First Week

That would be my home ... The Africa Mercy

So where to start .... So i guess i should firstly say how sorry i am its taken me a whole week to make my first post since i left England!!!

Basically its been all go! this is the first time ive been on my comp the whole time ive been here i think! I has been in my sisters cabin so i think that about proves it!

So I landed Sat 24th Jan at about 9pm, which was about 2 hours later than was meant, but some jazz about our plane being stuck somewhere meant a 2 hour delay, which did mean i got to watch the whole of the west ham game in the pub which was cool!

So we pretty much had time just to get our hire car, and take the long way home! basically we drove round and round mountains, no wrong turns at all may i add! it was just a long way! So we finally arrived at our hotel about 12.

So Sunday, Monday and Tuesday i was not officially on the ship, so these were spent visiting the ship, shopping for things i needed and just hanging out with my sister and her family who are on the ship also (see www.thefarrells.org.uk)

We managed to visit a beach with black sand!

So Wednesday, 28th, was the big day, i rolled up and well ive been here to stay ever since! Wednesday didnt really consist of much, a little tour of the ship and such! just gettin use to everything and spending some time with some friends i had made this summer in Texas and also with some new friends ive made since ive been here!

So Thursday was a little more hectic! So had a meeting with my new department head 9:30am, for those of you that dont know im an assistant cook on the ship. So that lasted about an hour, then followed a tour around where i would be working and going all over all sorts of safety stuff. This all just about finished in time for lunch (12) So i thought it best ask my boss (Peter) when i was gonna start, and well he said, its your team cooking today so how about this afternoon?

So i did! There is no chef on board right now so there are 2 cooking teams, and we do half of the days each. Each team does 2 of the first 4 days of the week, then alternate which team does fri,sat,sun. So only half the days you might think? But when we work ... we work it seems! Days cane be about 12 hours, and on my team there are (including me) 5 people, with no chef cooking for at the moment about 350 people.

So 1:30-5:00 was dinner prep, cant save ive ever cooking fries for 350 people before, that is one heck of alot of frying i shall tell you that!

So the most interesting thing was that the ship was being evaluated and i had been working for about 40 mins and the inspector comes to where were working and says "do you all cook here regularly" so they others nod and i just kinda look blankly at him, well he of course picks me out to tell him what to do if there is a fire, so the other people present are my boss and the captain of the ship!!! So looks like i got away with it ... to be continued ...

So after a break for dinner it was back to the kitchen to clean up hard core! all the stuff we had used to cook the stuff on, we got done about 7pm,

So thu nights is the community meeting. So the captain is doing a little talk and he goes on to say how impressed the inspector is, and lists a couple of departments and thanks them, then he says i want to say a big thank you to the galley (name of the place i work) there was a guy in there i hadnt ever seen before and found out he was on his first day and the inspector was impressed with what he said about how to deal with a fire and what to do! Yup was me :)

So after that was Friday, and a day off thankfully and a little more chilled out, Was a hard day cause had to say goodbye to mum, dad and Amy :(

So today is Sat, and after a fire drill ... we set sail ... yup ... we are on the way to Benin, West Africa ...

We also managed a trip to the local playground!