Happy Birthday Jason

Second day out of Sydney 3 16 2010
To finish off yesterday’s tales…..
Trivia in the afternoon was abysmal—at least we were. But we were only three so I guess we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves.
Computer classes: I may duck into one when they teach layering in photos. I think that would be great fun to learn how to do that as it would improve so many photos immeasurably.
Photo contest this time is architecture, cities and towns. I had this idea to take one of our photos of Sydney or Auckland which both have huge spires as a distinctive part of their skylines, and put text boxes on the photo which say: Toronto? Seattle? Auckland? Sydney? Paris? They all do seem to favor each skyline.
Dinner
I sat next to the wife in the Sydney couple; they are actually Kiwis though they’ve lived in Sydney for 20 years. Such a nice lady and she told some delightful tales about her family and some of their travels with her husband’s work. We do have to listen a little more carefully to understand these accents. This is made more difficult by the distance around the table and the rather soft voices of one couple.
Choir: the new lounge musician is starting a choir and I’m tempted though my voice is pretty pathetic these days, but there’s also the issue of the time commitment. But I have spoken with some folks who are going to participate even if only now and then so I look forward to seeing how it goes and perhaps later I’ll make a stab at it.
Last night’s entertainment
This was a group called “Encore” and it was 3 singers, 2 female and 1 male. All had good voices in their own right but I didn’t think one of the ladies was a good fit. Their selection of musical numbers ranged from Billie Holiday to Nessun Dorma (sp?). Still it was enjoyable.
NOW ON TO TUESDAY’S “NEWS”
Well Ed has been busy making phone calls over VOIP to various folks and catching up on the home based news. I still find this ability to be almost a miracle. He also met a couple from….are you ready now? Amarillo, Texas. Yes, folks, it still exists and there really are inhabitants other than rattlesnakes, cow herds, and rabbits. Their son gave them an iPhone and so Ed is helping them along with it. We’re afraid to ask if they’ve been trying to make phone calls from out of the US on it. And at least at this point of their newbie experience, it would be a real mess to try to get them onto VOIP. Perhaps later.
Well the sunrise was soooo bright this morning and you almost needed sun glasses in the cabin to look outside for the sheen on the ocean. We got ready and I checked out the photos on the gangway from Sydney (not too bad actually; I had them put in our packet to check out later when we decide on the final copies), check email, and look over the temptations in the atrium. Today is way overpriced guess, citizen and other watches. Even with 30-50% off and our 10% discount, they are priced too high.
Port talk: The Great Barrier Reef and Cairns
I always love these as each port talker has a little different perspective. He did explain many of the tours and Ed and I have debated taking the 60km boat ride out onto the reef area and checking out the various things to do there: snorkel (equipment provided), swim, get sun burned (there’s a sun deck on top of the platform, scuba dive (big cost here), look into glass bottomed boat, take a mini-sub down, go for a quick (and likely very expensive) helicopter ride, take snorkel or SCUBA classes, and of course eat, eat, eat.
We have tickets for a rainforest experience that involves a long (est in the world?) cable car ride over the canopy, train ride, and other lookie loo and walk-through-the-jungle type of experiences. We are sticking with the latter. There is a lot of time wasted going back and forth to the reef and we travel through it on the ship from now until past Cairns. I’m not saying that substitutes for the snorkel or SCUBA experience, but if I were going to do that, I think I’d rather be staying several days to do it. And many say, seeing it via helicopter or small plane is the best.
Trivia
We were no threat to the winners who scored 14; our team had 11 and only 5 of us, though truth be told, one person kept leaving and then coming back and didn’t participate at all so why be there? Some answers we frankly didn’t have a clue. Others, as usual, one of us had the correct answer but the consensus went with another answer. Ah well, it’s just a game and as the musician said: you’re only playing for shitty pieces of green paper.
This afternoon we were only 3 in our team and we tied with the team next to us with a full team of six, two of whom were younger than us. So we didn’t feel too bad and neither of us won anyway. But we have decided that we need to get the gifts for the anniversaries under our belt as there are frequently questions such as the one today asking which anniversary if the ruby anniversary? Answer: 40 (so now you know and perhaps that will etch it into my memory).
12 step programs
The crew has threatened to start 12 step programs for the trivia and bingo addicts.
And speaking of bingo, we were all given a free bingo card last night as we left the entertainment so I looked around and found Jeanie (the lady who won the last photo contest) who was staying for bingo. Good on her as they say down here.
Theme luncheon
Today was the Chinese spread in the Panorama Café. You all know how nuts Ed is about Chinese food, so that’s where we went for lunch. One of the plusses is that we don’t take long to eat, unlike in the dining room where it often takes over an hour to finish lunch. But the down side is that we tend to eat more. But a BIG plus today was that we sat on the fantail and enjoyed the absolutely stunning day. The temp is about 79 degrees, the wind isn’t awful back there, and it’s impossible to describe the color and texture of the ocean mid day. And the wake of the ship produces variations of colors of blue and green from deep, dark to almost white. A sweet gentleman from Switzerland sat with us for a while and he excused himself to go get his laundry.
So speaking of the laundry room…
Folks get very cranky with people who put their laundry in and then leave. It creates a tremendous conflict and backlog in the laundry room. Perhaps these folks have their own washers and dryers at home and think nothing of it.
Our next door neighbors just qualified for Elite status and got their black card. The wife was absolutely ecstatic to know she would not have to endure the various travails of that place. When we qualified a few years ago, Princess would not honor your new status until you finished the whole world cruise. There was a lot of grumbling at that time and it’s far enough out now that I’m glad they at least changed it for the folks on board now.
Chuck was telling us of a port (somewhere in South America?) where he saw a fellow taken off the ship in handcuffs because he had gotten in a fight in the laundry room. We’ve heard many of these stories. And there’s no refund for the unused portion of your cruise either.
Getting off in Singapore?
We had 250 folks get on the ship in Sydney and it seems like most, if not all, of them will be leaving in Singapore. Someone from Australia said the last leg is being heavily advertised in Australia since Singapore is so close to Australia. Others were speculating about where else Princess might be concentrating their advertising to fill up the last leg. Some folks, however, have expressed concerns about the safety issues on the last leg related to the Arab nations and particularly the Red Sea pirates. Aw that’s just a little more excitement to share with you all in the blog.
Someone was describing a Holland America ship’s defenses as they went through that area but the description was so over–the-top that I think it must be their fear distorting their memory. That or an attempt to impress folks with how scary it all was/is. In our experience you do see some extra precautions being taken but it isn’t as dramatic as some folks would suggest.
My reading
I finished reading “Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders”. This book has a clever device. It turns out the author actually knew Oscar Wilde and some of the other characters who were actual people. The plot is totally made up—at least I think it is. I loved reading it but it’s impossible to sort out what was real and what was a fiction of the author. But it was clever and seemed to tell one a lot about the oversized personality of Oscar Wilde, who in the novel, is finishing up ‘The Portrait of Dorian Gray’ and is a good friend of Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, whom Wilde tries to imitate in this novel.
So I picked up another large print book in the library and LISTEN UP NANCY! The title of this book is: “Swine Not? A novel pig tale” by Jimmy Buffett (yes, THAT Jimmy Buffett). It has illustrations by Helen Bransford. “Now fiction’s favorite pirate spins a colorful novel about a Southern family determined to hide their pet pig in a fancy four-star hotel in New York City…” So beyond that, you’ll just have to go look it up.
As both books are based on real people and events, it always brings a question to my mind about how much is real and how much is a function of the imagination of the author. This was my problem with “The Red Tent” and is why I enjoy Maggie Anton’s stories so much because you can discover what is based on real research, and what is the imagination of the writer.
Day 48
That’s the number in our 107 day odyssey. It doesn’t seem real actually and we aren’t even at the half way mark which will happen between Rabaul and Chuuk.
Movie offerings
We forget to check these, but tomorrow is Michael Jackson’s “This is IT” in the afternoon, which of course, is when we are the busiest. It will be reshown, but there’s the same problem. We’ve missed some good ones we would have enjoyed but real life is where we’re at on this trip; we can always rent them another time.
TOMORROW IS ST. PADDY’S DAY
So all of you had better wear some green. One cabin has some Irish decorations on it and I’ve brought along Ed’s shamrock that says: Mazel tov. I have a green outfit and appropriate green accessories including a bubble shamrock necklace which I plan to use to shower the trivia group (at a minimum) with bubbles.
More Australian history
This is the professor from yesterday. I must have misunderstood is affiliation because today he said it’s UCSD. Anyway, this was fun and he dispelled some myths. He briefly mentioned Captain Bligh because of the speaker who followed.
At dinner the Kiwis and the Aussies were very critical of an American lecturing on Australian history and pointed out some errors the speaker had made. These errors may have been minor by our reckoning, but to the Aussies and such it indicated a lack of specificity that a native would not have missed. So a word to the wise here about the perils of such hubris no matter how much you may love your subject.
Captain Bligh
This lecture was done by our reef pilot. He briefly talked about how he became a reef pilot and why it’s necessary to have one on board. He also reaffirmed that the Captain is always in charge of the ship. Perhaps he doesn’t realize that this is suspended in the Panama Canal. He has been a captain himself and clearly loves the area where he does his work.
This talk was a good balance of the good, bad, and the ugly about Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian. He isn’t a fan of the 4 editions of the movie “Mutiny on the Bounty.” Of course, they all take tremendous “editorial license.” And he affirmed that while the title of the Russell Crowe version was accurate in “Master and Commander” these two roles being present in one individual was not a good idea and was very rare.
Red Hats
There was a meeting and I went for a few minutes because it conflicted with the lecture on Captain Bligh. There were 6 of us; 3 of us were present at previous meetings. Verona suggested that the ship give us some recognition as a RH chapter on the ship. Of course, she long ago quit any affiliation with RHS and that’s something I have some feelings about. It’s like being a “free rider.” I do pay to the international headquarters. How do they expect a business to run without support?
TV now
Well Ed is dominating the TV and that means MSNBC gets the major part of the air time. I place them as the liberal version of Fox news with a few exceptions. If I criticize some of the excesses of Fox News, I have problems forgiving the same type of behavior on another channel just because their philosophy is closer to my own.
Dinner
Everyone was present and we switched around the seating again. This configuration put many of us next to folks who were new to us. We discussed the financial debacle which has hit Australia less severely than the US. We also talked about the housing boom and bust in the US. It seems that house prices are still rising in Australia. We have been stunned at the house prices quoted to us in Sydney on our tours. Even a simple shack can be several hundred thousand dollars but isn’t that often the case in the US where “location location location” is also the major factor in the price of a piece of property.
We asked about their native actors such as Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe (whereupon the Kiwis were quick to note that he was a New Zealander). They are proud of them both but we all agreed that Crowe is an outstanding actor and we discussed many of his movies that we all admired. He has a penthouse on Sydney harbor and a large home in the country some kilometers out.
There was more sharing of conversation around the table tonite but hearing is still a real challenge for me. There was more warmth and humor in the conversation and more of what we love about the Aussies.
Shake Ratttle and Roll
This was the show put on by the dancers and singers. We’ve seen it before but it still feels fresh and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I can’t get over the energy level these kids have.
Majority Rules Trivia
I’ve been curious about this for a long while. There were 7 teams of 6 so we had a lively group. In this kind of trivia, your group has to guess what the majority of the other teams will guess. It started off with the question about what do siblings fight over the most. The other questions ranged far and wide from foods to movie stars over 60 who are the sexiest (Sophia Loren and Robert Redford won).
ST. PATRICK’S DAY
It is overcast and the sea is with small swells and a few white caps. The reef pilot is doing a narrative now and then from the bridge. He says the sea isn’t very clear here because the sand is like fine powder and it stays suspended in the water. We are sailing among the many Whitsunday islands. The sky has ominous clouds with the sun clearly bright behind many of them. The islands around us are all dark lumps with bright areas among them. I believe this is chiaroscuro and ancient painters didn’t use it until more recent centuries.
As you sail in this area and the Hawaiian islands, you achieve a keen appreciation of the talents of Captain James Cook who was one of the few ship Captains to work his way up the hierarchy to his post. He made charts that today are so accurate you can lay them over modern ones and they fit perfectly. There is a story that Cook named these islands after Whitsunday but that he was here on whitmonday. Since the international date line was not developed until later, he indeed was accurate according to the method of reckoning at that time.
At the first circumnavigation of the earth by sailors, they arrived at their original port (in England?) and discovered that they were off by one day on their journals. This of course is because of the 24 hour day. We say that we’re being “given” an hour now and then, as we will again experience this evening. However, that also means that over the course of this trip, we will have “lost” a day. We didn’t lose it of course; we have just had 25 hour days with some regularity. This fact was recognized by losing a day when we crossed the date line.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I have my green on in spades along with my leprechaun earrings and my little guy that says “I’m Irish.” I also have a bubble maker necklace in the shape of a shamrock but the bubble solution inside is pretty pathetic as the bubbles one can sometimes force out are teeny ones. If it wouldn’t leave so much residue, I’d add some Dreft I brought for washing my sleeves to the solution.
DVDs of this cruise
They had a “special” deal recently where you got get all of the DVDs of this cruise, 21 I think, for a reduced rate. I wasn’t in favor of this since they are extraordinarily expensive and I was the only one who looked at the disks from our last RTW cruise. Ed felt it was important to do and along with the package he got about $100 of coupons for services in the Spa. So this morning he is going for a men’s pampering routine which includes a hair cut. In addition, he has been complaining about his arm and neck problems and I’ve been encouraging him to go see Nikolas and then emailing our MD for suggestions. He has made it clear that he doesn’t want me to say one more word about going to the MD so perhaps the head and neck massages will help.
Excursion talk
This was to explain the two options for Beijing. One is the 2 day, one night trip we are taking. The other was a description of the overland. After hearing this I’m absolutely comfortable with our decision to the the 2 days.
The impact of the Kanakas on Australia
This has to do with the Aussie’s importing labor from Fiji and other Melanesian countries to work the sugar cane fields. They weren’t slaves but they were hugely exploited. Apparently this is a part of Australian history that is little known by natives, and perhaps even more significantly, little discussed. At lunch we had an Aussie at our table who enjoyed the presentation and felt that the American professor did a good job with it. We then discussed the pros and cons of having a non-native talk about the history of one’s country.
Trivia
We were joined by the new-on-board dance instructor, John. He is either a Brit or an Aussie, I haven’t quite figured that out. I got there early and heard him guiding the folks through the Paso doble which I thought was a unique and very brave thing to do. We had fun with some of the questions; we always hate those that ask for a date and almost always if we don’t guess (and it is a guess almost always) accurately, we are only a year or two off. That was also true today. Two examples: when was Microsoft started? (1975) When did the Beatles officially split up? (1970). Our team got the correct answer to one question that no one else got. We must here credit Evelyn who was born in Egypt and speaks five languages including French. The question was: what common item that we eat literally means twice baked? It is “biscuit” which I guess is straight from the French. We came in second so we aren’t feeling too bad about it all.
Lunch
We took a look at the Panorama Café’s layout for St. Patrick’s Day. I took a few pics with the Elph. The shamrock ice sculpture was a new one for me. The food didn’t look like anything we cared to do: mostly fish of various kinds though the desserts were “to die for”. In the dining room they have decorated the door, mirrors and a large area with a huge St. Patrick’s Day themed table. And in the dining room, they served Irish coffee; we decided that each glass must have contained at least ¼ cup of brown sugar! Ed had one after his pampering session this morning (which he thoroughly enjoyed). His hair is cut pretty short so I’ll be curious about his reaction to the length as he doesn’t usually like his hair too short. However, he was close to the criteria for a dog collar before he went up.
Ed’s shamrock
He’s getting a lot of attention for the shamrock pin that says Mazel Tov on it. Folks look at the pin initially and then suddenly they realize what it says. It is great fun to see their faces light up at that point. Alas my bubbles aren’t functional so I put the little shamrock bottle away to use another day. My cute little leprechaun shows off nicely on the teal outfit I’m wearing today.
The sky is still somewhat overcast and the ocean changes color depending on the state of the sky. There is a degree of mist on the surface and in the distance so some of the islands are obscured. We’re following the ship’s course on the little pocket atlas I got before rejoining the ship since I can’t find the supply of such things I put aside for this trip. I’m sure I’ll find it in the house but I’ve secured it so carefully that I’ve not been able to find the stash since early December.
The Care and Feeding of the President of the United States: A Behind the Scenes look.
This speaker was head of the White House Military Office during 2 yrs of the Bush administration. It was an interesting talk and he has a lot of energy and enthusiasm which is a welcome style at this point. He will be doing other talks based on some other jobs he’s done. He is a military man who has been in the service and roles where former military guys are. As one man said to me as we left the talk: “…very full of his own self importance though.” Maybe it comes with the job at that time.
Lt. James Cook
We’ve been hearing a lot about James Cook and I’ve gained a real appreciation of his many talents and skills. Also the way he rose in the ranks, his intelligence and good common sense. This was a brief review of his biography and some discussion about the first Europeans around Australia. He mentioned the meridian and antemeridian and the Pope’s division of the world between Spain and Portugal as a part of the driving factor behind a lot of discovery and a lot of secrecy about what various sailors discovered. This is a our reef pilot and I just simply enjoy his perspective on things. I didn’t stay to the very end as we had trivia and the timing is a very tight fit and I had 86 stairs to climb before we were in position with pencils and scrap paper.
Trivia
We were joined by a couple from Tasmania and a lady who has sat with us before. We worked well together overall and the gentleman from Tasmania was especially helpful. We had some interesting challenges and in the end, we were no threat to the winners.
Dinner
The table is warming up over time. I was glad to sit next to the husband of the Kiwi couple as he has been a journalist for most of his career and I was curious as to how he got into this. It was a fascinating story and much too detailed to recount here. This led into a discussion of the future of all media including their strengths and weaknesses. Will the print media survive? And if so, in what form? We didn’t solve that conundrum but we shared many ideas about what we liked or didn’t like about various media. At one point, he worked with Rupert Murdock and some of his folks. That didn’t last long and he moved on.
We also discussed politics in general and their politics in particular. They have compulsory voting and if you don’t vote, there’s a fine of $150-250 or something like that. But they don’t have a good system for figuring out if you vote more than once. Like Chicago they have the motto: Vote early and vote often. The rate of participation is around 75%; the enforcement of the requirement to vote is not well enforced apparently.
And we cluck clucked at the table about frivolous litigation. Alas, it has hit Australia as well; we seem to export all the unsavory aspects of our culture. One lady here was suing her hairdresser because she didn’t like the hair cut she had been given. When some research was done, it was found that she was suing eight other hairdressers for exactly the same reason! Now doesn’t that sound like something you’d hear about in the US?
Comedy/impersonation
“Man of a thousand voices.” He was Ok and certainly had the personalities down pat. He did some cartoon character voices, US Presidents and Aussie Prime Ministers (he’s an Aussie). When he started on the imitations of the singing groups of the 60s and 70s, I decided to take my leave and finish this blog and upload it before we go to bed.
St. Patrick’s Night Party
They were decorating the Pacific Lounge for this as we were leaving trivia this afternoon. While there’s a lot of decoration around the various venues in the ship related to St. Patrick’s Day, very few folks dressed in green. I resisted the temptation to run around pinching the non-participants.
Yippee!
We turn back the clocks another hour tonite! Watch mehowl when we have to “give it back”.
Tomorrow Cairns
Pronounced “cans” this gateway to the Great Barrier Reef is a nice enough city. We have a train and rainforest tour scheduled. Since the weather report isn’t too good for tomorrow, we are doubly grateful for our choice. Late Note: the trip to the Great Barrier Reef was cancelled because of the weather. I’m sure those folks will really be disappointed. The excursion desk is usually pretty good about trying to accommodate folks on the other tours but this may mean that we are really crowded on our tours tomorrow.
Many of our overland shipmates will be returning to the ship there tomorrow.