This morning early we slid quietly into a postcard. White sandy beaches, palm trees, wooden boardwalks, scrubby bushes, thatched cabanas.   The water is amazingly blue. But not just one shade, a whole range, from dark navy blue off in the distance where the bottom is deeper, to turquoise up close to the beach.

GL at first didn’t want to go ashore, but when I asked if she would mind if I went by myself, she was motivated enough to join me. We remembered our sunglasses and sunscreen! But forgot a hat. We were ashore long enough for me to paddle in the water some (GL took my picture to document that I was “in” the Carribean), walked across the island to a small bay on the other side (a different shade of blue altogether), had a drink in the “I Want To Stay Here Forever” bar, and then went back to the ship.

We spent the afternoon dealing with business matters and flight arrangements for tomorrow, boring but necessary.

Sick, sick, sick. Huddled over my tea and nibbling on a corner of dry toast, while GL chows down on oatmeal, yoghurt, bagel, cream cheese and sausage. It was the aroma from the last that did me in. She had to finish up alone.

Fully recovered by about 4 pm. I think it was something I ate, so once I got rid of whatever poisoned me, I was fine.  NOT mal-de-mer!

Last business day of the month, and GL is a bit anxious about her monthly financial tasks that she usually does on this day. But she’ll be home on Monday, which is just the next business day, so she admits that will do. 

In 1978, K and I worked our way around South America on a cruise ship, lecturing on wind, fish, stars, currents, Incas and Aztecs every day while we were at sea. I recall we each had to give 11 lectures over an 8 week period (or something like that), which meant we were at sea for 22 days. How did we forget our boredom? We made a solemn vow at the end of that trip that we would never ever take a long cruise again. I hereby make the same promise. Never ever will I take a cruise with more than one day at sea.   This is just too too boring!

The ship provides entertainment: mahjong and bridge tournaments, poker games, lecturers on politics and climate change, dance lessons.   There’s a pretty good library, too. Nevertheless, I am not sufficiently entertained.   I know that boredom is in your head, and it’s not too bad, really. But aside from the lectures and the library, I'm not enthralled by mahjong etc., and I find myself playing Spider Solitaire for hours. 

Reeling in shock from our first glance at our preliminary statement from the front desk. $11/day for a tip for our cabin steward and dining room wait staff has been added to our bill! Each! That’s $22/day for a tip! Yowzah. Those cute little animals made out of towels that the cabin steward makes every night aren’t worth it. Fortunately, the statement allows that we can “make adjustments” on the tip amount at the front desk.  We’re adjusting down by a factor of 2.

Days at sea are slow and easy, even when the swells are 4-5 meters and the ship is rocking like a baby’s cradle. There is much time to watch the waves, observe your fellow passengers and contemplate the mysteries of life, such as: what the heck is going on with our soap?

Our cabin was provided with a bar of soap, that is, not a bar, exactly, but a round disc about 2 inches in diameter labeled Citrus Soap Slice, 40 grams net weight. We opened it and used it at the sink, and the next day our steward had restocked our little pile of goodies with another bar. Thus, we have a brand new unopened bar to compare to the opened bar we have been using for the past 9 days. The used bar gets bigger every day. Yes, it does! Current estimates of its diameter range between 2-3/4 inches and 3-1/4 inches. And it doesn’t get any thinner either! Just bigger and bigger every day. At this rate, we could sail around the world and the soap would be as big as a dinner plate.

How does this happen? Inquiring minds want to know!

My hypothesis is that it is absorbing the tiny bit of water left in the dish every time we use it. GL doesn’t think this is it, exactly, because the soap isn’t getting any softer either. 

We will continue to peruse and if any new insights occur, we’ll let you know.

It’s official: I’m still pick-up worthy! How flattering! And I have to say, funny. It’s because Holland America caters to a, shall we say, older clientele.   As in, over 60, no, make that over 70. I’m one of the youngest people on the ship, other than the crew. There might be, oh, 100 people younger than I in a crowd of 1950. 

One guy asked me to take his picture, the other asked what I was reading. Both seemed intelligent.  And yet they want to come on a ship for old folks by themselves? Of course, I just assumed they were by themselves. I suppose they could have a wife or companion tucked away back in the cabin.

Or maybe they just felt sorry for me and started a conversation the way you might with a 4-year-old at an adult party!

We docked into Funchal (means fennel in Portuguese) at about 8 a.m. GL and I were already up, washed, dressed and breakfasted by then, the ship having gone through a time change overnight. I love these 25-hour days! 

Funchal is the largest city on the island of Madeira. Tropical, volcanic, black sand and amazing vegetation, you might even think you are in Hawaii. It’s quite the vacation spot for Britishers, we heard, and there were plenty of British accents on the streets, in addition to the Portuguese we were expecting. Even the churches had a service in English. Of course, the 3 cruise ships in port could have had something to do with that! The other two ships were a little smaller than ours, but even so, we figured about 4000 cruisers were wandering around the island, some on tours, but some unaccompanied, like us!

We took a shuttle bus from the ship into town (yes, we could have easily walked it in about 20 minutes) and set off in search of the Se Cathedral. Wasn’t too hard to find, as the old town is about 5 streets wide. Because it was Sunday, services were being held, so we went in as if we were going to mass and waited until they were finished. In the 10 minutes between services, we looked at the gold chapel with the silver chalice. The entire chapel was covered in gold, lit up by the sun streaming in through a stained glass window. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the chapel lost its heavenly glow. But gold walls, ceiling and altar are pretty impressive even without the celestial lighting. 

We also found the Municipal plaza, which is paved in black and white stones. The weirdest tree: pink and white flowers, no leaves, and hanging fruit 8 inches long and 3 inches in diameter, dark brown. What the heck is it?

Even though it was Sunday, the little kiosks along the main street were open for your shopping pleasure. T-shirts, mattresses, salt and pepper shakers, baskets, terra cotta frogs for the garden, candy, flowers, etc. I bought a handful of beads and some string to make a necklace, both to remind me of Funchal and to have something to do on the ship over the next week. Then back to the ship by the shuttle.

7 days at sea, next stop Bahamas on Monday, Nov 1. Hoo-boy.

Boring! Thank goodness I can write for LJ, I’d go crazy otherwise. I seem to have got out of the habit of reading. How can that be? This afternoon, I’m headed to the art auction (not to buy anything but to watch the other passengers). And for a real thrill, I’m getting my hair cut!

We sailed up the Tagus River from the Atlantic to Lisbon in the full daylight, so we had a chance to see something of the landscape, which is hilly and tree covered with a row of 3-4 story apartment buildings lining the Lisbon side of the river.   As we got closer to the city, we could see the huge bridge that crosses the river, and then the Tower of Belem and the Discovery Monument (more on those later). We sailed under the bridge with 10s of feet to spare and then docked at the first dock on the other side of the bridge. What an amazing location! Within baseball throwing distance of the bridge and between Belem and downtown. You could hardly be more handy.

On the street, GL grimly stalked past a Starbucks, and we turned up our noses at the McDonald’s across the street. Growing fainter and fainter with hunger and exhaustion, we reeled into the first restaurant past the Starbucks and collapsed at a table. It turns out we had found the famous café Pasteis de Belem! This place does an OK line in sandwiches and casual fare, but is famous world-wide for its small round custard pastries. We ordered Tostis from the menu and they turned out to be grilled cheese sandwiches. Limonada is not a 7-up-like beverage as it is in Germany, no, it’s straight lemon juice mixed with water served in a glass with packets of sugar on the side for you to add your own.

The little pastries were yummy. About the size of a home-made American muffin, it had a crust made of very thin sheets of dough, thinner than filo or strudel, a creamy custard filling and baked until the top was patched with dark brown. At 90euro cents per, it was a bargain, I would even say worth a special trip!

After the monastery, we repaired to the ship. We even took a taxi! Normally I don’t do much of that, but facing the long and dangerous walk from the bus stop across the RR tracks and the two big streets, we decided that it was worth it. A quiet night aboard, and we cast off about 10:30 pm heading for Madiera.

Did I say rough seas? Holy cow. Apparently there’s usually a huge ocean swell right at Casablanca as the waves come across the Atlantic there, and we had to go north parallel to the swells for a bit. We didn’t fare too badly in our cabin, but some others higher up had dreadful problems. We had a few drawers opening and closing because we hadn’t shut them tightly and a glass slid across the desk but didn’t fall off. This happened about 11:30 pm, and I had just got into bed. A few moments of wedging and rearranging and all was safe.  But upstairs? A tower of plastic trays full of glass ware toppled over in the restaurant on deck 9, and people all over the ship suffered broken glassware, flying cameras, etc. At breakfast a few people wore spanking new casts on fingers and wrists.  

Because the more expensive cabins are on the upper decks, the potential for damage went up with the price of your cabin. We are on the main deck (that is, the lowest passenger deck, aka, the cheapest). Stability was an advantage I hadn’t thought of when we bought our tickets! 

 I did find a good tip about hand care: mix equal parts olive oil and sugar, then massage into the backs of your hands. Then what? Salad or dessert?

Overnight, our ship sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, which we couldn’t see at all because it was dark, and on to Casablanca. Morocco is on GMT -1, whereas Spain and the rest of Europe are on GMT +1, so there’s a 2 hour time difference. Because we were only spending about 12 hours in Morocco in between Spanish ports, the ship stayed on Spanish time. This meant we docked at 9 a.m. our time, but it was only 7 a.m. in Casablanca so we had plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast and to figure out what we wanted to do.

We got to chatting with a couple of women at the next table, and then jointly decided to take a taxi from the ship to the Mosque of Hassan 2. 

This mosque is the 3^rd largest religious building in the world, after mosques in Mecca and Medina. I think you could probably put the whole of St. Paul’s cathedral inside it without any trouble – it was gigantic! 

The guide said that Americans ALWAYS ask how much it costs, and Moroccans ALWAYS ask how many people it takes to clean it! The answers are 800M USD but our guide said that was well under the actual costs, as many things were donated and other things not counted, and 200 full-time cleaning staff.

When we came out after the tour and walked back out to the street, there was our trusty taxi driver waiting to take us back to the ship. TG! He had somehow traded his old bucket for a newer model, but it still had no suspension! And he still really wanted to take us on a driving tour of the city (“for free!”) but we just insisted we wanted to go back to the ship, so that’s what he did. One of our party tipped him 10$ and he just about burst into tears. He kissed the bill, he kissed his hand to us, he waved and waved and was generally very happy.

Back on board, we had lunch and then I got so lost in the book I was reading that I totally missed dinner (very unlike me) but of course there is always food available all the time so it was a simple matter to stagger up the stairs weak with hunger to the buffet line.

Tonight we will be sailing in the Atlantic northward to Cadiz – expecting rougher seas than the Med Sea. I’ll let you know how we fare.

In Malaga we joined forces with a woman traveling alone to go ashore. Poor thing didn’t have a very good time in Alicante, she said, because she didn’t know anyone to go ashore with. Anyway, we all took the free shuttle into town. Right across the street was a corral of 20 horse drawn carriages. Notice board said 30E for 45 minute ride around town so we did it! 10E each wasn’t too bad, we thought, and besides (with all due respect and love to K), riding in a carriage is not something I do every trip.

We trotted off on a circuit of the cathedral, the bull ring, city hall, museum, old castle, etc. We went past a 3-masted galleon under restoration draped with bright green banners advertising Heineken (say what?). A nice ride, and our horse was very pretty and gee-upped smoothly. Lots of traffic, lots of honking.  

After the ride, we strolled through the streets of the old town to the cathedral. I could just hear K saying, “Yes!” as we walked inside. Spanish Baroque, if that’s the right name for the architecture. Round arches, stained glass, lots of gold and gilt, round dome, rounded apse, all very cool. Posted on a board inside the cathedral was a ribbon of history, entitled: 2000 Years of Christianity Historiogram of the Way of the Church. Extremely interesting and lots of things I didn’t know about. But at 20E, I thought perhaps I would try to find one on the internet for less.

We stopped at a café right beside the cathedral, and I remembered sitting in the sun in December 2004 drinking sangria and watching the under 21s get a bit snockered. What a hoot! This time we just had tea; no one else in our little party was interested in sangria. However, we did stop and buy a bottle of Malaga wine, which is sort of like sweet sherry.

We toddled over to the park and saw another line of weird statues, this time made of rusty iron, like buddhas in masks. We made it to the shuttle bus just in time for a quick ride back to the ship. On the way back we passed a boat from Vladivostok / University of Russia (is there such a school?), and saw acres of huge concrete blocks stacked up for use in rebuilding the breakwater.

Back at the ship, we watched a show with an electric violinist (it was the violin that was electric, not the violinist). He wore black jeans and shirt with a shiny red belt, shiny red pointy shoes with heels and a red wristband. He played his violin as if wielding a sword, sharply and aggressively, and he stood that way, too, his feet planted wide apart and hips canted forward as if to say, “I may play the violin but I’m a macho player!”

Sunday night the ship slipped silently from the Port of Barcelona, heading westward to Alicante. What a change! While Barcelona is the 2^nd largest city in Spain, Alicante is, well, small. They obviously do a good business in tourism, though, mostly oriented to the beach and the cruise ships. When you think that one of these giant cruise ships can drop off up to 3000 passengers and crew, all with money to spend, you can understand the good welcome that the city gave us. There were 3 ships in, so we figured about 8,000 people from the ships were tooling around for the day.

I found the nude beach and was shocked, not at the nudity itself but at the age of the participants! Somehow, hanging baskets just don’t look as good as rosebuds! 

This is the first time I’ve been in Spain without K. GL is a pleasant companion and I like being with her, but it’s not the same. K, I miss you!

Back on the ship, we saw an excellent Broadway revue with singing, dancing and bright costumes. Score 1 for the cruise entertainment team.

Yes, GL and I are taking a cruise from Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale. Can you believe it? The only thing is, it was so cheap we just had to go. $1000 for 16 nights of comfortable beds, private bath, good-to-great food available 24 hours/day, mediocre-to-good entertainment, and the chance to stop at Alicante, Malaga, Casablanca, Cadiz, Lisbon and Funchal before crossing the Atlantic to the Bahamas and Ft. Lauderdale.   Then we bought an upgrade for $99 more. Still, $1100 for 16 nights and full board? You can’t do that on land!

Sunday K got up before dawn to head back home, while GL and I slept a little later (OK, a lot later) and moved ourselves to the ship. Once on, we stayed. It’s hard to pay for food ashore when it’s all free on the ship! And there’s an OK gym so I can keep to my program. 

La Rambla, all day, each way many times. Yikes.  We started in the middle, then walked southward to see the Palau Guell,

We listened to Manuel Gonzales playing a program of familiar classical Spanish guitar pieces.   An amazing evening. In any language, the standing ovation said Dude, we love you!

This day was dedicated to the old city, AKA Bari Gotic. We took the bus. I’m telling you, buses are much more fun than the Metro. Why spend your travel time underground? With a bus you can see things and enjoy the sunshine, which we certainly did!

We started at the cathedral, Spanish Gothic. “Now, this is more like it!” said K with satisfaction when we walked in. 

 The one good thing is, it (the restuarant) opens at 8 pm!  Which is very early for Barcelona.  By 8:30 it was crowded with, guess who, Americans! I guess it takes a while to adjust to the later eating habit.