Cornfed and Mustachioed

Minneapolis, Minnesota

My two favourite words are cornfed and mustachioed, and I suppose that this is in no small part due to the fact that I come from Minnesota, the land of corn and mustaches. Seriously. A common touchstone in conversations I've had this week with my extended family, who farm, has been this year's harvest. Apparently the corn is ready to be harvested, but it has been far too wet out as of late to get it. So farmers must wait for the corn to dry and pray that it doesn't mould before this happens, lest they lose their entire crop. The minute the corn is dry enough, they go and get 'er done. Thanksgiving has most likely been canceled this year in my family because of this and really, what is the point of celebrating harvest when harvest is exactly what you're trying to do? Midwesterner for life.

So I've now been in Minnesota for over a week and I'm set to leave in two days. I'm ready to start making money again and to start, you know, doing stuff.. As an example, if I could condense what it means to be in Minnesota down to one word, that word would be 'food.' So, so, so much food. My mom will be sitting in the living room with me, I'll be reading, watching tv, whatever, and she'll randomly quip, "We've still got a bunch of pea salad in the fridge if you're interested..." or "There's a piece of grandma's chocolate cake left.." or "Ohhh, I should have bought another tub of that chip dip you really like!" These statements will be made mere minutes after I've oh, say, eaten a Subway sandwich. Speaking of Subway sandwiches, Mom and I went out to get a couple on my first night in town. While we were there ordering, my mom asked me if I wanted to get some chocolate chip cookies with my sandwich. I declined. Mom insisted, stating that we have no sweets in the house. I told her that it wasn't a big deal, so we went home, subs in tow. What is the first thing I saw upon entering the house? A gigantic bowl of Halloween candy in the middle of the dining room. I asked my mom, "I thought you said you had no sweets?" Her reply was that this was candy for Halloween, she and dad had already gone through a bag, and needed to go out and replace it. So apparently Halloween lasts a good week here at the Beers residence and Halloween candy does not count as sweets. The moral of the story of course is that I've been a happy snacker. But, in consequence I feel more blob than human right now. I'm itching to rectify that. I do love that chip dip though - Old Home Bermuda Onion. If you live in Minnesota or are ever just passing through, give it a go. You will have met my meanest vice.

Being in Minnesota also means Lindsey, my oldest friend. We get together and the happy dorkiness starts. The many adventures we went on this week included but were not limited to rollercoaster rides, Summit English Pale Ales, visits to polka bars, movies, visits to record stores (that ended up with me purchasing records...why? to carry across the globe with me, I guess...I suppose a JFK memorial album is always good to have), shopping at the the Mall of America, the eating of pizza delivered by men dressed as super heroes, yummy breakfasts, and soul-singer cab rides. And M. Ward. Live. Well, actually Monsters of Folk, but, well..a word of advice: If you ever, ever get the chance to see M. Ward play live, take it. You will not be disappointed.

Lastly, my gluttony for travel may have reached its zenith. I've just realized that my new employer offers a 66-day cruise that circumnavigates the entire arctic. That's right. The entire arctic. It starts in Anchorage, Alaska, sails the northern coast of Russia, down and around Greenland, past Baffin Island, through the Northwest Passage, and back down to Anchorage. A passenger who wants to partake will pay a minimum of $65,990. Whoooaaaaa. You know I want this job. It's just ridiculous.

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.

The Ooh Aah Oohs.

Oh, Toronto, Toronto, Toronto...

Today is my last day here and I ought to let you know that I'm going to miss you, Toronto. I'm going to miss Palmerston Street and Bloor Cinema and Trinity Bellwoods Park. Leslie Street Spit and Ideal Coffee...that bench at Euclid and College with the bronze man and little boy who permanently inhabit it. Riding my bike along the lakeshore. That stretch of Mackenzie Crescent between Lisgar and Dovercourt where the road is lined with the prettiest old houses and trees who's leaves explode with colour this time of year. Not to mention the dilapidated mansion where Mackenzie Crescent meets Dovercourt...with its crumbling gargoyles and roaming vines. The people - some of my favourite boys and girls in the whole wide world. Casa Loma. Mill St. Tankhouse Ale. The greatest movie rental places EVER. The Kit Kat factory that makes my neighborhood smell of chocolate every morning and evening...

It's a fact of life. Wherever I find myself the grass will always always seem greener over yonder, but here in Toronto the grass was pretty goshdarn green.

Will I have an address here again? I have no idea. The chances could be anywhere between nine percent and ninety nine percent, which I suppose makes them about fifty/fifty at this point. So, my lovely city, thanks for the fun. See you again.

P.S. - Jaq and Emma. Please do me a favour this winter and take full advantage of the cozy, wonderfully cluttered hibernation cave that is our apartment. I'm going to miss you lovely ladies. Hard.

Receive with Simplicity Everything that Happens to You.

The hows and the whys are the meat and potatoes of any story and I have a lot of German in my blood, so I understand how important meat and potatoes are. How did I end up with a job that sails me to Antarctica?

So a guy walks into a bar…

Well, not precisely, but sort of. Actually, it all started with a phone call on a hot afternoon in August 2007, during a time when I was crashing on my friend Miles’ couch in Scarborough. The caller was a regular at my pub. He was happy to have gotten in touch with me because it just so happened that a friend of his was looking for a replacement bartender on an expedition vessel cruising in Canada’s Eastern Arctic waters. The conversation went like this:

John: “So the deal is, they’re desperate for a bartender. They’d pick you up at your door, drive you to the airport, and fly you up to Kuujjuaq at no cost to you. You’d board a Russian expedition cruise ship called the Lyubov Orlova, and you’d bartend seven days per week, while cruising all over northern Labrador, the coast of Baffin Island and the Northwest Passage. You’d leave next Tuesday and you come back sometime in late September. This is so you, Randi.”

Me: “YES PLEASE.”

But in actuality, a friend had just bought a plane ticket to visit me in Toronto so I Just. Couldn’t. Do. It.

Man, it hurt. But unequivocally I told John that although I couldn’t say yes to this particular opportunity, I intended to get the job next year. And that’s what I did. I spent the summer of 2008 getting paid to cruise around the most remote places in Canada. Places where it’s not uncommon to stumble upon human bones that have been lying undisturbed for anywhere from two hundred to a thousand years. I drove a zodiac. I ate raw whale. I saw some of the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever seen in my life. I lived under a sun that never set. I roamed around abandoned Inuit towns. I visited Greenland. I let a Russian woman wash my hair with raw onion. I said goodbye to any semblance of privacy. I got used to bitter, bitter coffee. I worked every day. Every single day. Twice. I ate a lot of cous cous. So much cous cous…I saw so many fjords that I became jaded to them. In fact, by the end of the season I had become so jaded to the entire experience that I was convinced that I would never work on a ship again.

Little did I know that I would find myself in the Yukon one year later, starting to think more and more about the possibility of applying to do it all over again, this time in the Antarctic, for Quark Expeditions, the company that takes the Lyubov Orlova in winter. I figured it was worth a try. I had no plans for winter. Also, I figured my chances of receiving a response to an unsolicited cover letter and resume emailed to God Knows Where were so low that I didn’t even have to think about the pros and cons of going back to ship life again. Imagine my surprise when I received a response in less than 48 hours. Further, imagine my surprise when eventually I got an offer of employment!

Oh, shit.

I couldn’t say no. It was Antarctica. It may as well have been the moon.

So here I am. And for those of you wondering, yes, I have just seen A Serious Man.

Tenerife, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my Job.

I don't like the word 'blog', but I reckon I will do it anyway. I'm going back to the MV Lyubov Orlova for a second season, this time sailing between the southern tip of Argentina and Antarctica. I will be gone from November first until sometime mid March. Life on a ship tends to make me introspective, so why not channel these currents into a usable format so that friends and family can see what I am up to? It really is interesting...

I've just gotten back from a whirlwind trip to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. What did I do in such a paradise? I provisioned a ship. Provisioning a ship means boxes. So many boxes. Hundreds of them. Packing, unpacking, lifting, throwing, passing, dragging, and storing them. Big, small, heavy, light. Broken? Sometimes. Spilling all over the place? Why not?

I also caught a glimpse of what the upcoming season will look like. I met a few of my coworkers and we became fast friends, bonding over the bruises, sweat, scrapes, and cuts caused by the aforementioned paragraph. We shared stories of previous seasons at sea. We scarfed pizza together. We laughed. We complained. We smoked cigarettes and made pacts to quit once the season starts. We passed downtime by tying different sailor's knots for fun. We listened to Russian pop music and techno. Speaking of music, I'm allowed to control it in my bar. It's really all I ask in order to be happy at work. I hope Europeans like countryfolk.

I was given a letter that details what the average cruise will look like from the vantage point of the bartender. It said things such as many people will be crossing the last continent off their life list and a subtle (or maybe not) nudge might boost sales a bit. It has finally sunk in: My job is going to be to help tourists celebrate a voyage to the end of the world!

But that isn't the end of it. If you are organized, you should be able to make about eighty percent of the landings. The end of the world is also about to become my stomping ground.

...I feel like the luckiest girl on Earth.