Not shockingly, my first sleep on Holland America’s Eurodam ship was swiftly followed by my first hangover on the aforementioned ship. When I was finally able to move my lifeless body out of bed, I discovered that it was already close to lunch time and that there was a large amount of room service piled on the floor in mine and Kiel’s room. I also found a receipt for $50 that said I had pre-paid for a pub crawl the night before, but I would be lying if I said I fully remembered purchasing it. I was also puzzled to discover another three orders of room service in the hallway outside of our door, which I eventually learned were the work of Natalie and Jeff who had KO’ed the previous night before their food showed up. Since I was not feeling too hot, I could not even think to stomach any of the five left-over meals on offer and instead got my ass in gear and headed off the boat to the island we were currently docked at known as Half Moon Cay, which if I am not mistaken is a private island in the Bahamas owned by the cruise line. Upon my arrival on the island, I quickly started canvassing my way through the few thousand people on the beach in hopes of finding someone in my party. Luckily it only took about ten minutes before I was able to locate them. Apparently, everyone had already been there for a few hours, which either means I am a really weak drunk or I just drank way more than everybody the night before. After taking a dip in the crystal clear ocean waters, Kiel and I ended up hanging out on the beach like a couple of gumbas listening to house music on our IPod boom-box, while everyone else went back to the ship. Naturally, our music combined with our stellar good looks kept all forms of human life away from us, which was fine by me given my poor health. After making our way back to the boat, I took a side trip to the onboard gym to try and bring myself to life. It seemed to have a positive effect, as I was once again primed and ready to party the night away after that. After some early evening drinks and another lovely family dinner, it was time to get back into the full swing of things at the casino and nightclub. As would become routine on the trip, we started the night at the roulette table where we would usually meet up with Jenn and Donna and see the same assortment of people who were just as big of degenerate gamblers as Kiel and I. Kiel, Jeff, and I also decided to take part in a blackjack tournament that was going to be spread out over two nights. It had a $20 buy-in and was basically a tournament to see who could put up the highest score through seven hands. After two nights of qualifying rounds, the top seven players would all reconvene for a $500 winner take-all final table on Thursday night. Anyways by the end of Monday night, Kiel was in second place while Jeff and I were in sixth and seventh respectively. We would have to wait until Thursday (night two) to see what happened! After mowing down a bunch more drinks and thinking he was king shit, Kiel started telling the two Ukrainian blackjack dealers that we was going to marry them and how gorgeous they were. This event went on in front of my mother who had since shown up, which was quite comical to say the least as Kiel was just sooooooo polluted. After several marriage proposals, Kiel eventually gave up on trying to secure a mail order bride and instead went back to his muse from the night before; the 36 year old English woman, who I swear was probably closer to 45. Anyways, it didn’t take long before her and Kiel were grinding each other up on the dance floor in the nightclub, much to the delight of Jenn and I. By this point, I think Jenn and I were both almost in tears watching from a booth as Kiel tried to work his magic, pimped out in his “Ron Paul” shirt, gold necklace, and gaudy rings. The young-Caucasian-Canadian-dance-floor-pimp-train. Truly a sight that everyone must see at least once before they die. The night concluded with a whole whack of us on the dance floor, dancing to the same tunes that the DJ would play every night. And my award for most random couple on the dance floor (and believe me this wasn’t your typical nightclub crowd) had to go to this gay couple we had befriended who were both named Steve and Steve. All I could think about the whole time was how awkward it must be screaming out your own name in bed. “Ohhhhhhhhhh Steve!!!!!!!!”
Tuesday, I was awoken by Natalie who had a pretty random encounter in the form of an old public/high school and dance friend. As she was sitting on the pool deck that morning, a girl by the name of Kellie that we used to go to school with recognized her sitting there. Long story short, Kellie was now working for Holland America as a dancer and we had apparently watched her in a show without even realizing it (they wear tons of makeup and we were sitting far away). All I can say to that is it’s a small world after all. All randomness aside, our family had planned to have a hot tub party the day before so that’s exactly what we did at lunch time. After securing one of the hot tubs on the pool deck, Kiel, Nat, Jeff, and I (parents decided to not get wet) had it on lock down for a few hours. With Kiel and my mom ordering buckets of beer like they were going out of style, it didn’t take long for us to start feeling fine. We eventually made some other random friends who we allowed into our “hot tub circle of trust”, most notably a cool dude named Adam who was a male nursing student from South Carolina. By the end of the trip he had worked his way up to honorary family member, which is no small feat by any means. By the time the middle of the afternoon rolled around (and the $200 beer tab for Kiel and my mom), most of us were starting to get a little woozy and decided to pack it in for a while. Not Kiel though. He decided to stay and tub it out for a bit and somehow in his drunkenness lost one of his precious Joe-Pesci-in-Goodfellas-style rings in the bottom of the hot tub. With the help of some strangers, he was eventually able to find it and decided to reward them and himself by purchasing everyone shots. This was around the time my dad found him, barely coherent and had to drag him back to our room before he completely drained his bank account. This is in turn led to Kiel jumping on my head while I was trying to have a nap and my cursing out of the drunken bastard. We were pretty sure that that would be the end of Kiel for the night, which was unfortunate as I had already purchased him a pub crawl ticket in my drunken generosity a couple of nights earlier. This worked out well for Nat who ended up being able to take advantage of his misfortunes. With Kiel asleep for the night (or so I thought), I went and put in a quick shift at the casino before Nat, Jeff, and I made our way to the top level of the ship for the pub crawl. We ended up meeting up with my new best friend Jenn as well as some of the other random people we had so far befriended. The pub crawl itself ended up being more of a sprint, as it was only one hour in length and featured stops at five different bars, each serving up one fairly strong drink (long island ice teas, martinis, screwdrivers, etc). As you can imagine, by the time a couple hundred of us arrived at the final stop (Northern Lights nightclub) everyone was feeling quite good and in the mood to celebrate our victory. Unfortunately for my wallet, they also offered half-price drinks at the final stop for the first 45 minutes or so, that led to me at one point carrying a tray of ten or so vodka-Red Bulls. What can I say, I’m a bargain hunter! While we were all chatting away in the club, who emerges out of the shadow; none other than Kiel Fuckin’ Moreau! He had freshly risen from his drink-induced afternoon sleep and was ready to go again. With that in mind, he delved right into his thermos and my tray of drinks and promptly made his return to the dance floor. By this, the third night, Kiel had become somewhat of a legend in the nightclub, and the DJ knew him by name and what songs he was going to request (Deadmau5, Pauly D, Daft Punk). All in all, another terrific night onboard the Eurodam, with a great cast of associates and characters.
The next morning our boat docked for the day at Ocho Rios, Jamaica and unfortunately for my aching head, Nat, Jeff, Kiel, and I had all planned to go and visit Jamaica’s number one tourist attraction, Dunn’s River Falls. The falls are basically this long ass set of small waterfalls, cascades and rapids that you slowly walk up through with the help of a guide. Immediately after getting off the boat in Jamaica, the first thing you notice is that everyone is trying to sell you something or lay some kind of hustle on you. While it is somewhat comical, it is annoying more than anything else. It was the main thing I hated about the Dominican Republic when I went there a few years ago and it quickly soured me on Jamaica. Eventually we made our way over to Dunn’s River and completed our walk up the waterfalls with a billion other tourists in about an hour or so. It was most definitely a unique thing to do once, but the novelty of it quickly wore off on me (or maybe it was just my pulsating head). Following our successful waterfall climb and subsequent dealings with the Jamaican hustlers we made our way back onboard the ship and I headed straight to the gym to try and make myself feel better. Not too sure if I was successful, but it gave me enough strength to get to the family dinner and swear off heavy drinking for one night. That night, Nat, Jeff, and I decided to take it easy on the booze, but Kiel decided he needed to keep the party going. After making the requisite stop at the casino and playing a bit of roulette, blackjack, and poker, the three of us along with our honorary guest Jenn decided to check out the stand-up comedy act in the main theatre that night. It was some dude by the name of Al Lubel, who has appeared on both Leno and Letterman, although I’m still not really sure how. He had to be one of the least funny comedians I have ever seen and I’m pretty sure by the way he kept repeating his name he was more coked out than Paula Abdul on Season 5 of American Idol. In fact, Jeff ended up getting so mad that him and Natalie jut walked out about three quarters of the way through the show. Since Jenn was the only person amongst the few hundred in attendance who found it funny, I was forced to stay until the end and witness Al Lubel, the middle-aged man with a Jew-fro take off his shirt and play the piano for his grand finale. Shocking. Having gotten no laughs out of my system for the night, Jenn and I headed over to the nightclub where we were sure we would find Kiel. And wouldn’t you know it; there was Kiel on the quietest night of the week, the only guy out on the dance floor. Occasionally some poor unsuspecting man or woman would happen onto the dance floor and Kiel would quickly grab their ass or grind with them. Yes, he was even ass-grabbing the male DJ at times. This led to far better comedy for Jenn and me than any “professional” comedian could provide, although like Al Lubel, Kiel Moreau could not fight the urge to have a one man no shirt party. Just classless I tell ya!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment