Newsflash!!!

I just got some even better news. I will get 9 more days on vacation back home. To qoute Þorvaldur "that's 18 extra parties for me"... hehe. I'm looking forward to going to the Carribean because it's getting a bit cold here... well... I suppose it's all relative because it's probably ball-freezingly cold back home right now, huh?
I've started writing some music with one of the singers from the cast. He's awesome at making up catchy melodies, and I think we might be on to something good, but we'll see.

So where's my first party gonna be? Who's got the best offer for me?

Ciao,

Ellert.

Egypt!!!

YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!

So now I've seen the pyramids and the sphinx!! FUCK YEAH!!! Egypt has got to be the coolest, and the scariest place I've ever been to. The pyramids are amazing but there was something that made the experience less fun than it could have been. There are about 100 guys trying to sell you postcards, memorabilia or a camel ride. They are so aggressive, and they DO NOT STOP FOLLOWING YOU... EVER!!!
The only thing to do is ignore them. Talking Icelandic only backfired on me. It gave them an excuse to use a hands-on approach to try and sell you whatever they had to offer.

I'm going to buy a suit next time we're in Istanbul. I'm going with my production manager, and he got a suit from there last time for $70!!! That's nothing. So I'm gonna get a tailored suit for probably around a $100. How awesome is that... and my current suit hasn't been cleaned in 4 months, and I've worn it almost every single night since I got on the ship without cleaning it because it usually takes two or three days to clean it on the ship. Gross, huh?

That's it for now,

Ellert!

Yo!!!

I just got some awesome news. I got offered a job on the Celebrity Mercury. I will be sailing in Australia and then Hawaii, Alaska and then all along the west coast of north america. Woohooooo!!!! It's such good news. I will most likely start on february 8th. That means I'll only be home for 3 weeks... so you better make the most of it, people!!!! I want parties!!!!

Gimme some lovin',

Ellert!

Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum!!!

Hey y'all!

I attended a halloween party last night. My costume was quite a hit. You can see pictures on my photo site later today or tomorrow if you want. Some of the costumes were... well... provocative. One of the dance girls was dressed up as Malibu barbie and she was wearing the world's smallest skirt and the girl that does the solo gymnast acts on board was dressed up as a nurse... need I say more. I was going to go as a pimp and I had even found a purple leather jacket with a fur neck, but it turns out that Ukrainians don't know the difference between 100 grivna (20 USD) and 1000 grivna (200 USD). So, unfortunately I didn't buy that. Instead I bought a mask, a shirt and a tie so nobody could recognize the clothes I was wearing and it worked like a charm.

We played with a xylophone player two days ago... oh, dear. He had a backing track which we had to follow, and guess what he used as the metronome sound..... A xylophone... so every time he was playing the same notes as the metronome we lost the click track... and what I found out after the shows is that it's not even a programmed click track. Appearantly he just recorded himself playing the xylophone as a click and that was it. So you can imagine how difficult it was to speed up and slow down when the tempo was supposed to be steady.

We're playing what is appearantly a very difficult show tonight. It's a piano player called Elliot Finkel. You might know his father, Fyvush Finkel, from a TV show called Boston public. His brother is also a piano player and his show is appearantly even more difficult. But have rehearsal in about 90 minutes from now so I'll find out just how difficult his charts really are.

We're going to Egypt and Cyprus for the next cruise which starts in about a week. I'm really excited about it. There's even an organized tour for the crew to go see the pyramids and the sphinx and all that jazz.

Over and out,

Ellert.