Well here we are after two very long sea days and our port of call is in Poland. My hangover is finally gone (although I tried my best to give myself another one last night) and I'm ready to "Get Out There" as they say at Royal Caribbean.
Being ready in the early hours of the morning would have been a real waste of time because we had boat drill at 10:00 am and no crew is allowed off before the drill is completed. Here's a brief description of what boat drill entails. At 9:30am forced into all our minds is a very loud announcement "The following dril is for the crew only and guest participation is not required" then we receive the same message in Spanish and sometimes French & German. Now that's exactly the way I like waking up! Half an hour later we hear another announcement saying for emergency groups to get ready. Everything is said 3 times in broken English, then a few minutes after that an unreasonably loud siren is sounded 7 short times and one long (the international sign for "s**t we're sinking")
At this point all crew has to get themselves out of bed and go and stand outside and wait. If we're not working at that time we have to have our lifejacket with us for what reason I have no idea - and when questioned the officers have no idea either. Once when I was standing outside in the boiling heat of the day (without sunglasses because mirrored glasses aren't allowed and all sunglasses end up being mirrored when the sun is out as they're job is to deflect the light so the person can see!?!) I didn't have my life jacket on, or even on me. The safety officer walked by (three stripe officer - very important) and asked where my jacket was "in my cabin" I replied. He informed me I was supposed to have my life jacket with me. "But I didn't come from my cabin" I said "and we're told not to go back to our cabins to fetch our lifejackets". This was in fact the correct procedure, but our three stripe officer was turning slightly red and a frown was appearing on his forehead because some low life musician had an answer for his question. "Anyway why do we need them?" I asked. Sounds like a reasonable question to you or me, but not to safety 3 stripe who blew his top because I was making him look bad in front of all the other crew members. He stood venting for a while and once enough steam had escaped from his ears he answered "If you turn round and look up you'll see the bridge (where they drive the ship) and the captain is staring down at you. The only reason he can tell you're crew is because you're wearing life jackets, and we certainly don't want passengers accidently standing doing drill". That was an interesting response because passengers also have life jackets that are exactly the same luminous orange colour as ours so how does that help, but I didn't push that answer in his face to save myself from another talk about the subject in his office later that day. The officer never liked me again after that incident and only said hello to me when it was followed by a telling off; "Hi you know you can't wear headphones in the mess (canteen) any more in case you have an accident". I was sitting down on a chair at the time, so was I going to fall backwards off my chair because I was listening to music, or would I mis-judge where my mouth was and poke myself in the eye with my fork all because I couldn't hear (and I could hear because I very easily heard him tell me off!)
After the pleasurable drill was finished we escaped to the streets of a little town I'm unsure of the name. There wasn't too much to see and time flew so before I knew it we were standing in a queue waiting to board the ship again. It was a beautiful day out as the sun was shining and warming my bones. The most interesting aspect of the day was checking out the language that was pretty much readable for an Englishman, it just had some curious extra letters in the words. I love those details that seperate cultures and make it interesting to walk round a little port town.
We sailed at 1pm today and our next destination is Stockholm I'll report more from there in a couple of days.
Remember to check out my album @ www.travellersjournaltunes.com and hear the sounds of the Philippines, another beautiful destination I have travelled to.
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