Snap shot of an evening on the ship

Jan 26, 2006

It's 10 pm our time and I'm writing from the 7th floor of our ship in a view point called the Sky Veranda.

Through a set of doors from the room I'm in is the pool deck, where people are practicing Japanese drumming.

On the 6th floor is the Piano Lounge which also doubles as our bar, on the 5th our advisors are having a lively meeting while the Brazillians rehearse their national dance...

On the 4th floor is the Dolphin Lounge, where I just came from, and witnessed an utterly mindblowing piano solo as part of an exhibition of various music and dance talent on our ship called "No Music, No Life" - I never knew fingers could move so fast.

The 3rd floor has all of the girls cabins and the grand bath, where people bathe and then soak together in the nude, and on the second floor there are people dancing Capoeira in a small foyer in front of our dining hall.

On the first floor, which consists solely of storage rooms, the participants from Bahrain are making some sort of crafts in the hallway, presumably to give away to us all at some point.

The talent and human resources on this ship are simply amazing.

On Monday I had lunch with a life coach to learn about her trade, today I lunched with my economy advisor, Tadashi Yamada (published in a collection of the 40 most globally influential essays on economy), and last night I drank beer with a girl from Austrailia about to embark on a PhD in Clinical Psychology, specializing in trauma.

Today we spent time our time in free discussion and sports and recreation.

I chose "love" as my topic for free discussion, and found myself in fast paced discussion with Asha from Kenya, Jimmy from Mauritius and Victoria from Tonga.

The sports and recreation segment more resembled an elementary school's version of track and field - we played games where one person was blindfolded, and our team had to tell him where to sit so that he could squash a balloon.

In "The Clothesline" we had to see how long of a line we could make simply by tying together pieces of our clothes - Sara from Sweden gave us an extra edge by adding her shirt to the line.

Everywhere you go, every corner you turn, there’s someone to say hi to, someone’s hand to shake. In total we’ll spend 43 days on this ship - 6 weeks - but when we leave we’ll have lived far more than 43 days.

Time here is somehow accelerated, we’re doing so much more in a given day, interacting with each other so many more times than we ever possibly could if we were on land.

There’s a small gay community that’s starting to develop, making people from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain nervous.

Last night we gave the Canadian National Presentation and literally blew everyone away.

Seriously, the show we gave was near broadway quality, thanks in no small part to Mylene from Quebec (who has performed with the Cirque du Soleil). People were crying, telling us we moved them even more than the surreal presentation Japan’s 120 delegates delivered.

I’ve had at least 3 people tell me how much they want to move to Canada, now that they understand what multiculturalism is all about. Pretty good for 12 people who were strangers less than 2 weeks ago. (If all goes well I’ll be able to bring home a video of this)

Aside from the other Canadians I’ve connected particularly well with the Swedish delegation - they think it’s the Norwegian blood circulating my system, and I’m not inclined to disagree.

Tomorrow we spend the day in Singapore while the ship refuels, and then set sail again for Chennai, India.

Tonight all of the external doors are locked and lights are shut off, as we sail through a small corridor ridden with pirates, on our way to India from Singapore.

I’m looking forward to lying on my bottom bunk and being gently rocked to sleep by the waves.