Surprises and Blessings

Here I am finally posting again! Let me fill you in on what has happened in the past few days - hang on tight 'cause its quite a ride. On Wednesday afternoon I was enjoying a day visiting my best friend Hannah when the phone rang. I got a call from my agency, asking me if I would be willing to take a contract that began on Sunday, but which would require me to fly out early Friday morning. After some salary haggling (I got a raise!) I decided to take the contract, which is 6 months on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas, a huge 3,100 passenger ship - the biggest I've ever been on. So less than 48 hours later I was on a plane to Barcelona, where I'm now in a hotel, joining the ship tomorrow. This has all happened so quickly I've hardly had time to process it, and my head is still spinning. But having a steady job for the next 6 months is a very exciting process, as is working for a new company.

I promise to fill you in with more about the ship and job itself soon, but I wanted to share a little bit about the blessings God has given to me today. The first and biggest was a surprise last minute meeting with my old and dear friend James Middleworth. As I sat in Texas for 4 hours waiting for my next connection, I looked ahead at my itinerary and noticed I had about a 6 or 7 hour layover in Heathrow airport, London. My dad suggested I try to get ahold of someone I knew to pass the time, and I remembered that James lives not too far from London. A phone call later and we figured out we could actually see each other! James has been in the London area for months now, and it was so unexpected and wonderful to get a chance to see him. In the time I had, he took me on the Underground (aka the tube) into central London, to Hyde Park, where we walked around for an hour or so. I got to see the famous Peter Pan statue erected because of J.M. Barrie's time writing bits of the story there in the park, as well as monuments to Princes Diana and Prince Albert. It was a beautiful crisp fall day, and the park is lovely. After that we made a quick stop in front of Buckingham Palace, basically so I can now say I've been there. James was a fantastic tour guide, and he even sportingly dragged my wheeled backpack for about 5 miles around London. (I was carrying my trombone) What an amazing day! A totally unexpected chance to see and catch up with a great friend, plus seeing some of London for the first time. I kept feeling like I needed to pinch myself and wake up - there was no way I could have been home yesterday and strolling through Hyde park with James today. Did that really just happen?? I can hardly believe it. God gave me that layover for a reason, and I'm so glad he did!!

A couple of other blessings came my way today - a technician named Charles Digg did me a great service by helping me print a document I absolutely needed in order to join the ship, which was emailed to me only after I had departed. Without him things would have been so difficult for me. And ontop of that, after he rescued me we had a great talk about all sorts of things, for about 40 minutes, and he was such an encouraging and lively man. I loved meeting him. Tonight I got to my scheduled hotel only to find out there was no room at the inn (literally), so I had to take a cab to this hotel. It is much nicer, though, and I was brave enough to eat my dinner with two ladies from South America, neither of whom spoke more than 3 words in English. I did pretty well holding a conversation with them, and was pretty proud of myself. And now, utterly exhausted, but happy and grateful for the day's blessings, I'm going to sleep. Wish me luck on this new adventure!!

R&R (and berrypicking)

This week I'm up in Eagle River, Alaska (near Anchorage), visiting my good friend Kathryn for ten days as she prepares for her upcoming wedding. I wanted to come to the wedding in any case, and we decided that if I had the time it would be great to extend my visit so that the two of us could really spend some time together and catch up. So I've been relaxing and hanging out with her here, accompanying her on all the random tasks that precede a wedding and ensuing move to Washington D.C., as well as just being a general help around the house as her family prepares for out of town guests and the Big Day. I've gotten to do a lot of cooking and bread-baking, which I really like, and tons of berry picking and jam-making. Gooseberries, currants, red and yellow raspberries....I love it. I get to bring some of my own homemade jam back with me.

As far as my *cough* professional life is concerned, I am still looking for my next cruise job. i would really like to work for a few months this fall, from mid September until Christmas, and am still waiting for that call. The good news is that I re-auditioned last week for my agency and have sent in the audition dvd - now is just a waiting game. Re-auditioning has put me in the race for some jobs on higher-end cruise lines, something I am really interested in and very excited about. So once my audition is received and viewed I will be hopefully considered for those jobs, possibly more full-time and better paid. Now I do my best not to obsessively check my email several times a day hoping for an email offering me a job. :-) But I feel very good about the audition, and am hopeful I will be hearing from them soon. So for now, I'm just relaxing and enjoying Alaska. :-)

In other news, I am now 25 years old. Also known as my mid-twenties, also known as downhill to 30, also known as halfway to 50.