Tropical Alaska

I woke up relieved today because I know that I have the morning off. It has been a long week. Wait a second. I have only been here two days! I had to check my travel alarm clock twice to confirm the date. I could of sworn I have been here at least four days. A lot happens on the first two. There are orientations, drills, work, tests, and meeting all kinds of new people, and formal night so as expected my brains are mush. I am working with a good group of people in the photo department. They are all very friendly. There's three Americans, one Canadian, one Scott, one Jamaican, and one Serbian. Most of them are leaving as they are on for the Alaska run which ends soon. I am glad I am not a photographer as they have a lot of early morning shoots and the formal nights are a grind. The Holland America Statendam is a medium sized ship that has about 500 crew and 1200 passengers which is a bit less than the last ship I worked on, the Celebrity Horizon. The majority of the crew are Filipino and Indonesian with the concession staff being from any of the wealthy white English speaking countries. There are a couple of perks that I was not expecting. I get to eat in the same area and have the same food as the passengers! I have already had lamb, waffles, an omelette, Red Velvet cake, and a cheese plate. Home sweet home. But the down size is that you have to be careful about the comments you make with your crew members. Also, I can order room service if I want. It is limited to a few items. The new hires had a meeting where we met our animated Captain. He warned us about not having child pornography or marijuana with us as some crew members were recently fired and deported for this. I have a rather large crew cabin to myself for the next two weeks which I am quickly getting to like. When the current videographer leaves I will move to his smaller room and share it with a photographer. As far as the work goes I'm mostly learning the ropes in the photo gallery and getting a basic overview of the video editing software. I have to make three videos a cruise plus a promo video and as much as possible they want the footage to all be shot on the same cruise. It sounds like a lot but if you are organized and have the system down it won't be too bad. Plus it's entirely up to me in the end what I shoot. I don't have to show the final edit to anybody. As long as it gets done and sells it's all good. I am definitely older than most as the ages seem to be around mid twenties to thirties. Whatever. It is hard to judge how much I will like it as I have only been here two days. I keep comparing things to when I was on the last ship and how certain things were better. On the other hand I remember my first two days of that contract as being unpleasant but as I went along it got a lot better. My coworkers are also excited about Bora Bora and Hawaii and most of them have not been there. They all say they love Vancouver. The weather always seems to be great when they are in port. I explained the winters to them and that our winters are one of the big reasons why I am on the ship. I asked a few of the crew members about what they have done in Vancouver. Have then ridden a bike through Stanley Park? Have they been to any of the beaches? Had sushi? No. They have just been to the closest Starbucks to use the free Wi-Fi. My photo manager made it to Staples to buy some ink jet cartridges. All the really attractive girls are not single but I have not met everyone yet and there is a lot of turn over soon so we'll see what happens. There is one girl that looks like a young Rachel Welch in every way. It was introduced to her and was told that she is the ship's Librarian. From now on I just might take out eighty or ninety books a day.