week 1

oh my gosh...

i need acupuncture...

the best thing about this first week is that i will never ever again have to spend another week working on my first cruise ship. right now we are sailing away from Split, Croatia to...well, i'm not really sure. more of Croatia i think. the day after tomorrow is venice and the last day of the cruise. then we go and do it all again backward. but like my new friend _____ said ( i don't actually remember his name), every day is better. i had all of yesterday off, so that was incredibly nice. and i had this morning off and then treated 2 people this afternoon. i didn't actually make any money since they bought packages earlier this week, but next week should be better as i think i'm starting to grasp how things might work. plus i can actually find my room now without getting lost.

the ship isn't actually that big (relatively speaking). 700 passengers, 400 crew. i am the only american in the spa. there are some south africans, some brazilians, some austrailians, a brit and a phillipina. there really isn't much to do when you are not working so my 52 hour work week seems pretty short. everyone else in the spa has, like, a 72 hour work week, and i think some of the others have more like 90. i have spent lots of time going to various trainings: safety training, ethics training, environmental training, etc. yesterday i wandered around Dubrovnik, Croatia which has a walled in old city and lots of intricate statues, arches, cathedrals, etc. i need to buy some clothes and laundry soap but everything was all nice designer shops and tourist stuff. and oh my gosh, you would not believe the products we are supposed to sell in the spa. $116 for a jar of face cream????? i gave a little talk on herbal medicine earlier this week...it was completely unorganized and all over the place, but at some point i said something like "you don't need to buy a bunch of health products to be healthy"...it is good the spa manager did not hear this.

speaking of the spa...gotta go. more later :)