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Rest and relaxation
Oct. 3rd, 2009 12:00 amAre two topics that don't appear to be possible for me to experience. With everything that seems to happen during something that's meant to be as uneventful as a cruise, it's no wonder that I have the resting heart rate of a hamster.
We got into Los Angeles after about six hours on a flight that I didn't particularly enjoy - I haven't felt that bad on a flight for a while, though I did manage to sleep for some of the time. That isn't something I do a lot, because I usually end up more tired and non-functional than I was before if I sleep for short periods during the day, but I felt I had to take advantage of it while I had the chance because the flight was only about half full. And it was worth it when I stumbled upright and saw that we were already over Wyoming on the map.
After about four hours of sleep in the maid's room next to the boiler in the basement of Whitney's grandmother's house, we came up into daylight again and waited around for the minibus-taxi hybrid that had been ordered to transport us and several tons of luggage over to the harbour. It was during this wait that the problems started - Whitney's dad got up from the sofa rather overconfidently when starting to move the mountain of suitcases out into the garden and dragged his jacket over a vase of flowers, a couple of photos and some ornamental roses on the way. When picking up the roses, I felt a slight jab and first thought it was weird that someone would have modelled thorns quite so faithfully on a glass flower, but then turned it around and realized that I had stuck a reasonably-sized spike of broken glass into the end of my finger. But Grandma's care giver (whose name I don't think I can spell) was on hand to provide first aid and make sure that I didn't die immediately.
We had tickets for early embarkation, which allowed us to turn up at half past ten in the morning and experience the crew and security at their most disorganized. After getting off the taxi and nearly injuring Grandma in the process of lifting her down, we were shown into what I had imagined would be an airport-like terminal but which was instead a sort of giant empty aircraft hangar. Then we were shown back out again, along to a rolltop door, which was then closed by the security people, so we had to be moved yet again. Apparently there was some sort of problem with the X-ray machine and them... playing Musical Chairs with it or something. Eventually we got in, had to go through an X-ray station, and were given a form each to declare that we weren't already suffering from any flu-like symptoms.
Finally we made it through to the space in front of the ship, where Whitney's mother was almost arrested by an irate security woman for taking a photo of the boat from the outside. Fortunately I got two of them that weren't noticed because I don't take about two minutes to set up and pose everything and everyone before taking them (the way that I always look half-asleep or dead in any posed group photograph having no bearing on this dislike of them at all). Here is the great national secret of what the Silver Shadow looks like. You may never see me again.
We climbed a steep ramp that I'm surprised anyone over my own age could ascend, and were shown into the bar with some apparently quite cheap champagne. We had to wait a while for the rooms to be prepared, then were photographed individually for the ship's records, given our identifications which double up as card keys for the rooms, and were taken up on the lift by an eager steward. After some futile struggling at the suite door, it turned out the keys to the room that Whitney and I were staying in didn't work, so I had to go downstairs again to get them to re-magnetize them or something before we could get back in after closing the door. As we picked through the ship's leaflets in Grandma's room, we presented her with a rather nice and expensive wine glass that Whitney and her mother had picked out while in Boston, as a monetarily inadequate gesture of thanks from us all for paying for us all to take the cruise. With the settling in done with, I was assured that like I'd said to myself in the morning, now that we were on the ship that was to be our home for the next week we could relax and everything would be fine.
Half an hour later, Grandma fell and cracked her head on the tiled floor of the bathroom. I was looking at the map of the ship in the corridor outside at the time, and just heard a tremendous thump from through the wall. The nurse was called up to... suture and bandage and use the antibiotic gel or whatever it is that real nurses do, and she's still very much alive and coherent, especially for someone who is 93 years old, but now has a blue sort of star-shaped bruise around her eye and has to wear a bulky dressing on her head. I'd almost thought that we were going to have to disembark and spend a week hanging around the hospital instead.
But we gave her a while to sit and then went down to have lunch in the restaurant, where I realized that I could have meat on demand for the next week. We noticed that there was a life-jacket demonstration at five, and went to our individual rooms to sleep a little and wait until then. It emerged through the ship's PA system that the lifejacket demonstration was in fact an evacuation drill, but when the alarm went off ten minutes later I was surpised at the calmness of it. Perhaps I had just lived in student halls too long and was expecting deafening sirens and red flashing lights, but it was the most relaxed evacuation I'd ever been on - just three pinging noises over the public address system and then the captain coming on to say "Hello, excuse me, if you wouldn't mind abandoning ship, just depending on how you're all feeling, thank you very much" as we descended the stairs in our bright orange lifejackets. After getting to our muster stations we were herded into the theatre, with the crew lined up on the stage like they were about to burst into song, and the one of them known as the Master gave us the safety talk with an appropriately Tom Baker-like voice.
There had been no movement of the boat noticeable when we were docked, but now that we're off we have a continuous see-saw motion that I'm rather afraid might make me rather ill during the three days that we're spending at sea before our first port of call. After having stuffed myself far too much at lunch I'm going to forget about dinner and just go to bed - I can't wait to see what happens to us tomorrow.
We got into Los Angeles after about six hours on a flight that I didn't particularly enjoy - I haven't felt that bad on a flight for a while, though I did manage to sleep for some of the time. That isn't something I do a lot, because I usually end up more tired and non-functional than I was before if I sleep for short periods during the day, but I felt I had to take advantage of it while I had the chance because the flight was only about half full. And it was worth it when I stumbled upright and saw that we were already over Wyoming on the map.
After about four hours of sleep in the maid's room next to the boiler in the basement of Whitney's grandmother's house, we came up into daylight again and waited around for the minibus-taxi hybrid that had been ordered to transport us and several tons of luggage over to the harbour. It was during this wait that the problems started - Whitney's dad got up from the sofa rather overconfidently when starting to move the mountain of suitcases out into the garden and dragged his jacket over a vase of flowers, a couple of photos and some ornamental roses on the way. When picking up the roses, I felt a slight jab and first thought it was weird that someone would have modelled thorns quite so faithfully on a glass flower, but then turned it around and realized that I had stuck a reasonably-sized spike of broken glass into the end of my finger. But Grandma's care giver (whose name I don't think I can spell) was on hand to provide first aid and make sure that I didn't die immediately.
We had tickets for early embarkation, which allowed us to turn up at half past ten in the morning and experience the crew and security at their most disorganized. After getting off the taxi and nearly injuring Grandma in the process of lifting her down, we were shown into what I had imagined would be an airport-like terminal but which was instead a sort of giant empty aircraft hangar. Then we were shown back out again, along to a rolltop door, which was then closed by the security people, so we had to be moved yet again. Apparently there was some sort of problem with the X-ray machine and them... playing Musical Chairs with it or something. Eventually we got in, had to go through an X-ray station, and were given a form each to declare that we weren't already suffering from any flu-like symptoms.
Finally we made it through to the space in front of the ship, where Whitney's mother was almost arrested by an irate security woman for taking a photo of the boat from the outside. Fortunately I got two of them that weren't noticed because I don't take about two minutes to set up and pose everything and everyone before taking them (the way that I always look half-asleep or dead in any posed group photograph having no bearing on this dislike of them at all). Here is the great national secret of what the Silver Shadow looks like. You may never see me again.
We climbed a steep ramp that I'm surprised anyone over my own age could ascend, and were shown into the bar with some apparently quite cheap champagne. We had to wait a while for the rooms to be prepared, then were photographed individually for the ship's records, given our identifications which double up as card keys for the rooms, and were taken up on the lift by an eager steward. After some futile struggling at the suite door, it turned out the keys to the room that Whitney and I were staying in didn't work, so I had to go downstairs again to get them to re-magnetize them or something before we could get back in after closing the door. As we picked through the ship's leaflets in Grandma's room, we presented her with a rather nice and expensive wine glass that Whitney and her mother had picked out while in Boston, as a monetarily inadequate gesture of thanks from us all for paying for us all to take the cruise. With the settling in done with, I was assured that like I'd said to myself in the morning, now that we were on the ship that was to be our home for the next week we could relax and everything would be fine.
Half an hour later, Grandma fell and cracked her head on the tiled floor of the bathroom. I was looking at the map of the ship in the corridor outside at the time, and just heard a tremendous thump from through the wall. The nurse was called up to... suture and bandage and use the antibiotic gel or whatever it is that real nurses do, and she's still very much alive and coherent, especially for someone who is 93 years old, but now has a blue sort of star-shaped bruise around her eye and has to wear a bulky dressing on her head. I'd almost thought that we were going to have to disembark and spend a week hanging around the hospital instead.
But we gave her a while to sit and then went down to have lunch in the restaurant, where I realized that I could have meat on demand for the next week. We noticed that there was a life-jacket demonstration at five, and went to our individual rooms to sleep a little and wait until then. It emerged through the ship's PA system that the lifejacket demonstration was in fact an evacuation drill, but when the alarm went off ten minutes later I was surpised at the calmness of it. Perhaps I had just lived in student halls too long and was expecting deafening sirens and red flashing lights, but it was the most relaxed evacuation I'd ever been on - just three pinging noises over the public address system and then the captain coming on to say "Hello, excuse me, if you wouldn't mind abandoning ship, just depending on how you're all feeling, thank you very much" as we descended the stairs in our bright orange lifejackets. After getting to our muster stations we were herded into the theatre, with the crew lined up on the stage like they were about to burst into song, and the one of them known as the Master gave us the safety talk with an appropriately Tom Baker-like voice.
There had been no movement of the boat noticeable when we were docked, but now that we're off we have a continuous see-saw motion that I'm rather afraid might make me rather ill during the three days that we're spending at sea before our first port of call. After having stuffed myself far too much at lunch I'm going to forget about dinner and just go to bed - I can't wait to see what happens to us tomorrow.
