Nothing like a sea day to put yourself back into the working swing of things. As if I said before, the ship can’t stop, we simply can’t. Everything that’s going on behind the scenes can’t effect the show, which is – in a lot of ways – a good thing. It kind of forces you not to wallow. I suppose, over the years, I’ve become not much of one for wallowing.
So, busy busy busy.
Things just keep moving along. Today is our only sea day of the cruise which means it is busy – moreso than even I expected. One of those days where I’m exceptionally glad of Shadow, who makes it so that I only work two hours at a time throughout the day (as in two hours on, two hours off, not two hours in total!).
At the moment we’re sailing once again through the straits of Messina, the city where I listened to the bells and watched the birds, slides by again to one side. I still wish we were stopping there this cruise, as I hate to be so close to one of my favourite ports and not be there, but even at this job you can’t have everything! The stories of these straits are both fascinating and disturbing – being that they’re based out of greek mythology which does after all have a tendency to be both. Like the story of poor Sheila…who is now reduced to a particularly dangerous rock outcropping – but, if Greek mythology is to be believed, she was once a nymph, who got turned into a monster (and apparently later a rock) because she refused the advances of a god. Or a demi-god, I can’t remember which. So she’s stuck there as this monster, which naturally makes her pretty miserable, so she might have sort have started killing sailors, which led to Hercules killing her…at which point her father applies fire to her body to bring her back to life? HOW is that a logical thing to do?
And then she ends up as a rock…
Because that’s so very logical.
I mean this seems to be a common theme in Greek Myths doesn’t it? Nymphs keep getting picked on. I mean nymphs’ whole job – their entire purpose in life – is to sit around in a river somewhere looking pretty and well – being nymphs! And along comes some guy who goes “hey I’m a god, you will love me” and – being slightly sane woman-like creatures – the nymphs say no, or run away, and they end up being turned into monsters or rocks or trees. What did the Greek gods have against nymphs????
I…think that paragraph got away from me.
Six more days left in the countdown, well 5 if you don’t count the actual date of Barcelona, which I’m tempted not to do. I’m actually vaguely nervous, I’m not really sure why I’m nervous. I just am. I mean, Amras is my best friend, he’s like the brother I never had (which is, obviously, why I refer to him as such), but I haven’t seen him in over a year…I suppose nerves are a bit natural.