C: Lessons from the Sea

We’re baaaaack!  Came in late last night after TWELVE HOURS in airports and planes.  V was actually the better picture-taker, I’m afraid, so some of the pictures will have to wait on those downloads, but let me just say: the trip was awesome.  As you know, V and I have a lifetime of experience in dealing with one another, so she was just the perfect travel friend for me.  Isn’t it amazing how you can never run out of things to talk about even though you already know so much about each other?  We just had ten whole days of hedonism, and will be sharing more specifics about the trip over the coming days.

But, I have some good lessons from this trip.  Let me tell you a couple:

First:  If you have gorgeous food continuously available, you will basically eat continuously.  V and I consumed amazing quantities of food—great food that we won’t be duplicating at home.  V likes to say that she concentrated on fresh fruit and “did not do too badly” so far as diet this week, but she lies about this.  Some of you may recall my rash New Year’s Resolution post…well, it’s back on, and I’m counting on you people out there to be some of my accountability staff.  (See, I’ve gotten used to “staff”…)

Next: Boats rock, this one ever so gently, mind you, but allowances must still be made.  For example, if you need to get up in the night for the potty (a given in my case), you should be very careful while on a ship.  If you are not, this might happen:  You groggily make for the bathroom, stepping up the half-step and turning to pull the door closed.  Boat rocks.  You steady yourself with your right hand by grabbing onto the wall to the right of the door while leaning outward to take the doorknob in hand to pull the door to.  If you are not very careful, what might happen is that you will not notice that your thumb, grasping to steady you, is squarely within the closure space of the hinged side of the door.  What this means, of course, is that the vise formed by the closing door against the wall will squish your thumb to smithereens (simple physics, remember?), and your reaction time  for figuring out what the !#@$%!#$ is actually happening and how to resolve it will be slowed waaaay down (given your grogginess and your panic as immense pain shoots into your hand). And you will have a lovely purple-hued throbbing thumb as a reminder. And, it hardly needs saying, you won't be going back to sleep.

Third: Fire alarms are n.o..f.u.n while aboard ship.  V and I were up on the ELEVENTH (!) deck trying to figure out how to post for you guys when the alarm sounded and an announcement was made that a fire had been discovered in the spa area.  The voice added that we were not to panic (!!), but to stay put and stay calm for our “own good.”  I was calm enough outwardly, but I must tell you that I had mental visions of flames licking up past the Lido deck, headed straight for us.  “Let’s go, V,” I suggested, wanting to be a little lower down…you know, closer to those life boats eight floors below?  We calmly edged to the door only to find them locked.  We were locked in!!  Deprived of even the choice of diving into the sea rather than being roasted alive.  It was at this point that my mental  picture shifted to the newspaper headline that would follow (V and I starring, of course): “Longtime Friends’ Voyage Turns Deadly as Local Women Roasted Atop Ship.”  Thankfully, the announcement soon followed that all was well and some idiot had merely left a towel on the sauna rocks, causing a flame…whew!

And for those of you who believe in Divine Providence (I do!), our dinner companions were living proof of the same for God was smiling on us when He chose them for us.  V and I were assigned a table for dinner at 8 p.m. each night rather than saunter in at various times.  It was one of the best choices we made for the cruise, for we had the same delightful four dinner companions each night.

I won’t post their pictures since I don’t have permission to post their smiling faces on the worldwide web, but I will tell you a little about them:  A wonderful woman traveling with her mother (an absolute delight!), the cruise being daughter’s Christmas gift to Mom.  Wonderful! 

Then there was our beautiful Albanian friend from Canada (She’s our first Albanian friend!!) with her friend, the only guy in the bunch.  He was long-suffering of us women, and kept us cracked up at each dinner seating.

Each one of these dinner companions was interesting and conversant.  V and I looked forward to seeing them each night for dinner.  We hope to keep up with them, being reluctant to lose such great acquaintances.  I know it’s hard, but as you in the blogosphere know, long-distance friendship is possible!

So, more travelogue reports to come, but let me also add: As wonderful as it is aboard that luxury ship, there’s no place like home!   C