| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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For the most part these are copied from emails i sent but i added things as well, so ignore the weird changes in tense. i'm pasting this story in daily chunks to keep it ALIVE in here! Pics will be on the tBone gallery as soon as i shrink them down. ---------- I'm the last person you would ever expect on a cruise ship. I would tell my friends that I was going on one and they didn't believe me. Jen on a cruise ship? No. Jen in goddamn Mexico? Impossible. I won't even leave my dark cold basement from May to September, and that's just Canadian summer heat. But as it turns out, during the off season (Translation: HURRICANE season) you can get a 5 night all-inclusive boat trip for less than the cost of a plane ticket. It's like $200, it's crazy cheap. You just have to be flexible with where you want to go. So my parents decided that they would take me and my sister on a cruise with them, instead of getting us x-mas gifts. Or birthday gifts. Or possible x-mas gifts next year. Which is good since I'll trade useless possessions for new experiences any day. We were originally supposed to be going to Jamaica, but because of the previous storm season most of Jamaica was flooded. So it was changed to the Yucatan area in Mexico. Which was then destroyed by the hurricane. But they kept it there anyway. So we fly from Toronto to Miami, where many cruise ships depart from. MIAMI Miami is cheesy and 80's. The damage from the hurricane is apparent all over the city, many office towers and whole streets are closed off from the windows of buildings being blown out. Houses have tarps for roofs. The big sign out front of our hotel is in danger of falling at any minute. Parts of trees are everywhere. Shattered boats litter parts of the shore. I've never been on a real beach before. There's some huge shopping thingy called "Bayside" where we spent most of the evening and most of our money at Victoria's Secret (which we don't have here, and it pains me daily). I bought a sun hat, imagine that. Most of the big pink shopping plaza has no roof, which blows my mind- not having to build things with snow storms in mind. I went to Florida in 1994, that's the last time I was around anything like this. There are many strange plants and trees that I've never seen before, in fact nothing looks familiar. There is not a single pine tree, and that's so weird. Other things I'm not used to, both obvious and subtle: -spanish accents, or so many of them at once. -one dollar bills, how useless and fragile they seem. -southern accents being real and not just on television. -palm trees. I ran up and fondled one for a good long time, trying to figure it out. "They're FUGLY", my sister keeps saying. I just think they look like filler from a bad 1980's airbrushed t-shirt. Wow the 80's was bad for design. -black people being the largest visible minority. How can I explain this... of course we have black people, lots of them. But there are far more people from India and Asia here for some reason. So many that crowds look weird without tons of them. My mom keeps pointing out things that are "Just like CSI: Miami!" I keep pointing out things that are "Just like Grand Theft Auto!" The Hard Rock Café has a giant 3D light-up guitar spinning on the top of it which was destroyed by the storm. It's quite striking, half of the front shattered and fell off, the machine head is gone completely and the strings are all broken and blowing in the breeze. We took a lot of pics the next day but it was far away. We eat and it takes forever and the waitress doesn't speak English and keeps fucking shit up and I ordered a quesadilla but she brought me a fajita but it's so fucking good and authentic I don't even care. At the hotel- the best thing ever. Spanish television. For years I'd been hearing (on the Simpsons DVD commentaries) about the bizarre crap they show and how it was where Bumblebee man came from. And it was amazing! We watched it all night and the next morning. I miss it :( There was some show with a bunch of adults dressed as stereotypical little kids, a big hairy guy in a little sailor outfit, and they were in a classroom pulling zany hijinks on their stuffy teacher lady. I couldn't tell if it was for kids or adults. During the spanish news the weather girl was obviously not hired for her meteorological knowledge, I'll tell you that much. --- We're at the Miami airport waiting for a shuttle. This chick walks out wearing the coolest 1970's style clothes, and she has a huge perfectly round absolutely perfect afro. I don't want to stare at it so I turn around. Some girl runs up to her and tells her that she is amazing. I assume she means her clothes. My sister grabs my shoulder and whispers: "I just want you to know that Macy Gray is standing behind you." She walks away to the parking lot. "Really? I thought Macy Gray was kinda chubby." "She lost a lot of weight." "Awww, fuck." |
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this is me. outside. as noted before, we're latitudinally way north of toronto so we have tons of pines and firs and shit. also alders and maples. but palm trees? they're freakin alien. monocotyledon dinosaurs. the only natural(?) palms i've ever seen were in stockton, ca. they were obviously transplants and looked dusty and sickly and alien. |
TBone made a gallery for us all to share. You can join and post pics and have fun too. http://www.dirtyredcommie.com/gallery/v/sorabji/ Palm trees are fucked up. I don't understand how they get so tall! They are scary! -- Yes jack, i was on the ship at the time, all those pics were taken from the deck. The shipyard went on and on. As i wrote in the gallery, my father and i were far more interested in the shipyard than the sunset or dolphins following the boat. I watched it for at least an hour. They had these HUGE cranes and these little guys driving crazy machines to pick up the shipping containers like they weighed nothing and....well....wow. |
i love spanish-language tv, i'm watching it now. it's the weather (pronostico) being done by a guy in a suit. primer impacto has a the hot weather girl. i wanna hear about mexico. i wanna visit oaxaca one day and visit all the tequila distilleries. |
me inside again! those are nice pics and shit but i can't wait to see eva @ 5 or 8 or 11. it seems like yesterday, posting pics of cleo @ 3 or 4 or 6 or whatever. now she's nearly 12. just like that. her band, the old ladies, played a show a couple months ago at k records hq for the old time relijun record release party. i have pics (no sound). i'll ask her if i can post a couple. back to wisper's mexican adventure. tell us more and post more pics. |
Palm trees are wierd. I think it's funny that there are probably about 10 of them growing around town, and the poor things are miserable and stunted because it's cold and wet here most of the time. They are still pretty tall, though, and they make an unholy mess. |
Warmth is alien. It's 0°F right now, and got down to -16°F last night. The shipyard reminded me of a beautiful, big old boat I saw in Roche Harbor. It was built in the 20's and reminded me of Scuppers The Sailor Dog, which was my favorite childhood storybook. It had a song which was sung to the Popeye tune. The boat was even for sale. A measely $100,000. I only got one picture of it before the owner walked up and invaded my fantasy. I can't remember its name now, but it was moored right next to a multi-million-dollar obscenity by the name of Victoria's Other Seacret. That's now it was spelled. |
it's been below freezing here for the past couple of days (after a november where it was in the 70's and 80's). we haven't been opening the shop because our slum lord hasn't gotten us heat yet. i spent christmas in acapulco several years ago. nice and warm. |
I forgot to tell you the really bad part about Miami. The hotel we were staying at had a promotion going on- unlimited phonecalls within the USA. I stared at the phone like it had punched me, "sorabjis.....i could phone them.... ALL of them......for free......" But i had no access to a computer. I was very very VERY sad. It was like some proverbial twist ending in a Twilight Zone sketch, like the guy with unlimited books but no reading glasses. Torture. |
We just left Key West. I went snorkeling in a coral reef. Some people are rude and stupid and loud. I stopped telling people where i was from on the snorkeling boat after the "Canada? Hockey...eh? Hockey eh? Hockey eh?" Guns, y'all! Some old guy started to harass dad about socialized medicine and our "inferior prescription drugs" over breakfast! What the hell?! It was 6am, so dad just got up and changed tables. lol Now i sooo want to have a big throwdown over medicine with someone...BRING IT! I'd like to find the guy and say: "ROUND TWO, oldy!" Anyway....heh... It's hot but not crazy death hot like i thought. It's 30+ but the breeze is very cool. It's not humid so i'm not going to die. And i have managed to not get a tan through the clever use of SPF 50, a light shawl, long dresses and an umbrella. I'm proud of me. Tomorrow i'm driving an ATV (just like Carl!) (Johnson, from Grand Theft Auto) through the motherfucking jungle to Mayan ruins. :D Swimming in salt water is fucking awful. I haven't been in salt water since the first time, I was... 9? And I forgot the pure pain of it. I spent most of the snorkeling time trying to get over my initial full body panic of dealing with the salt taste, it just doesn't go away. It's in my mouth, in my eyes, terrible. I got some sort of blister from my left flipper, and I think the salt burned it so it is much worse than it should be, and stings like hell. I didn't see too much underwater. Some colourful fish and some brown coral. God I hate salt water, I can't stand it. I don't think I'll ever go back in the ocean. We were in the middle of the ocean rather than a shore, which I found somewhat terrifying as well. But I'm glad I did it. Mom and dad were somewhat disappointed that I didn't have a great time, they both love snorkeling very much. ----------------- The food sucks :( I keep hearing about how great cruise food is, and I'll tell you it's a damn lie. It's shitty and bland, but there sure it a ton of it. Between the 3 daily buffets, the 6pm sushi buffet (which is good, so I fill up on it every night), the formal dinner, the midnight dessert café, and 24 hour anything you want unlimited free room service, there's barely time to notice how crap the food actually is. When preparing a buffet for 2000 people, you're bound to loose some flavour. The worst is at the formal restaurant though, where you have to order from a menu. There is a vegetarian and vegan menu as well, which I switch between that and the regular menu. Every main course on the veggie menu is spinach based. I can't take any more spinach. Here's how bland the food is there: out of a choice of 9 desserts, I picked vanilla iced cream. Even the desserts are bland. I'm having difficulty trying to properly express just how fucking huge a cruise ship is. Pictures don't even do it. I wish we had taken more photos of the inside of the ship, then you could see. Standing at one end of a hallway you could see straight down to the other end, and it was easily 2-3 blocks long. This ship has 1600 guest rooms, which can hold 3 people each. Combined with the crew this makes at least 2000 people, and this is one of the smaller ships in use today. It has 9 bars, 3 restaurants (one of which spans an entire deck), a full stage theater, a casino, a library and a gym. |
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along with the smell of dead fish, i liked swimming in salt water. what about mexico. did you go ashore? |
but hawaii salt water is heaven to me. i imagine the gulf of mexico and the carribean and that whole deal would be just as nice. i don't even mind the taste. on a sort of unrelated topic, i want to go camping on the dry tortugas for like a whole summer. hurricanes and all. there's a big, abandoned fort there. http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np.dry-tortugas.html do you have any pics of freaky cruise ship folks? |
the carribean and gulf waters are easily the best. like warm salty bath water. I cant imagine taking a cruise. I can't imagine you two taking a cruise either considering you guys, like me, can't stand most people. Is this a family get together sorta thing? |
:( The cruise, apart from the food aimed at conservative old americans, sounds good to me. If I were there, I'd have been up on the observation deck with my scope right at dawn. Apparently on those huge ships, there is almost no engine vibration and no wave action when the seas are calm. The Dry Tortugas are a place I'd really like to go too, in April maybe sometime. Another great spot for birds. Going to the gallery now! |
wasnt there an incident where a cruise company was fined by a city...was it seattle or some place in nocal because shipped dumped thousands of gallons of raw sewage while in port whereas they are supposed to wait until they get X miles from shore or something. |
I would sort of like to go out to sea on a commercial boat for a couple of months. I love being out on the ocean. And swimming in salt water. |
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*I* can't imagine me on a cruise. I'm dirt poor, first of all, and punk-ish. I have no interest in sun, surf, OR sand. In fact, my sister phoned me a week in advance of my parent's unveiling this surprise trip, just to warn me to ACT EXCITED. My sister and i stuck out like sore thumbs- obviously being under 40 most of all, with tattoos and piercings to top it off. It was all pretty surreal. But i won't turn down such an experience. I was far more interested in the boat than the exotic locations, and i spent more time talking to the crew than anyone else. It was a family vacation, what can i say. It was weird and interesting. --- Yes, i found saltwater to be painful. I'm at least a 9 hour drive from any saltwater, I've only been in it once before, and to say I'm not used to it would be an understatement. I've spent half my life on boats in our freshwater lake system, so being surrounded by water that can't go in my mouth without making me want to puke would take me more than a few hours to get used to. It was all alien. ----- There were no weird cruise people to speak of, which disappointed me :( I have heard stories. I guess the off season doesn't bring them around, and also this was the cheapest trip on the smallest boat you can get, so not exactly one for the hardcores. |
COZUMEL I didn't get to go on an ATV jungle adventure after all, me sad. Then when we got to the island it was even sadder. The hurricane stayed over this one tiny island (Cozumel, it's just south of Cancun) for 3 days straight and destroyed almost everything. There was no jungle left *at all*. It took out all the docks so no ships can dock there, you have to be taken in on a smaller boat and park on whatever crumbling sections are left of the old docks. It was like a war zone. This lush stereotypical tropical island looks like a giant bomb site and parking lot now. There is no trees, no flowers, nothing green or alive at all. The storm tore all the leaves off the trees and the bark off the trees and the bigger trees it blew away. The city is in ruins. These giant exclusive resorts are just piles of rubble or half-standing half-collapsed buildings. Really fancy front gates and then nothing behind them, just metal scaffolding and stairs that go nowhere and craters where there used to be hotels and big glass chandeliers on the ground. We took so many pictures. I feel bad saying this, but it was far more interesting this way. How many times can i get to see real live places like this? So that's my intro to Mexico. Otherwise it was just as you would expect, mariachi music drifting in the air, bright colours, kinda smelly, kinda scary, kinda dirty. Stray dogs. Beer for $1. Businesses and restaurants are open wherever they were not destroyed. And sometimes there are places that used to be 2 or 3 floors but are now just 1. It's quite a thing to see. I wasn't terribly interested in going to Mexico. I hate summer, I hate warm weather. We mostly stayed in one little square shopping plaza that was only moderately damaged, it still had some trees. I forgot that Mexico is one of those places where you have to haggle for prices. I just don't have the personality for that, so I let mom and my sister deal with it, and they got some pretty good deals. I guess. How do you even know? Guys stand outside their stores and try to get you to come in. I don't know why my mom bothers talking to them or saying "no thanks." I just pretend I don't speak English. It was fun. Here's a classic Mexico moment for you- We were in a silver store, and the guys are doing their usual hard selling routine. It's so annoying. Anyway, my sister is about to walk out and the guys get desperate and start trying anything. My sister has many horrible tattoos: "Hey lady you like tattoos? You wanna tattoo? I do it right now for you!" and he pulls a real motherfucking tattoo gun out from under the counter and waves it at her. She ran. In the end I only bought three things, the only three things I wanted from Mexico- silver skull jewelry, day of the dead figures, and a horrible cheesy souvenir for one of my housemates. I got him a mini sombrero to put on one of his many action figures. Right now Unicron is wearing it ;) COSTA MAYA Costa Maya is part of the mainland of the Yucatan peninsula, a fishing village that had only started opening itself to tourists 4 years ago. They have Mayan ruins, and lots of them. Don't know what to say about the ruins, they're majestic of course. The jungle is lush but without all of it's usual colours and animals, it's autumn. Saw the trees that used to produce the base ingredient for the whole world's supply of chewing gum. Meanwhile, dad finally left the boat to lie on the beach and drink Cerveza. |
haggling in mexico. at least you don't have a mother like my friend brad. he was in mexico with his mother once (one of those excursions texans take) and she starts haggling with a couple of guys over a necklace. his mother is a woman with no tact (they never got along). she finally drives down theprice as low as it can go, then tells them she really didn't want it. of course, the two guys get angry - "just come down here to mess with the mexicans, puta?" brad was scared shitless. he bought the necklace - cheap - and apologized. for silver, you have to go to taxco in guerrero. one of the jewelry makers my shop works with - shayna weeden - lives and works down there. it has the largest concentration of silver mines in mexico; and, consequently, the largest concentration of silversmiths. some of them will actually custom make earrings or whatever if you bring them a drawing of what you want, sort of like a tattoo artist. i'm just going to call medicare about the prescription thing. i don't actually take any kind of pill regularly. though it's handy to have it when i do have to take a $100 bottle of antibiotics. |
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http://www.medicare.gov/ The landscape of local plans and formulary finder are helpful if you actually have medications that you take regularly, which doesn't sound like an issue for you. Damn Medicare, damn them to hell. |
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holyshit. so, its early evening, we go down to the hot tub. there's no one around. aside from eric costello and that other schmuck from letterman, we have the hotel to ourselves. we hang swim and then do the hot tub for 15 or so. you have to be careful with whisky and hot tubs. so, we walking across the boardwalk back to the elevator. we see some guy who looks like he's headed to the hot tub. if i had to type cast id suggest a middle aged gay 'bear'. we say hello and ask if he knows where the hot tub turn on switch is (because for two nights we didnt). he starts in "oh yeah, i've been coming here every month for 10 years. im in a club" at this point we've past him and he's talking at us as we walk by and sorta interrupt and bid him a good evening. he was clearly opening himself up. the girl, once in the hallway said "oh my god i thought one of my teats was out the way he was staring at my chest". I said "funny, cause i felt my jock burning from his glare. That guy was a swinger and he totally wanted us to come to the hot tub with him". It was just a vibe i got. a vibe i trust. We were both giggling and snickering about the swinger when as the elevator door is closing he comes in. the fucker must have *ran* back to get in the elevator with us. the girl engages and asks him about his club and he says its an underground club and if we were interested... thankfully the elevator was a fast one and we were on 16 just as he was offering his room #. the thing was...he was absolutely repulsive. why are 'swingers' always like that? |
wisper - the crazy trees are banyans. |