captain's log

It's Monday, and I am crashing back into reality after a week at sea aboard the floating head trip that was the Carnival Pride. Goodness gracious. Too many things happened for me to cover it all in one post, so this week I'll be posting a series of descriptions and stories, hopefully with lots of pictures once I get it together and remember to bring my camera to work.

First of all, I am going to try to describe the interior of the ship. There was a LOT going on up in there. I think the overall theme was meant to be sort of an ultra-lavish tribute to Renaissance art--there were blown-up copies of Titians and Botticellis splashed all over the walls, gilt chandeliers, sculpted moldings...it was basically as if every European Renaissance-era tourist attraction had vomited splashily and extravagantly onto the interior surfaces of most of the rooms. The real theme was excess. No inch of wall, ceiling or floor was left unadorned. And into this mix, the decor designers had detoured briefly to Vegas, so there were weird areas of flashy neon and lots of velour.

The various rooms and galleries had names that sort of coincided with the Old Masters-y theme...the Raphael Lounge, the Lido Deck, the David Steakhouse (as in Michaelangelo's David) and things like that. There was also, however, the Taj Mahal theater, the Normandie Restaurant, the Ivory Bar, Starry Nights Lounge, Butterflies Lounge...so I'm really not sure what was holding all of that together other than a collective ecstasy binge on the part of the designers.

I'll have to put up pictures soon (mostly stolen from Amanda), so that I can really give you an idea of what was going on--tomorrow I'll write more about what we did/what there was to do on board. For now, let it simply be said that I had a fantastic time, had a lot of great experiences, most of them hilarious and involving personal injury on my part, and I am equal parts dejected and relieved to be back in the swing of the work week.

Speaking of work. I'm supposed to be in a meeting. Here I go.