Thursday, 28th June 2012, 08:07 AM

I woke up with a headache and in a bad mood again.
The boys at the breakfast table are still only talking to each other and in French. Today, everyone is getting on my nerves.
Luckily, I haven’t seen Jean yet, he would definitely have noticed something… The pool should be filled by noon and we’re having crêpes for lunch. Still, I’m in a bad mood. Why did I have to get on a French ship of all places?

6:27 PM

Sooooooooooooo, what did I do today?
Well, first of all, I watched “What’s your number“ (=“Der perfekte Ex“) to cheer myself up.
After that, it was already half past ten and the pool was already filled.
But it was a bit too cold for me to go swimming, so I just sat in the woooooooooooooonderfull warm sun (weather data according to
hearsay: air: 24°C, water: 23°C) and then went down to lunch at 12 o’clock sharp.
First I went to the kitchen, because no one else was there yet.
Jean then said that I didn’t have to go to this eternally
boring pre-lunch drinks thing, because I’m a tourist and
can participate in everything (or not).

So I sat there and waited and chatted a bit. At some point, I overheard something again that I understood to mean, „Yes, she can’t speak French, but she speaks English.“ I keep getting the impression that more and more people are asking what I’m
doing here if I don’t speak French, and today it sounded like Jean was defending me against someone. Jean came back to me and said something funny, but then somehow concluded from my (non-)reaction that I was feeling sad today – he suspected I was homesick, and when he said that it wasn’t so bad and that I’d be home again in three weeks anyway, tears immediately sprang to my eyes because I couldn’t even explain what was really bothering me.

Shortly before the others arrived, I excused myself briefly and had to go to my cabin to shed a tear or three, otherwise I really wouldn’t have been able to handle it.

But then, surprisingly, things went much better again. The guys were already excited about their crêpe-making today, and I was looking forward to the pool, which was waiting for me after lunch—
or so I thought—until I found out that Jean had spontaneously invited me to help make crêpes, so my pool date was postponed by an hour and after lunch I got to start by stirring crêpe batter.

But after that, I was at and in (!!) the pool.
Although it felt quite warm during the first test, it’s still something else when you want to plunge your entire (spoiled) body into the cold water, but in the end, it was very nice. And even if you can’t swim, but rather only splash around, it’s still a nice change and, above all, you can dry off in the sun afterwards, which leaves a nice salt crust from the water.

Today’s training on the bridge was a bit interfering though, as they practiced restarting the engine and ash from the chimney kept raining down on me.

After my second bath, it was time for a shower and for the actual crêpe baking. Except that no one else was there at 4 p.m.

When I had just returned to our deck I met Thomas who said that they were about to start making crêpes. So back downstairs I went.
Victorien, Thomas, and Sandra gradually arrived, and then things slowly got underway. I took a few photos and then slip away again, as the cadets had the situation fully under control and I didn’t want to get in the way.

Now there are only 10 minutes left until dinner— and I’m starving.