Dubrovnik

August 15th
Dubrovnik

As I’ve mentioned before, the ship just got the new production cast (singers and dancers) onboard and this is now the first cruise with a new cast. Though this is usually kind of an exciting event (lots of new dancers to talk to!), it sometimes means that more is asked of the band. That “more” made its first appearance today.
Ben (tenor sax) and I were planning to go on the same tour in Croatia today, an all day tour of the region including lunch – always a favorite of mine – and had gotten the forms from the tour office yesterday. Yesterday night, however, we get hit with a schedule that puts a rehearsal in the middle of our tour, something that we simply can’t work around, and despite a well formulated printed request to our director, we were unable to get out of the rehearsal. I could give you all the details about why we weren’t needed for this rehearsal, but instead I’ll just leave it as “the director’s a total jerk” and just hope you take my word for it. Anyways, our request was denied and I woke up in the morning to go help the tour office send out tours in a sort of “sorry I couldn’t do the tour you assigned me” way. They were happy with the extra help at 8am so I think I’m still off the tour office blacklist.
Anyways, I decided to do my own thing instead – go running. Seeing as I’d been to Dubrovnik before, I didn’t have much desire to travel back into the city and though my pent up steam (from the early morning denial) could more effectively be released running along the bay where we docked. And let me tell you, there was nothing more appropriate at that time than running along the beautiful Croatian coast line listening to some unusually heavy rock music on my iPod…just the venting I needed. I ran for a good distance along the shore looking at the little boats and small beaches till I stopped at some resort owned beach where I somehow didn’t get questioned about when I entered. I sat down for a bit, cooled down under one of the showers (I couldn’t go swimming without a towel and wasn’t about to run back the few miles in wet and sandy socks/shoes), and then eventually headed back. As I made my way back to the ship it occurred to me how much I miss boating, not the floating hotel thing, but the small watercraft thing. It’s strange living on a ship that doesn’t move with the waves and one you don’t have to go or look outside if you choose not to. So as I walked along pondering the irony of missing boating while living on a gigantic ship, I decided it’d be an interesting idea to borrow a small boat. The port area was filled with small watercraft, some of which obviously hadn’t been touched for weeks, so I figure when I have more time and a good enough opportunity, I’ll borrow one and row it around for a while. I have no intention of stealing it, just amusing myself with a short rowing trip, where’s the harm in that? I didn’t do it today, and kind of doubt I’ll work up the balls to commandeer a row boat in a different port, but it’s a nice though just the same.
I made it back to the ship for the rehearsal as scheduled, not with much enthusiasm, but at least with a sense of accomplishment for my enjoyment of the port in light of the circumstances. The rest of the day was nothing spectacular, just a bunch of musicians complaining about the extra rehearsal – yep, we’re a happy group! Thanks for reading!