Cruising The Seven Seas: Charlie's Angels?

Charlie’s Angels?

6^thJuly 2011

Mariner of the Seas has, once again, sailed into "night off" port. Sadly, we are in Istanbul for the last time. Some of us will be coming back at a later date but most won’t.

Apparently still a chance we might go to Egypt so I was treating this Istanbul as my time. I was determined to make the most of it. Getting out of bed early after formal night is always incredibly difficult but I managed to do my 4 hour stint of work. I did however nod off a few times.

This morning, we were all up early, some were on gangway and others in the gallery displaying.

Walking along the Photographer’s corridor, I was stopping at every single cabin making sure everyone was awake. Fede was already up and ready to go. Hernan was still in bed fast asleep with five minutes to go before we started work. Waking him up, I waited around until he was out of bed. Knowing Hernan, if I turned my back while he was still lying in bed, he’d go straight back to sleep. David was semi-conscious.

Zoran was completely unconscious! Walking into Zoran and now Fabio’s cabin Zoran was still crashed out. Fabio was calling for Zoran to wake up from the top bunk. The stench of vodka and red bull was rife and of course, both were absolutely pie-eyed. Pissed as farts. Fabio rolled over and decided to go back to sleep… sod off! I grabbed the bugger’s leg and tried dragging him out of the top bunk.

After a bit of squealing, he was finally prepared to climb out of bed and get ready for work. Zoran was stumbling around making random snorting noises. Fede was trying to help him into his camel costume but it proved to be a real challenge as Zoran could just about stand up unaided. Going back into the cabin, I made sure Fabio hadn’t gone back to bed. He hadn’t and was stumbling about getting dressed.

Running back to my cabin after work I had to do the laundry before going out. The aim was to be out of the ship at 13.00. Chucking all the washing in the machine, I went off for something to eat with Fabio, Zoran, Luci and Camila.

Going back to the washing machine, it hadn’t drained properly so I put it on for a spin. The clothes were still wringing wet. Another spin. Chucking everything into the tumble dryer I headed up for a nap. Returning an hour and a half later some bugger had removed both my lights and darks from the tumble, chucked them into a basket and put their drying in. I was fuming!! Grabbing my stuff, removing the clothes from the tumble, I chucked mine back in.

Camila, later on went to get the whites from the tumble but the darks were still wringing wet thanks to the washing machine breaking down. Sod it, we were going out and collecting the clothes from the tumble later. We were losing our precious time off!

It was now 17.00… so much for leaving the ship at 13.00! Jumping in a taxi Luci, Camila and I were on our way to the Grand Bazaar.

While talking to Camila earlier on the decks, I found out she’d never been outside Brazil. Pointing out a few places from the ship, I said we’d go out and about so she could see some of the sights Istanbul has to offer.

Arriving at Grand Bazaar our first task was to find Camila a new pair of shoes. The pair she bought with her weren’t going to last five minutes and were proving to be too uncomfortable and unstable. Camila was in her element at just the sight of Istanbul. She was jumping around in the taxi, taking photos of every other building.

We had a long walk around the Grand Bazaar before finding a shoe shop just outside the market place.

Next we headed back into the Grand Bazaar for another meander. There was a fair amount of reminiscing. Walking past the Turkish “Aladdin” style outfits Luci and I were laughing about when we were considering buying it for Hernan to use on gangway. The Turkish hats that we wanted to get for Stu’s Turkish Prince gangway costume. The belly dancer costumes that were hanging from the walls, giving us the idea of including it to the gangway circus. They were reminders of good times, even if they are now tainted, we couldn’t help but smile.

Stopping off at one shop, I wanted to get something to send to Uruguay for the parents. I’ve been slowly filling up an envelope for a while with photos, information on our ports of call, post cards and other bits and pieces. I needed one more souvenir to finish off the package before sending it in Naples which would be the next stop after two seas.

As I said in one of my previous blogs, in both Istanbul and Kusadasi you are hounded to go into the shops. Most of the time the owners say the same thing “Hello, where are you from?” “Excuse me lady. I want to show you something” and so on. Occasionally someone comes up with something original. Walking past one shop, the owner tried getting our attention by shouting out “Hello, excuse me… Charlie’s Angels. Please, I want to show you something”. Charlie’s Angels? The three of us burst out laughing! For the rest of the day we were referring to ourselves as Charlie’s Angels and rolling up laughing. As someone suggested later on, we needed a photo of Charlie’s Angels in Istanbul!

It was getting late and the Grand Bazaar was starting to close. Rather than heading back to the ship for a while, we jumped into a taxi and made the short journey towards the Mariner of the Seas.

Now was the moment we’d all been waiting for. It was the time to use and abuse the internet!! Within close proximity of the port is an café/bar called Nargilem. The place is decked out with sofas and filled with nargilems (hence the name) which are large bong-like smoking pipes with flavoured smoke, something Luci loves.

Just as we were going in we spotted David in our usual spot (you’ll always find us near a plug socket!). Joining him and within a matter of seconds we’d all whipped out our laptops. Luci was the only one who couldn’t get online because apparently there’s a maximum of seven computers allowed to access the internet from the bar. While constantly trying to connect she sat around for two hours editing her photos in Photoshop and smoking a pipe.

I made the most out of the connection speed and started to upload the photos we’d taken from Istanbul and other ports of call. Sometimes, if the internet is slow, it’s almost impossible to upload photos to the blog and/or Facebook. Like I said previously, we were using and abusing the internet to the max.

I finally managed to get in contact with the parents and had a good chat with them. There are a few things I need to speak to them about but never get the chance to as I’m always with someone. It’s also hard getting in touch with them due to the time differences. At the moment they are five hours behind us and it usually increases to six. When we are in the ports, my Mom and Dad are still tucked up in bed.

Fabio, Zoran and Ritesh popped in to join us. Fabio and Zoran were still mashed. The vodka was in full flow for these two. We didn’t expect anything less. As booze is so expensive in Turkey they’d filled up their blue Royal Caribbean water bottles with vodka. We later found out they’d guzzled two bottles of the stuff in one night… along with 25 red bulls. I’m surprised they didn’t have a heart attack from all that red bull! They left to go out for a walk and take some photos. Ritesh stayed to use the internet. It wasn’t long before Zoran and Fabio were back, armed with 150 photos of themselves being prats and more vodka. How they get away with it, I’ll never know.

Earlier on in the day Fabio had come into Hernan’s cabin. Hernan and I were sitting about talking, wondering what we could all do for the day. Fabio held a piece of paper in his hand and told us both he’s been fired and asked for help packing his suitcase. Fabio told us he’d been caught drunk on the gangway and been breathalysed. We didn’t believe him until Fabio walked into the corridor and started crying. Hernan and I looked at each other somewhat shocked and bemused. As soon as Fabio saw the look on our faces he burst out laughing. The fucker! It wasn’t enough that one of our team mates had recently been fired, that Fabio, who is always as drunk as a sailor (no puns) was joking about the subject. Although we laughed at his idiocy, we knew it wasn’t funny. With Fabio and now Zoran too, it wasn’t long until someone would get the boot for drinking. The photographers were under watch due to our excess drinking so these two were ticking time bombs. When shit hits the fan, it’ll hit the fan for all of us, not just Zoran and Fabio.

While sitting in Nargilem I was asked if I’d heard from Stu and Jeni. I was speaking to Jeni on Facebook and she’s arrived home after doing a bit of travelling through Italy and France. She’s finally met her nephew who was born during her time on the ship. All she’d seen of him previously were photos and snippets from the webcam. As for Stu, we’d heard nothing and by the looks of it, he hadn’t been online. Did the bungee jump cord break?

There was even a call from Becks. Although she told me some bad news, it was great hearing from her. Things got a bit emotional before hanging up. I miss Becks like there’s no tomorrow and I really wish we were on the same ship, especially when things are going bad or we’re having a hard time.

Luci and I got onto the subject of Istanbul when Jeni and Stu were still around. We really missed the pair of them and that’s not just me, but the entire team. Although we had Camila who is a real blast, we missed our previous team mates and nothing could or would take their place. Saying goodbye to people like Stu and Jeni while not knowing if or when you’ll see them again is hard and something I doubt I’ll ever get used to.

Popping back on board at 2am to get the washing out the dryer, I bumped into Regina. She was in a foul mood, crying her eyes out. She’d finished work at 1am and had an argument with David. Apparently David and some of the other photogs were waiting to go out. They’d waited until 1am for Regina but she couldn’t give them an indication as to how long she was going to take before she was ready to hit the town. On that note, David said they were leaving as he’d made the others wait so long and didn’t want to make them wait even longer, especially if they didn’t know how long she was going to take.

Sitting down and talking to Regina, I tried calming her down a little bit. I could understand why Regina was so upset, that they’d just gone out without her. At the same time, I could see the opposite side of things, they’d waited and decided enough was enough. If they’d been given a rough indication as to how long it’d take Regina to get ready, they’d have either waited or met her somewhere outside. As Regina confessed, she is used to being treated as a "princess". Nothing like this has ever happened to her before.

Going back out, I’d invited Regina to come along. I knew she wouldn’t, she wanted to go out and party. I didn’t have that kind of money and, call me tight fisted, I wasn’t prepared to pay anything between 8-10€ for a beer! Even if I had Lewis Hamilton’s wallet, I’d still find paying those prices offensive!

At about 4am we decided to call it a night and head back to the ship to get some rest. Camila had training at 10am. You’ve got to love the new hire training. It’s always at the most inconvenient time! Luci and I were talking about going out again tomorrow to show Camila around some more. Setting the alarm for 11am, we could get ready while Camila was at training and head straight out. It was a plan… but how well it’d hold up tomorrow when that alarm went off was another matter!