bermuda cruise....

i don't know why i can't change the dates on these anymore, but safari doesn't offer that option. loosers. so here's the whole thing, or until my fingers cramp up:

sunday. arrived safely on board. z and i share a stateroom, much larger than expected. it will be so nice having her along, i'm sure. i feel a little insane. i don't know what's up with the culture thing... no i need to start at the beginning. the first feeling was disorientation. the lobby was packed, there are people EVERYWHERE. everything is enclosed and mirrored, swirly print carpet, rich colors and shiny metal. i guess people feel overstimulation in my colorful apartment, but this was a bit close to hell for me. and the rocking creeped me out- it got much better once the ship started moving. we were all disoriented because we didn't know what the rules were, esp regarding money. it's z's charge card, so i don't wanna charge her for things i can't afford. and this isn't the sorta stuff i wanna be spending money on- i wanna save my drinks, i guess. i drink to have a good time, and so to spend so much money when i don't thnk that's gonna happen.... i don't know, it's all so WEIRD. it's all so big, these 11 floors of ship. and all the people. and i think of all the water they use, and all the towels they dirty, and all the pineappples cut into garnishes for their drinks- what it takes to keep this ship afloat, let alone move it- my ecological sensibilities can't handle it. i know i don't succeed at living a simple life, but it's something i'm aware of- and this is all a celebration of excess, it seems. we're on vacation. my idea of a good time is just different i guess. sigh. the food was good, beautiful and edible sized portions at dinner, which was so nice, a pleasant surprise. friends of dorothy meet at 8 tnight, so if i need my gay men fix i can head there. but still. the show was AMAZINGLY awful. i'm already of tired of jokes that are tinged with anti-liberalism, homophobia, blatant sexism. it's not funny. and all the service people. it's so important for me to see them as people suck on this boat like i am, i want to know and remember all their names, the countries they come from and be polite. but the waiter was from jamaica and when he saw my hair he wouldn't stop singing bob marley songs, bringing them with every course. my dreads made a big impression on james, our driver to the boat, too. i almost wish i'd shaved them off first.

monday. day two on the ship has gone much better. z and i have been more on our own, and she can't stand all the "plan making" either. we had breakfast with strangers, that was fun. we tried to workout, but alas, we have inappropriate footwear. we then played cards with various family members and this afternoon was my ideal cruise experience- setting out on the deck chairs, cutting apart t shirts for z. i'm making her some nice halters. we were on the 10th level deck all day, playing shuffleboard, sewing, listening to ipods, reading. watching miles and miles of nothing but ocean go by. creepy, kinda- so much water- not just in one direction like the beach, but in all directions. now z's napping while i'm writing. soon we'll be getting together for the formal dinner. you know i'm wearing false eyelashes. you know, i'm embarrassed to admit it, but i fear the reason i feel so much more stable today is discovering i have cell phone coverage and i can text friends in the us.

tuesday. dad called this morning saying land was sighted! we went up to the deck after our room service breakfast and watched the ship dock, the white roofed, pastel houses appear. they're cool, the cream filling creeping out of the rainforest. we went out as soon as they let us, bought our INCREDIBLY expensive bus passes, and waited half an hour for the bus. everything's so tightly packed, the mini compact european cars zoom britishly on the left down these narrow, narrow roads carved out like halways between the pittosporum, hibisicus and morning glory bushes. we fed brightly colored fish and huge sea turtles at a tourist trap, and i was feeling bitter, but we got good directions for hiking up a hill on a busy road and ended up at a quite nice nature preserve. it was good to climb on rocks and look at birds and do the sorts of things i would do with my dad anyway. by now it's three and we still haven't eaten, so they bought some snacks at the grocery store, which kept me alive for the next 30 min. bus wait. we watched a blue lizard climb a tree by the side of the road. luckily they had me and my bahamas transportation map, or they would have been waiting forever at the wrong bus stop. still, the bus karma's been bad. and aquariums are not my cup of tea. i am just not interested in fish and animals. bahamas natural history, sure. watching pam try and pet the monkey or dad feeding granola to the otters just makes me angry. does no one follow posted rules? so tired and hungry- too much sun, too much standing, too many animals. once we got back to the boat, all i wanted was dinner, but it was so hard to co-ordinate. why are plans so HARD for these people? luckily z and dad also find they have to be kind (or pandering) to their STUPIDITY. not to be derogatory. they are kind and fun and nice and family and they love animals and have a just a few annoying habits. however, as z said, i just wanna go to the beach. ate dinner finally, read books, played cards... z and i are skipping the show (surprise surprise!) and spending quiet time. listening to ipods, reading books, and i'm of course writing this. i just want a chance to wear all 4 bathing suits, that's all!

wednesday. we docked in hamilton, bermuda's city, this morning. today is bermuda day, their national holiday. we were worried this would screw up our plans, but busses still running and shops are open till noon. so we went out shopping in hamlilton for pam and melanie, but there were so few things open it kinda degraded into a walk in hamilton, which i enjoyed much more. there were aggapanthus growing in a park, meike's polo, eine kleines blaues "fou ve" was parked on the street. there are sidewalks in the city, whcih makes me happy. it's like a european city, only in english. and overrun with the cruise tourists. the ship is so surreal in the dock. it's like this enormous apartment building, as big as a city block, parks itself on the side of the city. and then the bowels open and we all creep out.... it's awful. they really started bugging me today. maybe because today the bermudians are camped out on the sidewalk en masse all day, waiting for the parades, under their tents with their picnics and so on. i love listening to them talk, esp. the children. they have such a melodious accent, esp. compared to the dottering white hairs, getting on the wrong bus. being so CLOSE to such a cool city and spending so much time on the ship totally creeps me out. it's ok when that is the only reality, but he constant comparison is just too hard for me. i wanna spend more than three hours a day on teh island, goddessdamnit! anyway, after lunch back at the ship we finally went to the beach. it was full of people, but tourist and natives alike, and it WAS beautiful. just like the pictures. fine, fine, pinkish sand, turquoise water, clear as glass for hundreds of feet. dad and z and i swam over to some big rocks, looking for fish. it was probably 100-200 meters, much father than i've swum in a long time. but i stopped thinkign about drowning and just kept moving my arms and legs and i did keep going. but it was so cloudy, with an unhappy wind! the clouding day made such a difference on the beach. i only had gauze coverups + wet bathing suit = cold cold caitlin. so at 4, after some climbing on rocks and walking thorough coves we called it a day and headed back to the boat. again. everyone went right in to shower and stuff, but the parade was going by right in front of our boat, so i stayed outside to watch. i loved it, i felt so free, something totally lifted and i was momentarily my independent self in a city, with a bermudian family i was watching. listening to the music and watching the brightly colored yarn covered dancers- it got me through a night of fancy food and brightly colored drinks and cards and trivia games and postcard writing.

thursday. not a good day- or at least the start was bad. the captain woke us up at like 7 to announce our arrival at the naval yard. then too soon came our wake up call, and i hung up on dad when it happened. i was so tired and everyone was whining and annoying me. i feel like everyone's becoming their true selves-transforming into their worst characteristics, or at least the ones i hate the most. dad's taciturn and silently moody, pam's a twittering idiot who can't keep track of anything, tim's a jock and mel's a snippy bitch (and me, i'm a pessimist with a streak of nasty hyperbole. one really shouldn't write such things on the internet, even if they're gross exagerations.) z either hates me or is angry at the world and blaming it on me. you can imagine how pleasant breakfast was. we went to the touristy shopping places after breakfast. there were glass blowers and there was this hot guy making tiny glass elephants. he was fun to watch, bopping out to his boombox earphones. but it was nasty overpriced hell, in general. z just about explodes, seh wanted to go back to the beach so badly. she and i fought on our way back to the boat. i took flower remedies and we went to read out on the deck till lunch. things were still rocky, i was rude to mel re: her salad, and then when we finally got on the bus the driver didn't tell us where to get off and we went about a mile past our destination. i expected the walk to be more agony, and full of blame, but they were all greatful i got them off where i did (would they have ridden the whole way to hamiltion without me?) and dad totally won by finding the old railroad trail, adn it was a beautiful walk through woods and stuff, with peeks of water through the foliage- really we could have planned it that way. and the resort we were going to did let us in and tim and mel got to do their kyaking. i'm bad at such things and wasn't open to dad's sportsman mocking, so i turned it down. z was pouty, so dad and i swam way out to a floating platform at the edge of the buoys. it was so shallow, we could touch for 35m or so- crazy for the ocean. it was so warm though. much warmer than the air, which was quite windy. dad and z went out in the kayak next, ,and i did a sketch of the rocks on my watercolor pad and they agreed to stay long enough for me to paint it. i got threee out of the four blues right, but the main one is wrong, much too muddy, not showing the underwater grasses, not showing the clearness, blueness, yet shadows on the water. but i was happy cause i'd done everyting i'd originally wanted to in bermuda. whcih was good, cause then we went back to the boat- and the trip ends with a wimper. ate dinner, played cards, trivia, blah blah blah. z got me drunk, while they all were at the show, so that was fun. we spent the evening reading together at the bar and in our room, ordering room service and in general being sisterly. no going out to a bermudian discoteque or anything.

friday. woke up late to the movement of the ship. nice to be moving again, but now all i want is to be HOME. i am sick of activities. i think we must have picked up more people on bermuda. the ship is packed. ugly browning people EVERYWHERE. it's awful. we sun, eat, play cards, eat again. i feel so silly, out on my deck chair with my long tiedyed dress and pink cowgirl hat- but i'm just not a tanning sorta girl. luckily my book is good (Thanks ch!) and i'm almost done with my thankyou notes- 5 left. the extreme generosity overwhelms me sometimes. for instance, my godparents. they deserve more than just a thank you card from me. i think i'm going to come out to them. but i don't think i'm emotionally prepared to do that on the ship. after dinner, everyone else went to see the show and i caught a few precious minutes of time alone. it was so marvelous just to be by myself- it gave me a total rush- a little creepy i guess, that the best part of my day was drinking tea and reading leah's book and listening to pearl. i did go see the comedy show afterwards. they were doing liars club and it was pretty funny. one of the panelists was our cruise director pedro, and he was really the best one. really punny. that was my quintessential text to mom. what are you doing she asked. i replied, "liars club in the stardust lounge, deck 7 fore..."

saturday. woke up throughout the night to increasingly rough seas. serious swaying was going on by the time we got up. z decided to stay in bed and rerad and i got breakfast for both of us- met tim and a very sick mel in the dining room. dad called to say pam was sick, too, so just he and i went to the disembarkment lecture. we were sitting on the side and he kept feeling sicker and sicker, you could tell. but he wouldn't admit it. it totally frustrated me. i was glad to go back to z. we all ventured up for lunch and saw the thunderstorm out the windows. a little scary! i was so pleased to learn i don't get seasick!! i was sure i'd be holed up in bed. after lunch, it cleared up and calmed down, and the adventure was over.

sunday. woke up way too early for breakfast. z and i went back to bed waiting for our disembarkment announcement. (this bit is just written in the margins of my analog blog paper, and those two words are written where it's narrowest- there must be 6 hyphens!) but it came, and we got up, and weren't even blinked at by customs, and eventually our driver came and picked us up, and there was no traffic and mom got us from dad's house and once i got to her place i signed online and wrote to you! fin.