Rotterdam

ROTTERDAM (good food and great subways):

With only a few hours to explore this city, we visited a local café where we ate the “famous apple pie”. I don’t recall ever in my life hearing of Rotterdam’s apple pie, which means it can’t be very famous. But, once I tasted it, I thought it should be, cause it’s yum-my. They also have these amazing waffle cookies in the Netherlands that I wish I had bought a bag of! They give them to you when you order a cappuccino or coffee. And you put them over the cup so the waffle warms up. YUM!

We also went shopping in the City Center and ate at a cozy pub. I had the best salad of my life: A giant hockey-puck disc of warm goat cheese, drizzled with balsamic and honey, and accompanied by bits of roasted walnuts. Oh, and there was a little bit of lettuce to make it seem like it was a salad. It was perfection!

I also got to see a roadside marionette oom-pah-pah show that had giant wooden clogs you could stand in. This was great!

My biggest impression of Rotterdam was: It has the most civilized public transportation I have ever experienced. The subway employees are helpful and friendly, the trains are clean and clearly marked, and even the platforms had large clocks with accurate waiting times for the next train. NY, Chicago, Boston, take heed. The Dutch got it right.

Part Trois

How to sum up the last few weeks? Glamorous adventure? War-torn Hell? A true test of character?

We shall begin with our cabin: We have been moved into our assigned cabin, our very tiny cabin. Here is a few examples of the size, if Jeff wants to cross from his bed to the door, I must sit on my bed to give him room to walk. I can’t blow-dry my hair in front of a mirror unless he goes into the bathroom. We have a desk attached to the wall, We have to put the desk stool up on it when it isn’t being used, so we may get into the room. Yeah, it’s real small.

There is a shelving column dividing our beds. So we are sleeping apart. We have been told for weeks that this will be removed. Still not moved.

The bathroom: It is a shower with a toilet in it, and a tiny sink attached to the wall. The sink is about the size of the porcelain dentist bowl you use to rinse and spit when during a teeth-cleaning. I can sit on the toilet, with the shower water hitting me, while I wash my hands. I could conceivably shampoo, brush my teeth in the mirror, and pee at the same time! Unusual.

And as they say in real estate, “location, location, location”, we are at the end of a hallway that lets out into an uncarpeted stairwell. So all day and night, we hear the clumping and thumping of work boots up and down metal stairs. We are also at the fire exit door, so we enjoy the SLAM of that heavy and fireproof door all day and night. The echoing of metal on metal is torture! We are located above the carpentry shop and crew gym, and below the stage of the main theater. So between the carpenter’s buzzing/ sawing, the door’s slamming/ banging and the disco Pilipino beats below us, and the changing over the rotating stage above us, we are in a chamber of HELL!

We pray for one night of rest. Ugh.

PARIS:

We were lucky enough to have a day off and took full advantage of it. We hopped on a train after rehearsal and got to Paris around 11PM. We headed straight for the Eiffel Tower. It is more magnificent than I was prepared for. There was hardly anyone there because it was so windy. We loved it! It felt so spontaneous and fun, until we realized... we did not book a hotel room in advance, which normally would not be such an issue. But apparently there was a big football match in town and the entire city was booked. We walked from hotel to hotel for hours searching for a room. I felt like Mary and Joseph getting rejected from all those Inns. We walked the windy and desolate streets of the most romantic city in the world for most of the night. There are worse ways to spend your evening.

Around 3:30AM we found an open café near the train station. It was full of fellow stranded travelers, misfits, and vagabonds who, like us, had no bed to rest their weary heads. By 4:30AM with the help of Skype found a room. Despite the fact that is was wildly over-priced, it had everything we’d dreamed of: hot water, a soft clean Queen bed, and quiet. We just wanted one good night of sleep considering our cabin back on board was as comfortable as a WWII foxhole.

The next morning we hit the street. The moment we walked out of our hotel, we bumped into this sweet looking man. He smiled at us politely, and suddenly looked down towards a glistening copper ring on the ground. He picked it up and showed it to us. And then he reached for Jeff and placed it in his hand and said, “I find. For you.” in a thick French accent. It was this lovely and generous gesture. Then he shook both our hands and kept saying, “This good luck. Bon Chance. For love.” We were so touched that this man had offered us this treasure he found on the ground. UNTIL... he started saying, “Now you give me money for a coffee...” He kept saying “2-0, American dollars.”, meaning he wanted $20 for the ring that we quickly decided he’d dropped out of his pocket to perform his usual scam! It was a set-up, a swindle, a hoax! We scurried away scared he would follow us. We’d been duped by a master! It was so French!

The rest of the day was lovely: we visited Notre Dame, which was a wonder. We walked along the visual delicacies of the Parisian streets. By recommendation we ate at a wonderful café/ bistro and I had some of the best spinach and chevre salad known to the human palate, and we took a river-boat tour on the Seine. It was an exhausting, terrifying, magical, and perfect 24 hours in Paris. We will be sure to have more adventures: England, NY, Miami, St Marten, St Thomas, Mexico, Honduras.

PART TWO: Europe. We have arrived.

THE FLIGHT: After 10 hours of travel, on a plane full of 80 screaming French middle school students, 3 High School Groups (all very nerdy, so my guess is they were on a Band trip), and a bunch of Frenchies (enter ALL stereotypical unpleasantries about the French here), we finally arrived at our destination --- a small French seaside town called San Nazaire. We are scheduled to live on the currently docked ship in a shipyard while the boat is still being built around us. And, boy oh boy, it is very much under construction.

THE ARRIVAL: A bus takes us from the airport into said shipyard to where our gi-normous new floating city awaits us. As we approach the ship, I am amazed. It is more than an eyeful. One would have to stand more than a block away to take it in. It is larger than most buildings I have seen. It is as wide as any decent mall, and as tall as any skyscraper. It is truly Epic. 19 stories tall, which are broken down into 6 horizontal zones, so that one can make heads or tails, or should I say forward or aft, out of this place without a map.

As soon as we arrive, we are greeted by an exhausted-looking NCL corporate who gives us the low-down. “Please use the restrooms on this bus, we don’t know when you will get a cabin this evening, and none of the public toilets are hooked up yet.” I thought this was a joke.

“Also, we have had 2 fires in the last month. One of them is suspected to be criminal arson by a laid-off worker who set a pile of mattresses on fire.” Holy crap, what have I gotten myself into?

“So if anyone is caught smoking in or near the ship, you will be instantly terminated and left in France.” I look around to see if anyone else can believe this craziness.

“Just stay out of these workers way. They are very angry that this job is ending soon and that they will all be out of work.” What happened to se la vie?

THE STATE OF THE SHIP: Its potential is magnificent, vast areas of carpeted beauty, marble columns, an $800,000 chandelier that takes your breath away – this is just the reception lobby. Once, completed, this ship will be a palace on water... but its current state is very comparable to a post-apocalyptic disaster. There are literally 20,000 French workers painting, plumbing, sawing, screwing, and connecting wires at every turn. There is endless debris in all hallways. And the stairwells are jammed up with dangerous tools and materials that one must nimbly hurdle over to get to the next floor. There is a constant hum of vacuums to keep the dust under control. Filipinos are adorned with hard-hats, breathing masks, and ear-plugs as they try to make order of the chaos. Stain, paint, and trash fumes dance through your nose all day. It is mayhem. There are very few cleared areas for deliveries, so the other day I saw a crew wheeling in a large table, followed by a guy wheeling in two dead pigs to butcher. Hmmmm... I thought bacon came from packages.

OUR CURRENT CABIN: Our cabin is not ready yet, so we are living in a passenger cabin on Deck 13. It’s quite nice, except for the inconsistencies of water temperature. There are only 2 functioning elevators on the entire ship, and since there are workers carrying giant glass doors, furniture, pipes, etc., we sort of lose out on first priority to the elevators. So, you should’ve seen us trying to get our enormous rolling luggage up 13 flights of narrow and busy stairways... not pretty.

Sleeping is a very big challenge since the ship PA system is being tested nearly 24-hours-a-day. During the nights they play Beatles music, which isn’t so bad. But from 8AM – 8PM it is a variation of a few choices: “Ur, der, trois, termine.” Or “Ah, Bey, Sey, Dey, Ey, Eff, Termine.” Or a bunch of French words that end with the usual Termine”. Needless to say, I bought earplugs and put a pillow over my head.

The good news, a few of us took a train to a city called Nantes. I’d never heard of it, but apparently it is France’s sixth largest city and it is totally charming and wonderful. The people there are lovely. There are cathedrals, palaces, museums, cafes, antiques, and fun ships everywhere.

Highlights of our Nantes Adventure: We ate at a café that brought a chalkboard to your table – this was the menu. I found a sweet little jewelry boutique and bought a kitschy red bead necklace. We also stumbled upon one of the most majestic parks I have ever encountered. I loved it. And I ate the best almond-chocolate croissant known to my mouth! If only I knew more than my 2 French words: merci and si vous plais, I think it would have made the trip that much more delightful.

We are now on our first sea-trial this evening and won’t get to land again for three more days.

A couple of things you might find interesting: It doesn't get dark in France until about 10PM. They put a sunny-side-up egg on their pizza. Their dogs are unleashed. Au revoir (okay, three French words).

Part one: 3 weeks of migraines.

CHICAGO: And so it begins again... Jeff and I are living in a cute studio apartment in the heart of Old Town. We are just 2 blocks from the theater. It’s amazing to me how quickly one can feel “at home” somewhere new. We have been transient for 8 months. My motto: Home is where you hang your toothbrush.

REHEARSALS: Already our experience is so different from our last job’s easy schedule. We are in rehearsals for 3 weeks for 5 different scripted shows. Right now I am responsible for learning 27 sketches, 5 songs, 10 blackout bits, and 5 new improv shows, with more TBD. It’s loads of work and more memorizing than my thick skull can retain. I take Advil every night.

I wake up each morning at 6AM, run on the treadmill while listening to lines or music from the shows. Start rehearsing at 10AM with a one hour lunch break, go home somewhere around 5:30PM, eat dinner, work on lines while I eat more, and then eat more, and then sleep. Ah stress eating. Then I get on the treadmill all over again and try to burn a portion of the billions of calories that are forming onto fat on my ass.

Have I mentioned... we are also doing a murder mystery? Calling it a Murder Mystery is fitting: Since it is in the workshop phase, the script changes constantly, so it feels like you are being murdered by the embarrassment of having to perform something you have learned 5 different versions of. And there are so many mathematical components involved once the audience chooses who will be murdered (flashback scenes, murder scene, confessions, order of interrogations, different staging for each, etc...), that it is an endless mystery to the actors. I have all the faith in the world that it will be worked out, at some point. We have done two previews for “invited test audiences”. It’s like participating in Market Research, but not on the easy end. The feedback has been helpful... but exhausting as it keeps changing.

FREE TIME: We had a few days off to explore the great city of Chicago. We went to an exhibit called YOU! at Museum of Science and Industry. It was kid-fun! You could hold on to these handles to take your heart rate and then a giant heart on the wall would beat based on your BPM. We also put our hands under a special light to see our veins. Ewwww gross! And we tested our brains with puzzles and our eyes with charts. I realized that I need to get health coverage and see an eye doctor ASAP. All in all it was a fun day. We also took in a show... Million Dollar Quartet. It’s a musical based on the day that Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis were all in Sun Records. It was great! And we ate great Chicago pizza!

We fly to France tomorrow! Whoo hoo! And after 3 weeks, there are a few things I have learned:

1. My brain is more capable than I give it credit.

2. Jeff Hopkins is a terrific husband.

3. Too much Starbucks makes my left eye twitch and my boobies ache.