My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
December 2022
On ships people come and go. It’s great when you encounter someone you don’t like, because sooner or later, one of you will leave. It’s much more difficult when you make great friends. You never know when you’ll see each other again, especially because vacations rarely align, so if you’re not on the same ship again (which rarely happens), it’s even harder to connect on vacation, and getting a group together is even more impossible. Somehow, I managed to make really good friends on the Coral Princess, our vacations aligned, AND some of us managed to meet up in the same place. With me from California, Bri from Boston, Georgie from London and Rob from Doncaster, four of us reunited in Edinburgh to celebrate the new year. Unfortunately, D’Arnett and Alex from the bridge who lives in Scotland, meant to join us, but they didn’t make it.
First I joined Georgie, then when we returned from Christmas, Bri had arrived in London!
Bri brought her boyfriend, Brian, who we hadn’t met yet (yes- pronounced Bree and Brigh. If you think that’s cute or cringy, Bri’s dad is also named Brian. He must be pretty great if they’re still together in spite of their common names). Bri had been loyal to him the whole six months on the ship, so we were looking forward to meeting this gentleman.
We met at a German restaurant that Georgie had been wanting to try. It was located in the very first gym in London.
The cocktails were also delicious.
We caught up late into the night and then met at the train station the next day. We intended to be on the same train, but we ended up booking different train companies, so Bri (Bree) and Bri (Brian) were on a train about half an hour ahead of me and Georgie.
Yes, I’m still separating the words to push Joseph’s buttons.
We arrived in Edinburgh after a little over four hours, and moved into our flat for the next few days. Our first meal in Edinburgh was Mexican.
We ended up back at the flat that evening where I was introduced to Rupaul’s Drag Race. I had never seen it before and I was hooked. On the ship I get nervous about staying up late because I’m afraid that I’ll never catch up on sleep. But on vacation, we could sleep as late as we wanted.
The next day we slept until we woke up and by the time we were ready to head out it was noon. We looked for some good brunch places, and when we found one there was a 45 minute wait. That was fine! We went for a walk until our table was ready.
It was a gorgeous breakfast. We had talked about touring the castle, but by the time we finished breakfast, it was about 3pm and the castle closed at 4pm.
We went out for a wander toward the Royal Mile and ended up at the Christmas Market, where, after browsing the stalls and picking up some souvenirs, we decided to ride the ferris wheel. The views were amazing.
As the sun went down we crossed the park.
We ended up at Frankensteins- a bar that Bri really liked. She had lived here when she was part of the Fringe Festival a few years ago.
We stopped at a brewery that Georgie liked, when a girl came up to me. She said, You may not remember me, but I’m Maggie and we did theater together. I wouldn’t have recognized her on the street, but now that she said her name I knew exactly who she was! I was one of the older kids and she was one of the younger kids in the theater program I did growing up! What are the odds of running into each other 25 years later in another country?!
We tried to get together again over the course of the next couple of days but it never worked out.
Meanwhile, we got a message from Alex. He was stuck in Glasgow. All of the trains and busses between Glasgow and Edinburgh were cancelled due to flooding!
I ‘met’ Alex at Sam and Linda’s in Cairns Australia. We started talking and realized we had both worked on the Caribbean Princess at the same time, and yet our paths had not crossed until now! We were looking forward to meeting up with him in Edinburgh- we had planned the trip and, as he lives in Scotland, he usually spends New Years in Edinburgh anyway. It was too bad he didn’t make it.
Tea
In the winter of 2020 my dear friend Rose and her partner worked on a documentary about the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh. It was supposed to be a story about all of the famous people who come to stay at the hotel, but it ended up being the story of the people who ran the hotel during a global pandemic. When I visited Rose last April, I asked to watch the documentary and she reluctantly sat through it with me, giving me live commentary about everyone featured and what also happened behind the scenes. When I told Rose that my friends and I were going to Edinburgh she said that we must go to tea at the Balmoral so that I could meet her friend Omar. She got in touch with Omar who squeezed us in with a last minute reservation.
It was so much fun to see a place I’d seen on TV in real life!
Rose is one of my absolute favorite people in the world, so I know that when she says I need to meet someone, they’re going to be someone special.
Like Rose, Omar glowed with kindness. In the few moments we had together, I could tell he was absolutely deserving of the reverence Rose gave him. They shared a mutual admiration that I also share with Rose and treasure with all my heart.
We were all delighted to be in such a beautiful setting.
Brian was also there, but he didn’t make it into these pictures somehow.
Here’s what we ate:
Omar brought us a special treat- Christmas tea, made from his mother’s recipe.
It was so creamy and perfectly spiced!
I was a little distracted when the couple next to us sat down.
Was that Colin Jost?
I read his book!
We texted each other under the table so we wouldn’t draw his attention. Bri reasoned that he wasn’t sitting with Scarlett Johansson, his wife, so it must not be him. What if she is a family member? A sister or a cousin? Eventually he turned just enough, that, straight on, it didn’t seem like it was him. But Colin Jost, if you’re reading this, and you went to tea at the Balmoral Hotel a couple of days before New Years, I saw you.
The desserts were so good that we wished we had saved more room.
We were a very happy family.
We spent the rest of the day walking around the streets of Edinburgh, up and down the Royal Mile and from side to side.
I was so happy.
Scotland was where I was when I decided I wanted to work on ships. I’d been miserable at my job working in an office at the Art Institute. When I left that job and had some time on my hands it took me a while of being numb to make my way out of the misery I had buried myself in. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I knew I loved acting and traveling but I didn’t see an obvious path to either of those. All I knew was that I need to go back to Europe, where I’d vowed to return to after living in Italy. I bought my one way ticket and planned out a few months, hitting the places and people to visit that had sifted to the top of my list: London, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Scotland and Ireland. Rose filled my soul in London, I delighted in the canals and buildings of Amsterdam, I missed my friends in Paris, in Barcelona I reunited with my best friend from 7th grade and it felt like no time had passed. In Scotland I woke up one day after a night in the worst hostel I had ever stayed in and realized I was so… HAPPY. I’d finally broke through the depression I’d sunk into working at a job that didn’t align with my spirit.
I loved being in a different place every day. How could I keep doing this and get paid? I realized that I had experienced and survived what could be the worst things about working on a cruise ship. I was doing fine living out of a suitcase, sleeping in bunkbeds surrounded by strangers. I had lived and worked with the same people in close quarters in Italy. I had a path!
It’s amazing how places can have such a dramatic effect. When I am in New York City, I feel like everything is right in the world. So far, in Scotland, I feel really really happy.
One of the difficult things about traveling with a group of people is figuring out what to do when everyone has a different opinion. We had the opposite problem- everyone was happy to do whatever anyone else wanted to do! We compromised by picking a new destination so that we could decide what to do next from there. The lyrics from Into the Woods became our theme – “We know what the decision is, which is not to decide”
I wasn’t much help. I was so blissfully happy walking around the city. I was dazzled by every building, every narrow walkway (called closes) that looked out on a tower, the winding streets, surrounded by my friends.
This city was fueling my spirit once again.
And late late on the night of December 30th, after two cancelled trains, Rob arrived and we reached peak Coral reunion!
