The Century!

I made it!!! Yes, I am officially on board the Century - its actually my second full day here, third day if you count my embarkation. I barely made it on board, due to miscommunications with flights and then immigrations (if you want all the gory details ask me sometime) but the main thing is, I didn't miss the ship. :-)

Once embarking, I was met by my new supervisor Kevin, who is also the trumpet player in our showband. He took me up to me room, which is amazing!! I am only in it for two cruises, rooming with a girl from the string quartet, who isn't very talkative. The room has a big porthole!!!! I look out right over the front of the ship, facing forward. So neat! I'm going to miss it when I move, but at least I'll be able to slep at night. With the window the midnight sun and almost constant twilight of the Arctic Circle make things difficult. Anyway, once there, I had just enough time to change into blacks before rehearsal for the bumper (short show on first night of every cruise). It was pretty straight forward, thankfully I didn't have to solo this time. After the shows I went out for a drink with Marie and three other band members, and got to get to know them a little bit, which was great. Marie's boyfriend Liam seems great so far. Actually, meet the band:
Marie: Tenor Sax (&flute and clarinet) French Canadian. For those of you who don't know, she was on the Galaxy (my first contract) with me - we were inseperable roommates for 4 months.
Ian: Alto Sax (and doubles) Canadian. 50 or 60 years old. Really nice, calm, and funny guy, and great player.
Kevin: Trumpet, Musical Director. American. In his 40's, can be testy at times. Yikes!
David: Drummer, American from NY. In his late 20's. He's filling in for the regular drummer, who has Pneumonia and may or may not be coming back.
Liam: Bass Player, Canadian. In his 20's, Marie's boyfriend.
Daniel: Pianist, Costa Rican. In his 40's, really cool guy.

So thats everyone! I have so much to tell but don't know where to start. Last night we played a couple big band sets before the welcome aboard Captain's toast and production shows. It turns out we don't play on any of the shows with the cast here. :-( Tonight we played a guest entertainer's show - a pianist named Brooke Aehron. He's an old british guy who is a lot of fun on stage. The most stressful part of the show were my solos on, get this: slide whistle. Yep, I was tha slide whistle soloist. They forgot to cover that instrument in my APU music classes, and it was actually kindof a testy one that you had to be really careful how you blew into it. Weird. It was the sound effect for Brooke tossing a tennis ball up in the air and catching it, while playing "The Entertainer." Needless to say, it was an interesting show. Well, who knows when I'll be able to post this - they say reception is sketchy in the Arctic Circle, and I couldn't get my internet to work tonight, unfortunately. So you'll get this when you get this!