strange things are happening
Door: Linda
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Linda
30 Augustus 2015 | Nederland, Amsterdam
Monday August 17th 2015
We are on our way to Cologne as I’m writing this, actually we are about to arrive there.
And I’m glad we are!! These sailing says are pretty boring! There’s nothing to do really at the moment, so I’m reading tips about Australia and trying very hard to keep my eyes open! Plus it’s been raining and grey all day, so it’s one of those days where you just want to go back to bed! Lunch wasn’t that big of a deal either, so I’m also trying very hard to keep away from our “stress drawer” where all of the chocolates are!!!
This cruise we have another couple that was with me on the Creativity last year! They have been living in Australia for about 60 years now, but when you hear them speak, you can still hear their Dutch accent! They came to borrow an adapter, so we tell them that we would like to have it back at the end of the week and he says that he will give it back to us when we are in Amsterdam again, because they were going back with us…and we thought he was joking, because not that many people do a thing like that, we’ve never had that before. But when they had left, the CRD checked the list for next week and guess what, they were on it in the same room!
I talked to them about that later and they told me that they couldn’t decide what to do after the first week, they had already been in the South of France, so they decided to just go back with us, because going home to Australia was also easier from Amsterdam…O well.
We left Amsterdam around 2pm instead of 5 pm like we usually do, because of the low water situation. They have to go slower, so it will take more time to get to Cologne. But it’s about 20 to three now and we almost there already! While when we leave Amsterdam at 5pm, we reach Cologne at 4 pm the next day, so it doesn’t seem like it’s that big of a difference. But I guess there must be some logic in it!
(I had already talked to my uncle and aunt in Diemen that I would come and visit them this Sunday, so it was a quick visit this time! We had fun, caught up on things going on in our lives, watched their Wales pictures and we had lunch. White buns with real cheese and chocolate sprinkles!! And then of course the last train I had to take to be able to get back to the ship on time, had a 5 minute delay…which in itself is nothing, but it can make you miss the ship! But I made it)
Anyway, we managed to reach Cologne, even with the low water. I heard it was raining in Basel, which is what we need. I just wish it would only rain at night, so it won’t bother us!
I’ve talked to some more Australians about my trip to their country. It’s a huge country, that much is for sure!!
Sunday 23rd of August 2015
Another week is over already, man it goes by fast!
This Friday we were in Breisach again, on our way to Basel. And this is where we buy the flowers for the next week. There are 2 florists we use here, they couldn’t help us this week, because they were on vacation. But one of them had an assistant, who could bring the flowers to the ship. So I had send an email ahead of time to let them know what I needed and to specify the date and time they would deliver. I didn’t get an answer right away, so the next day I send an email again to see if they had gotten the first one…then I finally got an answer saying that the assistant had broken her arm and wasn’t able to come to the ship….ok, so we looked for other florists and there was only one other one there…who was also on vacation!!
Can you believe this??!! Breisach is a small German town, you can’t even call it a city, they have 3 florists and you wonder how they survive there at all and then all 3 of them are on vacation at the same time?????
That was so weird! Good thing our flowers in the bar and lobby still looked good, we have a great florist in Amsterdam. So we just bought some flowers at a supermarket to replace the flowers in the restaurant and lounge and then we had some extra to take out the ones that really looked bad.
We tried to find some flowers in Strasbourg, but man they were expensive!! 3 euro’s for 1 gerbera!! But we managed!
When we are in Breisach, our guests can go on an excursion to Colmar, a city in France. Detlef had already been there a couple of times and this time I asked if I could go there too and I’m glad I went! We had a beautiful day!
It took us about 25 minutes to get there, then I went on the guided walk through the city. I had never been there before and that way it is easy to get to know a city. But so far I haven’t had any luck with the guides, if you remember from my trip to Heidelberg, that man was an idiot!
This lady was nice, she was probably very knowledgable, but she doesn’t know how to tell other people all she knows. She was a French lady, which is okay, it’s just that she tried to speak English as the French do…very fast!
Which didn’t work, plus she had like a favorite word or thing she did with her tongue and she didn’t tell things in a natural order, she would go from one thing to the next.
Anyway, the city is very nice, I really liked it very much! It’s also called Little Venice for the canals that run through it. They have framework houses in pastel colors. And it is famous for the artist who made the Statue of Liberty, Mr. Frederique Bartholdi. The original is in Paris, the one that is in New York is a steel frame construction, build with the help of Mr. Gustave Eiffel…yes the man who build the Eiffel tower, so he knew his way around steel!
Mr. Bartholdi has made several other statues which you can find in Colmar. And the house where he lived is now a museum. After the tour the guide wanted to take us to the Cathedral, where she would give another 40 minute talk about some art in there, but there was no way I was going to stay with her for another 40 minutes. So I said goodbye and we’d meet again in about an hour. So I just wandered around and found some houses I hadn’t seen on the tour, I browsed through some souvenir shops and then I slowly made my way back to the meeting point. I have found an oven mitt and a potholder(?) for Csilla, her birthday is coming up and she likes to cook.
Saturday August 22nd 2015
We were saying goodbye again of a group in the morning, usually Basel is a pretty smooth disembarkation, but today it was total chaos! We had a group of 12 and a group of 24 who needed taxi’s, couldn’t get on any of the transfers with the cruise director. We always send a list to the taxi company, which always works well, but this time they didn’t really get it. We needed minivans to move these people in, but instead of dividing all the cabin numbers, all drivers had the list with the same numbers. So we didn’t know where the luggage was going for what cabin. It was not a lot of fun this time. Csilla had send the list the night before and she didn’t specify the groups in the email, ok it was specified in the list, but still. Next time I will just have to send another email after it, explaining what the deal is.
We did manage to send everyone on their way and there was no luggage left behind, so it all worked out in the end!
While we were having our disembarkation, one of our corporates came on board and we were secretly relieved that we didn’t have any empty cabins, so he couldn’t stay with us. I didn’t talk to him very much, but you always have the feeling they are looking over your shoulder.
While I was making my reports for the end of the cruise, Kai and Dennis from the Basel office walked in. Kai is helping with the Onboard shop inventory and Dennis is the one I call when I have an administrative emergency. We have a pretty good email contact and every now and then they come and see us in Basel. A while ago they had gone on a 10 day road trip through Ireland, so I had asked to see some pictures. Kai had made an album, with 146 pages and about a 1000 pictures, which he came to show me today!!!
It looked really great!! They were in Dublin, went to Belfast for the Titanic and they stayed a night in a real castle!!! And the nature is soo pretty there!! High cliffs, green grass, blue (ok mostly grey skies) and a lot of sheep! O and whiskey of course!!
It was really great, Ireland is also definitely on my to see list! Kai has also been in Australia so his giving me tips on what to do and see.
Then around half past 1, Detlef asked me and Michael to come and sit in the lounge with him. As I was walking up to where they were sitting I asked him what I had done this time….his answer was that it wasn’t me, but him, the company was letting him go!!! He told us that his administration was weak, that they had given him several hints, which he didn’t pick up on, so they were letting him go, there was no second chance….
Man, talk about lightning on a clear sky!! That really blew me away, I was really angry. Without any kind of warning they were letting him go…so I told him that I thought I would be next, because my administration wasn’t always good either, but he said that wasn’t the case, my work was fine.
But this was what he wanted us to know, since we had worked with him from the beginning and he said he was an honorable man, he wanted to be honest with us. The version for the crew was that he had to go home for some family emergency….which I’m sure nobody believed, because they all saw the corporate on board and at 4pm we already had the new HM on board!
So Detlef packed his bags and around 2pm he was on his way home…I was really shocked, didn’t know what to think of this. With only 2 more months to go until the end…
So we have had to get used to a new HM, his name is Christian and he’s from Austria. Get this, his birthday is also in July…so is mine and Detlef’s…weird no?!
But the start was good, we were laughing already that afternoon.
Friday August 28th 2015
So we have been working with this new HM for about a week now and I think we’re doing ok. Detlef’s administration really was a mess, everytime Christian asked me where he could find something, I had no idea, except for my own stuff of course. Later Christian told me that the running well of the ship was also for a large part because of the work I have done so far and that the HQ highly appreciated this, that I was even doing things that the HM is supposed to do…
Didn’t know what to say to that, I thought things were going well. Don’t understand why Detlef never asked for my help with anything. We’re finding papers everywhere, nothing was organized, or at least not in a way that we understand.
So now Christian and I have sort of made our way through things and he’s trying to find his own way in doing things. He has worked on ships before, so he does know his way around, but it takes a little time to get used to it. We’ll figure it out before the last 10 weeks are over!
I had to do the crew show also, to show him how we do things. I had already told him about what I had talked to Detlef about and I think he agrees. I’ll do it again next week, just to keep in the rythem of things.
But anyway, we have made our way back to Amsterdam! I’ve just bought a new pair of shoes for my trip to Australia!
Tomorrow is going to be another busy day and Csilla is going to go on vacation for 2 weeks. Katrina, who replaced her during my vacation, is going to help me out this time, but I don’t know what to think of this yet. From what I heard from Csilla, things didn’t go all that well with her, but according to Detlef that was also because Csilla lacked the experience you need to be a manager, to lead a team. So we’ll see how it goes.
Plus we are going to have a cruise director from hell, if I am to believe the stories I’ve heard about her, so these are going to be a long 2 weeks!
And then Janos, my Nighty, tells me that he’s leaving the company at the end of September!! He has gotten the opportunity to start his own business in Hungary, which is not a simple task in that country, so he needs to grab the chance with both hands! I understand completely and I wish him all the best, but we have only 2 more months to go, 1 by the time he wants to leave. So now we’ll have to see who replaces him…
We’ll see how it goes with Katrina these two weeks, then I will tell the company if I think she’ll do well as a Nighty. From what I’ve seen so far I think she’d be a better Nighty then Second, but the two weeks aren’t over yet!
Love
Linda
We are on our way to Cologne as I’m writing this, actually we are about to arrive there.
And I’m glad we are!! These sailing says are pretty boring! There’s nothing to do really at the moment, so I’m reading tips about Australia and trying very hard to keep my eyes open! Plus it’s been raining and grey all day, so it’s one of those days where you just want to go back to bed! Lunch wasn’t that big of a deal either, so I’m also trying very hard to keep away from our “stress drawer” where all of the chocolates are!!!
This cruise we have another couple that was with me on the Creativity last year! They have been living in Australia for about 60 years now, but when you hear them speak, you can still hear their Dutch accent! They came to borrow an adapter, so we tell them that we would like to have it back at the end of the week and he says that he will give it back to us when we are in Amsterdam again, because they were going back with us…and we thought he was joking, because not that many people do a thing like that, we’ve never had that before. But when they had left, the CRD checked the list for next week and guess what, they were on it in the same room!
I talked to them about that later and they told me that they couldn’t decide what to do after the first week, they had already been in the South of France, so they decided to just go back with us, because going home to Australia was also easier from Amsterdam…O well.
We left Amsterdam around 2pm instead of 5 pm like we usually do, because of the low water situation. They have to go slower, so it will take more time to get to Cologne. But it’s about 20 to three now and we almost there already! While when we leave Amsterdam at 5pm, we reach Cologne at 4 pm the next day, so it doesn’t seem like it’s that big of a difference. But I guess there must be some logic in it!
(I had already talked to my uncle and aunt in Diemen that I would come and visit them this Sunday, so it was a quick visit this time! We had fun, caught up on things going on in our lives, watched their Wales pictures and we had lunch. White buns with real cheese and chocolate sprinkles!! And then of course the last train I had to take to be able to get back to the ship on time, had a 5 minute delay…which in itself is nothing, but it can make you miss the ship! But I made it)
Anyway, we managed to reach Cologne, even with the low water. I heard it was raining in Basel, which is what we need. I just wish it would only rain at night, so it won’t bother us!
I’ve talked to some more Australians about my trip to their country. It’s a huge country, that much is for sure!!
Sunday 23rd of August 2015
Another week is over already, man it goes by fast!
This Friday we were in Breisach again, on our way to Basel. And this is where we buy the flowers for the next week. There are 2 florists we use here, they couldn’t help us this week, because they were on vacation. But one of them had an assistant, who could bring the flowers to the ship. So I had send an email ahead of time to let them know what I needed and to specify the date and time they would deliver. I didn’t get an answer right away, so the next day I send an email again to see if they had gotten the first one…then I finally got an answer saying that the assistant had broken her arm and wasn’t able to come to the ship….ok, so we looked for other florists and there was only one other one there…who was also on vacation!!
Can you believe this??!! Breisach is a small German town, you can’t even call it a city, they have 3 florists and you wonder how they survive there at all and then all 3 of them are on vacation at the same time?????
That was so weird! Good thing our flowers in the bar and lobby still looked good, we have a great florist in Amsterdam. So we just bought some flowers at a supermarket to replace the flowers in the restaurant and lounge and then we had some extra to take out the ones that really looked bad.
We tried to find some flowers in Strasbourg, but man they were expensive!! 3 euro’s for 1 gerbera!! But we managed!
When we are in Breisach, our guests can go on an excursion to Colmar, a city in France. Detlef had already been there a couple of times and this time I asked if I could go there too and I’m glad I went! We had a beautiful day!
It took us about 25 minutes to get there, then I went on the guided walk through the city. I had never been there before and that way it is easy to get to know a city. But so far I haven’t had any luck with the guides, if you remember from my trip to Heidelberg, that man was an idiot!
This lady was nice, she was probably very knowledgable, but she doesn’t know how to tell other people all she knows. She was a French lady, which is okay, it’s just that she tried to speak English as the French do…very fast!
Which didn’t work, plus she had like a favorite word or thing she did with her tongue and she didn’t tell things in a natural order, she would go from one thing to the next.
Anyway, the city is very nice, I really liked it very much! It’s also called Little Venice for the canals that run through it. They have framework houses in pastel colors. And it is famous for the artist who made the Statue of Liberty, Mr. Frederique Bartholdi. The original is in Paris, the one that is in New York is a steel frame construction, build with the help of Mr. Gustave Eiffel…yes the man who build the Eiffel tower, so he knew his way around steel!
Mr. Bartholdi has made several other statues which you can find in Colmar. And the house where he lived is now a museum. After the tour the guide wanted to take us to the Cathedral, where she would give another 40 minute talk about some art in there, but there was no way I was going to stay with her for another 40 minutes. So I said goodbye and we’d meet again in about an hour. So I just wandered around and found some houses I hadn’t seen on the tour, I browsed through some souvenir shops and then I slowly made my way back to the meeting point. I have found an oven mitt and a potholder(?) for Csilla, her birthday is coming up and she likes to cook.
Saturday August 22nd 2015
We were saying goodbye again of a group in the morning, usually Basel is a pretty smooth disembarkation, but today it was total chaos! We had a group of 12 and a group of 24 who needed taxi’s, couldn’t get on any of the transfers with the cruise director. We always send a list to the taxi company, which always works well, but this time they didn’t really get it. We needed minivans to move these people in, but instead of dividing all the cabin numbers, all drivers had the list with the same numbers. So we didn’t know where the luggage was going for what cabin. It was not a lot of fun this time. Csilla had send the list the night before and she didn’t specify the groups in the email, ok it was specified in the list, but still. Next time I will just have to send another email after it, explaining what the deal is.
We did manage to send everyone on their way and there was no luggage left behind, so it all worked out in the end!
While we were having our disembarkation, one of our corporates came on board and we were secretly relieved that we didn’t have any empty cabins, so he couldn’t stay with us. I didn’t talk to him very much, but you always have the feeling they are looking over your shoulder.
While I was making my reports for the end of the cruise, Kai and Dennis from the Basel office walked in. Kai is helping with the Onboard shop inventory and Dennis is the one I call when I have an administrative emergency. We have a pretty good email contact and every now and then they come and see us in Basel. A while ago they had gone on a 10 day road trip through Ireland, so I had asked to see some pictures. Kai had made an album, with 146 pages and about a 1000 pictures, which he came to show me today!!!
It looked really great!! They were in Dublin, went to Belfast for the Titanic and they stayed a night in a real castle!!! And the nature is soo pretty there!! High cliffs, green grass, blue (ok mostly grey skies) and a lot of sheep! O and whiskey of course!!
It was really great, Ireland is also definitely on my to see list! Kai has also been in Australia so his giving me tips on what to do and see.
Then around half past 1, Detlef asked me and Michael to come and sit in the lounge with him. As I was walking up to where they were sitting I asked him what I had done this time….his answer was that it wasn’t me, but him, the company was letting him go!!! He told us that his administration was weak, that they had given him several hints, which he didn’t pick up on, so they were letting him go, there was no second chance….
Man, talk about lightning on a clear sky!! That really blew me away, I was really angry. Without any kind of warning they were letting him go…so I told him that I thought I would be next, because my administration wasn’t always good either, but he said that wasn’t the case, my work was fine.
But this was what he wanted us to know, since we had worked with him from the beginning and he said he was an honorable man, he wanted to be honest with us. The version for the crew was that he had to go home for some family emergency….which I’m sure nobody believed, because they all saw the corporate on board and at 4pm we already had the new HM on board!
So Detlef packed his bags and around 2pm he was on his way home…I was really shocked, didn’t know what to think of this. With only 2 more months to go until the end…
So we have had to get used to a new HM, his name is Christian and he’s from Austria. Get this, his birthday is also in July…so is mine and Detlef’s…weird no?!
But the start was good, we were laughing already that afternoon.
Friday August 28th 2015
So we have been working with this new HM for about a week now and I think we’re doing ok. Detlef’s administration really was a mess, everytime Christian asked me where he could find something, I had no idea, except for my own stuff of course. Later Christian told me that the running well of the ship was also for a large part because of the work I have done so far and that the HQ highly appreciated this, that I was even doing things that the HM is supposed to do…
Didn’t know what to say to that, I thought things were going well. Don’t understand why Detlef never asked for my help with anything. We’re finding papers everywhere, nothing was organized, or at least not in a way that we understand.
So now Christian and I have sort of made our way through things and he’s trying to find his own way in doing things. He has worked on ships before, so he does know his way around, but it takes a little time to get used to it. We’ll figure it out before the last 10 weeks are over!
I had to do the crew show also, to show him how we do things. I had already told him about what I had talked to Detlef about and I think he agrees. I’ll do it again next week, just to keep in the rythem of things.
But anyway, we have made our way back to Amsterdam! I’ve just bought a new pair of shoes for my trip to Australia!
Tomorrow is going to be another busy day and Csilla is going to go on vacation for 2 weeks. Katrina, who replaced her during my vacation, is going to help me out this time, but I don’t know what to think of this yet. From what I heard from Csilla, things didn’t go all that well with her, but according to Detlef that was also because Csilla lacked the experience you need to be a manager, to lead a team. So we’ll see how it goes.
Plus we are going to have a cruise director from hell, if I am to believe the stories I’ve heard about her, so these are going to be a long 2 weeks!
And then Janos, my Nighty, tells me that he’s leaving the company at the end of September!! He has gotten the opportunity to start his own business in Hungary, which is not a simple task in that country, so he needs to grab the chance with both hands! I understand completely and I wish him all the best, but we have only 2 more months to go, 1 by the time he wants to leave. So now we’ll have to see who replaces him…
We’ll see how it goes with Katrina these two weeks, then I will tell the company if I think she’ll do well as a Nighty. From what I’ve seen so far I think she’d be a better Nighty then Second, but the two weeks aren’t over yet!
Love
Linda
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
