New destination

Everything ready & set for a new embarkation on my next ship. It will be another 6 months of sailing "where no man has gone before". In my case it actually means few places where I have not been so far, like Marseille (second largest city in France!) and perhaps South America later.

Now, ships and places are fine - to others it sounds very exciting because most of the people live lives full of routine and I wake up every morning in a different country. "Lucky you" I hear so often " always new people and new places" like I am some perpetual tourist drinking Pina Colada here and Sangria there."You don't have to pay the rent & bills" is another ubiquitous comment that shows people on land have completely twisted idea what is my life all about.The reality is different - ships would not import workers to have them enjoying the ships but to make sure little wheels are turning 24 hours a day while PASSENGERS are enjoying.From the cleaner who sweeps the stairs full of vomit to the chef in a kitchen, from a guy in casino who deals with drunken passengers to hairdressers, waiters, medical staff, accountants, shore excursion people, photographers and beyond, everybody works their asses off and daily manage working hours that by far exceeds anything known to people on land. I am sure that we probably do double of what people on land work, daily. And that is seven-days-a-week. Month after month. Passengers of course don't realize this and they often ask (good-naturedly) "So, do you get some days off now when we leave?" No, we pack you away and receive new passengers immediately the very same day. 

Very often I start my day around 8 a.m. and work straight trough until midnight. Interestingly enough, after a while body get used to it and we usually fall apart once we get home. I have a friend who sat in her garden and got a stroke. Yes, we are lucky to have jobs and we are paid relatively decent money compared what we would probably make at home but casualty are our swollen feat, lack of rest, nervousness and exhaustion. I can't count the times I was so beyond-the-tired that I was ready to quit - specially knowing "I will sleep and rest the day after tomorrow" - somehow actually I have managed to do this for almost a decade. So, no Pina Colada but work,work,work and than some more work. And than security drills. Which are necessary but they are hard to endure if one is exhausted and half-dead from lack of sleep. Have I mention that we don't have windows in our cabins? We live in the dark,with air conditioners and under artificial electric lights and if there is any possibility to actually go ashore, we all suffer under sunglasses. I am not writing this to complain - its my choice after all - just to make it clear, to whoever might be reading this, that cruise ship life is not for everybody, is not one never-ending fun adventure full of touristic excursions and sun but a hard, sweaty work without a day off for half a year. 

Am I looking forward to it? I am a tiny bit excited to visit some previously unknown places, to be honest. Never been to South America so far, if we don't count Panama where I didn't see much besides the pier and few crocodiles outside. Will I actually have chance to see these places? Who knows? To be realistic, there is a very big chance I will be so swarmed with workload that a view from the ship might be all I will get. Deep in my heart I only hope that I will have enough time to sleep and rest because body can only take so much. But I'm going prepared mentally that it will be not Pina Colada all the way and who knows, I might actually manage just fine.