Cannibals?

Tomorrow the Cannibal Islands
Suva, Fiji is our port tomorrow. Carolyn, where were you guys when you went scuba diving here?
Ed and I woke up this morning before 5 am and really didn’t go back to sleep. He got up and left for the gym. I should give him credit here: this is the 3rd day in a row that he has gone to the gym. Since they are enforcing the 20 min rule on the treadmill, he’s using a variety of equipment. He’s feeling very self righteous of course and commenting on how his body is responding to this. So we’ll see how it goes. I can only wish as I think it helps his diabetes so much.
Our day February 27th
Trivia
We are all laughing at ourselves because playing trivia makes you look at the world differently. Those of us who play are constantly reliving the questions and trying to etch the information in our brains because questions in different forms often reappear.
Yesterday the library had a quiz on where various straits are located in the world. So several of us are studying these answers to have them ready if a question comes up.
We played this morning with 5 of us. We came in second I think on an awful quiz that wracked our brains. We didn’t go in the afternoon as it was formal night and it’s too tight a time line to do that and get ready for formal portraits and get to the captain’s cocktail party (the drinks aren’t that good so don’t be too jealous). One of the couples at our table won a bottle of champagne which we will all have with dessert tomorrow evening.
My reading
I’m trying to get through the journals and magazines we brought from home. One is a medical journal that has a special article about exotic infectious diseases you can get travelling in foreign countries. Diseases I’ve studied but don’t remember much about such as dengue fever, and several I can neither pronounce nor certainly spell that sound absolutely awful. So considering the content of this article, I decided against leaving it in the library where we donate our read magazines. Instead I’ll drop it off at the medical clinic.
Sickness on the ship
There is a cold (the one I was lucky enough to get thanks to the Prednisone I had taken for the previous respiratory condition I had—one can’t win for losing) that is rapidly spreading around the ship. One of the dancers has it and the poor dear continues to trudge on good sport that she is.
The personal trainer in the gym, who is the girlfriend of that cute male nurse in the medical clinic, was taken to the hospital in Honolulu and had surgery for appendicitis so we have no idea if and when she will return.
Culinary expertise again
The Commandatore put on his usual interesting, and deceptively easy looking, demonstration of preparing a meal in 20 minutes. Of course he has a phalanx of busy bees preparing everything beforehand so all he has to do is look smart. AS usual some of the equipment acted up—probably because he was in a hurry because of the time and the salt never comes out of the shaker. But of course, this is a humid environment on the sea. I did get the impression that I could make the basil pesto and freeze it to be used throughout the year. Never cook it either.
Lunch
We were lucky enough to have the astronomer as one of our table mates. She is so bright in fields far beyond astronomy and has such an interesting personal story. She currently has projects for JPL and NASA. She did the exhibits at the newly refurbished Grifftih Park Observatory and we had a fun discussion about the astronomical jewelry exhibit that shows the evolution of the cosmos in one of the walkways there. I remarked on her well modulated voice. To condense a very long story, she decided to take acting including voice acting so she could narrate the documentaries they do. She’s debating doing a PhD and I think it would be a breeze for her given her rigorous scientific mind and all her experiences.
We’re still waiting for the right opportunity to do a star party on the upper decks but there are considerable considerations well beyond the obvious weather cooperation problems. Safety issues are of great concern as the lights will have to be turned off and folks really do stupid things some time.
Port talk: Suva
Bula Bula! Well supposedly that’s the Fijian equivalent of “Aloha”. These folks were cannibals up to fairly modern times so we must be on our best behavior. Ed and I debated several tours but as always we’ll be going into the countryside. I encouraged him to take a rain forest walking tour while I did another tour but he won’t do it. I’m not sure about my vision and balance to get into that kind of situation unless I can see it first. This is going to be a problem for me if he insists on only doing those things I’m comfortable with. I don’t want him to restrict himself simply because I need to be more cautious to feel safe.
I’m ambivalent about getting some tapa cloth which is a local product I’d be interested in. It’s made out of beaten mulberry bark and is quite durable. But we’ll see what’ s available.
This port speaker is a delightful and lovely lady who clearly has fun with her topics. She will be with us for several ports. Port talkers are an important part of any cruise experience and we have seen passenger groups up in arms over a poor port speaker (see my previous blogs).
Corporate Money in Politics: What next?
This was pretty much a discussion of the recent Supreme Court decision in the case Citizens United vs. FEC. Again his ponderous, overly cautious speaking style leaves me very fidgety. He does try to give both sides but he eventually came down on the side of it being a good decision. I suppose we couldn’t expect any different from the 19 yr. President of the Association of Corporate Counsel. As you may expect, he had rebuttals for all the concerns about this decision. We’ll all just have to wait and see.
Elite benefit
Each evening of a formal event, we are given a form to order hordoevers (or however it’s spelled). So Ed and I had a ball, just like little kids, eating chocolate covered strawberries before getting into our glad rags.
I wore my Oriental tunic from Shanghai and got lots of remarks on it. It is a gorgeous piece and it is rare for me to find a tunic that is long enough for me. We had formal portraits taken and we’ll see if our colds and unrestful sleep shows in our wrinkled countenances.
From there we went to join the other Captain’s Circle members on this ship. There are over 500 of us which only means that we’ve cruised with Princess before. There are about 670 passengers maximum on here. There are about 150 Elite members on this cruise so the Cruise Consultant had us stand up so folks could see our nice clean clothes. Ha.
Dinner
Since we missed the afternoon trivia, John and Nancy reviewed some of the stickier questions. I was given an assignment to see what the previous name of Surinam is. Turns out, it’s Surinam. And then I researched the name of a female donkey (jenny) and female mule. For the latter when it’s the product of a male horse and a female donkey, it is called a hinney. I remembered that name but I didn’t know the distinction. I just recalled my Dad referring to them as he had a great respect for mules.
Since Nancy and Bob won a bottle of champagne at the Captain’s Circle party tonite we discussed the right time to have it and eventually we settled on tomorrow for dessert.
Entertainment
This was one of the casts over the top productions with lots of dancing and great singing. We were not disappointed. Every night JJ tries to talk folks into going to the Casino Lounge for karaoke and each evening we all howl with irony.
And then we settled down to see how much rest we could get.