Well it's been quite some time since I've written anything. Honestly nothing too noteworthy has happened this past week, but here are a few things you may have "missed":
I am not from England. I have never been from England nor will I ever be from England. I have no idea why, but it's quite often that someone will ask me if I'm from England. At first I thought it was because I was speaking English without some sort of other heavy accent on top, so maybe people just assumed I was from England because of the "clear" sounding accent. However, something happened at dinner last week that got me thinking about my reasoning again.
I was sitting at dinner with people from all over the world, including another American. She asked me where I was from and I obviously responded with Pennsylvania. The person to my right (who is FROM ENGLAND) turned to me and said, "What? I thought you where from England?" So now someone from England thought I was from England. I clearly don't sound like him, but he said I looked like I was from England. Who knew.
Typically when we have boat drills and our life boat goes in the water, it's only filled with about 5 crew members so the large boat is quite spacious. Well last week they decided to fill a life boat to it's capacity of 150 people. So they rounded up 150 unlucky crew members and stuffed us inside the boat. Let me be the first to tell you that you don't want to be stuck in a life boat with 149 other people. To say it was cramped would be a gross understatement. We were lucky because most of the crew members were not wearing life jackets, which add a considerable amount of bulk to a person's body. I can only imagine what it's like when all 150 people have life vests on. I think I'll swim.
The new hotel director wanted to create some videos that highlight crew members who have done something special for guests in which the guests have noticed and reported it to another crew member. This award winning series "Anchored in Excellence" will be on your local cable access channel this spring. The two scenarios I was told to recreate where as follows: Two guests board the Serenade and go order coffees from one of our coffee shops. The barista greets them and takes their very complicated coffee order. The guest's pay with their Sea Pass card and go on their way. Cut to: The next morning, same coffee shop. The barista see's the two guests from the previous night approaching, greets them by name and asks if they want the same order from last night (she recites the order perfectly). Well as you can imagine the guests are BLOWN AWAY that she remembered all this information. Wow, what a great cruise line!
The other scenario involves a photographer in our photo gallery who comments on how nice a guest's camera is. The guest then explains that the camera broke today and they are worried that they lost all the pictures. The photographer offers to take a look at the camera and we find out the next morning that she has recovered all of the pictures. Hooray! These were actually a lot of fun to shoot because we reenacted the scenes with crew members playing the guests. As you can imagine, there were quite a few outtakes!
We have a new captain beginning this cruise. I have not met him yet, but I will tomorrow night when I shove a bright camera light in his face. I've only heard him on the PA system, but he sounds like a friendly guy from Canada!
i told you your questions sounded irish!
ReplyDeleteYou do, in fact, have some English ancestry - along with French, German, Russian, and Irish (and probably some other I don't even know about; I think there's even some New Jersey thrown in along the way). You got a double dose of the Irish as my Father's family is from Ireland, as is a grandfather on Mom's side. And your Mother's Mother is a direct descendent of the dudes and dudettes who landed on Plymouth Rock (no kidding). Add to that the fact that your name is of the British variety, or certainly more so than those of your fellow workers who are from other continents, and that you probably look Northern European, I can see why people from other parts of the world might think you're English - especially if they don't know where Pennsylvania is! If you think about it, no one looks "American," other than Native Americans, perhaps, since we are the product of lots of combinations of people from other lands. Having said all that, if I were you I'd work on my fake English accent and play with peoples' heads once in a while just to see how far you can take it. Women love guys with an English accent (Exhibit A: Kate Middleton; Exhibit B: James Bond).
ReplyDeleteOr maybe the captain you think is Canadian is really from Pennsylvania?
ReplyDeleteAnnie: haha wow I can't believe you've been "right" all this time!
ReplyDeleteFrank: Thanks for the ancestry info! Now when someone asks me where I'm from I can whip out a notecard with this information and really answer their question!
Leslie: It's been confirmed, he is in fact Canadian!