My "Weekend"

31 August 08
departing Seattle

Last night was Victoria BC - there was a group of us going out for dinner for Sheryl's birthday which was the day before. We met at the terminal taxi stand and about 6 of us went to this greek restuarant called Pereklis. Awesome food!! I wasn't all that excited but it was for Sheryl's birthday (and she did what I wanted on mine LOL) but I was more than pleasantly surprised at how good everything was. (of course I had heartburn all night from the hummus, but eh - whatever!) Several more peoplWe had a nice long dinner; good food, good laughs - I love that kind of thing!

When we came back to the ship - the usual thing to do is all go back to the Wardie. Everyone does there own thing in ports, then regroup in the Wardie after 10.30 (when crew is due back onboard) I always have to go and shut down the cafe, so I go up after 11. However, I got stuck helping some last min pax print boarding passes and I was there till midnight. I left and got halfway there then changed my mind and went to bed. I should have gone as I heard it was a ball - but I wasn't feeling the best (heartburn) so I scrapped the idea. Got paged twice wondering where I was - but I didnt reply (at least I now have friends who want me around! LOL)

Seattle Sunday was cool - the week before there had been talk of going on the "Ride The Ducks" tour and so I met up with Jane, Vicki and Steph from the Medical Team and Sam (one of the dancers) at Jane's cabin at 10am. We went into town and went to the Space Needle which is where you get the 'duck duck tour' as Jane calls it. It was really cool - and quite the laugh!! Poor Vicki was sick as a dog (her birthday was the day before and was out way to much and was hurting badly) but we had a laugh about how she was able to pull off being sick in a crisps bag and no one (but us) knew the better!!! You all know how I hate when someone pukes near me, so I was crawled up in Jane's lap practically to get as far from Vicki as possible (sorry Vic!!!) Jane took some hilarious photos - I didn't; I stuck to nice 'scenic ones'

On the tour we saw the Real World Seattle house (you cant see much - just a building with hanging plants) and we also saw the Sleepless in Seattle house - you can definitely tell which one that is if you have seen the movie.

Here are the pics:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.7ybfhvrv&x=0&y=s91n4i&localeid=en_US


After the tour, we took the monorail from the Space Needle back to Westlake Center and then put Vicki in a cab to go back to the ship and sleep :) The rest of us went to Cheesecake Factory to get some lunch. We sat in the bar and the stupids there wouldnt even let us eat lunch b/c they wanted ID from everyone. I had my license, but I am the only american! So we showed them our ship ID - it has everything on it; picture, name, DOB, (height weight, citizenship) and the waitress wouldnt take it. So I asked for the manager. She said she couldn't take it either; the kicker was that Steph had been there the week before and sat AT the bar and wasn't even carded. Whatever!!! I have to tell you - one of my BIGGEST pet peeves about this country .. INCONSISTENCY. Nothing is ever the same answer. It is such crap!!! So I told her " sorry to hear you dont serve crew members when there are 3 ships in every Sunday" She said 'we do serve crew' I said "you cant possibly as 98% of the crew on my ship is non-Us and no one has any other ID than this ship ID; damn shame too - lots of business you just lost from my ship!" And I turned and walked out :) God I can be a bitch sometimes!!! LMAO!

So we went around the corner to the Pacific Mall and went to a mexican place there. Wow that food was yum!! We were getting very close to the time we needed to be back on the ship (crew has a 2.30pm curfew) so we hurried it along, finished up and went out to get a cab. It took several mins to hail one (the city was packed with people yesterday!!) and we got back with just a few mins to spare. As we walked to the ship, Seco was standing on the gangway holding up his watch!! Uh oh ... so we started to hussle it along! I clocked in (we have to swipe our ID's everytime we go off and then come back on the ship) at 14.29.21!! HOLY CRAP! If we are late - they take our ID's off of us, we get yelled at and they usually keep them for a whole cruise :( So whew - we were lucky!!

Once I got onboard - I went to change then came to the cafe to set up the new cruise. Then once boat drills started I left and did my normal phone call routine (call both sets of parents) When I spoke to my Mom, I could tell something was wrong. Turns out they had to take Mugsy (my dog) to the emergency vet; he was having some trouble seeing and looked like he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. The vet sent them to another specialist who said he has glaucoma :( He had a lot of pressure on the one eye, which was basically giving him pain which is like a migraine to us; my poor baby. They had to keep him overnight as the pressure still wasnt low enough to send him home. Will keep you all updated on that. :sigh:
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