I'm sitting here in the Half Moon Room on Deck 7, enjoying the bright light of a Dutch summer sun, listening to the new station band playing in the nearby Ocean Bar, and I'm in a strange state of peace. I had a long day of walking through Amsterdam today after being deterred by the hundreds of people in line for the Anne Frank House, so i made the most of it and just wandered around that beautiful old city (and bought stroopwaffels. They are the only thing one needs.). We've had quite an eventful cruise, with lots of fun surprises along the way.

Just to recap, here's our itinerary:

disregard the Norwegian ports, which is what we are currently sailing

The biggest news of this cruise was that we finally finished our installation period with the shows, performing Rock at the Opera and Dance to standing-ovation crowds. We said goodbye to Tash, our director, after Dance was installed, and we were sad to see her go....but not without one last hurrah in the OB (frome whence hails my new Facebook profile picture).

We were also happy to find that word had gotten out that we were a halfway decent cast, and we had many of our fellow crew members attending our shows. It's always such a nice feeling to look out into a blank sea of faces, but hear your band mates, shop girls, and spa ladies hooting and hollering for you. It's a nice family feel on this little ship, and I'm enjoying it. 

We started this cruise with two picture-perfect days in the Danish ports of Aalborg and Copenhagen. This was the last time we got to the see and enjoy the sun in full force before being battered by winds and rain in the following ports, and we amde the most of it.

Aalborg is a small city on the Juteland of Denmark, and apparently, the Prinsendam is the only cruise ship that calls there. It was a sweet little town with cute little cobblestone streets and a nice medieval quarter, but we docked on a national holiday, so EVERYTHING WAS CLOSED. Like, everything. However, they did provide free hot dogs with all the tradiitonal Danish fixin's (sweet pickles, chopped onions, onion straws, mustard, and ketchup), so that was a good concession.

also, I got to take this picture.

Copenhagen was an absolute dream day for me, because I got to spend most of it with my friend Jacob, who I met just a few months ago when I was hostelling in Mostar, BiH. We met up for some coffee at a theater near the Opera House, then went for a great bike ride across the bridge. We climbed up a beautiful church, whose top golden-painted spire has a spiral staircase on the outside, providing amazing views of the city. We then moved on to Cristiania, a sort of new-hippie enclave just outside the city, where free love reigns and the air is thick with the smell of patchouli and hash. It was a cute littel place, with lots of little twisting, turning, side streets and hills to climb. I had to be back on the ship for a tech rehearsal, but as we were docked there later than usual, I had time to go back out and explore the little hamlet again. I finished my day with a massive smoothie containing about a carton of blueberries. Chock full of antioxidants, I biked back to the ship in the beautiful 80-degree sunshine. Just the dreamiest of days.

spiral-y!

Jacob

 

 One of our nights on the ship was dubbed a "crew" night in the spa, and the cast came out in force to patronize our spa girls. I indulged in an acupuncture session and a haircut, both of which were fabulous. I hadn't had acupuncture in such a long time, and Charlene was fantastic. Chani, who did my hair, gave me a nice trim and curled my whole head...which if you know my hair and its inability to hold shape other than "straight-ish", this was an accomplishment. We felt fabulous.

Once we finished Dance, we had a good 6 days before our next show, and we suddenly found ourselves with all the time in the world on our hands, after several weeks of rehearsals, runs, and reblocks for all our shows. It was a wonderful feeling, to have the days to ourselves. And especially after coming from a Seabourn ship, where we were expected to do social duties several times a day, to now have the freedom to do what we wanted and be where we pleased (within reason, of course) was a nice feeling.

In the middle of all this, I got a wonderful surprise with the arrival of Annie Frances, who was a guest enetertainer on the Maasdam when i was there four years ago. That sassy Aussie's still got it, and it was wonderful to reconnect with her after so long. That, and I didn't have to eat any more Vegemite! 

Our newfound freedoms also coincided with the beginning of the World Cup games, and we've been keeping up pretty well with the teams. The best night so far was Holland's win over European cahmps Spain, who got hammered in a 5-1 defeat. And considering we are on a HOLLAND America ship, you can imagine that there was quite a fervor. The OB was (and still is) decked out in orange bunting and a huge Dutch flag. The ship has paid big $$$ to get all the World Cup games streamed here to the ship, and because of the time difference between us and Brazil, there are a lot of late-night games to watch in the bars around the ship. I don't follow soccer at all, but I get caught up in the energy of it all. It reminds me of traveling Europe back in 2006 when Italy won it all (and I was in Venice that day!). Who knows, maybe the Orange Lions will take the whole thing....?

We had a nice day in Tallinn, Estonia, which was much improved by the lack of gale-force winds and sleeting rain, like we had the last time we docked there. I had a nice, relaing day with Anthony and Meredith there, with a nice stop at the Beer House for some home brew and giant pretzels. We spent the rest of the day smelling heavily of garlic. It was awesome.

INDEED.

Perhaps my best forway into cultural actitivties came in St. Petersburg, Russia, when I got the opportunity to escort a tour of the Hermitage at night. I had never been before, and I had heard that it was an absolute not-to-be-missed sort of place, so I felt very fortunate to be there. We were on a tour arranged specifically for the cruise, so no other guests were allowed in the museum. We had a private tour guide who has a masters in art history, and not having to jostle our ways through the rooms was a luury I won't soon forget. What impressed me more about the msueum were the rooms themselves. The artwork is beautiful and impressive, but every room is so uniquely furnished and painted and decorated, that it was like walking through the different worlds at Disneyland, always something new to see. 

loving it

I had a wonderful time.

The wonderful times continued at a tiny cafe bar at night with four good friends, the Turkmenistani owners, and an indeterminate number of bottles of vodka consumed. I don't remember too much about that night, but I am certain I had fun. 

Probably.

We mosey'd along to Visby, Sweden...or, that is to say, we tried to mosey along. This port is notorious for its rough waters, and despite the crew's best eofforts, the captain decided it was too choppy and dangerous for the passengers to embark the tender boats to shore. So we pulled anchor and slowly crawled toward Germany. 

The next port, of Ystad, Sweden, was similarly vexed with poor weather at anchorage, so the captain decided instead to port us in Kiel, Germany for the next day. The city itself isn't much to see, unless you are an afficionado of WWII shipbuilding. Instead, five of us took a (very efficiently run) train to the nearby town of Lübeck. It was there I got to visit Niederegger, the shop where marzipan was invented! I'm always up for trying delciisou things in their place of origin (see my adventures at St. Sixtus Abbey in Belgium, circa 2006), and I was not disappointed. The marzipan was flavorful, smooth, and just the pick-me-up we needed after an hour-and-a-half train ride in the rain.

Also, good for making recreations of the city center!

After the surprise port of Kiel, we had our second-to-last show--Bravo--which was received with another standing ovation, and also featured our new bass player, Hannah. Having had to do RATO without a bass player, and using the track for the instrument, it was nice to have a live bassist again.

We finally made it to a double-overnight docking in Hamburg, Germany, which was a blast and a half. I was on IPM for the first day, but we docked at 6pm, so i didn't miss too too much. The next day was a great day of outdoor brunching, shopping, and seeing the sights.

brunch and Mer go well together

Hamburg is a very pretty place, I had no idea! That day was also the day that Germany played Ghana in the World Cup, so when we went out after our two shows of Amour, the Reeperbahn was absolutely packed with drunk Germans celebrating the 2-2 tie. Drinks were cheap, music was loud, and delciious doner kebab was eaten at 2 in the morning. All in all, a success. Also, the Queen Mary 2--Annabel and Dima's previous ship--had arrived later that second night, and apparently the entire city of Hamburg comes out to welcome that ship when it docks. Not even those two knew why it was so celebrated there, but it was funny to see advertisements for the ship all over the city, with not one mention of "oh yeah, the Prinsendam is here too..." No love, I tells ya.

And then it was back to IJmuiden, to start another adventure! We're now on a 20-day fjord-tacular voyage, where we'll be bouncing around the Norwegian coast, going above the Arctic Circle and into the polar ice cap!! I'm reeeeeeeeeally hoping to see the Northern Lights for the first time, and I'm thinking we'll hgave a good chance. This will also be the cruise where the sun will neither set nor rise for three days straight. COOL.

The last little tidbit of this last cruise is that I was offered another contract with Belinda King! I haven't made a decision on it yet, but I am very flattered. It would be a four-week rehearsal period in England for five new shows--one of which is a singers-only show around the piano--performing on the Seabourn Sojourn for five months and the Seabourn Odyssey for another four months. It's a huge undertaking, but the itineraries are INCREDIBLE: Spain, Senegal, Namibia, and overnight in Cape Town, South Africa, India, Cambodia, Madagascar, the Phillipines, Morocco, Egypt...then a two-week break, then on to the Black Sea in the summer--the Balkans, Ukraine, overnights in Istanbul... the list goes on. I'd be adding another 25 countries to my collection, bringing my total up past 100, if I'm not mistaken....!!!

I'll update when we're back in IJuiden on July 13, when my parents will be on, as well as my dear friend Yaniv! I can't wait!

Ciao!

Thank God for that Dutch Seaman's Book

Well, here I am, back in IJmuiden, Holland where it all began a whopping 14 days ago, when we embarked the Prinsendam. it feels like three months has gone by!
we've had a really eventful two weeks, bt I am happy to report that we now have all five of our productions shows on their feet (though we've only performed three of them so far), as well as having done our first performance of Dancing With the Stars at Sea, a speciality performance unique to Holland America Line ships.

The cast had a lovely reunion at the hotel in Amsterdam, and by the sound of it, we haodn't seen each other years, though it had only been three weeks. we took a train into the city and had a nice stroll along the canals before settling down for dinner and catching up on all our various shenanigans since Rome.

Oh, the many, many shenanigans. We did ourselves proud. ;-)

We got onto the ship the next moorning bright and early, and after a series of being shuffled around unnecessarily, we finally got all our belongings in the right place and more or less figured out how and when to deed ourselves. so, the basics.

my cabin is teeeeeeeny tiny compared to my cabin fromthe Odyssey, but.it is all mine and that is a luxury that is worth any size cabin. it even has a fold-up top bunk bed for anyone I sign on as a Friend on Board (I'm just saying...)

we hit the ground running and started staging our first show, BRAVO. We are under the supervision of Tash, the female dancer from the previous cast, who has been with Belinda King for many years. She is very organized, energetic, and basically just the perfect person to be at the helm of our install period.

BRAVO went off without a hitch, the band is fantastic, and we diced right in to show #2, AMOUR.

in the meantime, we docked in the beautiful city of Riga, Latvia. Or, I assume it was beautiful, because I only had about 30 minuted to spend there before rehearsals started.but by god, I was determined to at least step foot in the port to stay that I have physically been in Latvia. Bragging rights, and all that. What little I saw was very pretty, hut also very very cold. it felt like early winter!

We docked in Tallinn,Estonia after that, and I braved the howling wind and horizontal.rain to enjoy the medieval cobblestone streets and the conveniently close supernarket to pick up some essentials. We do come back here again, so I'm hoping that the Weather Gods womp show us some mercy next time, because most people claim that this is one of their favorite ports. I can't wait!

We then went through the Kiel Canal,which separates Denmark from Germany. Apparently, the canal is so narrow that the Prinsendam is the largest sea liner to be allowed into it! It was a lovely cruise, and it was pretty magical to watch the sunset from the Lido deck while we toasted Annabel's 25th birthday! The canal is lined on both sides with trees and bike paths and adorable little families out for a stroll in the sunshine...very peaceful.

We got through AMOUR OK, and started to tech for my favorite show, RED HOT AND BLUE, which we would be performing on my birthday!

We docked in StPetersburg, Russia for an overnight, which on the surface sounded like an awesome idea. the reality is that Russian passport officials have no desire to make yourlife easy, and the ccontrol checkpoint was sparsely populated, slow, and aggravating. Most of the gyests couldnt even syep foot in the port unless they had fenagled a Russian visa, or were on an escorted tour. Luckily, our Dutch Seaman's books allowed us crew members to leave the ship, but even that became a hassle if a certain control guard decided to require further documentation. Add to that the relative inability to get a cab from the port (we were docked about 25 min drug ng from the city center, one of the furthest away you can get), and the fact that the one bridge connecting the port to the city closed between 1 and 6am, we were not overly inclined to go party the night away in town. we did, however, have a blast in the OB (Officer's Bar) that night! 

We docked in Stockholm shortly thereafter, on a surprise overnight. We were scheduled to dock in the morning on the 2nd, but a little persuasion from our cruise director out us in at around 10pm on the 1st. Sailing through the tiny low island surrounding the city as the sun was going down was absolutely gorgeous, and the cast celebrated with a wee champagne in the Ocean Bar while listening to our fabulous house band. I and a few others went wandering the city that night. and it was really beautiful to see the royal palace all lit up. I did not, however, have enough light to notice the armed guards standing sentinel at the gate, and it scared the ever loving hell out of me. Welcome to Sweden!

We ended up all reconvening at a bar downtown, and a good time was had by all.

the next morning,I rallied and met up with my brother Ubbe, which was an absolute delight. Iconfused many people on the ship, who wondered how iI ended up with a brother in Sweden with a funny name, so I had to explainseveral ttimes that he was an exhmxhange student from when I was about 4 years old, and he has always been, and will always be, my third big brother. it was incredible to see him and get a private guided tour of Stockholm. He introduced me to the wonder of pickled herring, and we lunched at a street side cafe on smoked salmon and shrimp, while the royal guard paraded down the street in their bright blue uniforms. You know, a standard day in Stockholm...

back on the ship, the cast had dinner in the dining room in honor of my upcoming birthday, and we had a toast at midnight to celebrate my big 3-0! it was so wonderful to spend it with such great people.

our two shows of RHAB went well the next da. and then I was surprised and touched to find that the cast had snuck out between shows to decorate the OB in balloons. when o entered the bar after our last show, I was overwhelmed by the sight of all that.color and the siundnfo 30 voices singing Happy Birthday. I was almost in tears. And then my clumsy self knocked over a glass of champagne right into my face as well as Annabel's face, so it's safe to say my birthday party started off on the right foot! EEveryone was dancing to my terrible 90s playlist and shooting darts and generally having a blast, so I couldn't have been happier.

Finally we came to our performance of Dancing With the Stars, which matches guests who have taken the dance classes offered throughout the cruise with our cast members in different styles. the winner of which gets a free cruise and a chance to represent the Orinsendma in the big theme cruise competition on the Oostfdam in December. our winner last night was Mary, who waltzed with Anthony very beautifully. the show was fine, but we were mostly relieved we made it out alive, having learned the whole thing on the fly.

Which brings us to today! I've been a greedy Gus with the WiFi in this port today, answering emails, Skype-ing with Haris, and generally getting as much done as possible before we sail in a few hours.

Our next itinerary is similarports, but i have a feeling I'll be able to enjoy them more., now that our install is almost over. and I've signed up to escort some tours in St P, some of which go to Peterhof, Catherine's Palace, and the Hermitage!! 

More fun to come...