Kusadasi

Things have been a bit different from normal the past couple days. On our way to Istanbul right after my last post, one of the engines broke down. They were able to fix it by morning, but as a consequence we arrived several hours late into Istanbul, and all the tours for the first day were cancelled. Marie and I still went out, to a huge mall (bigger than the last one!) and saw a movie. Doing that really makes me feel like I'm back at home. It was really fun. We got back to the ship around midnight, and then I made some phone calls from the calling station right next to the ship and stayed up late. In order to give people time to see Istanbul, we delayed our departure on the second day, which then meant that today we didn't arrive in Kusadasi until after noon (We're usually here by 7am).

For some strange reason, our production manager decided to schedule our rehearsal for the show tonight at 10am, which is very unusual. 2pm is the earliest we've ever rehearsed. And then he slept in and didn't even show up for rehearsal....we were a bit frustrated with him. Anyway, we had rehearsal in the morning, with Jennifer Fair, a vocalist. She is normally a bit of a challenge to work with, and we discovered that in the morning she is even more of a challenge, if you know what I mean. It was a long rehearsal. :-) But the nice thing about that is that we have the whole day in Kusadasi with no rehearsal to come back to the ship for.

Marie's boyfriend was able to get a couple hours off work to come out to lunch with Marie and I (which is amazing - he's only been able to get off the ship with Marie one other time), plus most of the band and a cast member. We went to the same restaurant that I had my birthday lunch at, because it is just so nice there. It was a really nice, relaxing afternoon. And now I'm borrowing free internet from Burger King. I bought a Pepsi, though, so its ok. :-) Anyway, these delayed arrival times are confusing me a bit - I think tomorrow we might still be behind. Its actually a nice change, though - really any change is nice when you are doing exactly the same itinerary for several months.

We had Big Band sets last night, which is the hardest thing that we do, in my opinion. It went alright, but unfortunately they were late sets, so the last one started at the same time as church, so I had to miss it. Instead I went to bed as soon as we finished, around 12:30am, so it would be easier to get up in the morning and be ready for rehearsal.

Robyn, one of our two female vocalists, is coming back tomorrow! She was home for some surgery, and so the cast had to get very creative for about a month in order to cover her parts in the shows. They did a fantastic job, and I'm sure no-one would ever suspect that they were missing a key actress. Oh, and last night one of the male vocalists had laryngitis and couldn't sing, so they had to get even more creative. But they manage each difficulty really professionally. I'm really proud of them - they've made it through a lot. They've got one month left on board before the new cast comes, which will be very strange for me! I've gotten very used to seeing them play these roles- it will be strange to see the same shows with different people. But nice to have some new faces on board as well.

Well, I think I've written too much for this post already...thanks for sticking with me, faithful readers! ;-)