Life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them

Live your dream and share your passion

When you eat, appreciate every last bite

Some opportunities only come only once-seize them

Laugh everyday

Believe in magic

Love with all your heart

Be true to who you are

Smile often and be grateful

…and finally make every moment count

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Friday, January 18, 2013

GETTING MY SEA LEGS-JUST IN TIME FOR END OF THE CRUISE


We moved our clocks forward an hour last night which works in my favour I believe when I wore at 7am it was really 6am, but 7am looks better right?  I got caught watching a clip in E Entertainment on TV and didn’t leave my cabin till 9am.  Not sure why this feels so weird to me, but I am normally just finishing breakfast now and heading up to Galaxy of the Stars on deck 12.  But what am I in a rush for?  My daily routine had changed and it felt strange!  After only mentioning last night about not seeing my Danish couple I saw then this morning at breakfast and have now got their names and details.  Frits and Elisabeth-they are so sweet and after they had finished their breakfast Elisabeth came over and we chatted for about 40 minutes while Frits went for a walk.  It was nice to have a conversation again with someone and when I think the last time that was it was probably day 2 of my cruise with Lee and Adele.  I speak to my room attendant each day-but that is generalities-a good ol conversation has been a long time overdue.  Elisabeth asked for a card with my details and I think about the business cards I got made before I left in August with all my Ethiopia details and a picture of Zeme and I on them.  I told her no-I didn’t have cards and I gave her my email and blog address on a piece of paper.  I must say I did throw all those cards out when I got back to Australia along with any photos I had printed of Zeme and l, along with all my IPod photos deleted of the two of us.  It was like a big cleanse for me-but what a waste.  I just LOVE the saying ‘remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck’ and I know that.  There are bigger and better things waiting for me out there.

It was a lot cool this morning and not many people at breakfast at 9am.  I wonder if they were all still on yesterday’s time as when I left at 10.30am there was a hell of a lot more people around.  Looking at the ocean the waves don’t look that big, but the ship is really rolling today and I feel sorry for the old people trying to navigate their way around the ship.  I’m just at the ready to catch any of them that are walking in front of me in case they fall.  It really is disconcerting walking around on a ship that has a roll to it, and that’s with my ‘young’ legs.  Sitting in Galaxy of the Stars you get a 180 degree view of where we are and there is nothing as far as the eye can see, not in front, port or starboard-just the horizon and a lot of water.  I didn’t even see another ship-not one.  Galaxy was just wrapping up a question and answer time with the Captain and his senior officers.  I caught the last 2 questions and one was with the cancellation of the port call yesterday why we didn’t high tail it to Malaga to give us some extra time there instead.  The Captain answered that question and said that the ports are booked 1-2 years in advance, it is quite hard to get a berth at short notice and by the time the request went to Miami to Malaga and back to the ship the Captain saw no positive in getting us into Malaga at midnight-there was nothing to be gained in doing that.  Good question and good response.  The other question was when we had our mandatory lifeboat drills on the first day we weren’t required to have our life jackets with us-each cruise line is different and NCL had changed their policy that you no longer needed to bring your life jackets with you as they were cumbersome to passengers and to NCL the most important thing is knowing where your evacuation station was rather then getting you there with the lifejackets on.  Interesting to know. 

As the morning wore on I was in the lunge to see the towel folding demonstration.  For those of you who may have not had the good fortune to cruise before each night your steward comes into your cabin for a turn down service and they leave these cute and crazy towel animals, made out of..well towels.  So they had a demonstration of the top 10 animals they make.  They had housekeeping taking this talk and it gave one of the head guys a chance at his 45 minutes of fame and he was actually quite good with his explanations and jokes.  My stewardess Linda was up there with 2 others and I have to say she was the best roller and animal maker out of them all!!!!  All the bodies of all the animals seem to be a standard roll and then it is the hand towels and face washers that create and complete the masterpieces.  I have to say my favourite one out of them all was the mouse, which was left last night on my bed and I hope to keep till the end of the cruise.  He is a cutie.  They don’t keep the animals each day, I guess there would be a shortage of towels if they let everyone keep the animals ‘alive’ for the duration of the cruise-which is a shame as it would have been a great photo to get the whole zoo in on the last night. 

I was also still in the lounge for the next activity which was ‘Name that 80’s Tune’.  I did turn my IPod off for this one and thought I would just play on my own to see how I fared.  There were 20 songs that the staff played and when it came time to mark I got 13 out of 20.  There were a group of 4 that got 20 out of 20-which is pretty impressive.  I can’t believe that I didn’t even get the name of Boy George’s song Karma Chameleon… but Shelly would be proud that I got Maneater right, which was a song that was played at my wedding.  Was that PC back then now that I think about it?

I was also still in the lounge for the next activity which was ‘Country Line Dancing’.  I tell you they get the numbers on the dance floor.  There would have been 25 people out there and to start off with it looks like a train wreck as they are getting taught the steps but I looked back up after a while and they actually all looked quite good and all in time with each other.  It was funny to watch at times when the ship got a roll the 2 steps would become 3 or 4 as they tried to then compose themselves back to the steps, but they were all in time with the sway as well.  Good on them for giving it a go is all I have to say.  Half way through the dancing my computer was about flat and it was 2.30pm and lunch time for me.  So I packed up all my gear and as I was already on deck 12, so I headed to buffet and then into my cabin for a few hours till it was time to get ready for the show.  I didn’t want to be late for this one as my fav band of the cruise FourEver were back again and they were just as good as the first time.  The poor buggers were supposed to get off yesterday in Lanzarote but as we didn’t stop they will disembark tomorrow in Malaga.  I wonder how they get paid and if it is worth it?  I guess it must if the acts come onto the ships.

So that sums up what was another day at sea.  We have a port of call tomorrow in Malaga, one more ship day and then back onto land and into Barcelona and even though I have had a nice time on the ship, it is time for me to get moving onto my next chapter, getting to Kenya and seeing if I can make a life there.  I am still a little precious, emotionally, but I think I am holding up okay all things considered and remembering that I really haven’t had a lot of conversations with people the whole trip, I thought I may have gone batty after a week-but again I am doing okay. 


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