go ahead, ask me. . .

Go ahead. . . ask me what Punta Arenas, Chile is like. The answer is:
I don't know. We were supposed to go here, but strong winds in the
Strait of Magellan put the kaibosh on that, (I always wanted to use
the word Kaibosh in a sentence. I'm still hoping someday to use the
word Gestalt in a sentence). We got held up at Ushuaia Argentina. I
was tempted to say, "Ah, it's not the end of the world", but in fact
it is. I don't so much mind because we got to see it later in the day
when we stopped here to drop some people off and it looked like a
little mining town, but mainly I don't mind because we couldn't go
due to the winds in the Strait of Magellan. How cool is that? I'm a
huge Magellan fan, and even winds here are cool to me. Sad I know,
but it's the end of the world. We look forward to strange things here.

Tonight was a huge "end of the world" crew party. It seems there are
a lot of crew parties lately. It seems like the powers that be have
decided we're not going to make any money anyway, let's just get this
ship to where it has to go and get back to work then. The band of
course works regardless, but so many people on the ship work on tips,
and people who are cruising for 50 days don't really dip into their
wallets unless they have to. This party was held in the ship disco,
the Red Carpet.

There are so many really funny dynamics to ship life, it's hard to
know where to start explaining it. Each department tends to
congregate together, and each nationality has it's own little
"mafia", so there's a Polish Mafia, a British Mafia, etc. Casino
people don't mingle to much. Deck and Engine people might mingle,
(they are all very nice), but what are you going to talk about?
Entertainment has little sub-groups. The theater people work closely
with each other and are a fairly large group, so they tend to hang
out together. The musicians on the ship hang out together, but most
are Romanian and so they hang out with the Romanian mafia. Spa girls
are largely British, but since the other two single guys in the band
are British, I know a lot of Spa girls. (They work in the salon or
give masages generally). I hang out a lot with Pete and Nina from my
band. They are extremely nice and we get along great. I think some
people think it's strange that I hang out so much with a married
couple, but we all prefer quite get togethers and small groups to big
crew parties, although, this was a pretty good crew party, as they go.

One last note: The end of the world looks pretty much like Switzerland.

penquins and such - adendum

For some reason the text didn't seem to make it into that post, so
here it is:

I see I haven't updated my blog in awhile, so let me fill you in on
what's been happening.

Rio is great. I could definitely spend a bunch of time there. Wish I
could have stayed longer, or at least long enough to experience the
night life. It was rainy, but still, the views, the city, all are
really impressive. Corcovado, the mountain with the Christ statue on
it has the most amazing views. Ipanima beach is nice, as was the
lunch. We were two hours late getting back to the ship, but we
weren't worried because the captain was in our tour group. The ship
probably wouldn't leave without him. Though you never know. Those
second in command types. . .

Next was Buenos Aires. Here we stayed overnight. As a city, it
reminded me of New York, but cheaper. Very large and cosmopolitan. We
went out after our set, (about midnight) and went to a couple of
clubs. Mostly we ran into other crew members, and there was no live
music around, but still what a city. We got back around 6am! I was
out all day and all night, had lunch, took taxis, and enjoyed a good
deal of night life, and I only spent around $50.

Yesterday we were in Montevideo, Uruguay. I don't know why I thought
this was not going to be too interesting. Sometimes after having
visited so many Caribbean ports that are about 6 blocks long you
start to think that anywhere you haven't heard of must be a loose
collection of mud huts. Montevideo is a large thriving metropolis.
Also, pretty cheap as you can get lunch for about $3. Gotta love
South America.

Today I took a tour of the Porto Tambo Penguin Rookery which is in
Patagonia, Argentina. I don't know what "rookery" means, but there
seemed to be a lot of it going on. For one thing, the bus ride over
there took over 2 hours past some of the most nothing I have ever
seen. Penguins I guess like scrub brush. When we got there, there was
about a go-zillion penguins digging holes and seeming to argue with
each other over who's hole was better, though I'm not sure because
they speak spanish here. I have many spectacular penguin pictures,
but I'm only posting the one with the most penguins in it.

I'm also posting a sunset picture because as we continue to head
south and get closer to the arctic circle the nights are getting
shorter and the sunsets longer and more spectacular. Monday we go
through the Cape Horn Scenic area, (don't know what that is yet). On
Tuesday we will be in Ushuaia, Argentina which is the southern most
city in the world. That's right - in the world. Last stop before
Antarctica, and as far south as we will be heading.

Zamphere

Don't know if I've mentioned this before but they play music in all
the hallways and dinning rooms here. For some reason, they have a
very limited supply of music. I don't know if most people have
noticed this, but the two most popular albums seem be:

1) Zamphere: King of the Pan Flute
The only two tracks from this that repeat over and over seem to be
Memories, from Cats and Knights in White Satin.

2) The Three Tenors scream songs about loneliness at you.
Most popular track: All By Myself

I can't tell you how many times I've heard these few songs. I'll
gladly donate any songs to their collection. Why don't they expand
their library? Am I the only one who cares?

Not yet eaten by sea monsters

Magellan was a bold and daring dude. We just crossed from the
Atlantic to the Pacific at Cape Horn, and even in a huge ocean liner
like this it was thrilling. Sir Francis Drake probably wouldn't have
used the word thrilling. Terrifying perhaps. 50 knot winds and 15
foot swells, and this is a good day. Darwin's expedition had to pull
into an inlet and wait for decent weather so they could pass. It was
only rough for a little while and the rest of the day was pretty
calm. This is about as far south as you can go without actually being
an explorer or scientist.

penquins and such

Ricife, Brazil

I call this one "Recife at Dawn", principally because that's what it
is. That's actually the moon there, not the sun. Recife three hours
later, which is when I got off the ship, looks different, probably
because I only had 3 hours sleep. I walked about 3 hours today and
bought a guitar stand - woo hoo! Also sampled the local cuisine. By
"cuisine" I actually mean bottled water. Our next stop will be
Salvador, home of the Samba, however I won't be getting off because I
have in-port manning, so it's on to my next stop, Rio.

blog mentions

It would appear that I, or rather the band has been mentioned in John
Healds blog. John is the Carnival Cruise Line Brand Ambassador. I
have no idea what that means, but it must be important. He was the
cruise director during the inaugural for this ship, and he's very
good and very funny. His blog has many loyal followers. One thing he
does is take questions from cruisers, and one Carnival employee who
is on our ship and a good friend. If you go to Carnival.com, then
click on John Heald's Blog, then search through the Dear John letters
from Jamie you might find some references to the Elite Showband.
Here's a picture of Jamie, (center) with the band and Steve the solo
guitarist on a beach outing in Barbados.

of murder, sausages, and the eye of the beholder. . .

We were in Dominica the other day which is a small Caribbean Island.
I took a taxi with some other people from the ship to see a local
waterfall. Even the tourist brochures here say dont bother going to
the beach. It's a pretty small place with very beautiful mountains
and little else. The city is very depressed though. As we were
driving through, the following conversation ensued between two of the
staff from the ship:

Serbian man: This place is beautiful - like Honduras.
Czech woman: Is like Serbia?
Serbian man: No. You should move to Serbia.
Czech woman: What I do there?
Serbian man: You could stuff sausages.
Czech woman: Sound good.
Serbian man: Also, you could kill people, but money not as good.