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dragonlady7I have now hurled my cousin into the gaping maw of airport security in Buffalo, to send him on his way to LaGuardia and all the fun that awaits in fair New York with the Kelly Girls down there. (The Kelly Girls there being, of course, my father's brother's daughters, and assorted friends and allies. There are several other Kellies there in varying states of surnameage, of course, but the two still-Kellys there are in charge of things at the moment.)
We probably should have done more constructive things while Andreas was here, but we wound up sitting and talking and drinking a lot instead, which actually worked out as having been a fairly good way to spend several days. We forgot, however, to swap files, so he doesn't have any of my pictures and I don't have any of his. Oops.
[I was also going to steal the entire season of Futurama that he has on his phone, but I forgot to do that as well.]
Last night we went out for sushi, as that was the cuisine Andreas always gets a hankering for when he's aboard ship. "You can't get fish in the ocean?" Z asked. "Sure," Andreas said, "six-month-old frozen fish, deep-fat-fried." So, for contrast, sushi it was. Fuji Grill over on Maple St. is pretty decent. I thought the tuna was exceptional.
In the morning we'd gone to Vidler's Five and Dime down in East Aurora, after having scored a pair of jeans at the Galleria mall-- as Andreas had only one pair of pants and it was rather difficult to find the time to wash said pants when there were no others to wear while those were in the dryer-- and while we spent two hours in the five and dime, we wound up spending only $13, mostly on the little capsule things where you put it in a cup of water and a little later it expands into a sponge animal. (He was also quite pleased that the jeans were pretty much exactly the same as the ones he'd brought, but they were on sale and thus cost only $30 instead of the $100 the others cost.)
Last night we decided to get "obliterated", which after a few drinks I changed to "exterminated", which was quite funny to consider. I don't know that we succeeded-- I see that much of the beer is gone, this morning, but at one point I remember that I was thirsty and drank a lot of water, so I seem not to have a hangover this morning. Although I am a bit fuzzy-headed.
I have resolved to really truly actually run away to Europe soon. At least for a week's vacation in Norway. Andreas recommends the springtime, circa Mayish-- the scenery is at its best then, and you can either hike or ski some quite beautiful trails, and so on. I'm going to try to schedule it for a time when he's onshore, so we can hang out; I want to see Oslo, and Bergen, and possibly Trondheim.
I heard many more amusing stories about shipboard life. (I finally got off my ass and googled his employer. He works on the Ramform Viking, a seismic survey ship operated by the company PGS.)
One thing Andreas was explaining is that, of course, there are two groups of people on the ship: there's the maritime crew, who actually drive the thing (and clean it and feed it and what-have-you), and the science crew, who perform the tasks the ship is out there for really-- which is, in short, to sonically image the ocean floor in order to prospect for oil, to maintain that equipment, and to do the preliminary processing of the data.
It's a Norwegian company, but most of the science staff is either British, American, or Norwegian, so the official shipboard language is English and you are required to speak it in all official communications. A number of other nationalities make up the rest of the science crew-- including a small group of Poles, a Nigerian or two, and one Frenchman, at the moment.
The maritime crew contains a sizable Polish component, including all the kitchen staff. Their English is terrible, but they don't want to admit it, and so they simply avoid speaking to anyone not Polish. Andreas has decided that to amuse himself this next voyage he'll study Polish, partly in hopes that the effort might inspire the kitchen staff to regard him more fondly and thus feed him better [a wishful hope, I am sure], and partly because he's been wanting to pick up another language and given that his best friend is Polish it'd probably remain useful. ("I thought about learning French," Andreas said, "but the only Frenchman still aboard is kind of, well..." "An asshole?" Z suggested. "Well, kind of," Andreas said. Which makes the study of the language a great deal less compelling.)
When Andreas first came aboard there were two Frenchmen. [The other one was quite a nice bloke, apparently.] One of the British scientists informed Andreas dryly that "Having one Frenchman aboard is damned unfortunate. But two Frenchmen is a conspiracy."
Andreas's own accent is hard for others to place. It is subtle, and much of it is more an odd choice of syllable stresses (not usually wrong, but unusual) rather than an accent proper. "The best compliment I ever got about my English," Andreas said, "was being asked whether I spoke fluent Norwegian." The story goes, more or less:
Another good one was one day when the crews were all ashore, they were drinking with the crew of one of the gunboats. Usually the Ramform ships have other ships that hang around near them, to provide assistance or to keep other shipping traffic from fouling the six kilometers of high-tech cable the seismic ships are trailing. Andreas being an engineer, he is not often on the radios, which is how they communicate with these gunboats, so the gunboat crews don't really know him at all. So they were ashore with these sort of coworkers whose voices he's heard but with whom he's never really spoken.
One of them, in his conversation, kept referring to Ireland. Ireland this, the Irish that, blah blah, so after a while Andreas assumed he must be Irish. So, in a lull in the conversation, thinking to bring up the topic of his own Irish second-cousins-once-removed who live in Cork, Andreas asks, "So, what part of Ireland are you from?"
The gunboat man draws himself up indignantly. "I'm not Irish, I'm English, you Canadian fuck!"
The rest of the Norwegians thought this was quite funny.
I noticed, however, when Andreas checked in today, that he produced an American passport. I had forgotten, but he got his US citizenship some time ago with no trouble, as his mother is, of course, an American.
I am now ridiculously sleepy. I may need to nap. Zzzzonk. Later I'll blog about my Christmas decorations. You have to hear about my Christmas decorations.
We probably should have done more constructive things while Andreas was here, but we wound up sitting and talking and drinking a lot instead, which actually worked out as having been a fairly good way to spend several days. We forgot, however, to swap files, so he doesn't have any of my pictures and I don't have any of his. Oops.
[I was also going to steal the entire season of Futurama that he has on his phone, but I forgot to do that as well.]
Last night we went out for sushi, as that was the cuisine Andreas always gets a hankering for when he's aboard ship. "You can't get fish in the ocean?" Z asked. "Sure," Andreas said, "six-month-old frozen fish, deep-fat-fried." So, for contrast, sushi it was. Fuji Grill over on Maple St. is pretty decent. I thought the tuna was exceptional.
In the morning we'd gone to Vidler's Five and Dime down in East Aurora, after having scored a pair of jeans at the Galleria mall-- as Andreas had only one pair of pants and it was rather difficult to find the time to wash said pants when there were no others to wear while those were in the dryer-- and while we spent two hours in the five and dime, we wound up spending only $13, mostly on the little capsule things where you put it in a cup of water and a little later it expands into a sponge animal. (He was also quite pleased that the jeans were pretty much exactly the same as the ones he'd brought, but they were on sale and thus cost only $30 instead of the $100 the others cost.)
Last night we decided to get "obliterated", which after a few drinks I changed to "exterminated", which was quite funny to consider. I don't know that we succeeded-- I see that much of the beer is gone, this morning, but at one point I remember that I was thirsty and drank a lot of water, so I seem not to have a hangover this morning. Although I am a bit fuzzy-headed.
I have resolved to really truly actually run away to Europe soon. At least for a week's vacation in Norway. Andreas recommends the springtime, circa Mayish-- the scenery is at its best then, and you can either hike or ski some quite beautiful trails, and so on. I'm going to try to schedule it for a time when he's onshore, so we can hang out; I want to see Oslo, and Bergen, and possibly Trondheim.
I heard many more amusing stories about shipboard life. (I finally got off my ass and googled his employer. He works on the Ramform Viking, a seismic survey ship operated by the company PGS.)
One thing Andreas was explaining is that, of course, there are two groups of people on the ship: there's the maritime crew, who actually drive the thing (and clean it and feed it and what-have-you), and the science crew, who perform the tasks the ship is out there for really-- which is, in short, to sonically image the ocean floor in order to prospect for oil, to maintain that equipment, and to do the preliminary processing of the data.
It's a Norwegian company, but most of the science staff is either British, American, or Norwegian, so the official shipboard language is English and you are required to speak it in all official communications. A number of other nationalities make up the rest of the science crew-- including a small group of Poles, a Nigerian or two, and one Frenchman, at the moment.
The maritime crew contains a sizable Polish component, including all the kitchen staff. Their English is terrible, but they don't want to admit it, and so they simply avoid speaking to anyone not Polish. Andreas has decided that to amuse himself this next voyage he'll study Polish, partly in hopes that the effort might inspire the kitchen staff to regard him more fondly and thus feed him better [a wishful hope, I am sure], and partly because he's been wanting to pick up another language and given that his best friend is Polish it'd probably remain useful. ("I thought about learning French," Andreas said, "but the only Frenchman still aboard is kind of, well..." "An asshole?" Z suggested. "Well, kind of," Andreas said. Which makes the study of the language a great deal less compelling.)
When Andreas first came aboard there were two Frenchmen. [The other one was quite a nice bloke, apparently.] One of the British scientists informed Andreas dryly that "Having one Frenchman aboard is damned unfortunate. But two Frenchmen is a conspiracy."
Andreas's own accent is hard for others to place. It is subtle, and much of it is more an odd choice of syllable stresses (not usually wrong, but unusual) rather than an accent proper. "The best compliment I ever got about my English," Andreas said, "was being asked whether I spoke fluent Norwegian." The story goes, more or less:
Sometimes an oil company will send someone aboard to observe what we're doing with an eye toward guaging the quality of the data we're getting. So this fellow was there to watch us. He was kind of irritating, partly because he knew what he was doing and knew what we were doing and so couldn't be bullshitted. He's sitting with me, watching me, because what I do was of the most interest to him. He and I are, of course, communicating in English. One of the other engineers, a fellow Norwegian, interrupts me with a quick question, and he asks in Norwegian simply because we both speak it. I answer him sort of over my shoulder, of course replying in Norwegian. The observer, quite startled, gives me a look and asks, "Oh, you speak fluent Norwegian?"
Another good one was one day when the crews were all ashore, they were drinking with the crew of one of the gunboats. Usually the Ramform ships have other ships that hang around near them, to provide assistance or to keep other shipping traffic from fouling the six kilometers of high-tech cable the seismic ships are trailing. Andreas being an engineer, he is not often on the radios, which is how they communicate with these gunboats, so the gunboat crews don't really know him at all. So they were ashore with these sort of coworkers whose voices he's heard but with whom he's never really spoken.
One of them, in his conversation, kept referring to Ireland. Ireland this, the Irish that, blah blah, so after a while Andreas assumed he must be Irish. So, in a lull in the conversation, thinking to bring up the topic of his own Irish second-cousins-once-removed who live in Cork, Andreas asks, "So, what part of Ireland are you from?"
The gunboat man draws himself up indignantly. "I'm not Irish, I'm English, you Canadian fuck!"
The rest of the Norwegians thought this was quite funny.
I noticed, however, when Andreas checked in today, that he produced an American passport. I had forgotten, but he got his US citizenship some time ago with no trouble, as his mother is, of course, an American.
I am now ridiculously sleepy. I may need to nap. Zzzzonk. Later I'll blog about my Christmas decorations. You have to hear about my Christmas decorations.
