From Russia, with Love

The past few days have been very busy and full of rehearsals.  The ship traveled to Latvia and Lithuania, but I was unable to get off and see either country because we are really working hard to get these shows up and running.  Currently we are ported for an overnight (2 days) in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The biggest news is that we opened our second show, “Listen to the Music.”  What a blast!  We are seriously working our tails off backstage changing costumes and we weren’t sure how the actual show would end up going since our final dress we hardly made any of the changes!  Going from Elton John’s 3 piece suit, leopard print platforms, glasses and hat into a whole different three piece suit, shirt and shoes in 30 seconds isn’t as easy as one may think!  (Lots of Velcro is key!  Ha ha!)  Anyway- the show went off without any problems more than my David Cassidy wig getting in my mouth and other little things.  Overall it was a really fun show and we were so excited because the audience went crazy for the show.  They really had a blast, making it that much more fun for all of us! 

Now that we have performed 2 shows and are getting out from rehearsals a bit more, passengers are starting to recognize us as well!  It’s like being a mini-celebrity. Once you meet someone they really feel connected to you!  I had the pleasure of meeting a great couple through 2 girls in the cast last night actually.  They had met them in a lounge and they sounded fun so we all met up to just visit in the Horizon lounge last night.  Charles and Dinny are an adorable couple living in Connecticut after having moved from England.  The conversation was great and just to hear about all their adventures and stories about being passengers on the Voyager made me that much more thankful for being here.  It feels like we are really getting more and more connected with passengers which is great.  Leaving that conversation I really felt like it was all worth it and starting to really click.

Finally, today we were able to get off the ship for a couple hours in St. Petersburg.  Russia has been very strict about procedures so we are just thankful we’ll get to visit at all.  Lindsay and I hung out with a waiter on the ship, Christian.  He is a really cool guy from Romania and it was nice just getting to have a fresh face to hang out with.  We pretty much just had time to get dinner, though.  It was SO GOOD and we were so satisfied with our visit until it was time to pay.  After handing over our debit card we were able to be told through broken Russian/English that they only accepted cash… in Rubles.  Oops.  After a sunny day I was able to run through the spontaneous rainstorm (of course) to a bank and got money.  (Reminded me of a run I took through Interlaken, Switzerland this time last year to get Francs to pay for some waffles.  Ha ha!)  After we paid, we got back to the ship.

Now I am headed to a final midnight rehearsal for “Ballroom Bravo,” the last of the really big production shows.  Hope everything is going great!  Miss you guys and hope to hear from all of you soon!

Tripp