Long Overdue Update

So it has been a while since I last wrote a post... a long, long while.  I wish I could have a really good excuse, but it was just a matter of things got busy once I was on the ship and continued for the next 8 months and then got home and was busy there as well.

Being back on land really reminds us how much technology and communication plays a part of our every day life.  On the ship, phone calls are pretty much for emergencies and internet access is a commodity that is charged by the minute.  On my last 3 contracts, we were able to buy an internet package of $30 for just over 6 hours of access.  And the signal is a satellite connection that makes 1997 AOL dial up speed seem fast.  So next time you complain that you are paying $20 a month for high speed data on your phone, just know it could be much worse.  At our best rate, unlimited internet on the ship would be over $2,500 a month.  Even worse, the rate for passengers would work out somewhere around $25,000 (this is no exaggeration, their rate is somewhere around 60 cents per minute, just do the math from there).

So what were we up to for the last 8 months?  I started my contract in November in Athens, Greece at the start of the crossing, meaning that the ship was moving locations around the world, this time from Europe to Asia.  We spent about 4 and a half months throughout Asia until returning to Europe where we finished the contract on July 4 in Southampton, the port for London, England.

All in all we visited over 40 countries on three continents (Europe, Asia, Africa).  I added seven new countries to my travel list, bringing it 65 countries visited while working on a ship and 68 visited in my lifetime.  Some of the new ones were fun and exciting and a couple of new ones were major disappointments... more on those in a separate post.

During this past contract a lot happened with different opportunities and things that will be happening for us in the future.  I will give a full update later, but this past contract will be our last where my wife was in the production cast and I was a member of the ship's orchestra.  We have learned to never say never, but this is the right time to head in a different direction.  Everyone on a ship laughs when a crew member says it will be their last contract.  For many, they say it every time and make their way back to the ship contract after contract.  But right now we have several opportunities to continue doing what we love in different venues so we will take it.

My goal is now being back on land will give me the chance to continue writing right here.  We will continue to travel and perform and we will also be working on land so I will surely have plenty to write about.  At least it will be easy to improve from the amount of time from my last post to this one.

Long Overdue Update

The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam

It has been a very, very long time since I've posted an update.  Almost 4 months in fact.  But I have good reasons, promise.  First, internet is not very consistent onboard cruise ships.  While the rest of the world might be all about broadband, 4G, etc. the internet onboard cruiseships takes me back to the days of AOL dialup and hearing the screeching of the modem.  There have even been parts of this itinerary where we had no internet at all.  Last month we visited Norway for a few weeks and went above the Arctic Circle.  That area is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen, but being above the Arctic Circle doesn't exactly put the ship in prime locations for satellite access.  And second, since the beginning of May I have been the musical director on the ship.  While small ships mean less people to manage, it means lots of scheduling changes and extra work here and there.

The Church of Spilled Blood
 in St. Petersburg, Russia

Just since my last post we have visited 28 different countries.  Some of the highlights: doing another tour in the Holy Land, walking through Cannes during the film festival, being in Monaco during the Grand Prix, visiting the Anne Frank House on what would have been her 85th birthday, standing on Omaha Beach on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing, and seeing wild reindeer in Norway, visiting the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Russia (students have included Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Shostkovich, and Prokofiev, and Rimsky-Korsakov was a school director!).  Just in the last 6 weeks it has been a whirlwind of all new countries for me.  Here is the list: England, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Estonia, Russia, Finland, and Sweden.  All in all I've now visited over 50 countries and still have a few more to go before I finish this contract.

The Nobel Museum in Stockholm

Traveling and working onboard a cruise ship gives some access that wouldn't normally be possible.  For instance, I'm sitting here inside a Starbucks in St. Petersburg, Russia.  Normally to visit Russia it required a lot of paperwork and expensive visas.  But working on a cruise ship, it costs me $10 per day for a "crew shuttle bus tour."  There is a visa exemption for staying up to 72 hours onboard a cruise ship in Russia, but you can only leave the ship on an organized tour.  So they organize shuttle busses for the crew and charge a small fee and we can leave anytime we want.

Nordkapp (North Cape), the northernmost point in Europe,
and only 2,093 miles from the North Pole

Anna is now down to her last 3 weeks onboard; because I've been extended I still have 6 weeks to go.    It's not fair, I signed on 6 weeks before she did!  Before she leaves we will visit Iceland, Shetland Islands, and Faroe Islands and she will sign off in Copenhagen.  After she leaves I will be visiting Edinburgh, Dublin, Liverpool, Southampton, Orkney Islands, Wales, Dartmouth, Nantes, Bordeaux, and then I sign off in Lisbon.

That's about it for this update, but it won't be as long for the next update.

Tallinn, Estonia

Reindeer sausage in Norway

At the cliffside Uluwatu Temple in Bali