posting more often, as promised.

Here I am in Tully's coffee shop in Seattle. I had an amazing "french toast" bagel breakfast sandwich for lunch....so good! Try one sometime.

The big gossip is that this week Gloria Estefan will be on board cruising with us. When I get back to the ship today I should find out if the rumors are true and she in fact got on board today. Unfortunately for us as a showband, we won't have much chance to make an impression on her if we wanted to, as we are off most of the week. Neither of the guest acts this week need us, so we are even more lazy than usual. Here's the rundown of my work schedule for the week:

Tonight: One welcome aboard show, about 10 or 15 minutes of work, possibly 25 seconds of work if we're lucky and only have to play on the cruise director.

Sat: off

Sun: off

Mon: off

Tues: 1 hour big band set

Wed: 1 hour big band set

Thurs: farewell shows.

For a grand total of.....about 3 hours of work this week. Wow. Sign me up for some tours!!!

Touring touring touring!

Last night my roommate Monica and the rest of the new cast of Royal Caribbean Singer and Dancers opened their first show, Piano Man. Congratulations to them, and especially to Monica, for their first show and a job well done. Monica has a cool bluesy voice with lots of character, and it was fun to hear her do her thing after a week of hanging out with her in the cabin. I think she and I are going to get along really well. Next week they will add a second show, then finally add the last one the week after that. Its coming along!

In Skagway this week I went on a rafting tour in an eagle preserve outside of Haines, a town about a half hour ferry ride from our dock in Skagway. We saw quite a few eagles, and the weather was really fantastic. Best day we've had yet in Skagway, I think. Our tour guide was a very intellectual and funny man named Tom Lang, who apparently writes books as well.....he has a website: http://www.boudelang.com/about.html. We all enjoyed his banter throughout the day. I shared a raft with a big, fun Irish family, and have been able to bump into them a couple times on the ship since.

Today I went back to Butchart Gardens, on a tour that had a "gourmet" picnic lunch. It was so wonderful....I brought my book this time and spent a while on a bench in the Rose Garden, reading and just breathing in the air. I'm now in downtown Victoria, and was finally able to catch up on posting my photos! Here are the links for those of you who aren't on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2115937&id=56903845&l=dc2bfc89d6

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2116801&id=56903845&l=ca9bc2f2bf