutes in there and then just rinsed off the rest of the mud in the shower in our main spa room. So I stayed in the steam room all by myself for a little while longer, and when it was almost time for our hour we'd booked to be up, I turned on the cold-ish water shower in one of the steam room corners and washed the rest of the mud off and washed my hair. The cold water plus the heat from the steam was a nice combination. Leaving the steam room and then leaving our private room and heading back out into the main spa was sad. And the treatment really did make my skin feel nice and smoother and just overall better.
We decided to check out the spa's "rainforest room," a collection of various saunas and steam rooms, for a few minutes after that, but all of their rooms require bathing suit and no robe, and our bathing suits were up in the stateroom. Brian was thinking about doing their port-day massage special, so we talked to the woman at the front desk, who said that he could book that for right now, we could run upstairs and change into bathing suits, and then I could purchase a rainforest room day pass (it's really cheap after you already have a spa treatment that day) to hang out there while he did the massage. His special includes an hour of rainforest room time, so she said he could have some of it right when we got back and then the rest of it after his massage was over.
So we quickly went upstairs to change and then headed back down, got new robes, and headed into the rainforest room. The main room has a few (lightly) heated tile lounge chairs and a heated tile bench on the opposite wall, and then has a pretty mild sauna, a steam room that's kind of more intense, and a sort of aromatherapy steam room where the air feels all menthol-y and minty. There's also a "rainforest shower," which pretty much just means that the water falls from a big circle panel on the ceiling rather than from a small shower head, and you can select to have a mild warm tropical rainfall or a freezing cold rainstorm. There was also supposed to be a "fog shower" which I was really looking forward to, but it was either broken or I was doing it wrong, because it just seemed like a regular shower to me.
Brian and I tried both the sauna and regular steam room before he left for the massage (someone was in the aromatic one, which is also the smallest of the three). He could really only take the sauna because the steam room was too much for him. So we sat in the sauna until the spa people came to get him for the massage. After that I wandered around the various rooms for probably about an hour. People, probably pre- and post-treatments, came in and out of the room here and there, but I was pretty much the only "regular" during that time and pretty much always had the rooms to myself. The regular steam room was definitely the most intense. It was excessively hot in there. There was a statue of parrots on the center of the back bench. I sat next to them for awhile. I walked around the room a few times too because no one else was in it. There was a sign up about not staying in that room for more than I think it was 30 minutes at once. But it may have been 20. I had no idea how long I was in there. I had nothing to do so I'd sit there and try to see how long I could stand being in there till I got too hot, and then I'd come out and go to one of their showers and maybe sit on the tiled chairs for a minute or two and get some water from their water bubbler thingie. Then I'd head into the next room once I felt cooled down again and repeat the same routine. The aromatherapy steam room was less intense than the bigger regular steam room, but stronger than the sauna. It's smaller, like four people would be crowding it in slightly. It was nice, except that the steam seemed to be released in cycles. I noticed that if I stayed in long enough, at one point so much steam would come out that I literally couldn't see right in front of me very well. Then it would gradually fade off and a few minutes later would fog up again. So I went around all the rooms a few times, focusing mainly on the two steam rooms since I knew when Brian got back he'd be more likely to go in the sauna with me.
When Brian came back I was sitting in one of the heated lounge chairs taking another break from the steam rooms. His special deal included chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne afterward, which they'd brought into the rainforest room with him. And he'd also bought some spa gel that they'd used on his back, so he had a little spa bag too. The spa people were really nice and came back a minute later with a glass of champagne for me even though I hadn't paid for it, and Brian shared the strawberries with me. When we were done we went back in the sauna, and then Brian tried the aromatherapy steam room and found that it was not too hot for him, yay. We stayed in there for a few minutes so I could show him how it really fogs up when all the steam seems to get released at once. He didn't really like that part so we got out after that. :P Then we used their rainforest shower one last time and went back to the locker room to change and head back to the stateroom. I ended up liking he spa a lot more than I'd been expecting, since I'd started off mainly doing it for Brian. And going on a port day when it's pretty empty was also nice because nothing was crowded. This is also the only part of my trip where I have absolutely no pictures whatsoever since I couldn't bring my camera into the spa with all the steam and water and everything. I wish I'd at least gotten a picture of the lobby or something, but it's ok. So, overall, the spa was 10 times better than Nassau (at least the part of Nassau right around the port), and our time was much better spent there. |
|
|
| disney cruise part 5 - parrot cay breakfast and nassau |
[Jul. 7th, 2008|01:20 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  ehhhh. | ] |
| [ | music |
| | For some reason, the Misfit Toys song from Rudolph is stuck in my head | ] |
I woke up earlier than I'd expected to on the morning of day 2 of our cruise. The ship hadn't docked in Nassau yet, but was very close, and since we were at the very back of the ship, I could hear noises from the propellers and later from the anchor. From our room it wasn't totally disturbing though (lower decks may have been worse), and it was nice to wake up just in time to take some verandah pictures of the ship pulling into port (which are of course all up on flickr... I would have added a few to this entry except that I only know how to add one photo per entry, via flickr's "blog this photo" option). Once the ship docked, the "When You Wish upon a Star" whistle sounded again, as it had when we'd left Port Canaveral. Shortly afterward, the cruise director came over the loudspeaker (the external one, not the in-room one) beginning with a similar "When You Wish upon a Star" tone immediately followed by his trademark "Gooooooood morning everybody...." and welcome message for that day's port of call. I miss that.
Breakfast that morning was being offered at both Beach Blanket Buffet and (also buffet style) in Parrot Cay. We decided to go to Parrot Cay since we'd missed dinner there the night before, and since we didn't know if we'd get the chance to see it again since it's not open for non-dinner every day. I honestly don't think we missed much by skipping dinner there. It's tropical themed, with (obviously) parrot art and statues everywhere. The buffet was allright, nothing special, but definitely not terrible either. I tried grits for the first time. I have come to the conclusion that I do not like grits. I also tried a bit of biscuits with gravy. The idea of gravy on biscuits is just weird to me (then again, I don't even put butter or anything on them). Gravy is for things like turkey in my head, so gravy on biscuits was just a foreign concept to me. I don't think I'd make a very good southerner. Brian claims that Disney does not seem to know how to make a good waffle, which is sad because they can do much more complicated things perfectly. I didn't try the waffles though so I have no personal feedback on them. I do know that they offer Mickey-shaped waffles at the buffets though.
After breakfast we took a bit of time to just wander around the ship. We walked by the gift shops even though we knew they wouldn't be open due to port-day restrictions. We got some pictures from the promenade deck on deck 4. Then we went upstairs to grab our things for the day (and so I could change into shorts) to head out into Nassau. None of the excursions seemed particularly appealing or worth the price (the dolphin observer sounded cool but was both expensive and booked), so we were just planning to walk around on our own for a bit and probably head back early. Which is pretty much what we did. We walked down Bay Street, the shopping district right off the port, and stopped into a few shops. I bought some color-changing nail polish at Del Sol because I'd forgotten to pack my own and I hate wearing sandals without toe polish. :P There were horse-drawn taxis everywhere, and I had read that drivers drove on the British side of the street, though I noticed lots of American-style cars too, so it was weird.
I'd also read that the locals can tend to get pushy and insistent about hair-braiding or other for-sale items, but they didn't strike me as all that pushy. Maybe I'm more used to city atmospheres than the typical Disney cruiser? So that walking by with a quick "no thanks" doesn't phase me at all? I don't know. Honestly, the annoying "clipboarders" outside the T stations in Boston are much more pushy and guilt-trip-inducing.
Brian was looking for a seashell and some sand as sounvenirs for his friends, and we were going to try to find them in Nassau since Disney doesn't like people taking sand and stuff off their private island. He was also going to buy alcohol too. But no stores we stopped into really had anything particularly outstanding. I felt like if we bought alcohol it would've been just to say we bought it or to give away to someone who didn't really care about it, so we didn't end up getting any. The outdoor shop that sold those big fancy seashells seemed pointless too. Then we walked through the Straw Market, which I for some reason was expecting to be more than just a tent-covered market. I think I had visions of Haymarket in Boston only selling homemade bags and things, but they had name-brand stuff there too that just doesn't interest me. And while it was somewhat cool to see the straw bags and hats, but I had no interest in actually buying anything. Outside the other end of the Straw Market was Senor Frogs, which at first sounded random and cool until we realized that it's sort of a "TGI Fridays for the tropics." Lots of jokes about drinking that seem like they're targeted at the Spring Break crowd. But we did walk through their gift shop anyway.
After that, there wasn't really much else we wanted to do (we didn't want to go out of walking distance), so we just decided to head back to the boat. Inside the covered pavilion area just outside the port entrance, we picked up a little box of souvenir seashells and a tiny little bottle of beach sand for Brian's friends. And we got a cute litle handmade turtle scuplture for ourselves. Brian also bought a bright yellow bottle of Goombay punch to try. We'd only spent about two hours or less in Nassau, but we didn't really feel like we'd missed anything and wanted to head back to the boat early to eat for free and take a look at the spa. |
|
|
| disney cruise part 4 - night 1 exploring |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|10:44 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | ready for bed. | ] |
| [ | music |
| | More "Leggy Blonde" :P | ] |
After Palo, we still had most of our first night free to explore the ship. We first decided to see the late performance of a comedian/juggler in the Walt Disney Theater. He was pretty talented. I was really starting to be conscious of the boat's motion by that point (honestly, after that first night though, I was fine, and the first night wasn't even that bad at all), and he was juggling crazy things like tennis rackets and riding a unicycle while the boat was moving. He got a few audience members involved and put on a really good show. I remember he juggled different-sized objects at the same time (like a tennis racket and small ball and bowling ball), and he also rode a really high unicycle that looked pretty terrifying. He was apparently giving a slightly less family-friendly performance another night in one of the adult clubs, but we never ended up checking it out. The show we saw that first night was good though.
After that we changed out of our nice dinner clothes and back into casual jeans/shorts and t-shirts to go exploring for a bit. We walked by the darkened and empty pools. It looked like kids under 18 were in the 18+ whirlpool tubs, which was annoying. We sat by the pool for a bit but didn't go swimming at all. We checked out the arcade briefly just to walk around. It was fun to see everything at night when it was pretty quiet. We went to bed at a decent hour though because the ship pulls into Nassau pretty early in the second morning. |
|
|
| disney cruise part 3 - palo! |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|09:36 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | want to be back at palo | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Flight of the Conchords- Leggy Blonde | ] |
Night 1's dinner at Palo was definitely one of the highlights of the cruise. As I said before, Palo is the 18+ reservations-only restaurant on the ship, and I had been worried that the reservations would have all been taken since we'd booked so late. I definitely didn't expect to get reservations, especially for our ideal night, when we'd only be missing Parrot Cay, the least interesting of the normal rotation restaurants. Our reservation was for 6:30, so we headed up to deck 10 at around 6:15 and into the Palo lobby. It is instantly like being an another world entirely. You'd never know that right below you is a kids-only pool and rowdy buffet, or even that there were tons of little kids running around. It was quiet and had more of an elegance about it than the rest of the ship, and there was not even a hint of Disney in the decor (not that Disney is a bad thing, but it's nice to not have everything branded with mouse ears, and along the same line, I love kids, but it is also nice to have spots where you know you won't hear loud obnoxious families everywhere).
The restaurant wasn't even anywhere near crowded. I don't know if that's normal or if they just didn't completely book our timeslot. The reservations appear to be scattered, so there's never a big glut of people coming and going at once like in the normal restaurants. We got a small table right by a window with a view to the ocean, and the sun was setting right outside our window as the night wore on. They gave us sparkling water and a really cute bread bowl that came with a tray of different spreads for it. Even that alone would've been above and beyond for me. :P This was when I learned that on cruises, every sit-down meal consists of a personal appetizer, main course, and dessert. crazy. I'm not used to that much food just for myself. I think if I'd wanted I could've gotten an appetizer and a mini "pizzette" too, but I wasn't sure and I also wanted to be able to eat most of my main course since we couldn't really take anything to go.
We ordered appetizers and dinner (a salad and the "steak Palo" for Brian and fried calamari and the "penne Palo" special of the night for me), and in between the appetizer and dinner the dessert menu was brought out. I'd heard that the chocolate souffles were excellent, but I'd also wanted to try a second dessert, so I figured we could each order one and split both. When we told the guy that that's what our plan was, he said he wouldn't let us split a souffle because they're so good and can't be shared. :P So he ordered us each a souffle and then the second dessert to share. The food was great. Everything from the bread to the main course. The waiters were completely on top of refilling the water and completely attentive without seeming in-your-face. There would occasionally be a few people walking by outside the window, but it also didn't feel distracting. The calamari and pasta were amazing.
When they brought out the chocolate souffles, I was so happy I'd gotten my own. They set them down and then poured chocolate sauce over them, causing a little hole to form in the middle that the chocolate filled into. It was so good. The second dessert we'd gotten was also good, but nothing can match up to the souffle. After dessert, the waiter said he had one final little surprise for us. They apparently give you a complimentary tiny little lemony frozen mixed drink to end the meal. We hadn't been able to order the apple ice wine because they were out of the one that wasn't like $60, so the complimentary drink made up for it. They dropped off the check, which is only $15 per person for the whole thing, but we tipped them really well in addition to that. They were worth it. It was really one of the nicest dinners I've ever had. I knew none of the other dinners on the cruise would measure up after that, but it didn't matter. |
|
|
| disney cruise part 2 - come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with meee :P |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|04:07 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy to have 2 recaps done | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Styx - Come Sail Away :P | ] |
One thing I knew in advance (thanks again to the Passporter book) and was personally dreading was that when you first board the ship at the start of your cruise, the staff asks you for your party's name and then announces it to everyone in the lobby as you walk through a row of cheering staff members as if you're the star football player at a rally before the big game. Just before this, they also have you pose for a "precruise" picture, where you inevitably look worn-out and exhausted from all the flights and transfers and waiting in lines of the morning. We saw our photo in Shutters later though and it wasn't completely hideous. So we are in line waiting for the embarrassment of them announcing our name so we could board the ship, and one of the staff people asks if we're "part of the university group." We told her no and felt even more stupid because we looked like students. awesome. They stumbled through our name (I think we just gave them Brian's last name for the sake of simplicity) and cheered and we got out of the way as soon as possible. The staff, by the way, is largely international. It seemed like most of the children's program staff and other crew who deals with entertainment were from Europe and Australia. Lots of Australia and New Zealand, lots of British people. Our two dining servers were from Mexico and I think Serbia (something in that former Yugoslavia area anyway). I'm pretty sure our stateroom host was from Bali because I recognized his name (I-Ketut) on our room info card as being the Balinese name construction I'd learned a bit about through Balinese dance in college. (As I mentioned in my previous entry, all the staff members had name tags that also listed where they were from.)
The main lobby on the Wonder is really pretty, and the entire ship is designed to evoke memories of the old turn-of-the-century ocean liners, which I love. There are two staircases going up either side of Triton's, the ship's flagship restaurant, and a bronze statue of Ariel in front of the restaurant. The main lobby is on the 3rd and 4th floors, so we took the stairs up to the 5th floor, where our room was. It was past 1:30 by then, so our room was already set for us to throw our bags in. The staircases (and walls in each lobby) have lots of original Disney artwork hung up in them, such as pencil sketches from all their movies. Our 5th floor lobby had a costume sketch from Mary Poppins' "Jolly Holiday" scene among other things.
I think I mentioned this before the cruise, but we were lucky to get a free upgrade to a much nicer room than the one we'd paid for. We booked very last minute (about three weeks in advance), and booked a category 9 room on standby, meaning that we didn't get to choose an exact room, but we'd be assigned a category 9 or possibly higher. Categories 1 and 2 are fancy multiroom suites with their own hot tubs, and there's only one or two of each. Category 3's are also suites, but smaller and sans-hot tub. Category 4 is a family-sized stateroom with a verandah that sleeps more people than the 5's and 6's; categories 5 and 6 are staterooms with verandahs (the difference being that 5's are on higher decks). Category 7's have a "navigator's verandah," which is more closed-off except for a large porthole opening, whereas the 5's and 6's verandahs are completely open-air. Categories 8 and 9 have porthole windows (again, 8's are on better decks). Categories 10-12 are inside staterooms with no window, although category 10 has a split bath like the higher categories whereas 11 and 12 do not. A small handful of category 10's actually DO have a porthole window where the view is partially obstructed (thank you Passporter for the info on that). So, we were guaranteed a room with a porthole window, and we were originally assigned one on deck 2. I was happy with anything other then deck 1, where instead of one large porthole you get two pretty tiny portholes which allow less light to get in. But shortly after we got our original room assignment in the mail, Brian got a call from Disney saying we'd received a free upgrade to a category 6 room on deck 5. Very nice. So we were given a verandah and higher deck for free. Our stateroom was in the aft, or very far back, of the ship, and the few staterooms on the back corner have solid metal walls on their verandahs versus see-through plexiglass walls, but I didn't mind that at all. I loved the verandah and would love to get another room like that if we take another cruise.
We dropped off our carry-on bags in our room and had planned to go off in search of food, since all we'd eaten that day was the blue chips on our two JetBlue flights. There was a welcome buffet out on the pool deck, but our first priority was to run to WaveBands, a dance club on deck 3, to try to book Palo reservations. Palo is Disney's fancy just-for-adults and reservations-only restaurant onboard. We hadn't been able to prebook online, plus it was getting kind of late in the afternoon, so I didn't think we'd have a chance. But we got there and were able to book something for that same night at 6:30. It was actually ideal because I'd read that Parrot Cay, where we were scheduled to have dinner that night, was the "best" restaurant to skip out on in order to eat at Palo.
From there, we were going to grab some buffet food and then see if the Celtics playoff game was on anywhere, but the pub master of Diversions, the sports bar right next to WaveBands, saw us in our Celtics t-shirts and told us he had the game on in the bar and had free snacks. So we decided to skip the buffet and headed to the near-empty bar instead. I didn't want to fill up on buffet food anyway since I knew that we'd have Palo that night. I got a really good frozen strawberry margarita, and Brian bought a souvenir beer stein thingie where refills are cheaper than ordering a new beer each time. And we ate some tortilla chips and guacamole and vegetables with dip and watched the Celtics win. It was nice. The game also ended in perfect timing, somewhere between 3:30 and 4:00, so right when it ended we ran back up to our room to get ready for the mandatory 4:00pm safety drill.
Everything on the boat shuts down around 3:45 on that first day and everyone has to go back to their rooms and put on lifejackets. The captain comes over the loudspeakers and warns everyone about this a couple times. Your room has info on where your emergency meeting spot is (we were area Q, which is inside Animator's Palate) as well as a map of how to get to your meeting point from your room. Ours was right out down some normally-crew-only stairs and into the back entrance of the restaurant. I was expecting a really boring and long check-in followed by an equally boring and long safety lecture, but it was actually very fast and was probably over within 15 minutes. They only called off names of people who hadn't done some sort of check-in preboarding, which we'd apparently done. I don't really know what was going on with that, but anything that made the drill go by faster was good with me. Then it was back up to our room to drop off the lifejackets, and then it was time to head out to the pool decks for the sail-away party.
Most of the crowd was gathering on deck 9, where the Goofy pool was covered to create a floor, but I'd read in the Passporter that you can get a better view of the ship leaving port from an upper deck. I couldn't remember where exactly they'd recommended, so we decided to stand on deck 10, which is an open deck where you can see deck 9 below, so that we could look directly down on the deck 9 crowd but still have a clear view of the ocean. It was less crowded up there too. They handed out streamers to the crowd and were selling fruity frozen drinks. The cruise director came out and tried to get the crowd excited with some singing and dancing and then brought out and introduced the rest of his staff, including the children's staff (most of the aforementioned Europeans and Australians). They did a big song and dance routine with typical family-friendly dance music (that song I can't remember the name of that goes "heeeey... hey baby... I wanna knoooow if you'll be my girl" and something from High School Musical, and I think the YMCA was in there somewhere). The best part was when they did the Backstreet Boys song "Backstreet's Back" or whatever it's called. It was one of those moments where it hits you that you are on a cruise with Disney rather than another random company. So, to me, Backstreet Boys are about as safe and boring as they come. There's nothing anywhere near objectionable about them. But, being Disney, they saw it fit to EDIT THE BACKSTREET BOYS for their sail-away party. That line about "am I sexual" was completely gone from their version. :P hilarious. At the end of the sail-away party, they introduced the Disney characters, first shown talking to the captain on the big "Ariel View Television" LCD screen above the stage and then subsequently appearing on the stage itself. They came out and did a dance number that ended with the crew coming back and dancing with them (see photo). The poor dancers must have been so hot in those suits... I was getting really warm in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. They set off confetti at the end of the dance and then a few minutes later set off some more after the sail-away countdown. The ship's whistle sounded the first seven notes of "When You Wish upon a Star" as the second set of confetti went off after the countdown. We moved out to the outer edge of deck 10 so we could have a view of the ocean and watched the ship start to leave the port, which was really cool. As they started to pull out of the port, the cruise director said over the loudspeaker that they were going to be blowing the ship's big loud whistle and that people on the outer decks might want to block their ears. But it wasn't very loud at all. It played the "When You Wish upon a Star" music, but louder than before. There's a quick youtube video (not ours) of what it sounds like here. The video quality isn't great, but you can hear the whistle clearly.
We took some pictures from deck 10 of the ship leaving port and then headed back down to our stateroom to take some more pictures of leaving the port from our verandah. Our luggage was just arriving to our stateroom at that point (as in one of two bags was there when we arrived, causing a quick moment of panic that the other had been lost or was down at deck 2 by our original room, and the second was there when we opened the door again a minute later). It was perfect timing because we had to change for dinner at Palo that night (there's a semiformal-ish dresscode there). Brian took a shower while I called my mother quickly before we were out of US territory and into roaming areas. The cruise director came over the loudspeaker while I was on the phone. :P I didn't think I'd have time to shower before dinner, so I just put my dress on (the same dress I was going to wear for "dress-up night" on day 2) and tried to make my hair feel less frizzy from the humidity. Palo deserves its own entry in and of itself, so I'll write about our dinner later. |
|
|
| disney cruise part 1 - getting there |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|03:19 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | remembering the vacation | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "It Only Takes a Moment" from Hello Dolly, as recently heard again in Wall-e :) | ] |
I think I figured out how to at least upload one picture per entry. So, it's a start at least. Now finally onto the Disney cruise recaps....
Brian and I took a four-night cruise to the Bahamas on the Disney Wonder on May 4-8, 2008. We slept at my parents' house on May 3 and woke up at around 4:00am on May 4. As opposed to when we had to wake up insanely early for California last year, I actually felt somewhat rested and ready to get going. California did involve waking up before 4:00 though, and that hour or two that early in the morning makes a big difference to me. 4:00am feels like the next morning, whereas 2:30 or 3:00am still feels like really late night. But my parents were also up and ready to drive us to Logan by 4:30-4:45ish, so that was nice. Avoiding the parking fees was a definite perk to this trip as opposed to Vegas and California. We got there right around 5:00 and got in the line to check our bags, which moved quickly after the one or two clueless idiots who were holding up the line got through. I was afraid security would take forever and we'd miss the plane and therefore miss the boat, but security was surprisingly very quick and we were soon just sitting around waiting to for the plane to board.
It was our first time on JetBlue, which service-wise I like better than Southwest. The tv's in each seat were very nice, and I liked having preassigned seats so that I wouldn't have to worry about finding a spot next to Brian. My big complaint was the 30- to 45-minute delay after boarding before taking off for NY, where we had a connecting flight. We came pretty close to missing the connecting flight--we literally got off our plane and headed straight to the gate for the flight to Orlando, which had just started boarding, and got right on the plane. It would not have been good to miss the connecting flight and risk missing the ship. But once getting on the second plane I was able to pick up the America's Next Top Model marathon that MTV or VH1 was running that I'd started watching on the Boston to NY flight and watched a good portion of the Naima season all the way to Orlando.
Once we were in Orlando, finding the Disney shuttle buses was easy, thanks in part to the Passporter book we'd picked up before the cruise. I believe it was called Passporter's Guide to Disney Cruise Line and Its Ports of Call. It seems to be written by a husband and wife team of quasi-Disney-crazies... not full-blown nutjobs but nutty enough to know, for example, that pin-trading occurs on the ship several times. I did not even know that a crazy pin-trading subculture existed. :P But, craziness aside, they had a lot of helpful info in the book, and I'd recommend it to anyone taking a Disney cruise. Lots of info about the staterooms (you can also find tons of reviews of specific staterooms from former cruisers online at www.wdwinfo.com, but they can get particularly Disney-crazy there on the message boards).
We'd purchased ground transfers from Disney, meaning that they'd get us to and from Port Canaveral and Orlando International before and after the cruise. I personally liked this option a lot because it let us avoid baggage claim after our flight and not have to worry about getting a cab or rental car (the port is about an hour away from the airport). We'd checked our bags in Boston, and then Disney handles getting them out of Orlando and onto the ship, so we didn't see them again until luggage was delivered to the staterooms that afternoon. The only thing to be careful about with that is making sure you have everything you might need until you see your luggage again in your carry-on, without breaking the liquids/gels rule. I packed a bathing suit, flip-flops, and clothes for dinner that night just in case there was a luggage emergency, and we also packed some of each of our luggage in both bags so that if one got lost we'd each at least have some clothes.
The line for the shuttle bus wasn't bad. One thing Disney really knows how to do right is customer service. I noticed it when I was 17 and went to Disney World for the first (and only) time, and it was evident again here. They had a line just for people cruising that afternoon, and it was much shorter than the lines of people waiting to get shuttles to the theme park. All the staff members had name tags that also listed where they were from, and the guy directing people from the line to the check-in windows was from I believe it was Lowell, MA. Since they only needed one person per party to check in, he talked about MA stuff with me for a minute or two while Brian got our bus passes. We got right on a bus, and as soon as it was full, we drove off to Port Canaveral.
The bus was cute--the windows were painted to look like porthole windows on the ship--and Disney's customer service was evident once again when a few minutes into the ride they began to show a video on the bus's tv monitors. It pretty much involved all the Disney characters riding to the port and going through check-in and security to board the ship and begin their own cruise. It was nice because it not only kept most of the kids quiet for the drive (who without entertainment probably would've gotten really obnoxious), but it also reviewed the check-in procedures for the idiots who are too stupid to remember the rules or even check them in advance. I remember one part where they were saying that non-US citizens had to check in through a separate line and they illustrated it with Stitch (who of course is from another planet) trying to go through the same line as Mickey and co. and getting redirected. It was cute. By the time the video ended, we were almost at the port.
Security wasn't too bad. We weren't there super-early, so lines were already forming. But once we got through the security line and into the actual check-in lines at the terminal, it was much better. Disney has separate check-in lines for new and repeat cruisers, so next time we'll hopefully be in a line that moves a bit faster since less people will be in it. One thing I'd maybe do differently next time is fly in one night in advance and stay either in Orlando or Port Canaveral and get to the terminal early on departing day to get on the ship as early as possible. The people next to us checking in were causing some sort of confusion where a girl was traveling with a friend's family and her mother had given her a note saying it was ok for her daughter to use her credit card but hadn't included the actual card or something, so they were trying to work something out while we breezed right through our check-in and handed in our forms for onboard flight check-in on the way home (purchasing ground transfers gave us that option, which was also a very nice touch). We got a note saying our stateroom would be ready by 1:30 that afternoon, and the check-in lady handed us our "key to the world" cards. The cards function as your room key, onboard credit card (we tied ours to our real card so that we wouldn't have a bill to pay at the end), and boarding pass. If you do a land and sea vacation package, the card is also your room key while in Walt Disney World. I'd remembered that the Passporter book had said that the letters on the right of the card indicate the dinner rotation, so while we were waiting to board the ship I determined that PTTA meant we'd be eating in Parrot Cay for night one, Triton's for night two's "dress-up night" and night three's "Pirates in the Caribbean" theme dinner, and Animator's Palate for night four. The line for getting onboard the ship moved pretty fast, and soon we were able to show our cards and ID and board the ship for the start of our cruise. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
