News From Mistral August 12th-15th Norway-Denmark

 Monday, August 12th  Olden, Norway 2

Rehearsals at 11am this morning, my brain was shot. We worked until lunch when I went off to a little café to get online.  Afterwards I had a bit of a nap before more rehearsals before and after dinner.  I got really angry because I couldn’t get one movement.  I could do it without music but with music it was gone! I was so frustrated!

During port, we are not allowed on Deck 6, which is a little area that crew is allowed to be on.  So I wasn’t able to look at the view from that deck, but we went up to Deck 7 in the bow of the ship to look today. It was very foggy, but still, beautiful.

TheBow

We had a cabin party for Slava’s birthday. He turns 22 today. We had a very good time!! We drank some Hungarian lime vodka and some Palinka, which is made from grapes, but is not wine.  We ate some sausage with bread. There were 11 people crammed into a cabin made for 2!

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Back:  Marsha, Slava, Sergi, Norbi,  Front:  Erika’s B’friend, Erika, Bori, Manu,  Me!

Tuesday, August 13th  Andalsnes, Norway

Today the phone woke me up, at 1:15pm. It was so wonderful to sleep super late.

I had another crazy dream last night that I was getting married. We were planning the wedding, I had a dress and all the bridesmaids had dresses. Someone asked me whom I was marrying, and I didn’t have a groom yet. But I held auditions then rode home with Dad on the back of his motorcycle.  Extremely strange!

I went to have lunch, which was just bread butter and honey.  At rehearsal in the theatre we ran some of the numbers we already knew, and learnt a couple of new ones also. We rehearsed straight from 2-7pm. We then had dinner. It was pizza night. You know me and pizza!  It was delicious!! 😀

I went back to the cabin to rest a bit, and did some work on my computer for a while, did my nails and Manu and I spoke for a long time, just laughing and talking! Her laughter is very contagious!

I have been taking lots of medicine for my congestion. I was feeling a bit better today but my nose is really stuffy. I think it is all just catching up with me. Strange hours, new life, rehearsals and performances, foreign languages everywhere, I feel like I’ve been going non-stop for months now.

The weather today was very cold, rainy and windy. It was not pleasant.

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We aren’t allowed to wear jewelry in the shows, and no nail polish, except nude or clear. Obviously on our toes it doesn’t matter because we are always in heels.

With my five-head, the hair-do we have to do is terrible!!! On Saturday nights it is free makeup and hair, so I wear mine down. Every other night we have to slick it back into half up, half down, (a Cat’s in McNeny- speak) then pulled into a low bun. We do that so that we can attach our hairpiece, which is on a clip.  It stays in pretty well without pins.

Most of the time the makeup is black, white and red. Tomorrow night, ‘Mitos’, the make-up is neutral colors, green, gold, blues and browns.

There is a huge map on the wall of our corridor, I was showing everyone where Dallas, Texas is the other night. They were amazed.

MapinGerman

Then we realized the map was in German. They showed me their countries and cities, it was very interesting.

There is a guy who cuts men’s hair and he does it in our corridor, not sure why that’s where he decided to run his ‘business’ but it is!  So almost every afternoon, he is there with a chair, hairdryer, the whole shebang.

HairCutting

My bed is made the opposite way. You now how if you have one side of the bed pushed up against the wall, then you would tuck the sheets and comforter in on that side? Well on my bed here, it is tucked in on the side that I would normally get in on. I don’t mind, I guess maybe its so that I won’t roll over and fall out.  I can look at the mirror on the back of the bathroom door and see Manu in her bed below me, so when we talk all I have to do is look in the mirror. I figured that out after a couple of minutes of leaning over the edge of my railings to see her while we chatted!

I went to Carnival tonight, it wasn’t my duty, but I was bored so I went anyway.  Natalia (an acrobat) and I went to Crew bar, it was Zumba night! We had a couple of drinks, then Manu, Lydia and I ate some food and went to bed!

Wednesday, August 14th  Geiranger, Norway 2

Today was rehearsal at 11am and then we were free so I slept until 5pm.  I tried to go to the crew purser to put money on my card, but she was very rude to me and told me she was too busy with advances so I would have to come back tomorrow.  I found the English teacher and asked him if he would print my Bank of America forms, he was very nice and printed everything I needed.  Dinner time!  I haven’t been very hungry lately but I managed some chicken and bread.

When I went to get ready for the show it turned out it wasn’t until 930pm tonight so I took the extra time to rehearse and get ready. After the shows we had our passenger left over dinner of spaghetti and meat sauce… again. Then it was Crew Bar time where we ate some snacks and drank some wine. We ended up in Daniel’s cabin for a tiny little cabin party, he had whisky which wasn’t very good!  But the music was and we had fun.

Now I’m back in my cabin having showered and am writing this! It is hard sometimes because all I want to do is sleep, but I know I have to keep writing otherwise I will forget one day and then never do it again!

Thursday,  August 15th  At Sea

I woke up early to try to get my bank information all squared away with the crew purser. She is terribly miserable and told me I needed a ‘Swift’ code. I told her I have no idea how to get it and how I am suppose to get it with my bank being in America? She just said,

“Well you need to get it!”  She is not helpful at all.  This would have been so much easier if I had known before leaving England!!  Mum and Dad managed to find my Swift code so hopefully that’s the end of that and I can be paid!

We had rehearsal at 1230pm. There had just been a cooking show on stage, so everywhere smelled of Italian food.  I felt like an idiot while doing the rehearsal.  I know the movements and choreography, but I don’t know my spacing, so on stage with everyone, I looked like I didn’t know what I was doing. It was very stressful and annoying because no one had any patience with me. We did a run of the show at 1pm. Then I went with Norbi and Bori to try on my new costumes for tonight.

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I took a nap. Naps are so good here because we have blackout curtains and almost everyone has free time during the afternoon and there is nothing else to do on board but sleep…

I tried to rehearse some extra on my own so I would know exactly what I was doing in the show, but everywhere was busy. So I ate dinner with Roman and Sergi. Then I went back to my cabin and did my toenails and killed some time.

I got to be in 3 more numbers in the show tonight. So all together I was in 6 and very nervous because of spacing.  I had a lot of very quick changes. But I made them all! You know me, Queen Clothes Changer!  I always have been.

After both shows, we went to eat dinner. Today was India Independence Day, so the Crew Mess had been set up for a party. It was amazing, there was Indian food, music, dancing. They are crazy dancers!!  It was all men on the dance floor which was very entertaining to watch. After a while, I got up and started to dance with some of the other entertainment group. We had a very good time, it was extremely hot and everyone was sweating. But all in all, it was a very good party. No alcohol, but they had sodas that were free, BONUS!

IndiaParty

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