11/24/01

!Hola! ?Como Esta?

Now that we're in the Caribbean, leaving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, each Sunday, there are a lot of Spanish speakers on the ship. Necessito practicar mi espanol.

We're in St. Thomas today. I'll try to give you all the rundown and take care of some business as well. Thank you for your emails. I enjoy reading about what you're all doing, but I'd like to request that you not send me any forwards. As witty or cool as they might be, I don't take the time to open them, and they clutter my inbox. I know I'm being picky, but you wouldn't believe the amount of spam that builds up when I can only check email once a week. Okay, enough of being mean. Here's the great stuff:

Ten of us went to a beach in St. Lucia last week, and six of us rode a banana boat. It's an inflated tube, and you straddle it and hang on while a boat tows you up and down the beach. It was so much fun. I found out that that's where we'll be on Christmas.

There's a Norwegian officer named Jarle, pronounced Yarla. He calls me Yenoa. And the South Africans call me geNOa, but I don't mind anymore.

I sign off on Jan. 20, but I think I'm going to go to Ireland for a week before I go home. My friend Laura signed on the same day as me, and we always got along very well. She's a great person, and she's invited me to visit her outside Dublin. Why not? She quit due to an oppressive and demeaning boss, and I miss her already. So I'll be home around Jan 27. This is all very tentative, of course.

The cruise industry isn't very healthy right now, and Norwegian is practically giving cruises away. Go to NCL.com or discount sites, and come visit me! I'm on the Norwegian Majesty and we are in the southern Caribbean. We have two routes, and we alternate them, so we do a, b, a, b... Wouldn't you love to see San Juan and a) Antigua, St. Maarten, Martinique, Tortola, and St. Thomas? Or what about Barbados, St. Kitts, St. Croix, Dominica, and one more that I can't remember right now? It's beautiful here. And I bet you're all pretty cold right about now, aren't you? The rate I can get is $299 a person, if you book for two people. If you book four people, the 3rd and 4th are $199. But look into it yourselves, too, because the dates I can get are really limited.

Thanksgiving was neat. There are only about 15 Americans aboard, and they still served turkey and ham in the staff mess. I was touched. They also had soda and beer (which was gone by the time I got there) for us. Cool. I hope you all had a nice holiday.

Mom--I finally found a place with water warm enough for you. You'd love St. Croix. The tide pools were exactly like the ones San Diego has, but warm.

I can't believe it's taken me this long, but I discovered a great place to stargaze. If I go to deck 7 forward, it's right below the bridge, and it's quite dark there. There's usually no one there. Last night, there was very little wind. It was quiet, peaceful, and clear. The stars were beautiful. I'm going to try to go there regularly, to enjoy the stars, and to get some quality me time. The sunsets are also a sight to behold, and I try to get upstairs for as many of them as possible. We usually have all aboard at 5 and sail at 5:30, which is when the sun sets.

Michaela, my Romanian roommate, signs off next weekend. I've really gotten to enjoy her. She's very sweet, and she is always complimenting my outfits (and who doesn't love that?). I've been helping her with her English and explaining figures of speech to her. She asked me if someone could "eclipse" someone else. That led into a whole conversation about upstaging someone. Also, in Romania, they have their own version of "Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite." They say, "Don't let the fleas bite." Yuck. I wonder who my third roommate will be. As long as I can keep the lower bunk, I'll try to accept anyone. I've gotten to accept Michaela's 27 lipsticks and the spray lotion that stinks up the cabin (Stinks pretty, and my grandfather would always say).

Know that I don't just send this out to everyone on my list. For each email, I select each person. So although I didn't address each of you in the text, I'm thinking of all of you.

My thoughts are with you. Happy belated Turkey Day.

Love, Genoa