European Cruise Day 6: At Sea
Disclaimer: These are all unedited and uncensored. They are raw emotion, intellect and information. I hope you enjoy my experiences.
*Miranda and Alyssa are my sisters and Thomas is my soon to be brother in law.*
I woke up today missing you. I watched your video a few times and that helped. I check email hoping you’d have written back. No luck. But that’s ok. I still have your video! We’re en route to Istanbul, Turkey today. We spend two days there. One on the Constantinople side and one on the Byzantine side. I’m not sure the difference but dad has a book about Turkey that I think I’ll read later. Right now I’m running around picking up everyone’s sea pass card in an attempt to gather all our passports. They took them at the beginning to clear customs in all the countries, and now that we’ve been to all the countries we get them back. Now I just have to hold onto it until it can get back to put it back in it’s safe box. Everyone but mom gave me there sea pass card, but guess what? They let me get Mom’s passport anyway! Haha! So I delivered them all and now I’m heading to return seapass cards. Then food! I keep getting lost on the floors. It’s like I don’t know what up and down anymore…
I like looking down at my Tom’s right now because they’re starting to show the wear of Europe. They’re dirty and stretched and could use a wash but I don’t want to wash the ruins off of them.
Most of the food on the ship is stuff I’ve seen or heard of before. I’m trying to experiment as much as possible because that’s what life’s about. Today my dad introduced me to black pudding, or blood pudding. It’s made with cow’s blood and onions. That’s it! It was weird but not bad. After we enjoyed our brunch Alyssa and Dad headed off to take care of some things and Thomas and I hung and had a really nice talk for about an hour. I’m feeling pretty lazy and quite lethargic today so now I’m in the room figuring out this finger picking song a bit more. I’m not too good at this…
We spent about ten minutes watching the males compete on who did the best belly flop. Boy oh boy what a load of red bellies! Fortunately none of the competitors were wearing speedos. The thought was to head down to the dragon’s lair where alyssa, mom and Miranda were belly dancing, but Alyssa is sleeping and mom decided it was not a spectator sport so dad and I came to eat some salad and are now headed up to see the most narrow part of our journey. We pass between what is called the narrows and between Asia and Europe that are only separated by 4000 feet of water. Another interesting fact is that Turkey is in both Asia and Europe! We’re going to Istanbul for two days which is split between both continents. One day we’ll be on the European side and one day we’ll be on the Asian side. What a trip! We’re looking at this giant map of Europe trying to figure out the legend. We’re very close to the border of Bulgaria. The Aegean and the Black Seas are only split by a small port in Istanbul. You’ll see a picture of the map that clarifies all of this because it’s hard to grasp without a visual.
I just came up to the room to get sunscreen and passed out for about 20 minutes. Whew! I needed that. I’m still sleepy. Now time for BINGO! there’s a bimbo girl standing behind Alyssa and I. Oh boy. Last time I played bingo, and the first, was with Britt the first time we ever really hung out. There is only one woman on this ship that’s attractive to me. She’s an employee and seems to work for the entertainment side. She’s been at karaoke and bingo. She’s fucking hott! You’ll think so too baby. ;)
Miranda is getting violent over bingo right now. She’s threatening the number caller as well as all the people who have one more than one game or a prize. She’s getting crazy. The bimbo, who was sweet for the record, wound up as the bingo commissioner. She had to check the numbers for the blackout. We decided she’s the star of a porno called “The Bingo Commissioner”. Now that’s a hot story.
We all lost bingo. But that’s ok! A rad dude gave me his coupon for $100 off a spa treatment! How nice of him. Tonight is formal night so we had about ten minutes to rush off and get dressed. I was actually impressed with how my hair turned out after having a hat on all day. I’m feeling pretty down tonight. There is amazing lightning that I’m reveling in. I’m wondering how lightning affects the sea creatures. Are they electrocuted like us? More or less because of their chemical makeup? Does it go deep into the ocean or only travel a certain distance? The physics intrigue me. I’m not sure why I’m feeling down. Miranda has been pretty aggressive today. Maybe because I haven’t worked out I have a bit more energy than normal. The family may be wearing on me. The family is wearing on everybody. I need more physical touch. I need more love. The love is fleeting in my family. It’s conditional to some degree. I miss my non blood family terribly. There are parts of my blood family that I cherish, and other parts that are so tarnished, so broken, so painful that I have to stay unattached to them. Politics come up in our conversation. I check out.
An interesting fact about the blue mosque which we will see tomorrow. There was a chain hanging as you walked in, so the sultan had to bow his head in the face of the divine. I wonder if he wouldn’t bow without the chain? Power and ego exist one and the same.
After dinner Miranda, Thomas, dad and I went to the gym for a bit. Alyssa was gonna but she became too tired. We got some good cardio and did a few sets on the machines. Then we wandered to Savoy Theater where tonight there is an Italian singer who was raised in Australia. He’s singing with a lot of vibrato and playing a little bit of guitar. It sounds like he’s covering up for his pitchy voice with his vibrato. But maybe I’m just judgmental tonight. It’s about time for bed for me. I’m feeling a little gassy but perhaps it’s from working out so quickly after dinner. Or maybe I’m just grumpy. Who knows. I began reading the book Britt let me borrow, Light on Life. It’s about the philosophy and practice of yogasana. I like it a lot already. I think I’m off to read it a bit more before bed.
