First things first: my wrist is doing OK. They put it in a real cast on Wednesday, which, if nothing goes wrong, will come off January 11th.
Onward.
Embarkation day started with a bang, or, more precisely, a scream.
I helpfully set my alarm to wake me up at 4:00 to be ready when the limo showed up at 6:00 AM. Being an idiot, I set it for 4:00 PM. So I woke up at 5:52, looked at the clock, and cursed like Redd Fox for eight solid minutes. Fortunately, everything was packed, so I was able to drag my unshowered self out of bed and into a limo in about 90 second flat.
One smelly four hour flight later, we hopped in a car or two with our mountain of luggage, and off we went to the port of Miami.
We overpacked.
[with apologies to Bruce McCall]The HMS Tyrannic: The Biggest Thing In All The World
This is where we’ll be living until the spring: The Norwegian Pearl, the second newest ship in the Norwegian fleet
The ship pulled out of Miami around sunset, and this whole insane endeavor was underway.
The rest of the day was unpacking, straightening out a thousand tiny details, and another rehearsal.
For the next long-ass time, this is home: 15 decks of somebody else's party. You're always wandering into some inexplicable musician who's appeared out of nowhere to cover Dylan for no one in particular.
There are restaurants and bars everywhere, and everything is geared so that the passengers have to do as little work as possible. Thank God there's a gym, or I'd come off of this boat looking like Jabba the American. The whole situation is flat-out surreal.
But, for now, it beats the living hell out of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority.
Work's a bitch
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