I'm back!!
Door: Linda
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Linda
17 September 2015 | Frankrijk, Straatsburg
Sunday September 13th 2015
The second week with Barbara went pretty well, she’s a strange person. Can’t really put my finger on it, but for some reason what she says doesn’t ring true. And of course we’re not sure what she’s been writing about us in her “unofficial” reports…But just like with Nancy, we were keeping a report on her as well!
When she was saying her farewells to crew and guests, she thanked me profusely for everything and when she left on Saturday she wondered if she was going to see me in a different position next season…who knows!
Anyway, we came full circle on Friday! We started the 2 weeks with Barbara by calling an ambulance and this Friday I had to call one again! One of our guests had taken a bad fall during the Amsterdam excursion, nothing broken, but badly bruised and bleeding. The local guide wanted to have her taken to the hospital to be taken care of there, but she refused and she wanted to go back to the ship. As if we are trained nurses! Barbara already gave all responsibility to us, because she hadn’t even taken a first aid course. Well, all I know about it is what we’ve learned in Cologne, before the season started, but that was just the basics, you know what to do before the paramedics get there. Thankfully Barbara did take matters into her hands when she decided that I should call an ambulance. So I did and I waited outside for them again…sound like a deja-vu?!
Anyway, she had bother her arms and one knee badly hurt, so they wrapped her up nicely and the next day she was good to go home!
Thursday Terez said she wanted to talk to me about work, usually when she says that I did something that she wasn’t happy with, but this time it wasn’t about me! No we have a new hairdresser on board and she and Csilla are not the best of friends. Terez said she wanted a calm end of the season, so she asked me to help her do something about this.
I agreed with her, I also want to end this season calmly. I will not go into details, but you can probably understand how it goes. This person says this about the one, then the other spreads a lie about the first person and so on and so forth…a big pain in the ass if you ask me!!
I really don’t understand why this has to happen and it really is one of the major reasons why I would not want to keep working on a ship anymore. Of course it happens everywhere, but working 9 to 5 is a little different in the fact that you can close the door behind you and start a new day the next day. Here you are in eachothers area 24/7.
Anyway, I had already detected some lies coming from Csilla, nothing big, but things didn’t add up. I’ve already talked to her about it and then of course she gave me a whole other story…sigh…
So I’m just going to leave it, call it naïve, call it ostrich-politics, I don’t care. I have had enough of it already. I’m the type of person that wants to be able to tell you whatever I want, without having to think about wether or not it will come back to me in some form or other. I don’t like to have to think the worst of people. So yes I’m going to stop Csilla from saying bad things about the hairdresser, but other than that I’m going to leave it alone.
Saturday the group left again and so did Barbara. She left with the last transfer to the airport, because she didn’t want to spend extra money on a taxi. She had to buy a new ticket, because her flight was cancelled and that cost her a lot of money extra, so she went with the free transfer…but not all of the people were off the ship yet. Which was a bit strange.
Did I get a nice surprise Saturday or what!! Before Csilla went on vacation we had a couple on board that went with us to Basel and back down to Amsterdam. I had told the husband that I was going to go to Australia at the end of the year and he told me about Perth, where they lived. Then as they got on the taxi to go to the airport, they told me that I should come and visit them in Perth, since I had their information. But I told them that all we get is their names, nothing else. And they send me an email this Saturday!! Giving me all of their details and email address and asking me to come and see them when I was in Perth!!! How cool is that?!
With the new group, we also got a new cruise director. This time we have Hans for 2 weeks. I have worked with him last year in France and he’s funny. He talks for hours, but he’s funny, easy to laugh with, so we’re good!
Of course he has his own peculiarities, like they all do. For instance he wants to have the Farewell dinner on Friday instead of Thursday, because he thinks the dinner will take too long and then the woodcarving demonstration will not have enough time…but so far we’ve always done it and we’ve never had a problem, but if that’s what he wants it’s fine with us.
Thank goodness we had a quiet Saturday evening!
I’ve managed to leave work an hour earlier to come to the library. Nowadays we leave earlier on Sundays, so there’s no time to go there, but today I just had to go!
I really am a Jill-of-all-trades!! I do my own work, then I’m the right hand (ánd left hand!) to the HM, and his second brain, I help the CRD’s out with their writing skills, I’m MC for the crew show and I think I can add psychologist to that list now too!
In this new group we have 2 ladies from Australia. One of them said she didn’t have her passport when she was checking in with us. She thought it might still be at the hotel, so Hans called to find out, but they hadn’t found anything. Next day it turned out that she was also missing some money, so the whole lot was stolen. They managed to get a copy of her passport from family back home and with this she went to the police station to file a report. Then she had to go to The Hague to get a new passport, since we are travelling through Europe, she’s not allowed to do that without one.
So she went to The Hague by train, then spend the night in a hotel there and the next day she would take a train to Cologne to meet us there.
Her roommate stayed with us and asked me Sunday if it would be alright for her to have dinner in her room. We normally do that when people aren’t feeling well, or else we have to charge them 20 euro’s… But for me it feels kind of stupid to charge people for that, so I talked to the HM and he felt the same way. So he said it would alright and we weren’t going to charge her for it.
She was in the Lounge having a drink, where I found her to tell her it would be alright to have dinner in her room….when she started to cry. So I went back to get some tissues for her and sat with her for a while to talk to her.
I will not get into the details, but she’s had a vacation from hell basically and wasn’t feeling up to being sociable with the other guests. She felt better after a while and I arranged with our Maitre to have her tell him what she wanted to have for dinner. She would get a good meal and a good sleep and she would feel better the next day.
It had taken a while for me to get back to my desk, the HM was almost ready to send out a search party for me, because he didn’t see me in the Lounge and I didn’t have time to tell him what was happening!
Wednesday September 16th 2015
The lady that had to get a new passport, managed to do just that and she was lucky too, because people that came in after her had to wait for 2 days to get a new passport! And she managed to get back to the ship in Cologne as well, so all was good!
Her roommate came to tell me Monday that she really appreciated that talk with me the other day, it came at the right time. I told her that she knew where to find me if she needed to get more off of her chest!
We weren’t really sure if we were able to reach Basel this week. The water level is still not what it should be, so we are traveling slower and we are leaving all ports earlier. We did go to Cologne and it was raining there!
And we managed to go to Rudesheim, which we were also not sure of. But we got there and I went to see a soccer game with the Chef and the HM! Chef had talked me into going, because his favourite team, Manchester United was playing against PSV, Eindhoven, a Dutch team. In the end he wasn’t too happy, because the Dutch team won!! Haha I’m not a soccer fan nor do I like to hang out in a bar, but it was good to be off the ship for a while!
As you all know, I turned 40 this year. Which in itself is not a big deal, it’s just that for some reason, my body has to remind me of that fact!!
I swear ever since that day, everything I eat now goes directly toward my hips, then after my vacation I had a terrible lower back pain, which I got rid of with some exercises. And as of last Friday my left hip is acting up. I don’t know what I did to get this, but it hurts like hell!! I’m telling you I could hardly get out of bed the other day!
So now I’m taking painkillers and I bought this cream that heats up, so I’m not too worried about it, but I definitely don’t want this to happen when I’m in Australia, so I think I’ll get a nice massage when I go home in November!!
Yes, we have about 7 and a half cruises to go! I’m trying hard not to, but we’re counting down already!
And the weather makes you want to hurry things along too! In the morning it’s dark till about 7:30am, in the evening it starts to get dark at 9pm already and this rain…just makes you want to go back to bed! Of course we do need the rain, but I would rather have it rain at night! I think we’ll be alright going back to Amsterdam, but you can really see the difference in the water. The banks a bigger and then there’s sandbanks in the middle of the river!
Sorry, don't know why you got the other story twice, but there was no other way to get this story in!!
Love
Linda
The second week with Barbara went pretty well, she’s a strange person. Can’t really put my finger on it, but for some reason what she says doesn’t ring true. And of course we’re not sure what she’s been writing about us in her “unofficial” reports…But just like with Nancy, we were keeping a report on her as well!
When she was saying her farewells to crew and guests, she thanked me profusely for everything and when she left on Saturday she wondered if she was going to see me in a different position next season…who knows!
Anyway, we came full circle on Friday! We started the 2 weeks with Barbara by calling an ambulance and this Friday I had to call one again! One of our guests had taken a bad fall during the Amsterdam excursion, nothing broken, but badly bruised and bleeding. The local guide wanted to have her taken to the hospital to be taken care of there, but she refused and she wanted to go back to the ship. As if we are trained nurses! Barbara already gave all responsibility to us, because she hadn’t even taken a first aid course. Well, all I know about it is what we’ve learned in Cologne, before the season started, but that was just the basics, you know what to do before the paramedics get there. Thankfully Barbara did take matters into her hands when she decided that I should call an ambulance. So I did and I waited outside for them again…sound like a deja-vu?!
Anyway, she had bother her arms and one knee badly hurt, so they wrapped her up nicely and the next day she was good to go home!
Thursday Terez said she wanted to talk to me about work, usually when she says that I did something that she wasn’t happy with, but this time it wasn’t about me! No we have a new hairdresser on board and she and Csilla are not the best of friends. Terez said she wanted a calm end of the season, so she asked me to help her do something about this.
I agreed with her, I also want to end this season calmly. I will not go into details, but you can probably understand how it goes. This person says this about the one, then the other spreads a lie about the first person and so on and so forth…a big pain in the ass if you ask me!!
I really don’t understand why this has to happen and it really is one of the major reasons why I would not want to keep working on a ship anymore. Of course it happens everywhere, but working 9 to 5 is a little different in the fact that you can close the door behind you and start a new day the next day. Here you are in eachothers area 24/7.
Anyway, I had already detected some lies coming from Csilla, nothing big, but things didn’t add up. I’ve already talked to her about it and then of course she gave me a whole other story…sigh…
So I’m just going to leave it, call it naïve, call it ostrich-politics, I don’t care. I have had enough of it already. I’m the type of person that wants to be able to tell you whatever I want, without having to think about wether or not it will come back to me in some form or other. I don’t like to have to think the worst of people. So yes I’m going to stop Csilla from saying bad things about the hairdresser, but other than that I’m going to leave it alone.
Saturday the group left again and so did Barbara. She left with the last transfer to the airport, because she didn’t want to spend extra money on a taxi. She had to buy a new ticket, because her flight was cancelled and that cost her a lot of money extra, so she went with the free transfer…but not all of the people were off the ship yet. Which was a bit strange.
Did I get a nice surprise Saturday or what!! Before Csilla went on vacation we had a couple on board that went with us to Basel and back down to Amsterdam. I had told the husband that I was going to go to Australia at the end of the year and he told me about Perth, where they lived. Then as they got on the taxi to go to the airport, they told me that I should come and visit them in Perth, since I had their information. But I told them that all we get is their names, nothing else. And they send me an email this Saturday!! Giving me all of their details and email address and asking me to come and see them when I was in Perth!!! How cool is that?!
With the new group, we also got a new cruise director. This time we have Hans for 2 weeks. I have worked with him last year in France and he’s funny. He talks for hours, but he’s funny, easy to laugh with, so we’re good!
Of course he has his own peculiarities, like they all do. For instance he wants to have the Farewell dinner on Friday instead of Thursday, because he thinks the dinner will take too long and then the woodcarving demonstration will not have enough time…but so far we’ve always done it and we’ve never had a problem, but if that’s what he wants it’s fine with us.
Thank goodness we had a quiet Saturday evening!
I’ve managed to leave work an hour earlier to come to the library. Nowadays we leave earlier on Sundays, so there’s no time to go there, but today I just had to go!
I really am a Jill-of-all-trades!! I do my own work, then I’m the right hand (ánd left hand!) to the HM, and his second brain, I help the CRD’s out with their writing skills, I’m MC for the crew show and I think I can add psychologist to that list now too!
In this new group we have 2 ladies from Australia. One of them said she didn’t have her passport when she was checking in with us. She thought it might still be at the hotel, so Hans called to find out, but they hadn’t found anything. Next day it turned out that she was also missing some money, so the whole lot was stolen. They managed to get a copy of her passport from family back home and with this she went to the police station to file a report. Then she had to go to The Hague to get a new passport, since we are travelling through Europe, she’s not allowed to do that without one.
So she went to The Hague by train, then spend the night in a hotel there and the next day she would take a train to Cologne to meet us there.
Her roommate stayed with us and asked me Sunday if it would be alright for her to have dinner in her room. We normally do that when people aren’t feeling well, or else we have to charge them 20 euro’s… But for me it feels kind of stupid to charge people for that, so I talked to the HM and he felt the same way. So he said it would alright and we weren’t going to charge her for it.
She was in the Lounge having a drink, where I found her to tell her it would be alright to have dinner in her room….when she started to cry. So I went back to get some tissues for her and sat with her for a while to talk to her.
I will not get into the details, but she’s had a vacation from hell basically and wasn’t feeling up to being sociable with the other guests. She felt better after a while and I arranged with our Maitre to have her tell him what she wanted to have for dinner. She would get a good meal and a good sleep and she would feel better the next day.
It had taken a while for me to get back to my desk, the HM was almost ready to send out a search party for me, because he didn’t see me in the Lounge and I didn’t have time to tell him what was happening!
Wednesday September 16th 2015
The lady that had to get a new passport, managed to do just that and she was lucky too, because people that came in after her had to wait for 2 days to get a new passport! And she managed to get back to the ship in Cologne as well, so all was good!
Her roommate came to tell me Monday that she really appreciated that talk with me the other day, it came at the right time. I told her that she knew where to find me if she needed to get more off of her chest!
We weren’t really sure if we were able to reach Basel this week. The water level is still not what it should be, so we are traveling slower and we are leaving all ports earlier. We did go to Cologne and it was raining there!
And we managed to go to Rudesheim, which we were also not sure of. But we got there and I went to see a soccer game with the Chef and the HM! Chef had talked me into going, because his favourite team, Manchester United was playing against PSV, Eindhoven, a Dutch team. In the end he wasn’t too happy, because the Dutch team won!! Haha I’m not a soccer fan nor do I like to hang out in a bar, but it was good to be off the ship for a while!
As you all know, I turned 40 this year. Which in itself is not a big deal, it’s just that for some reason, my body has to remind me of that fact!!
I swear ever since that day, everything I eat now goes directly toward my hips, then after my vacation I had a terrible lower back pain, which I got rid of with some exercises. And as of last Friday my left hip is acting up. I don’t know what I did to get this, but it hurts like hell!! I’m telling you I could hardly get out of bed the other day!
So now I’m taking painkillers and I bought this cream that heats up, so I’m not too worried about it, but I definitely don’t want this to happen when I’m in Australia, so I think I’ll get a nice massage when I go home in November!!
Yes, we have about 7 and a half cruises to go! I’m trying hard not to, but we’re counting down already!
And the weather makes you want to hurry things along too! In the morning it’s dark till about 7:30am, in the evening it starts to get dark at 9pm already and this rain…just makes you want to go back to bed! Of course we do need the rain, but I would rather have it rain at night! I think we’ll be alright going back to Amsterdam, but you can really see the difference in the water. The banks a bigger and then there’s sandbanks in the middle of the river!
Sorry, don't know why you got the other story twice, but there was no other way to get this story in!!
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
