Day Seven of the journal I kept on an Alaskan cruise I took in 2003.
Other Days: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
12:41 AM ADT
Well, that was amusing. I ended up wandering downstairs and watching this huge champagne waterfall being built out of champagne glasses. Not long into the construction of it, Kim, one of the girls who I'd been occasionally seeing around the ship found me and told me that the two of them wanted were down in one of the bars downstairs. So, the two of us headed down there and met up with the other girl, who's name is currently escaping me. I sat down, ordered a whiskey sour and proceeded to consume it while waiting for everything to get started. It turns out that there was a party happening, which generally focused around the champagne and a combination of disco wedding classics and songs like 'The Macarena' and 'Mambo No. 5'. Ah well, I ended up having two glasses of champagne after the whiskey sour, talked for a bit, then the three of us parted ways. I went for a walk around one of the upper decks, and now here I am, back at my room. My handy little breathalyzer is now reporting that I have a BAC of 0.16% even though it's only been three drinks and about 20 minutes have passed since I had them. Gee, I'm a lightweight. Ah well, that's all right as I'm back in my room, it's just too bad that I'm back in my room alone. No point in being buzzed alone, I don't think, although the feeling, combined with that of the rocking ship, is rather interesting. In fact, while walking around on the upper deck, it was just plain old fun, except for the fact that if I had somehow fallen over the side, I'd die. I really don't believe that there would be any hope for anyone, especially me, since no one would miss me until I failed to pack my luggage at the end of the cruise. By that time my body would have been in the water for 48 hours, and I would definitely have ceased to live.
Anyway, that's enough morbid talk for now. I'm going to go climb into bed and hopefully have me a good sleep. I changed my alarmish clock so that it will wake me at 9:30 AM ADT. I'll likely be up before then, but just in case I'm not, this should take care of it.
Wow, I've got an interesting feeling happening here. See, when a ship rocks side to side, and you are facing the side of the boat, you feel it as a constant forward / backward motion. Well, I'm only feeling the backward part, and it seems to be constantly happening. By glancing out the window I can tell that boat is rocking, I just don't feel half of it. Weird.
Anyway, bed time. Oh. BAC of 0.18%. It's increasing. I hope I don't die.
10:42 AM ADT
Well, it's morning, and I'm sitting here post-shower waiting for a Biore Pore Strip to dry on my nose. I purchased a few of these before I left because they always seem to leave a nice, fresh feeling on my face in the form of the removal of those icky little oil plugs from one's pores. It's weird, gross, but fun.
After this, I think I'll go grab me some breakfast. The buffet is serving breakfast through 11:30 AM ADT, so as long as this thing dries within the next 15 minutes I'll have no problem getting some scrambled eggs, sausages, bread, whatever they have to serve. Tonight I think I'll try to make it to the dinner thing, as I wouldn't mind having one good meal before whatever awaits in Anchorage.
Instead of music I decided to flip on the TV. There seems to be some show that is drawing a comparison between someone who is trying to stop the logging of rainforests and Frodo. I only caught the last 15 minutes of it, but in short, it sucked. It looked like just another way to use up the LOTR footage they paid for and throw in the footage of the guy who walked across a portion of Africa. Even though this pore strip is starting to harden, I think I'll see what's on next... Ooh! ESPN is having The World's Strongest Man competitions. These are always amusing. There was just some tire flipping and then the throwing of 22lb stones. Oh, it seems that the program switched. It's now some Highland games or something. These guys are throwing 22lb stones almost 50 feet. Oh, wait, no, it's the Ultimate Heavy Athletics. Now it's breakfast time.
9:53 PM ADT
Well, it looks like this is the last entry I'll be making from the ship. I'm all packed up, getting ready to burn all the photos and this journal to CD for safe keeping, then pack away the notebook. Today was a pretty interesting day. Nothing special, nothing bad, it just was.
First off, after my last post I ended up running into Elena and Kim (yes, I remember their names for once) upstairs somewhere, so we ended up hanging out for a bit while watching the glaciers in College Fjord. Yes, College Fjord is *far* more impressive than Glacier Bay, even though I didn't get too many photos, I still got some pretty good ones. The problem with today was that it was bitterly cold and there was an icy rain falling, so I didn't want to spend too much time outside. That, and while they are still beautiful, the trees and rocks get to be a bit much to be taking photos of constantly. There are countless beautiful rock formations here, so an attempt to capture them all would be futile and would only bore those looking at the photos later.
I decided that I would make it to the normal dinner tonight, which while it progressed at a rather slow pace, was definitely not a mistake. I had an absolutely wonderful 'Philadelphia Pepper Pot' soup, a salad topped with grilled vegetables, some heavily pesto-laden fettuccini, then a heart-shaped chocolate mousse dessert which was more akin to an extra heavy chocolate marshmallow than mousse. All in all, nice.
Earlier in the day I also got to split a couple of plates of French fries with Elena and Kim, had some Craggenmoore 12 Year Scotch, a Kamakaze, and some red wine with dinner. All of the above made the day wonderfully relaxing, and I think I'm going to top it off with a bit of reading in bed. If not obvious from my previous entries, I'm thoroughly enjoying The Illuminatus! Trilogy, no matter how twisted or disjointed or mildly confusing it is. I think that's what makes it so wonderful.
Well, with this I think I'll wrap up the last post from the ship. Hopefully tomorrow everything will go smoothly with the arrival at the hotel, transfer of luggage, etc. With any luck I'll have a bit of hanging out in Anchorage ahead of me, and I've even managed to spot what might be the local 'goth' hangouts, those being a tea house and two clothing shops. I'll drop by and see what happens... If anything there's always the museum and a book, all of which should be good.
So, yes, this is goodnight.