I was working away on the floating caravan that is the QE2, The Canadian cruise was a bit of a bugger, it took AGES! And it was kinda dull at times. I was working in the Queens Grill at the time, I was working a lot for mainly pain the arse customers who I had for weeks at a time. The Canadian Cruise from what I can remember was approx 3 weeks long. We departed from New York and headed up to Nova Scotia. Nova scotia was kind of a mixed bag, most places we visited were small towns as opposed to larger cities. We had an over night stop in a place called St Johns. Everyone who works on a cruise ship loves over nights, if your lucky some of your passengers might not come in for dinner, and all the crew goes out on the razz ma tazz. When out in St john we didn’t discover that much to do. Just some local pubs who seemed to be quite excited by the prospect of serving newcomers. I don’t remember much from that night. I know we all drank a lot, and I know Adam & I stole a sign from a pub on the way back to the ship. Not a small sign, this thing was about 15 foot. I’m not sure why we stole it but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Several days later we made our way to Quebec. Have you ever been to Quebec? Its weird.
Everybody speaks French. What the fuck is that about??
And they don’t know anything about late night food.
After our first night out I stumbled into what I thought was a kebab shop. I asked for a kebab, he mumbled something in French. I asked for a burger, he again said something in French. I tried to recall my French from school, I then told him my name, my parents address and that Aberdeen was a very large, industrial and historical town in the north east of Scotland, as that was all I could remember. This did not help me get food. 10 minutes later I walked out of this establishment with a can of diet coke and a Baked Potato.
A BAKED POTATO!!!
What the hell??? These people have a lot to learn about late night food.
Everyone was excited to be in Quebec, it was a major city and we were there for 2 nights.
A double Over night! Brilliant! 2 nights out in a new city.
We had a great night out planned. After dinner service on board, everyone got together and headed out. Even the shoppies came out to play with us.
Being a Scotsman abroad I of course wore the kilt. It would be a crime not too.
However I must admit something to you.
Something I am quite ashamed of.
I did NOT go true Scotsman
I wore my boxer shorts.
Please try and understand, it was freezing, and I don’t mean just cold, it was literally freezing. We all headed out and hit a few pubs, I again had several arguments with French speaking barmen and they also got the same speech I gave to the baked potato selling bastard. It was the only French I could remember.
Most of the crew were heading to a place called club hell. It was apparently the best place in town. It was also the most difficult to find. I kept looking for a road paved with good intentions but had no luck.
Eventually we asked a couple of locals where to go and they were nice enough to take us there.
The club was actually pretty nice (from what I remember) There were loads of crew there and our group did the sensible thing and headed straight to the bar.
Several drinks later I found myself on the second level of this club, it had a balcony which overlooked the dance floor. We were having a few drinks and chillin out. When I noticed a few people on the bottom level looking up at me. I didn’t recognise them but they seemed to know me. I thought maybe it was just about the Kilt, but they kept staring.
Then I realised.
I was standing on a glass floor.
Everyone could see right up my kilt.
They noticed my reaction and broke out in a roar of laughter.
Then the chanting started,
“Off , off, off!”
They obviously saw I was wearing boxer shorts and deemed this to be wrong.
And they were right.
I would like to add at this point in the evening I was quite drunk.
They kept chanting, and I realised they were right.
I shouldn’t be wearing boxer shorts. I am fucking Scottish. I am an ambassador for my country and I must do my country proud. By this point there was about a hundred people looking up at me (seriously) so I thought,
“Fuck it!”
I took my boxers off right there, twirled them round my head and through them into the crowd. And they went wild!!!!
One lucky crew member got a souvenir of the evening.
It was at this point I got caught up in the moment, everyone was cheering and looking up at me and I got a bit carried away.
I lifted up the kilt and flashed them.
I flashed the entire club, there must have been at least 250 people there and every one of them looked up and saw me lifting up the kilt.
They all loved it. The crowd went nuts!!! (no pun intended)
It's amazing I didn’t get thrown out, I wasn’t exactly hard to find.
The next day I awoke very, very hungover. I amazingly managed to get showered and dressed and made it up to the restaurant to serve breakfast in time. But that morning something odd happened. As I walked through the bowels of the ship on my way to the restaurant, I got a lot of smirks and smiles and people pointing at me. One guy came up to me and shook my hand. Everyone knew about my activites last night. A hell of a lot of people I didn’t even know came up to me throughout the day and said they had heard about me. The rumour mill did its thing and by mid afternoon most people were under the impression I had streaked through all of Quebec.
I was lucky enough that day to have watch off. (This meant I didn’t have to work lunch). I finished my breakfast shift and headed to the cabin for a power nap. I awoke and decided to head into the city for a wander, this usually helps me when I'm really hungover. As I was walking through the city center, my head pounding, my stomach on the spin cycle, I stopped in a shop to pick up some pain killers. As I walked out I accidently bumped into two girls who were coming into the shop, I apologised and walked off, but as I was walking away I heard one of them say,
“That was the kilt guy!”
So if you ever find yourself in Quebec, ask someone about “The Kilt Guy” and see what story they tell you.
No comments:
Post a Comment