Revenge and Headbutting

Revenge

12th August 2011

Waking up for morning sale wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. Mainly because, during the night, I kept waking up and drifting off again.

At 04.30 Sandra came back to the cabin with Hernan, David and Zoran. Zoran ripped open my bunk curtains (it’s not the first time that’s happened) and woke me up telling me he’d just got a call from Jomar.
 Apparently Jomar said I needed to get out of bed asap, get ready and go out free shooting on gangway. He wanted me out there now.

At the time I had absolutely no idea what time it was let along whether we were still at sea or in port. The others were rolling up laughing because apparently I was still asleep talking to them, complaining like a baby that I didn’t want to work free shooting on gangway because my wrist was sore and I was too tired. Again Zoran tried to convince me to get out of bed to work to which my reply was several “baby like” no’s. Sandra finally kicked them out of the cabin and I carried on sleeping. All I can say is, I’ll have my revenge on Zoran… it’s just a matter of time!!

I was partially awake when the alarm went off at 6am however I didn’t get out of bed but drifted off for another 10 minutes. If the phone hadn’t rang, I wouldn’t have woken up. It was Edi, from Laundry, calling to make sure I was out of bed as I was completely shattered by the end of the night.

Throwing my clothes on I headed down to the lab for the reprints only to find that there weren’t any, they’d all been taken up to the gallery at midnight.

Opening the gallery with one hand wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. There were a couple of panels I had to budge with my shoulder rather than two hands but I was open just on time and soon the people started flowing in.

This is my second morning sale and although I’ve heard the questions before, it never ceases to amaze me. The guests have been on the ship for a week. Most have already been in the gallery while the few odd guests haven’t.

One guy came over to me and I know he’s purchased photos before. He asked me how to find his images. I told him they were all displayed by country unless it was formal night which was displayed by dining room and studio. The guest asked if there was a quick way to find the photos to which my reply was “no, this is the only way I'm afraid. The kiosks are closed as the cruise has ended” (meaning he couldn’t view his photos digitally). Then he asked if he could view and purchase the photos online once he got home.

Picking up two photos the guest came over to the desk a short while later. I told the American man how much the total amount for both photos, before asking for his sea pass card. He was shocked by the price and said he’d changed his mind and only wanted one photo. Choosing the picture, I asked again for his sea pass card. Before finally handing it over he said “I thought everything was half price. They should be discounted, it’s the last day of the cruise”. Looking miffed when I told him we didn’t have last minute sales, he signed his receipt, snatched the photo out of my hand and stormed out the gallery.

Next another American guy came in with his much younger Filipino wife. They were on the kiosk (even though it was supposed to be closed – it wasn’t) and looking through their pictures. The man came over and asked how long it’d take to print his order of 4 pictures as he was leaving in 30 minutes. I explained that the kiosk prints wouldn’t be ready as there was no one working in the lab. “Why not?” he snapped. Lack of sleep was starting to kick in and I was losing patience. I explained that as last night was really the last opportunity to buy photos, we were over whelmed by people ordering re-prints. The re-prints then had to be printed for that night due to the large amount of guests disembarking the Mariner first thing in the morning. Due to everyone, like this guy, wanting prints at the very last minute the guys in the lab had been working until about 3am. “So basically these kiosks don’t work and they are only here for decoration?”  How the hell do you reply to that politely? All I could do was bite my tongue and offer to find their prints in the gallery.

Twenty minutes later and I’d found their prints. They’d chosen four prints and came over to the desk. I rang everything up and just as I said the price both pulled out coupons from their pockets. Two Diamond and one gold coupon. Fan-bloody-tastic!

Gold coupons give the guest their second photo for half price. Diamond coupons is any photo of their choice for free. So after 30 minutes of dealing with this couple I was charging around $32 instead of roughly $95.

Checking the sales and how much we’d sold, Zoran had obviously won the little competition last night. In the end, Zoran had sold $378 more than me and in total approximately $4,200, while I was around the $3,800 mark. Either way, that night I was the second best seller. Some people didn’t even get near to $3,000 so I was happy getting close to $4,000. Maybe next time…

Paco, who should have been in the gallery at 7 finally made an appearance at 8.50, 10 minutes before I was supposed to close up. Taking the keys from me he told me to go have breakfast and he’d close up. Deal! Skipping brekky I ran straight back to my cabin and jumped into bed.

My alarm was originally set for 11.15 but Sandra finally woke me up at 13.30 while on a break from embarkation. There wasn’t much I could do and no point in going out as I’d previously planned so I headed up to Back Deck for a couple of hours to type up a few new blog entries. I’m slowly getting on top of my blog updates but seem to spend my time either sleeping or working.

At 17.00 I was in the lab collecting the prints to be displayed in the gallery. The door came open and in walked Jomar with a new hire who’d just joined the ship. His face was so familiar but I couldn’t place him. After they’d left, the penny dropped and turning to Ritesh I told him that Alex, the new guy, reminded me of someone who went to Miami training with me and Hernan. It couldn’t be, could it?

Later on, up in the gallery Alex came over and said to me “I remember you from training in Miami”. So it was him! He was one of the few that’d been sent home for either not being ready or their English not being good enough.

I was kind of worried about Alex though. Although he’s new he just seem too quiet and slow. I needed to show him where the folios were and by the time I was at the other end of the gallery he was just coming around from the desk at the opposite side. Fingers crossed he was just tired from travelling and would speed and talk up.

Paco asked me to take Alex to the staff mess for dinner. Joining Whitney, who made a comment when Alex had gone for another drink. “He doesn’t seem the type to fit in with the photographers. You’re all loud, different and weird” Geez… Thanks Whitney! She had a point though. I was actually a little worried for the new guy (who comes from Belarus).

Back in the corridor I bumped into Hernan and David. As soon as I asked Hernan if he’d seen the new hire he cut me off telling me it was Alex from Miami training. He’d remembered him as well. Speaking to Hernan and David quietly I told them what Whitney had said and pointed out. I agreed with her to a certain degree.

The only thing that was on David’s mind was that this new guy was quite possibly gay and sharing a cabin with Paco… so he’d better watch his arse. Literally. Hernan could see where I was coming from but said we all needed to give him time to adjust and maybe he’d liven up a little bit. Too true, Hermanastro!

After work Alex was starving so I took him up to the Royal Café to see what food we could shift from the kitchen. The guys are always so over the moon when they see us (and within that comment is an overdose of sarcasm). A couple of crew members working inside the kitchen said there was no food for us. All of a sudden one of the chefs, from Indonesia, came around the corner and asked me what I wanted. I asked if there was any food going, anything welcome but as there wasn’t so not to worry. Calling me back, he told me to stay put and told the guy who usually refuses to give us pizza on formal night to get us two pizzas ready as well as sorting out some of the sandwiches that’d only to go waste. BINGO!!!

Walking around the I-95 with a tray of food wasn’t the best idea and we’d get in serious shit if we were caught. Ritesh spotted us and said he’d go and get a bag or something so we could sneak it into the corridor easier.

Alex and I ran down to Laundry were there were no cameras around. After shifting the food into the bags and dropping a couple of slices of pizza (Laundry are going to love us!) we ran back to the corridor. Everyone was waiting for us. Munch time.

It was about 1am and once again I was due on Morning sale for the people disembarking from Genoa. The plan was to go and play football… or in my case left handed ping pong. Sandra and I will be masters of ping pong by the time we’ve finished our contracts, until then, we are still crap and in need of a lot of practise. I played for a bit with Sanela, the supposed professional tennis player and coach, but she couldn’t hit the ball for love nor money. She was worse than Sandra and I and that is saying something.

Just as I was about to call it a night there was a huge bang followed by shouting. Looking over, David had his head in his hands. Running over to the pitch there’d been an accident while the lads were playing football.

Two people had jumped up to header the ball and instead, they’d headered David straight in the face. His eye was puffing up before our eyes. Telling him to stay put I ran down a to Deck 11 for ice. David appeared 10 minutes later and his eye was swelling closed. Although we were worried, it was typical of David to swell up and none of us could stop laughing. Especially with an enormous bag of ice covering half his face. It was a good job I brought the camera with me.…

Huge Bag of Ice!

Accident while Playing Football - Hernan and David

In the FACE!

This is what happens when crew members play football!!

Shopping

Shopping!

15^th July 2011

Waking up late I knocked on a few cabins to see if anyone was around and if they were, what they’d be doing today. We’re in Ashdod again and for the final time. If you’re not on tour, there’s not a great deal to do like there is in the other ports.

David wanted to get off the ship before he went nuts. That made two of us! 

Grabbing a bite to eat before heading out, we jumped on the shuttle bus and headed to the shopping centre. David was determined to get some new shoes of some sorts. I think his mind was set on a new pair of Converses. 

Arriving at the shopping centre, we had a look around and it wasn’t long until we’d mentally spend a huge sum of money. Looking around for what seemed forever, we finally found someone to exchange our dollars and euros to shekels. 

Heading back to the shopping centre, I bought a new bikini top – I’m hoping for a couple of hours at the beach at some point! Going into another shop, David bought a pair of black trainers which didn’t even make it into the box! He walked out wearing them, telling me his new trainers were so comfortable it felt like he was walking on air!

It wasn’t long until we bumped into Hernan and Eve who were walking about doing a bit of shopping. Eve wanted a hat but couldn’t find anything she liked. She didn’t know which type she wanted and just said, “I’ll know when I see it”! I saw a lovely shirt but $80 was a bit over my budget!! 

Popping into a few more shops, David and I separated from Eve and Hernan. They were going to the beach for a few hours. Eve had the entire day off while Hernan didn’t have to work until the late evening. 

The best place to buy electrical equipment is definitely Israel. I was so tempted to give my credit card a good hammering!! It was just under €60 for a 1TB external hard drive. In the end, I managed to contain myself and walked out with an 8GB SD memory card for €13. Looking back on it, I really wish I’d bought the external hard drive. Mine is only 500GB and it’s rapidly filling up with obscene amounts of photographs!! Oh well, you live and learn.

We spotted Hernan and Eve again. David and I were off to the ship for an hours nap before we started work. Hernan and Eve were still trying to find a way of getting to the beach and didn’t fancy waiting 15 minutes for the free shuttle bus and were contemplating getting a taxi which would cost about $10-15. In the end they went for the cheap and cheerful option and joined us on the bus.

The rest of the evening was spent in the gallery and studios. The night itself was so slow. For sure we aren’t going to make much money this cruise. No one is buying and we’ve got our fingers crossed that somehow, things might just pick up on the last day or towards the end of the cruise.

HOT day in Ashdod, Israel - David, Eve and Hernan

David, Me and Hernan

Gangway... OWNED!!

Gangway… OWNED!

3^rd July 2011

Today we are in Rhodes again and it’d be the first gangway without Stu which means no more pouting knight! Zoran who does a fantastic job as the Greek God was dressed up in the Knight costume and it swamped him!!

At the last minute Fede wanted to shoot Zoran because David (Centurion) wasn’t ready. Sod off was my reply. Zoran and I were already on the gangway. Zoran was still a little worse for wear from last night but we got to work on the tour exit. Every so often we’d dart into the middle of the gangway and work both sides as much as we could. Within the first hour we had nearly 300 images. Our target was 400 each.

Fede came to join us a little later on gangway. David had locked himself out of his cabin and Fabio, who was free shooting, had forgotten his key inside too. Great stuff! 

Just as Fede came back over my Quantum battery died. It’d been on charge all night and hadn’t lasted two hours! My Quantum has been giving me so much grief recently. My flash doesn’t always fire, the light consistency is terrible and the battery simply isn’t lasting half as much time as it should.

Running to the lab I picked up another SD card for Fede, my spare wasn’t anywhere to be found. Grabbing another Quantum battery I locked up and headed back outside. 

David had finally made an appearance. Teaming back up again we continued shooting and smudging. People were lining up and the ones who refused were literally chased down until they gave in and had their photo taken. 

Fede and David reached 400 before Zoran and I did. There were however 400 images of the knight (Fede took over shooting while I went inside for another battery). They said they’d stay out on gangway shooting and help us get 800 in total. Before we knew it, we had 800 images in total. It wasn’t even 10am and we’d smashed the target, owned the gangway! 

Jomar told us to keep going even though we’d reached the target. We were due out until 11.30.

Smudging like hell and soon Fede and my right arm were aching like hell from holding the camera up to our faces. I must have spent about 10 minutes with my camera to my eye without lowering it once. It was a continuous aim, focus, shoot. It was fantastic!

By the time Zoran and I had reached 500 Fede and David were just passing 700!! This was a record for Europe. David and Fede said this was Caribbean style shooting. Zoran and I were in our element when we reached 600 images!! Every time we got to another 100 mark we’d be laughing in amazement with high fives all around!!

At 615 my 2GB memory card was full and I didn’t have another. God knows where my 4GB was but it wasn’t in the lab. It was 10.40 so Fede just said to go inside as there wasn’t much we could do. Fede was already on his second memory card and his flash batteries were running low (he was already on his replacement batteries). So Zoran and I had whacked up 615 images. We knocked on a few cabin doors to see if anyone else had a spare memory card so we could continue shooting. We were buzzing! No one had another memory card though.

David and Fede wanted to see if they could get 1,000 shots. They weren’t far off!! They’d done a fantastic job between them. Not long after we’d come in they joined us. Fede had to stop shooting, his arm was cramping and his flash batteries were dead. They had just over 900. Fabio, last time we checked had 150 and we had 615. That’s 1,665 images in total! 

We’d smashed our targets and had an image count to rival the Caribbean’s! It was an amazing image count for Europe when it’s sometimes a struggle to get over 600! The guys in costume were fantastic and not taking "no" for an answer. The Knight and Centurion were acting up, playing the part perfectly! They were absolutely fantastic! Fede was the ultimate shooter. All together we’d done a brilliant job and not only smashed the target but all expectations too!!

During gangway David raised his hands into the air and declared we owned gangway! And he was right… Gangway Owned!

Zoran the Knight

Ultimate Ice Skater

Ultimate Ice Skater

2^nd July 2011

During the table sale up on Deck 5 I managed to sell a Canon 300HS, case and two memory cards. Not great but not bad.

While shooting LSP, Zoran came over to tell me that he’d spoken to Ritesh. We were due to have another equipment inventory after work. This time we were going to have to take everything out of each studio bag. Zoran told him everyone wanted to go to the all crew ice skating event (which most of us knew nothing about). Ritesh agreed to postpone the inventory until tomorrow. After work, once we'd packed as quickly as possible and changed, we all charged to Studio B to hit the ice!

By 00.15 most of us were on the ice. I’ve skated before when I was younger and rollerbladed a few times before so I didn’t think there’d be much of a problem. Getting onto the ice, I realized it’d be a bit harder than I previously imagined! There were grooves everywhere from the skate blades making it hard to glide along. Everyone was slipping and sliding everywhere! 

Fede was armed with his camera and so was Ritesh. 

Grabbing my hand, Hernan skated around the rink with me a couple of times. Zoran took over. I was more nervous of Zoran as he’d previously been trying to knock David and Hernan over. I was sure he'd go as fast as possible, dragging me along with him, before letting go of my hand! It's something Zoran would do! Boys will be boys!! 

David was trying to help Sandra stay up on her feet. Camila took to it like a duck on water and whizzed off! Going back to Hernan we did two more laps before I went wobbly and tried to head for the side of the rink. Hernan accidently got in the way making me slip around even more. You gotta love him… he tried holding me up but failed miserably! I went flying over, landing heavily onto my back - Home Alone style! Poor Hernan came crashing down too but had a softer landing... by landing on top of me!

The other photogs on the ice quickly crowded around to see if we were okay. Hernan and I were in fits of laughter. Helping us up, someone pointed to my elbow. Everyone was asking how my head was – it took an almighty smack! Good job we all had helmets on or else there might have been a problem. My head was fine believe it or not… there’s not much damage to do there! My elbow was throbbing like a bitch!! Having a quick look, I saw it was already grazing and cut all over the place. No matter how much it hurt, I was still laughing, I couldn't stop… until I saw the size of my elbow!  

Originally I was going to carry on skating but decided against it. I don’t think my bum or elbow could take another fall… and I was bound to go over again. Feeling a little dizzy I headed over to the ice. Whitney from Spa was rolling up laughing but started to get worried when I was going pale. At one point I honestly thought I was going to faint - the pain was that bad. Luckily enough I didn’t! One thing is for sure… I am now the ultimate ice skater. No one took such an almighty tumble although there were some smashes that could rival it!

Going back to the cabin Luci and Camila were talking in Portuguese. Rather than switching languages, Luci said they had to speak in Portuguese to me so I’d learn. I can now string a couple of sentences together such as “shut your mouth”, you know, the useful stuff! I understood most of what was being said. My vocabulary is getting better but my pronouncation isn’t! The few things I can say are with a Spanish accent. I shouldn’t complain though… speaking another language with whatever accent is an advantage. By the end of my contract which is just over 3 months away, I intend on having a Brazilian flag on my name badge. My Spanish flag is looking a little lonely!

The others all headed over to back deck for the all crew party. Camila and I went up to the staff mess for cereals. Spotting Eve and Hernan outside on the deck we went out to speak to them for a while. Sitting outside on the deck of a night is lovely. It's cool, sometimes chilly, yet so tranquil. The amount of stars twinkling in the sky is unbelievable - never before have I seen so many stars.

It was about 2.30am by the time I got to bed. I was due up at 7.30 for gangway. I was shooting Zoran who was dressing up as the knight. Originally I was supposed to shoot David as the Knight which got changed to the centurion as we don’t have two knight costumes. Fede saw the schedule and said he was shooting David. When I argued that I was shooting David he pointed out that he is P3 while I’m only P2 before cracking up laughing. The bugger!! Fine, I’ll shoot Zoran and we’ll get a freaking awesome count. It’s going to be a bit strange shooting a costume in Rhodes, I’ve never done it before. Plus, Stu is always the one in costume for Rhodes. Let’s see how tomorrow pans out.

I’ll see if I can get some of the photos from Fede and post them on here and Facebook as soon as possible.

Zoran's on his Arse!

After Falling Over

Photog Train - David, Hernan, Zoran and Camila

Ouch!!!

Ice Train - David, Zoran, Hernan and Raissa (Bar)

Spa and Photogs - Whitney, Sandra, Annik and Me

Zoran

Hernan Showing Off

David

Hernan and Annik

Hernan and David

Mariner of the Seas Torvill and Dead - Hernan and David

Show Offs!

Nearly... Hernan Takes a Tumble

David

Hernan

Ancient Greeks Thinking of the Future

1^st July 2011

Thinking of the Future

There were quite a few cock ups during the previous night in both setting up and breaking down for formal night. We noticed we were missing two valuable members of the team. 

Shooting on the centrum on Deck 4 I occasionally looked down to where LSP (Stu’s studio) was set up. The queue wasn’t a mile long like usual. The booming laugh and voice were gone and replaced by Flabio’s relatively quite ways.

One studio, at the end of the Royal Promenade didn’t get broken down until the next day – we completely forgot about it! It was a complete mess. By the time we had pizza (the original order was lost) and finished up it was 2am. Everyone was due to start work at 06.45-07.00.

Fabio, Hernan and I were going on tour to the Acropolis. Sanela was the Greek Godess and teamed up with Sandra. Zoran was the Greek God with David shooting. Zoran did a fantastic job and the a couple of guests even commented at how well he was acting the part and playing up for everyone. Nice one Zoran!!

As I was leaving for tour, I had to tell Sanela to stand by the exit, not in the middle of the hall. From there she can’t smudge for shit! The results showed, only 200 images. Even though I am more experienced and been working in costumes on gangway before, Luci and I would always get more than 400. She needs to improve a lot. Maybe someone more experienced should have been put on gangway for the start of the cruise and allow the newer people to have a go towards the end when the image count drops? Just a thought. It's what Reuben did with us new hires when we joined. Obviously they need to train but we also need the image count and to make money.

The tour itself was hard going. We were told to only get one or two kinds of shots. Trying to get up to the Acropolis itself was a task in itself. The heat was almost unbearable (we were all sporting large sweat patches or wringing wet shirts – very sexy!) and the crowds were unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it before!! Neither had Fabio. 

There were six ships in the port and all were doing tours to the same attraction. Smudging was too bad, I had a few catty comments to which they got a similar reply! The biggest challenge was getting a gap in the crowds to take someone's photo. I only came back with 32 images which, let’s face it, is nothing. A real disappointment, especially when I was only there for 30 minutes! Fabio was there for longer and got 60 something. I’m not sure how well Hernan did.

Herds of people were trying to leave and enter the Acropolis making the journey to the bus slow and almost painful! People were pushing and shoving, it was like you were at a football match! 

At the entrance of the Acropolis is a tall archway. The archway has been divided into one narrow paths. One side for entering and the other exiting the Acropolis. It's the slowest part to get through, especially with people shoving and getting agitated. One American lady even complained to her family. “Why didn’t they make this archway bigger? It’s not big enough for everyone”. I had to laugh at the stupidity and hold my tongue!! All I wanted to do was tell the lady “I’m sure that 2,500 years ago, while building the Acropolis, the Greeks weren’t thinking of accommodating so many bloody tourists!! Mass tourism never crossed their minds!” Some of the things that get said are unbelievably amazing yet stupid. I need to write a book of all the daft comments I hear!! It’d be a top seller!!

On the schedule we were all supposed to be back at 11am. Fat chance! By the time I got back it was 13.00. Fabio didn’t get back until 14.00.

Sandra popped into my cabin to ask if I was going out for internet. Fede was port manning and therefore couldn't leave the ship. 

Quickly showering and changing we ran off the ship and to O’Connell’s Irish Pub to use the internet. Becks was online – finally we were both online at the same time! I really needed to speak to her, get a few things off my chest and in general I really miss speaking to her. It wasn’t long before she went offline. Just my luck!

There’s no word from Stu like he promised. Checking his Facebook we saw that he’d contacted the American family. That caused a few raised eye brows, rolling of eyes and shakes of heads. It didn’t seem right, the people that genuinely care about him, hear nothing from him yet those people… I won’t continue.

Heading back to the ship I jumped into bed for 1.5 hours before I starting work in the gallery. After a three hour stint in the gallery I had an hour shooting on Garden – a hideously ugly backdrop.

Breaking down the studio, I noticed some things hadn’t been set up properly. Jomar had put Sanela and Sandra to set up alone. It took two hours to set up two studios?? 

One of my studio lights hadn’t been attached to the clamp!! If it had been pulled or knocked, the results could have been lethal – mainly to Image’s bank balance. An auto pole didn’t have a rubber stump at the end so it wasn’t very secure. If someone had leaned against it, the pole would have simply slipped out of place. 

Speaking to Sandra I wanted to know who had done the set up out of the two of them. It wasn’t to have a go at them, just explain and point them in the right direction. Sandra told me the pin hadn’t been put into her backdrop so she had to resort to using a hair pin!! A flimsy hairpin to hold up a heavy backdrop!? What the hell was going on? Had no one checked the set up?

Finishing up, I went down to the cabin to get my camera equipment. Ritesh was doing another inventory list for everyone. Putting my key in the door, it didn’t work. Going to the lab I told Ritesh who said I could do the inventory tomorrow. Thank you!! 

Waiting for Luci, she tested her key when she got back to the corridor. It was the same. The door unlocked but the handle wouldn’t budge so we couldn’t get it open. I’d already called maintenance who said they couldn’t do anything about it until tomorrow. What the hell!? Instead we had to call security who weren’t best pleased. When they arrived their key didn’t work either so they had to use a hard key (rather than a card key) to let us in. We had to call maintenance tomorrow, first thing to get it fixed asap.

Originally I was supposed to be staying over at Zoran’s. The new girl, Camila, isn’t happy with the cabin she is in. Her cabin mate is reportedly being royal bitch plus her and her boyfriend are at it like rabbits, day and night. The poor girl can’t even go into her cabin without her cabin mate shouting at her. So I was going to stay in Zoran’s (Stu’s bunk) and Camila would sleep in mine. 

Jomar finally gave her permission to move into Sandra’s cabin, taking Jeni’s place. Jomar only got his arse in gear when Luci nagged him about it in the gallery. Camila was taking a nap in the back office, on the bench prop rather than go back to her cabin. It’s not fair and certainly not a great way to start a 6 month contract! She’s moving tomorrow.

Zoran and Sanela have had a uniform delivery sent to them. Sanela’s is fine from what I’ve seen. Zoran still has no uniform… he’s been sent girl’s clothes! He can’t even get his gallery jacket on… a size 8, girl’s jacket for a guy? It’s a joke and he was far, far from happy! He was fuming, refusing to pay for any of it. Still, poor Zoran, has no camera or uniform and has been borrowing from us for nearly 1.5 months!! Now, he’s got to continue doing so until Image send the right uniform for him… maybe he’ll have everything for his second contract?

Ukrainian Borat!!

Ukrainian Borat!!

Another day of training and the final exam is getting nearer. We were all starting to get nervous but have just found out it’s multiple choice. Now we are relaxing a little! Multiple choice will make things much easier. Today we had a few test questions, practising the 10 main poses and timing ourselves. We have to do three poses in 60 seconds or less. My best time was 55 seconds. I’m impressed but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. I want to get down to 45 and then 30 seconds.

I got a text message from Charlie Charliiiieee and Peasant Pudding Andy. It really made me miss home and put a bit of a downer on things. To be fair, I tend to put England out of my mind because I know I'll miss everyone. The madness from tonight's events have cheered me up no end!!!!

At the moment we are all relaxing by the swimming pool, drinking beer and chatting. Tonight has been very different from the normal night around the pool. Pavlo, my Ukrainian “husband” decided to make another episode to his homemade movies (not that type of homemade movie). He came running down to the pool area dressed in what can only be described as a banana suit! It was a bright yellow track suit with a multi coloured patches sewn onto the shoulders and knees. Plus a pair of yellow tinted aviator sun glasses. Seeing him run around and acting the clown was side splitting for everyone.

A small group of us took part in his “Ukrainian Borat” antics. Gudrun (Germany), Laura (England) Dom (England) and I chased Pavlo down the road as if we were his beloved fans. Originally it was only me, Laura and Gudrun were supposed to run after him but Dom came out of the hotel reception and just started sprinting after us all. He even out run a passing car! Watching the clip back was hilarious!!!! It’s like a Ukrainian meets Ali G and Borat!! More clips were filmed around the pool such as Pavlo jumping over a fence and falling over and generally acting the prat! I’ll post the video link as soon as possible. The two Pavlos (the other Pavlo, Pavlo 2.0 did the filming) are editing the clips tonight and tomorrow. Hopefully by tomorrow the video will be posted on Youtube. Sasha has documented everything so if I can, I’ll post some of her images as soon as possible. Unfortunately I left my camera upstairs and opted to bring down my laptop.

After filming Pavlo went on a shooting spree, photographing pretty much everyone!! He’s fallen in love with Sashas lens haha. I had the camera shoved in my face, paparazzi style, while he took close up photos of my face!! He thinks he’s got some good close ups of my boat race… somehow I doubt it!

Beck’s and I have been teaching Pavlo how to speak cockney rhyming slang. The funniest bit is that it comes out with a Queen’s English accent. Listening to Pavlo say “Lemon Squeezer” or “Lemon Squeeza” with a posh accent has us in fits! Some of the words he knows so far are: Lemon Squeezer (Geezer), “Mince Pies” (Eyes), “Tommy Tank” (Wank), “Jimmy Riddle” (Piddle) and the latest edition, “Boat Race” (Face).