sign off... final thoughts on ship life

i signed off in barcelona, a gorgeous city full of culinary adventures. leaving the ship was a strange experience- both exciting and melancholy as i was headed for rest and vacation but leaving great friends and amazing countries. it wasn't until i was on the plane back to seattle that i finally had the opportunity to reflect honestly on the past six months, everything that had passed, how it all had felt. i started reading bourdain's kitchen confidential and then i started writing and this is what came out...

As we fly west, chasing the sunlight, it seems that everything and nothing has happened in the past six months. I’m broken and exhausted- fingers covered in dirty cuts, bruises large and small dotting my body, aching feet, legs, brain. I can’t stop thinking about what I’m leaving- the project, the people, the lifestyle and wondering what’s ahead, how all of this will integrate into the life I lived before. Working on the ship has been one of the most challenging experiences so far in my life- though perhaps the most rewarding.

Sommelier Boot Camp, I took to calling it, though most days I felt less like a sommelier and more like a beverage-mule. Working on a luxury cruiseliner is an exercise in monotony and order amidst chaos. I never had so many angry days, so much workplace tension, so many moments of completely conflicting emotions. At 2:30 you are stressed and impatient with demanding, spoiled guests and at 3:00 you are swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, eating moules frites in the south of France- heaven. I can say for sure that I gained a certain strength and resilience, along with bigger biceps and a sturdier back.

Wine service on the ship was different than any other job I’ve ever had. With a full selection of complimentary wines for the guests, our stocks necessarily have to be grandiose. The main restaurant is on deck 4, just above the crew quarters, at the front of the ship. I thought it was convenient that my cabin was just around the corner and up one small flight of stairs from the wine cellar.  Then I noticed that the linen keeper lives directly across from the laundry room.  No coincidence. 

The main restaurant holds about 450 covers total, with open seating and a full, al a carte menu every night. Deck 4 is also home to two of the specialty  restaurants- Relais & Chateau French restaurant and the Japanese sushi restaurant- both of which require an extra cover charge. Then you have two more restaurants on deck 7- the Italian restaurant which becomes an international buffet during lunch, and the supper club/jazz lounge that serves small plates, tapas-style.  Deck 9 is the pool, with burgers and hot dogs at lunch and hot stone meals in the evening. Three other bars dot the ship- the panorama, with a nice view off the back of the ship, is where the guests go to get drunk and dance to disco in the evening, observation lounge, a quiet, windowed lounge at the front of the ship, and the main bar on Deck 5, across from reception, where guests go to get sloshed before heading to dinner. My time on the ship was spent between the main dining room and the Italian restaurant, with one punishment-week in the grill, sweating and watching hot grease fly onto expensive decanters.

In the main cellar on deck 4 you control most of the wines for the other bars and restaurants. Because of this, the cellar is always locked if the sommelier is not there. If the sommelier is there, chances are they’re being a jerk to you if you’re asking for wine. This is because the budget is very small and the guests love to guzzle more than their share of “all-inclusive” complimentary wines. If you’re coming from another outlet asking for wine, expect to get the third degree.  If you’re coming at the end of the night asking for a bottle for yourself, expect to be turned away completely unless you’ve done something nice for the sommelier recently, like bring food, polish glassware, ect. In that case, “take, take” is the reply you get.

Ship lingo is a special dialect that I’ve yet to hear in any other country or job. Someone who messes up or makes a silly mistake becomes “bomboclat” or “bombolino/a”.  When asked if you have supplies, the appropriate answer becomes “we have, we have”.  Repetitions are key. “Check, check, check!” in place of “Check and see if the wine is there.” An assistant waiter who pretends to leave the dining room for some special task and instead heads to his cabin to eat snacks and check facebook is “pagulo”. “Where is Pedro?” “Oh, he’s pagulo.”  A small mess or anything deemed unnecessary or garbage becomes “shmira”. “What is this shmira?” “Get this shmira taken care of.”  Especially demanding guests are referred to as “Big time”, and this term is often combined with the derisive bomboclat and bombolino- “Yes, these two are big time bomboclats”. “Shingaling” is a common synonym for thingamajig or anything you can’t readily put a name to. Officers greet you with “Chau” or “Buona Serra” in some strange ship-wide adaptation of Italian lingo. “Mangare” is also code for dinner. “Banana” is when you get a bunch of shit from your supervisor. If you mess up, you are for sure going to get “banana” or “a shower”- implying a shower of shit. Learning these terms comes with time, but the bigger challenge is being surrounded by Tagalog in all areas of the ship at all times.  For my first few weeks on board, I was sure I had taken a job in Manila, not on the high sea. The waiters and my Filipino colleagues would exchange all kinds of information between each other in Tagalog and answer my questions in one word sentences or hideously broken English or sometimes not at all. Over time as I learned a few words in Tagalog and how to decipher and interpret one word sentences, life became easier.

Each evening, two complimentary wines are offered in the restaurant- one white and one red. These wines are decided by the head sommelier based on what he has most of in stock. They can be French, Italian, or Spanish, but are the majority of the time cheap Chilean or Argentinian wines.  The ship buys these complimentary wines for no more than $5 a bottle and during a busy dinner service we will pour upwards of 60 bottles of white and 60 bottles of red. Many times these 60 bottles are simply not enough. In these circumstances, the sommelier becomes chef. The waiters will rush by our station on the way to the kitchen and yell “cooking demo” as we pour whatever similar wine we may have on hand into the empty bottle of the evening’s wine. I have poured sauv blanc into chardonnay, pinot grigio, soave, and frascati. Pinot grigio becomes gavi, Chilean syrah becomes Australian shiraz, carmenere becomes merlot and cabernet, barbera becomes sangiovese, and (perhaps the best) cheap prosecco becomes Heidseick champagne.  And here you see the beauty of psychology when it comes to wine. Never once did a guest complain or claim that the wines taste different coming out of the same bottle. Granted, many of the guests are…. shall we say mature? and perhaps don’t sport the same number of taste buds as in their early days, but many are experienced wine drinkers with extensive cellars at home. Not once did someone send back a bottle because it tasted differently. Even if I was pouring a Tuscan white blend out of a Chablis bottle, they smiled and loved it. And I will tell you we cooked wines all day, every day. This is only one way the company saves money and stretches product. 

Dinner time service in the main restaurant with a full cruise can only be described as madness- with one sommelier for around 200 people, you are running for everything- glassware, cocktails, selling wines.  Selling wine is one of the perks of the job. Though the cruise is all inclusive and includes a selection of complimentary wines with each meal, the sommeliers are required to push the conneseiur’s wine list at any chance.  Here we got to play with big names like Antinori, Petrus, and Grange for the high-rolling clientele. One of the most glamorous parts of the job was pouring Margaux out of the super-sexy Riedel Eve decanter, the coiled, delicate glass instrument that makes everyone’s head turn. These were the moments that being a somm was sweet. The rest was pretty much keeping glasses full of mediocre juice and listening to complaints about wines being “too strong” or “too acidic”. And cleaning. Cleaning and cleaning.

Leaving the ship was one of the most emotionally confusing moments for me. I knew I did not want to stay on board one more day, could not perform the same monotonous tasks one day more- my mind and my body were done, tired, “Kaput.” But the people I’ve met are beyond amazing and the places I’ve visited are all new loves. My final day in Barcelona I was filled with so much passion for the city that I cried leaving it, while on the inside being so ecstatic that I would be home in only a number of hours. I wandered the narrow streets of La Rambla at night desperately searching for one last souvenir, one last bit of cuisine, one last experience to satisfy me, to make me feel it was ok to leave. All I found were more things to delight, intrigue, and become addicted to.  I sat at a counter eating tapas and drinking Spanish white wine, chatting with a chef who then left and was replaced by a private-yacht architect. All of us away from our homes on some kind of adventure- these experiences don’t come easily at home.