I had dinner with a fellow tour coordinator tonight. As dock representatives for the ships and the individual tour excursion companies, we have to settle our ‘bills’ with each cruise ship we’ve serviced after each day’s tours finish.

(“Settlement” consists of us gathering all of our many tickets from the day, counting them, and figuring up the totals from the day’s allotments. We give all the tickets to each ship’s Shore Excursions manager, they give us an invoice for the services, and we all go home [or back on board the ship] happy.)

My new friend Erin and I had hamburgers and discussed our backgrounds since we only are really able to make small talk while we wait for passengers to disembark off the ships. But today we had an hour to kill after the last departure and before settlement. It was refreshing, and awkward enough to compare to ‘first date’ conversation. None of it was bad, but it was similar to the ‘getting to know you’ talk you inevitably have with a new acquaintance. Erin’s great. She’s 20 and is beginning her junior of college in Minnesota, though she was born and raised here in Juneau. Despite her youth, this is her 6th season in the tourism industry, which isn’t all that uncommon for the twenty-somethings raised in this environment. Erin’s been saving up for her semester-long study abroad program this fall to Turkey, Egypt and Morrocco. Majoring in sociology and anthropology, she’s interested in doing a dig back in Alaska one day. She said she doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do after graduation, but is pretty confident she’ll have something decent to fall back on by then.

I told her what I know: Be sure to take time to find what you love to do. Don’t rush into a career if you’re not sure what you want to do. — Right or wrong, I’m taking my own advice. Though I know I want to write, photograph, travel and meet new people all the time, I’m unsure of which road will lead me there.

Erin and I enjoyed our dinner, went to settlement, and then parted ways after we finished. On my way home I thought about all the millions of incidences — big and small — that have led me to this very place, in this time, doing this ODD job, with this cornucopia of like-minded and free-spirited individuals. We’re a whole generation of “I’m not really sure, so I’ll try this in the meantime.” — And I’m good with that for the time being.

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This week I’ve decided to dedicated each day to a different group of people who have drastically influenced my life in big, beautiful ways. Hear me out and keep reading…

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Continuing my thought about how I ended up here, I thought about one of the other major growing times in my life: my 2 years in England. So many people and experiences shaped my time there, and I miss them — the people and the experiences — tremendously.

Because I miss them so much…

 

…Monday’s featured friends: Everyone I love in England! (even if I couldn’t find all the photos of all the people I especially wanted to display…)

To all of my English friends, thank you for being patient with this naive girl as she attempted to find her way in a new culture. Your footprints in my life are treasured and precious.

 

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