Birthday Greetings!

Where we started our bike ride

The Mendenhall Glacier...this is where we finished our ride

The fabulous Ashley Bell and my birthday cake, it was buttercream with a rum layer!

The zip-lining get up!

Hey everyone! It has been almost a week and a half since my last update. Many events have taken place since then… our Red White and Blue Ball, the Canada/July4th party, Zip-lining, and my BIRTHDAY!!!! It was a busy week full of activities as always. I actually had time to get off at the ports and enjoy some of the local flair of Alaska. The weather was so beautiful this past week that I ate most of my meals outside on the aft deck of the ship. I am telling you what, there is nothing more beautiful then the Alaskan scenery. I know I have said it before, but it is truly breath-taking every where you look.

Let us start with last Monday night. We had our production show Love Broadway. It is more of like Broadway in concert because the show doesn’t take numbers from Broadway shows and reproduce them. The staging and dance styles are far from the original pieces as are the arrangements of the songs. Anyways I am not writing to tell you about the show, but rather our first rocky night at sea. The first show our ship encountered some windy seas and we began to ROCK…not just a little back and forth motion, but full on swells. If you timed it just right you could jump extremely high, kinda like the experience of jumping at the end of an elevator ride down a few stories. The second show we were a mess on stage, stumbling every which way back and forth trying to keep ourselves from falling over. It was hilarious and at times a little embarrassing.

Following the show the cast got all dolled up to make an appearance at the Red White and Blue Ball! It was thrown in honor of the 4^th of July. For awhile the bar was open and we didn’t have to buy drinks, but around 11:30 it went to cash bar. I had a glass of wine and walked about to take pictures with some folks. Before heading back down to the crew area I waltzed with our librarian Carlyn… who reminds me so much of my friend Carolyn in Rochester. The turn out for the ball was very low due to the rocking waves. I think most guests retired to their rooms because they were getting sick. By the time we all made it up to the ball most of the people there were crew officers and engineers. I really enjoyed the rocking ship. It helped me fall asleep quickly and I slept like a baby.

The next big event that I participated in was a party thrown in the crew bar. It was to celebrate Canada Day and July 4^th. Our company manager put it together. All Canadians wore red, Americans wore blue , and everyone else wore white. I didn’t end up staying very long, I was not in a party mood. So I went back to my cabin and went to bed early that night. Call me a party pooper, but I believe I was a little homesick that evening too.

On a more positive note I finally found a coffee shop that makes 8oz cappuccinos!!!! It is called Paradise Café and the owner Joan makes fresh pastries every morning! Last week I had a blueberry scone that was unbelievable and this morning I had a strawberry rhubarb scone. Now, I don’t like rhubarb usually because it is so sour, but this scone was so delicately created that I bout fell over after my first bite! Joan’s pastries are definitely addictive and I am going to have to be careful about how much I choose to partake. I am happy about this discovery thought because once a week I can have one decent cup of coffee or a correctly made cappuccino! The barista I talked to today has family in Atlanta and totally knows about my favorite coffee shop…Dancing Goats. Needless to say we had a great coffee conversation ending with my deep satisfaction of knowing that there are people out in the world that know good coffee!

My next key topic will be that of shore excursions. Crew members can sign up on board to be ship escorts for the excursions at all our different ports. This past week I signed up for zip-lining, kayaking, and an adventure hike. I really wanted to go zip-lining for my birthday and luckily I got it! The escorts are handed out on a first come first serve basis. Zip-lining was a blast! The only other people on my tour was a family of 5. The dad was a cardiologist and the mom was afraid of heights…it was quite comical. Their kids were all under 14 so they had a great time zipping through the canopy. The longest zip-line was over 600ft and I think we reached about 40mph on the ride. We went through 6 zip-lines, a suspension bridge, a tiny 40ft repel, and then down a 250ft slide. We were in Ketchikan and now I want to go again in Juneau. Today in Juneau I went on another shore excursion. It was called the Juneau Bike and Brew. We rode around the Glacier National Park and around the Mendenhall Valley for about 10 miles and then had a beer tasting at the Flight Deck. I tried 4 Alaskan beers…a white, an amber, an IPA, and a Brown Ale. All the Alaskan brewing company beers were quite delicious, however; the brown ale was my favorite.

Since I wrote last time I have become a year wiser…I am officially 26 years old. My birthday on the ship was actually amazing. My friend Ashley Bell made sure the entire experience was, as she would say, “FABULOUS”! We originally tried to book dinner at the Pinnacle but our reservations got denied due to all the guests bookings. We resorted to requesting dinner in the Rotterdam Dining Room. I had a delicious dinner that started with a Goat Cheese and Tomato Tart, French Onion Soup, wonderful Salmon in a tomato broth crusted with garlic, lime, and other herbs, and finished the entire meal with Gold Rush Baked Alaska. The classic dessert is made of a fudge brownie topped with coffee ice cream and meringue…amazing! Ashley treated me to a glass of wine as well as taking care of our tip, it was a lovely date. My actual birthday was very busy with cruise activities. We had to sing Love in Any Language at 10am, do a noon tech, cast chat with the passengers at 1, we had the afternoon off (my birthday nap) and then had 2 shows of On The Air that evening! The cast bought me a hydra lift facial from the Greenhouse Spa on board and through me a mini party in the OB with cake and candles after the show. Ashley really made the day special and I was so thankful to be surrounded by such a great group of friends on board. OF COURSE I missed all my friends and family back home. Thank you all for my facebook messages, emails, and phone messages….it truly made my day.

Tonight Ashley, Emi, and I are making up for not making it to the Pinnacle Grill last week. Our reservation is at 6! I am pumped and looking forward to a nice evening filled with fantastic food! I always feel really far away from the ship when I eat at the Pinnacle.

On a side note, today while biking I had the privilege of seeing my first Alaskan Black Bear and cub. The cub was napping up at the top of a spruce and the momma bear was keeping an eye out below. I saw her run across the road down to the stream, catch a fish, and then run off into the woods to have a little snack…thankfully it was the fish and not me=) I was videoing the entire event on my camera and at one point I was getting a little nervous and I didn’t realize I was video taping the ground and not the bear at all….hilarious. The weather as been in the high 70s the last two days. I even laid out on the sky deck yesterday to soak up a little sun. I still look like Casper the friendly ghost but hopefully I will get some color before long.

I am going to try and upload some photos I took today on my bike ride. The internet is slow at the Viking so it may be impossible but I am going to try. I am really going to try and write more often because it is a lot of work to recap such large gaps of time. Hope everyone is doing well…email me with your updates…bradscoffee@gmail.com. Love to you all. Live each day as if it were your last, life is too short to sit around!

-b