Leaving on a Cruise Ship

Herro all!!!

It's been a few months since updating, and a few things have taken place since the last update.

While the five-week Contiki training trip was a fun learning experience with a few nice anecdotes to emerge from it, I ultimately didn't get the job. Twelve hours after arriving in New York, the final stop of our training trip, I was on a plane back to S.A., feeling disgraced with failure deafening my confidence . And, once again, I saw next to nothing of NYC besides a somber, snowy drive through Times Square at 3 AM in a foul state of mind.

But even though what was perceived to be a shiny golden door slamming shut in my face, another one opened in the nick of time, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

May 12th, providing I pass my physical, I will be flying to San Diego to board Holland America's ms Statendam for a five-month gig as an Assistant Shore Excursion Manager. I'll be traveling to my stomping grounds from last summer in addition to other areas of Alaska that I've both visited on my way back from Skagway and locales I've yet to experience. It's a great opportunity and I look forward to the experience and memories. The Statendam will set sail the 13th, and my seasonal contract will end on September 25th in Vancouver. AND, there's the possibility of getting on board a ship for the fall and winter as well!

So you're probably not wondering, but I'm gonna tell ya anyway, what were the great times had on the five-week trip through America? See below!

• San Diego is awesome.
• "Elvis" "marrying" Jack and Hannah in Las Vegas.
• Exploring various casinos in Vegas, and catching the Mirage's volcano show.
• Helicopter flight over a somewhat snowy Grand Canyon.
• A jeep tour in the snow in Sedona, AZ.
• Hannah and the "one-armed son-of-a-bitch".
• The immense beauty of Monument Valley and very educational tour of Navajo Nation.
• In Durango, driving a snowmobile into a five-foot snow bank and subsequently getting it stuck.
• Santa Fe is still awesome.
• Ryan's successful completion of the Big Texan challenge.
• Except for Deep Ellum, the 6th Floor Museum and Hotel Indigo, Dallas still blows.
• Using Tony as cannon fodder in the haunted house in Dallas.  Also, the fire alarm going off and us not evacuating the building because we assumed it was part of the show.
• Homeless dude in Memphis being scared of Eileen and using me as a shield to block her from his sight.  She then peaked out from behind me and scared him again.
• Eating BBQ at Rendezvous and Neely's in Memphis (deeeeelicious!).  That was the best I ate the entire trip.
• Graceland, The Rock 'N' Soul Museum and wandering Beale St.  It's safe to say I love Memphis.
• Missing the motorcoach in Memphis due to oversleeping.  Luckily we weren't leaving town that day.
• The horrific stench of Bourbon St. in New Orleans during Carnival.
• Jack's pimp ways during the jazz cruise in New Orleans.
• Watching people ride tractors and ATVs out to watch Mardi Gras parades in the Louisiana Bayou when they were mere 20-30 feet from their houses.  One man even hooked up a flat bed to his tractor, put a couch in it and his family sat on the couch as he drove them around.
• The Bayou tour and getting to hold an alligator.
• Cajun and Creole cuisine, of course!
• Opinion of the Orlando area would have been slightly higher if I had the money and time to hang out in Universal Studios.  The jaded attitude of many people there didn't help either.  Tallahassee and Kississimmee were rather forgettable as well.
• Miami - Little Havana, dancing the night away on a party boat and Mango's in South Beach.
• The tandem bike ride with Andy in South Beach.  We were total rock stars that morning.  The art deco buildings and the beach in South Beach were beautiful as well, but I can do without the rest of it.
• Tony and the astronaut suit.  At the Kennedy Space Center, after the Shuttle Launch Experience, myself and several colleagues made a bet with him.  We would all pitch in for a $100-souvenir astronaut suit for Tony on the condition he had to wear it everyday in public for the remainder of the tour.  If he took it off, he had to pay us our money back.  What happened?  Continue reading to find out!
• The ghost tour in St. Augustine.  While on the tour, a group of kids passed by, one of them shouting "Who are you gonna call?  Ghostbusters!" to Tony.  Also, while researching St. Augustine, a guy drove up and shouted "douchebag!" to him.
• Pizza on the beach in Cocoa Beach.
• Eating delicious pub food on a rooftop restaurant in Savannah.
• The green fountain for St. Patrick's Day in Forsythe Park in Savannah.
• Charleston was pretty interesting; just wish we had more time there to explore.
• Tony fooling a couple of girls at a bookstore in Raleigh into believing he was an astronaut from Massachusetts with his JFK impersonation.
• Impressed with what little I saw of Richmond.
• D.C. still rocks - gotta love the Air & Space Museum and the National Museum of American History.
• Wandering all of the memorials at night in D.C. and the great history discussions I had with my colleagues.
• Wishing we had more time in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
• The snowy drive through Times Square in NYC. 

Whew!  Quite a few great times!  I'm stoked for my next adventure, so stay tuned!  Oh yeah, and Tony did win the bet.

No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn

As noted on my Facebook page, I have officially been invited to train with Contiki Holidays starting on February 14th. The first few days will be at Contiki's offices in Anaheim before we set out on the open road. The training tour schedule is, as of now, as follows:

2/16 - Depart L.A., head to San Diego
2/17-2/18 - San Diego
2/19 - Phoenix
2/20 - Grand Canyon
2/21-2/23 - Las Vegas
2/24 - Grand Canyon
2/25 - Cortez, CO
2/26 - Albuquerque
2/27 - Amarillo
2/28-3/1 - Dallas
3/2-3/4 - Memphis (with what seems to be an excursion to Nashville during this time)
3/5-3/7 - New Orleans
3/8 - Tallahassee
3/9-3/10 - Orlando
3/11-3/13 - Miami
3/14 - Cocoa Beach, FL
3/15 - St. Augustine, FL
3/16 - Savannah
3/17 - Raleigh
3/18-3/20 - Washington, D.C.
3/21 - Pittsburgh
3/22 - Philadelphia
3/23-3/24 - New York
3/25 - Return to L.A.

From there, we get two days off before another week or so of in-class training and pre-season meetings. April 5 is the last day of training and meetings. I'm really excited about this opportunity!

Also, I plan to start up another blog that will be my official travel blog/travel photography portfolio. This one will revert to one where I'll talk about, well, random things. I know, I have a difficult enough time keeping up with one blog much less two. When will I start up the new one? I have no idea right now, but I'm hoping sometime this year.

Once February 14th rolls around, there will be no sleep 'till Brooklyn...literally. Exciting times ahead!

The Waiting Game

Happy New Year to everyone! Hopefully, it's going well for y'all.

My interview with Contiki Holidays in California seemed to have gone well. I learned quite a bit about the job and the training course required for it. One huge positive is I won't have to move out to California. This will allow me to save up a LOT more money, despite the fact I am financially responsible for paying my own way to the starting point of each tour I'm assigned to. While that might not seem like a fair deal, it's still much cheaper than moving, and, much of the time I will have about two days to a week off between tours, which will allow me to stay in L.A. instead of dropping the cash every time to return home. There may be a few instances where I will have several weeks off in a row. Depending on how much money is in the bank during those times, there's a strong possibility I will use this time for travel purposes. Where to, I don't know, but that's part of the fun!

Of course, I have to not only get invited to the training course and pay for it first, I have to then be offered a position after successfully completing training. I am confident I did well, but that will remain to be seen in about two weeks when I should hear back from them.

If I'm invited to train, I then fly back to L.A., and we begin a grueling eight-week training course February 14, and ending on April 7. It starts out in L.A. and we then head down to San Diego before punching east into Arizona. Phoenix, Sedona and the Grand Canyon will be visited before we head into Las Vegas. From Vegas, we head eastbound once again, through the four-corners into Santa Fe and Albuquerque, then into northern Texas and going through Little Rock, Memphis and New Orleans. From there, it's a one-week jaunt through Florida before heading northward through Savannah, Charleston and into Virginia, D.C., Philadelphia and finally ending in New York. At this point, we know if we're hired or not.

If they fly us back to L.A., we're in. If not, we must pay our own way back home from New York. After returning to California, we then participate in a welcome-back meeting with the returning Tour Managers, and finally a week of paperwork training before we're ready to go. New recruits won't start leading tours until June, so I'll have most of April and all of May before heading out. IF indeed this all comes to pass, I'm going to see if I can return to Skagway in late April and reprise my role as Moosejaw Dave for the month of May before flying back to California and preparing to embark on my first tour as a Tour Manager.

Unfortunately, there's virtually no chance for me to lead international tours for Contiki since all of their international tours are handled through their respected departments. But that's alright. I'm still pretty excited (and nervous) about what could possibly happen. I'll be leading tours with people in my age bracket, learning more about America and having a good ol' time in the process. It's a one-step-at-a-time sort of deal at the moment, so hopefully the next step of being invited to train will come to pass.