I woke up around 6:45 or 7 to the mooring lines and the bow thrusters again. Maybe one day I will get used to this stuff. I decided that I would get off the ship early because I had a lot of things to do. I wanted to go to the mall to just experiment a little bit and see what was there. Apparently Brad needed a shirt exchanged from Express so I volunteered to go and exchange it for him. Two weeks ago when he bought the shirt the girl rung it up wrong so he had to redo the transaction and when she did she forgot to take the security tag off the shirt. Normally those things beep when you get to the door but for some reason it didn’t and by the time Brad knew it he was already back on the ship with a security tag in his $70 shirt. He told me he tried to get the security tag off but instead of talking to a technician (like a good performer) he did it himself causing his shirt to rip but at least he got the tag off. To get to the mall you first had to take the crew cargo van down into downtown then catch a “metro mover” to the real metro station then take the metro all the way south until the end of the line. I thought through all of this before I even left the cabin for breakfast at 7. I ate breakfast down in the crew mess for the first time today and honestly, it was pretty good. They had sausage, bacon, pancakes and even grits and grapefruit. After breakfast I headed down to the gangway around 8. Security was screening some people to leave but they all had some sort of paperwork with them but I didn’t care. So I played a lemming and followed them right through the metal detector. Apparently those people with the forms had medical leave and were going to see a doctor and the security guy said that they weren’t letting regular crew members off yet and to come back around 8:30 (in a heavy Indian accent. All the security people are Indian). So, I decided to head back to the mess and grab another grapefruit. Around 8:20 I headed back to security. 8:30 came and went and they told me they were letting people off at 9. Ugh, I wish they would just make up their minds so I could actually plan what I wanted to do for the day. I just decided to wait in the line so I could be one of the first people off the ship to catch a crew van. Finally 9:00 came around and they started screening people through the x-ray machine. I stamped my ID through the little detector thingy (I still doesn’t know what it does exactly) and the security guard asked if I had my passport. Passport?? What would I need that for?? I’m already inside the US. Ugh, so I had to run all the way back to my cabin to grab my passport. When I came back down the line to get off was already out the door. So much for getting off the ship early. I finally made it off the ship around 10:00 and I headed straight to the crew vans. Once I made it downtown I was told just to follow the raised rail road tracks until I found a “metro mover” station. The station was basically something out of an airport. A little metro car on wheels drove around a little track around the city. It was nice and best of all it didn’t cost a thing. It looked like it was designed off of the L line in Chicago (it was square based) and I transferred cars to the metro station at the station in the middle of the square. Brad warned me to buy a card at the metro station because it was easier to buy the tickets in round trips. Easy enough, just like MARTA in Atlanta. I swear I’m collecting these little cards. I have one from New York, Chicago, Atlanta and now Miami. Is there any other major city on the east coast that I need?? Maybe DC perhaps? Anyway, I tapped my card on the faceplate just like at MARTA and proceeded to wait for the next train. Brad said that they run in half hour increments and I noted the time just in case I needed to get back in a hurry. I had to be back on the ship no later than 3pm but I wanted to give myself plenty of leeway because I’m slightly paranoid that I’ll miss my ship so I decided I should leave no later than 1pm. The trains kind of looked like the Chicago trains, very boxy and quite old but the interiors had padded seats and AC that worked so they must have been refurbished at some point. The train ride took about twenty minutes and it was a nice chance to look around Miami and see what was around. The stop before mine I saw a Target and Best Buy so I figured that I might stop by depending on how long of a distance there was in between the two stops. Luckily it wasn’t too much of a distance. I saw the Macy’s and Dillard’s coming off of the train so I knew I was in the right place. I quickly found the Express store. Only in Miami would there be an Express store as an anchor for a mall. It was a little early so there weren’t a lot of people there but I felt kind of awkward walking into a clothing store with a backpack. I’m sure the attendants noticed me right away. I tried to play it off but hey, it did look kind of sketchy. I went up to the front desk and explained what happened to the shirt casually leaving out the detail about the security tag. They didn’t seem to have a problem letting me exchange it since I had all the receipts I just had to make my way to the men’s department and find another shirt. This Express was the largest Express I have ever been in. It consisted of three stories and the men’s department was on the top floor (I guess they give all of their prime real estate to the women). I finally found a replacement shirt but they didn’t have the right size. Crap. I looked around for a bit and picked out a shirt or two that I wanted to try on. Brad gave me about a hundred dollars worth of Express cash for running the errand (mainly because the coupons expired the next day and he didn’t want anything from Express). Unfortunately they didn’t have any more sizes in the back. Double crap. Brad told me that he waited three weeks to exchange the shirt and I hoped we could make something work where it didn’t have to be another week. How do I get another size of this shirt without going to another Express? I eventually decided to return the shirt for store credit and purchase it online (with a few other things that they didn’t have my size in) that way I could use the store credit and the coupons as well. I made a little note of the things I wanted to buy and refunded the shirt and headed straight for the food court. It’s been a while since I had mall food and I was craving some Chinese food. The mall looked pretty nice, it had a Godiva, Saks 5th ave, Aldo and a lot of more upscale stores. I quickly ate my Chinese food and looked at my watch. 11:30. I spent more time in Express than I wanted. I scarfed my food, made an attempt to tether with the Droid that failed and decided to head to Target to pick up some headphones and such before heading back. I didn’t really know where I was going so I decided the best way to get there was to head back to the Express where I entered the mall and follow the train tracks until I hit the Target. That way I knew I wasn’t going to miss it. It took a bit longer than I expected but I managed to find the Target around noon. I felt like I was a contestant on Supermarket Sweep. I ran and grabbed my headphones, batteries, sunscreen and other things that I needed and made my way to the checkout line (I foolishly wore my flip flops and learned that flip flops are never a good idea when you’re trying to move quickly). The checkout line took the longest out of all the ventures (of course). Upon leaving I saw that Target had a Starbucks. Hmm, I wondered if they had Wifi. I used my phone to find out. Nope. Then it wasn’t worth my time. I headed straight for the metro station for the ride back home. 12:30. Not bad. While waiting for the train I decided to try to find that shirt on the Express website to order. That way it made the train ride go by quicker and I was productive as well. I made sure to take note which was my stop and the stops before it so I wouldn’t miss my station. God that would be a nightmare wouldn’t it? It took me the entire train ride to find that bloody shirt, but I think I found it. I did some shopping for myself as well considering I had a bunch of coupons to use which expired tomorrow. I got off at the Government Center station and headed for the little “Metro mover” car. It looked like a toy compared to the metro line track. Luckily I didn’t have to wait long and it was an instant before I was at my stop. Now I knew where I was and I had a little time to kill so I decided to head straight to the Starbucks for some free internet (not to mention a mocha). The Starbucks was pretty busy but there still were plenty of seats that were unoccupied so I ordered and sat down for a while. They were really slow getting me my drink but I didn’t mind considering I had free internet and a place to get back to civilization. Around two o’clock I decided it was best to return to the ship. I didn’t want to be late and I didn’t know how long I had to wait for a crew van. The vans are kind of sketchy. You basically just walk up to one and jump right in after a while the cabby closed the doors and headed straight to the pier. The trip probably took about five minutes. Once I was back at the pier I headed straight to the security kiosk. After what had happened the past week with the watches (see previous entries) I’m sure my bag would be checked. Sure enough they opened every pocket and searched through them all. I kind of wondered if I had anything that could be considered a weapon in those pockets. It’s been a while since I even opened them, there could be a knife in there leftover from school and I would never know about it. Luckily she waved me through and I dodged, once more, the dance choir of forklifts trying desperately to load the ship with everything it needed for the voyage. I even had a little bit of time to kill before boat drill. So I checked in with a few folks and before I knew it the alarm sounded for the boat drill. I ran right back to my cabin to grab my orange vest and headed straight to the muster stations. This time I knew what I was doing. I shuffled people around as if they were cattle and got them all in position well before crowds formed. You really have to treat them like cattle in order for everything to go smoothly and orderly. Who knows what would happen during a real emergency. I dread to even think about the chaos. The boat drill went smoothly and no one fainted (unlike last week) so after boat drill I headed back downstairs for some department meeting that was on the schedule. The meeting was short (God bless Jen) basically an introduction of some new people on the ship and we headed back to the cabins. I grabbed my phone to snatch up all the wireless I could before the boat left port for a week without internet. This cruise is a western cruise so unlike this past week I won’t be stopping in any destinations that have cell service. I may have wifi later on but who really knows. Before I knew it we were facing the Atlantic once again with a whole new batch of folks and lots of new destinations. After we got everyone settled in it was my turn to set up Laser Tag. I don’t even want to know how much money Laser Tag brings in for Carnival because I can’t imagine it would be much considering what a hassle it is. After the stresses of laser tag (it might even convince me to go to the crew gym…I said might…) I was dripping with sweat we set up the game show. The game show consists of mostly late 80s early 90s references to pop culture and some TV shows. Honestly, I never recognize any of the answers because either I hadn’t been born yet or I was way too young to remember what was on TV in the late 80s. Later in the evening was the Welcome Aboard show again. Since Dave left this morning I have been going over and over with my checks to make sure I have everything correctly and even tonight I almost missed a cue. During the show Jen brings up two people and they basically play “one minute to win it” where they have 60 seconds to do a certain task (I believe the task was to build a pyramid out of solo cups). I almost forgot to turn the projectors on and route the DVD player to the projectors. Luckily the DVD was already in the player otherwise I would have really been screwed. Thank God for repetition. After this incredibly long day I really just want to watch a little bit of TV and go to bed. Maybe I’ll turn on my external and see what TV shows I stole from Ryan…
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