heading home

I'm currently sitting in the Toronto airport waiting for my *new* flight to leave. Half way there! First flight was delayed which threw it all off. Ah well. It's funny how tired I look, hence the picture that describes how I feel. Don't. Look. At. Me. Haha.

The last 24 hours have been incredibly hectic and I am so ready to sleep in my own bed at home. I went to bed around 2am on my last night. I had so much fun at crew goodbyes, the energy and the hugs and kisses I got made me feel so loved. I didn't want to leave. For the last week (and even now) it would not sink in that I was heading home. I have such mixed feelings about it still. I was happy to finally see the end of my contract, to get to be home with family and friends but knowing that when I go, there would be so many people I've come to love and connect with that will not be there when I come back. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with them as possible. My packing was about 90% left to the last minute, as per usual. Spent my last evening stressing out over lack of space issues, but taking plenty of breaks in-between to visit Emma on her work break, then to go with Melanie (Bradley & Ashley showed up too) to watch Ema and Dan, aka The Dreamer's last show on the ship, and again later sneak some pizza at Pinocchio's. As cool as it's been to be a sort of trail blazer when it comes to doing this job, coming home and not having a friend that shared the experience along with me is the tough part. All of my new friends are too far away. It's bittersweet.

Got up 6:30 to finish packing and then from 7-9am I was back and forth non-stop between costuming and crew office and throwing away a massive amount of trash, breakfast and then finally back to the office again to get my last check. Lines were long. Diversions (a lounge) was our meeting point to get our last bit of info before we left. Emma and Mel and a few others came to wish me, Carl, Anne, Mark, Kevin, Ema and Dan a farewell.  Only Kevin and I are coming back to the Wonder. The rest are either done, or heading on to the Fantasy. Le sigh. Good news that I learned this morning, however is that the band, Speakerbox will be back again in April. I'm glad I'll have at least one musical pleasure to look forward to. Not sure if I love the name, but I definitely like their sound, those cuties from England. Side note, I'm pretty sure there's a job for absolutely everyone I know on a cruise ship. It's such a unique environment to have so many different minded people come together to make it all work. You rub shoulders with performers/entertainers, musicians, electricians, carpenters, engineers, waiters/waitresses, chefs, photographers, massage therapists, hair stylists, teachers, CHARACTERS like Mickey and Minnie all day long. It's pretty amazing. I mean, my job entails more than just being a youth counselor. I'm part receptionist/info guide, Character body guard, and cafeteria lady as well.

So, as you've probably guessed I have signed my returning contract. I'll head back in February! I'll get a pretty cool itinerary again, getting to sail to a few different places. It'll be back to Mexico a little bit, go on their first cruise to Hawaii, up the Pacific coast to San Fran, and then back to Alaska! I'm excited that I'm not stuck in Mexico the whole time. 'Cause as beautiful as it is, the inconvenience of the itinerary and schedule clashes start to get to ya.

The rest of my day yesterday was spent at the airport was spent eating a good burger, reading magazines, hating my computer for dying on me with no available power source, journal writing and trying not to fall asleep. I was there for about ten hours waiting. Brutal. Luckily I had Mark and Anne for the last hour or so to pass the time before our flight to T-dot together. Now I'm half way through waiting another four hours since I missed my connecting flight. Ahh. And I already feel my body adjusting to non-ship food and air. My entire body is stiff and achey. Unless it's simply early onset of old age.

This is probably long enough. Thanks for reading if you did! My thoughts are pretty reflective at this point since I'm still in limbo towards home. It's strange to suddenly have a whole day to yourself. You realize just how much you need time to process everything. You forget that you actually like having time to yourself. Did those four months really happen? It's gone like a dream already. Working four months straight with just one day off the entire time is insane. 

I'm ready for vacation!!!