This Saturday I went on the cruise I had been waiting for. I was determined to make it worth the accidental trip to the harbor last week, when I thought it was leaving, and I more than succeeded.
I met up with my two friends that I was going on the cruise with at the central station, then we headed to meet some of the others that were going on the cruise at a nearby Vapiano restaurant. They were friends of friends etc, new people to get to know that meant. I made the mistake of ordering a pasta instead of a pizza like most did. It tasted good but I call it a mistake as I had to wait 20 min when the rest got their stuff in 10. Well, nothing bad that doesn't bring anything good with it - or well, I disagree with the saying but it fits in this case -, I ended up talking to a guy in his fifties named Janne. He was a funny guy so he made the time go a bit faster, then I got my food and said goodbye forever. After a while on Vapiano when the last had arrived we took a cab to the harbor where we waited for the boarding to start. There we all said hello to one another.
Now the first fun thing:
Someone mentioned me being "that Treo guy". As you might know I'm in a commercial for the headache pill Treo. I usually don't bring it up when i introduce myself to someone but it quite often spreads from mouth to mouth so of course I have a way of handling it. I almost always have a Treo tube that I take out of my pocket and follow up with a bow. This time was no exception, sadly I brought up a tube of the candy Mentos that I had just bought instead, similar in shape and size. It caused a bit of laughter but was an equally good icebreaker as Treo, if not a better one.
When it was time for boarding we went about and then to our rooms where we dumped our stuff, then it was buffet time. We ate a buffet that wasn't really worth the 22 euro when it came to quality but sure was worth it in quantity. They had many different dishes as well as free desert and drinks. We tried some beer that literally had the color of coke. I'm usually not a fan of dark beer but this one was surprisingly good. The food, desert and drinks together would definately have costed over 20 euro at any reasonable restaurant.
Time went by and we had a fun evening sitting and talking until 23, when it was time to head out and meet some other people as well. We had managed to lose track of each other earlier on the boat so it shouldn't have come as a surprise that we did quite fast. I ended up walking with some friends to a dancefloor. I've never been a huge fan of it so I headed back to our rooms to see if there was anyone there after a while. Turns out there wasn't but a message in our chat told me that quite a few were in another room. I went there and after some time we went to the highest floor to look out over the water, quite beautiful.
I ended up talking to some other people there and when I learned that it was a birthday for one of them we started singing the swedish Happy birthday song. Turns out she wasn't the only one, there was someone behind us who picked the cruise to celebrate her birthday as well, and soon over 20 people out there on the deck were singing. After a while I went inside with the people I had started talking to and hit the dancefloor. At first we had quite a lot of company but people dropped of more and more. We ended up dancing from two to six with just a few breaks to go outside for fresh air and talk, I think that we were the only four left for the last hour if not more. Perhaps I do like dancing a litte bit after all, under certain circumstances.
When I got back to our cabin a few minutes past six both my friends were asleep since half an hour ago. One was all well under his cover with his clothes thrown on the floor. The other hadn't thrown his clothes on the floor. He had simply climbed up into the upper bed and colapsed on his cover, shoes on and all. I had to try really hard not to laugh, if I had managed to take a picture with his face hidden it would have been the picture of this blog post for sure. Anyway, I hit my bed as well after doing like the first guy, but I'm one to talk ...
Second fun thing:
It annoyed me a bit that the sun shone straight on my face through the window but I figured I just had to go with it. I was starting to get quite tired so I thought that I would fall asleep quite fast anyway. I was right, I don't think it took many minutes. When I woke up at 09.30 I pretended to be asleep and listened to my friends talking. Thirty minutes or so later I showed that i was awake by turning my head. The first thing my friends asked me was why I had let the lamp on the side of the bedside table that was about 30 centimeters from my head on. Apparently it wasn't the sun that had been shining in my face. I guess that equals falling asleep with everything on in stupidity.
After getting out of bed we headed to the breakfast place with the rest of our group. I handed out some much appreciated Treo pills but didn't take any myself. I felt quite well, just tired and hungry. The overpriced sandwiches I ate didn't make me feel that much better. After breakfast we went back to our rooms and then spent the day until arrival there watching Finnish advertisement with a break for lunch a while later. Finnish advertisement might not sound exciting but they have a funny way of adding a few letter after the "normal" swedish and english words, which was surprisingly hillarious sometimes.
After getting of the boat and saying goodbye i took the subway home and sat down by my computer chilling. On Monday i was very tired at work but managed to do what I gotta do, apparently 9 hours of sleep hadn't been enough. Being tired is a small price to pay for a great weekend and finding some new friends that I might meet again. All in all a real success of a cruise. Worth the tiredness and the accidental trip to the harbor the week before - see previous blog post -.