Finally!

Alright readers, it's time for the much anticipated "first post". Thank you for your patience, there's been so much to do here that I haven't had as much time to be online as I'd anticipated, and the wireless service on board isn't as reliable as I'd like (apparently this has something to do with sporadic satellite reception). So, on to it:


I woke up at 5:00 a.m. on the morning of November 19th about as stressed as a fellow could be. I was incredibly excited to be climbing on board an airplane to head to Athens to board the Celebrity Summit, the cruise ship that was to be my home for the next four-ish months. But I was also overwhelmed by the number of things that needed to happen before I could leave. The guys in the newly formed a cappella quartet (the "Boomers") were coming to my apartment at 10:00 a.m. to rehearse for a few hours before we hopped in a cab at 2:00 to head to the airport, and I still had to finish packing and getting my apartment in order before they arrived. So much had fallen into place in the six days since I'd been offered the opportunity to go sing for my supper that it was incredible, but two things had yet to be resolved; I hadn't yet found someone to sublet my apartment, and my laptop hadn't arrived from Dell (my interactions with Dell are actually interesting enough that I may get around to telling that story later). Finding a subletter was going to be the difference between breaking even and saving a little money while I am wandering around the world, and I truly didn't want to have to deal with that from abroad. My landlord is generally kind but not terribly accommodating, so I would have had to rely on the generosity of a friend or two to show the place while I was away, and I really didn't want to have to impose if I could in any way avoid it.

By 10:00 a.m. the packing was accomplished, the bags were by the door, the apartment was cleaner than it had ever been before, and the boys were rolling in. We did a little singing, but were mostly too excited to settle down and work so ended up wandering down for a quick lunch to Pino's Pizza. I'd resigned myself at that point to having to have my laptop catch up with me on board the ship, which would have meant I'd be without it for probably a month. I could have worked around that, but it would have been a pain in the posterior.

As we were walking back to my place to call the cab and begin heading in the direction of the airport my phone rang. It was a fellow named Michael who was interested in looking at my apartment. I let him know that I could only be around until 2:00, but if he could come immediately I'd be happy to show it to him. Otherwise he'd have had to come take a look later in the week, assuming I could find a friend to let him in. Happily he was able to jet right over, and showed up at about 1:45. I showed him around, he was happy with both the price and the accommodations, and we worked out the details on the spot. He handed me the first month's rent in cash, I passed along the key, and the deal was done with ten minutes to spare. The sense of relief I had at that moment over not having to worry about that while I was on my trip can't be exaggerated.

At 2:00 I'd locked up the apartment and the Boomers were all standing in the driveway waiting for our cab. As we stood outside in the beautiful crisp fall weather, with me already feeling like life couldn't get much better, a FedEx truck pulled up in front of my place. Billy jokingly said that given the day I was having so far it just had to be my laptop. We all laughed, since Dell had called me the day before to let me know that the laptop couldn't get to me in time and would be rerouted to my mother in Oregon to be forwarded to me. On a lark we called the delivery man over and asked him if the package was for me. He checked his little shipping gadget and said that yes, in fact, it was. I laughed and said it was probably a laptop computer, right? He checked his little reader and said that it was indeed a laptop, and could I please sign for it? At this moment two things happened. My jaw hit the ground, and our cab pulled up. If FedEx had been two minutes later I'd have missed it, and I wouldn't be posting this blog today. Someone was truly smiling on me that day.

I quickly tore open the box, stuffed the laptop into my already overfull carry-on, and we piled in the cab. There were no major issues for anyone going through security, and before we knew it we were boarding our flight. As momentous as this trip seemed to me, it turns out that a long red-eye to Frankfurt is just as uncomfortable as one from Oregon to Massachusetts. We arrived at about 5:30 a.m. local time, exhausted and grainy-eyed, and proceeded through German customs. They are truly thorough on that end. Several items that security on the American end of the flight had missed were caught by the stern-looking x-ray machine operator in Frankfurt, and we were all much more toiletry-poor by the time we made it to our next gate. We had a ~3 hour layover, and more or less just snoozed near the gate. I did make a pilgrimage to the coffee stand for the biggest cup they would sell me, and was a bit amazed at how helpless I felt in a country where I spoke literally none of the language (I don't even know how to say "I don't speak German" in German).

Coffee was eventually obtained successfully, and after a little wait we climbed on board our flight to Athens. This was also uneventful, and we disembarked in Greece a few hours later. Unlike German customs, in Greece the inspection consisted of a fellow asking me if I had anything to declare, and then just to be safe asking me if I was sure I didn't have anything to declare. That was it. No lines, no metal detector, no x-ray machine. I was amazed. Alas, we had no time to wander around Athens. Our car was right at the gate waiting for us with a sign, and we headed off to the port to board our new home. There was one rather frightening moment where the fellow who was at the port to greet us wandered off with our passports and we realized that we hadn't actually seen any credentials to prove that he actually worked for the cruise line, but fortunately our trust didn't come back to bite us that time and we all got them back safely.

The rest of the day was filled with administrative details, basically standard HR paperwork that was only interesting in the slightest because we were filling it out in the staff lounge of the cruise ship where we were about to spend the winter. The cruise director (Rich) and the bandmaster (Phil) were kind enough to give us a day to sleep off our jet lag and rehearse before our first show, and we all tumbled into bed nice and early to crash for ten hours or so.

That's it for now! I'll get some more updates in soon, now that I finally figured out how to connect to the wireless in the staff lounge.

Oh, and I'm 30 today. Holy crap.

B-ford

PS: Pictures hopefully to come soon, I'm still figuring out how to post them.