Sydney tomorrow and the next day

Continuation of March 11 2010
Port Talk: Sydney
I had heard there is a “hop on, hop off” bus in Sydney and had suggested to Ed that we take that the second day but he wasn’t interested. So we have a trip to the Blue Mountains on day one. Apparently the blue haze is due to the eucalyptus trees there. And on day two, in the afternoon, we have a city tour. I have an idea to get up early Sunday to see if I can find a place to get my hair cut but I’m not optimistic and will keep asking questions to see if it’s worth attempting.
Lunch
Two ladies from an East Coast state sat opposite us at the table. We discussed the various ports and which ones we liked. On said she absolutely hated Fiji. The story is that she and her companion were in the bathroom and the van left without them. They took a cab back for $40. So then began a discussion of how disgusting and upsetting it is when these tours take us past “shanty towns”. The other lady remarked at how wonderful and (did she really use the word or was it me “translating”) civilized the resorts were. I can’t imagine why folks like that even bother with a tour. The ship will arrange for a special limo (well whatever the best is at a particular port) to take one around singly. And I have a sense that they are in one of the suites so I wouldn’t think being frugal is an issue as it is, frankly, for some folks on this cruise despite the image that sailing on a world cruise might engender.
Art Deco Architecture
This is probably my least favorite kind of architecture but I figure I can always learn something so I went. The speaker was our Oscar winner designer. He clearly has a passion for this and has books on architecture in various places.
Auction
At the end of the architecture talk, there was an auction of some Academy Award items such as menus, programs, posters and such. The benefit was for the Princess Foundation which gives away money for various causes, most recently the Haiti crisis. Ed did bid on some items but mercifully he was outbid. Some items sold for as much as $150, and a few books (he also designs book covers) went for $15-20. One woman said that in addition to the items she had won in the auction, she had also “bought” herself a divorce. She kept the bidding high on a few items that she really wanted.
Engineer Q&A
This was a free interview with two of the engineers on the ship. It was interesting to get the details straight from the horses’ mouths so to speak. Since Nancy and I had taken the Ultimate Ship’s Tour on the Golden Princess, a huge ship compared to the Pacific Princess, I found it even more interesting.
And speaking of the Ultimate Ship’s Tour which Ed is eagerly awaiting on this cruise, we went down to check up on it since we’d heard nothing about it. It seems that “only” three people were signed up. We reminded them that it had not been advertised in the Patter so we were sure almost no one knew about it. I’ll keep you posted.
Trivia
We didn’t have it this morning because of the immigration work. This afternoon it was done by a fellow passenger and despite my hope that it would turn out better, it also was a disaster. The theme was all about America. It wasn’t the usual things you expect and most of us didn’t know the answers. Those that we did know, he found a way to make them wrong. For example, what was paid for the island of Manhattan? Well the answer as we’ve all been taught is $24 work of trinkets. But then he wanted it in the currency of the time. So we said $24 in guilders. It turns out he wanted 60 guilders. So you get the idea.
We looked at the choices for redeeming your tokens and they hadn’t changed from the last leg: going from one to 5 tokens: luggage tag, deck of cards (you can buy a used deck with a hole punched in the middle for $1 at the casino) passport holder, ecologically friendly bag (not the better quality bags they’ve had in the past), baseball cap. I was hoping they’d supplement the offerings with some that can be redeemed for a larger number of tokens.
One fellow at lunch told us that at the end of one of his trips, he had wanted a baseball cap which was never offered. So he took a hundred of his tokens and traded them for the baseball cap he wanted in the boutique. He was happy.
Dinner
Our usual fun with lots of laughter and teasing. We all went to see our photos from the previous night and see how good they were. Our formal pictures weren’t very good but Ed did want to save our group photo in case we wanted to get it later. I’d pass on it but we’ll see.
Fiddler
Well this isn’t accurate as this fellow clearly had a very solid professional background with the violin. He played many different pieces, all very well, but I can’t see his knickname “Fireworks on 4 strings”. Still it was a pleasant few minutes.
March 12 2010
Well the Tasman Sea finally settled down in the night and it’s much easier to walk around though it’s still a good idea to hang onto the side rails as the pitch is not helped by the stabilizers on the side of the ship (which only help a little with sway).
We woke up and after a while threw the drapes open. Ed got ready to walk the Susan G. Komen 5K upstairs which had been cancelled from yesterday.
BBC & CNN
Yes, we now have CNN and a very sketchy BBC. This CNN isn’t what you get in America; it is the international version. We are on an East – West track now so we should have better satellite connections. We haven’t had time to catch up on much as we aren’t in the cabin that much.
Obama, the Arabs and the Israelis
Dr. Spiegel managed to offend many folks in his remarks this morning. I didn’t know that Joe Biden’s son is married to an Orthodox Jew. Ed bought the book and took it to be autographed. He remarked that one of the other co-authors was a classmate at Hamilton High. It turns out Spiegel was one year ahead of Ed at Hami Hi though he doesn’t look that age. It was interesting to get his analysis and predictions about the Middle East dilemmas.
Trivia
This was another passenger and despite the fact that she took her questions and answers from a trivia a day calendar she has brought with her, it was a disaster as well. She did handle it better than most but it was still awful. There wasn’t any particular theme but it was hard, which she had warned us before we began. These kinds of trivia, that is when passengers develop them, are never fun. Just to give you an idea, at least one team got no correct answers, one got only two. We tied for first place with another team with SEVEN correct answers (and I believe there was at least one more of our answers that was accurate…but). Since they had to set up the lounge for the ever popular champagne art auction with free champagne, Frankie opted to give us all tokens on the two tied teams. Our team managed to get one extra token which we sent back to Frankie so we could all sleep with a clean conscience tonite.
Lunch
There are less than a handful of women on this cruise who simply cannot shut up. They interrupt others when they’re speaking as if nothing else was being said, certainly nothing else of value except the piffle they want to inflict on listeners nearby. And I don’t believe they take a breath because they drone on such that no one else can get a word in edgewise. This is not to say that men don’t interrupt, usually they interrupt women too, but I suppose I understand the rules of men’s interruptions a little better. So now I’ve gotten it off my chest and I’ll need to be more alert to being respectful of others’ “air time”.
The Magic of the Movies
“Based on Oscar winning documentary Director Arnold Schwartzman’s book ‘Flicks’ (published by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), the author presents the fascinating history of the precursors of the cinema and what they suffered in their race to the silver screen.” I’ll let you know later how this went.