2015-11-29 British Comedian, Mark Walker

This was Mark’s first appearance on a cruise ship and he was really good. He started by telling us that a woman in the balcony was celebrating her 97^th birthday. Of course, we all applauded. Then he said she was sitting by her parents.

He said the passengers on this ship are so old that the portholes are all bifocals. He went out dancing on the ship last night and a woman pinched him on the butt.  He turned around and told her to act her age. So, she died.

He asked if there were any Dutch in the audience. (No). He asked about several other nationalities but we are 95% Americans on this cruise. He said Americans are very positive people. They even have positivity in their name—Ameri-CAN, unlike the British who are Brit-ISH.

He told a long joke using an Irish accent about a man who was ice fishing. He cut a hole in the ice and sat down to wait for a tug on the line. He waited an hour and didn’t get a nibble. Suddenly, he heard a booming voice say, “There are no fish under the ice!”  He ignored the voice and kept on fishing. He heard the voice again, “There are no fish under the ice!”

The man said, “Are you God?” The voice said, “No, I am the ice rink manager!”

He went down into the audience and picked up a woman in the front row, then carried her to another seat in the front row. Then he went to other side, picked up another woman and carried her to the opposite side and set her in the first woman’s seat. He said since he was on the ship he wanted to try a little wife-swapping.

He told a story about a boy who was born with a terrible deformity. He was only a head with no body. He lived on the side board in the dining room. He didn’t go to school or any activities because his parents were afraid he would be hurt or made fun of. It was terribly sad. On the day he turned 18 years old, his father asked him what he wanted for his birthday. He always got the same birthday present—a hat. He asked his dad if he would take him to a pub for his 18^th birthday and buy him a whiskey. His dad didn’t think that was such a great idea but he got a hat box and put his son in the box. When they got to the pub, he bought his son his first alcoholic drink. The son suddenly sprouted a neck, then a trunk, then arms and then legs.

The son was so happy that he got up and started dancing. The women were crying and the men were cheering. Everyone was so happy for him. Suddenly, he jumped up on a table and started leaping from table to table. Unfortunately, he slipped on a beer coaster and fell off the table and died.

The barkeeper, “It’s his own fault, really. He should have quit while he was a head.”

2015-11-28 Corfu

We visited this island the last time we were on a cruise. We still have some pictures from that trip but we have a much better camera now.

Our guide told us a joke. We were riding in a big bus on a narrow, winding road up the hill. She said that a priest and a bus driver died in Corfu and came to the pearly gates at the same time. The priest said he should enter heaven first because he prayed to God every day. The bus driver said he should go first because he drove a bus and caused 30 people to pray to God every day.

Also, she said that our driver deserved our praise because this was his first day driving a bus.

2015-11-27 Maasdam is leaking

We are having severe wave action—waves up to five meters high. The captain says it is really rough weather but he is trying to get us into a calm harbor. Some people are pretty seasick but not us. 

We went up to the Lido for breakfast and then came back to find the hallway flooded outside our room. There was a leak in the Infirmary and it flooded the room next to us. The staff is trying to vacuum up the water.

2015-11-26 Thanksgiving in Greece

We didn’t have an excursion planned for today. We have already taken the panoramic tour of Athens and we have seen all the major sites. We decided to leave the ship on our own and try to make it to a church that we can see from the ship. There is a stadium between us and the church so we could only see the top of it.

It was not easy getting over to the church but we did it in company with our ship friend, Bob. He continued on alone after we turned around and came back to the ship. 

By the way, Bob uses a chair like us. He plans to go to a real pub and try some of the wares. 

We saw several homeless people on the way to and from the church. There was a woman who had spread five or six large quilts to air out on the fence. The really touching detail was that she had set up a card table for a meal. There were no chairs, just a table with a few items on it. She didn’t ask for money. We also saw several homeless dogs.  They were skinny and ill looking. Our neighbors said they ran smack into a demonstration, probably about poor economic conditions. Greece is not doing well at all.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner on the ship followed by the traditional pumpkin pie. But we also got bad news from the captain. The weather was sunny and mild today but he says it will be deteriorating. He is worried about getting into the next port in Katakolon, Greece. So, we are changing course and going on to Corfu, a Greek island. We had an excursion planned to visit a farm for lunch but all trips are cancelled. We have another excursion planned for Corfu.

The internet will probably be erratic tomorrow. The captain told us to expect us to expect rough seas.

2015-11-25 Messina, Italy, Mt Etna

Angry seas today. We are rocking and rolling out here in the Mediterranean Sea traveling from Messina, Italy to Piraeus, Greece. Everyone is walking around like they are drunk. They are weaving from side to side. And the internet is not available for some reason.

We put the clock ahead an hour again but this is the last time. We don’t have another excursion until Friday, Nov 27. We have heard that Athens attractions are closed for business but don’t know how long that will last.

We did our laundry this morning as this is a sea day.

We had a good trip to Mt. Etna yesterday. We saw the mountain clearly at the beginning of the trip. It was even smoking a little bit. However, by the time the driver pulled over so we could take pictures, it was almost completely covered with clouds.

The guide said Mt. Etna is the most active volcano in the world and is part of a chain of volcanoes. In fact, there are actually four volcanoes grouped together at the peak. A few years ago, we saw the destruction caused by a volcano in the Santorini area. The tour was called Discover Ancient Akrotiri. That volcano is connected to Mt Etna. That was a disaster but no one lost their life in that eruption.  Apparently, the residents noticed the earthquakes and left before the eruption.

The guide also said that Mt. Etna gives a lot of warnings before it erupts, unlike a volcano like Mt Vesuvius in Naples that blew up without warning. I hope she is right because a lot of people live in the shadow of this volcano, too.

When I was talking to the doctor’s wife the other day, she said she went on this tour last time and she would buy more pistachio butter (like peanut butter) if she had another opportunity. I bought four jars and plan to give them to our friends at home who have helped us so much while we are traveling.

We didn’t go to the show last night because my back is really bothering me again. I have spent too many hours in lectures. Frank Buzzard spoke again today about time and space. He showed more pictures from the Hubble telescope. 

2015-11-24 More Naples

I try to do everything right but I botched up the tour to Naples today. Yesterday was a messy day. We stayed over in Rome due to bad weather. They took our 1:00 pm tour tickets and asked if we wanted to take the same tour today. We did. However, the tour today left at 8 am and we missed it. I talked to the shore excursion people and they very kindly gave us a refund. Bill doesn’t care if we go on any tours. He is just as happy to stay on the ship. Especially today, when it rained pizzas and meatballs (hey, we are in Naples!)

I told a joke to the cruise director and I fouled that up, too. The joke was, “Why couldn’t the animals play cards on Noah’s Ark? (Because Noah was standing on the deck.)”  I said it slightly wrong and it wasn’t funny that way.

The new people who came on in Rome are impatient and irritable. We miss the ones who left. Apparently, the new people were very upset that we missed a port day and complained to the front desk. As a gesture of penance (even though there was no need for penance), the captain sent waiters around with champagne for everyone at dinner time. Well, almost everyone. We are teetotallers so we passed on this treat. We are totally on the captain’s side. We didn’t want to spend the day in the lifeboats, watching our cruise ship sail without us. 

2015-11-23 Naples, Italy

All was well in Rome except that it was raining and people who were out on excursions got cold and wet. We stayed on the ship. The pool was still warm so I went swimming. I met the ship doctor and his wife. On their last cruise from Vancouver to Hawaii, 150 of the passengers used mobility scooters. Wow! We have about ten scooters on this cruise. He thinks that being in a scooter is not good for your general health. I have to agree but falling is not good, either. Neither is pain.

We lost some passengers in Rome and took on some new people. All the couples on this cruise are about the same age as their partners. I haven’t seen any old men with younger wives.  Or versa visa. And, most people are married. I think that’s because we are all so old.

We stayed in Rome an extra day because of really rough seas (5 meter waves). The captain said the ship would both pitch and roll in that kind of waves.  That’s the worst for getting nauseous as it produces a corkscrew action. I am planning to strap myself in bed. Thankfully, the captain decided to make it easy on us and avoid the bad weather completely.

We have not been sick at all on this cruise. Bill took half a seasick pill the first day as a precaution and that’s all. No illness on board as far as I can tell. No coughing. No norovirus.

We had two more good shows in a row. Last night was Andrea Amat, a flutist. Tonight we saw The Fly Boys, another British singing group.

I just finished reading The Litigator by John Grisham. It was a formulaic story but I enjoyed it very much. Bill found me another one of his books in the ship’s library. It’s titled Sycamore Row. 

2015-11-20 Palma de Mallorca and Rome

There was a shuttle bus to town yesterday but we decided just to go on our own close by the ship. There is virtually nothing to see but we saw what there was—some palm trees, a little park and some old city battlements.

The last two evening shows have been fantastic. We heard a clarinet player last night and a rock n roll singer tonight. The HALcats are the ship band and I show up wherever they are playing. They are amazing.

We just docked in Rome a few minutes ago. We are not in our usual dock. We usually come in near a passenger terminal but this time we are in a ferry terminal. PLUS we arrived a day early. The captain says the weather will be very bad tomorrow and the ship will be safer in this slot. We have sailed with this captain before and he really looks out for our safety on the ship. He puts safety ahead of all other considerations. He also keeps us well informed of anything that we need to know.

If the ship is going to make any unusual movements, he explains it ahead of time so we can be prepared. He also sent out a note about potential terrorist activity in Rome. It’s been all over the news that ISIS wants to attack the Vatican. So, he told us to expect more police activity in Rome. We are staying on the ship and expect to be perfectly safe. 

2015-11-18 Another Day in Paradise

This is our second day in Barcelona. We stayed on the ship except for visiting the Duty Free shops and buying presents for our friends and family at home.  I bought some decorated fans for the little girls. Well, one of the girls is taller than me but I still think of them as little.

I went swimming and met a couple who live in a motor home most of the year and take a cruise once in a while. He has developed a vision problem called birdshot vision. It’s a low incidence condition with no known cause and no cure.  This is the fifth person with serious vision problems that we have met on board the ship. It seems to be a coincidence as they don’t know each other.

We watched two movies in our room and took it easy. We both made resolutions to eat only fish and vegetables but at dinner I ended up with the lasagna and Bill had pork and potatoes. The best laid plans of mice and men go awry on the Lido deck.

Tomorrow we are going to visit Palma de Mallorca. Michael Douglas lives there and has made a documentary about the area. We are skipping this one as there are no buses for scooters.  The captain just announced that we will be leaving Mallorca an hour early in order to make it to Rome before bad weather sets in.

We have been blessed with clear, sunny weather for the last two weeks. The pool must have been 90 degrees today. But, all good things come to an end. 

2015-11-17 Barcelona, Spain

We traveled up to the Montserrat Monastery today. I am very excited about visiting Barcelona again because 20% of my DNA comes from this area of the world. This is my homeland (at least, one fifth of my homeland) is right here and Catalonians are my people!

I watched Francois Hollande lead the French congress in singing the Marseilles yesterday. The French are my people, too, and so are the Germans, Swiss, Irish and English.

There are some fabulous views from the Montserrat area. We saw some viaducts and bridges left over from the Romans who founded the city of Barcelona.  There were only 2000 residents in those days.

Very near where the ship is docked there is a famous building designed by Ricardo Bofill. No doubt he is a distant cousin of mine.  The building is shaped like a sail. 

We were at Montserrat pretty early in the morning and there was still fog in the valleys. There are cable cars that run up from the floor of the valley to the top. If you look closely at this picture, you can see the tiny cable car. I will put in the pictures when I have good access.

2015-11-16 Valencia, Spain

We didn’t go off the ship today. There were no scooter buses available except the shuttle to downtown Valencia--about 30 minutes drive. We have never been here before and we would love to see the Science and Art buildings but we got in at 11 a.m. and are leaving at 5:30 p.m. so there wasn’t time. Here is a sample of what we missed.

We stayed on board and I had a swim. It was as warm as the pool at home. I met some Canadians in the pool and we discussed their recent election of Justin Trudeau.  In our last port, they saw demonstrations about the shootings in Paris. Some Spaniards are in favor of more liberal immigration and some are against it. There was five minutes of silence in all the Euro countries today.

When we were in Tangier, there was a huge sign on the ship that said, “Stay back 50 feet from the ship or you will be shot.”

We have wonderful TV reception and have only lost contact with the world at large for short periods of time. The Maasdam still carries FOX news and the BBC but, instead of CNN, we now have MSNBC and CNBC. I am a big fan of both of those channels. The movie selection has decreased to only three a day but you can check out movies from the front desk.  I am watching The Opening Bell on CNBC just like I do at home.

We discovered another staff member named Made (Ma-day) today. He said that it means Second Child in Balinese. Since we are both second children, Bill changed his name sign to read Made Bill Park.

The show last night was a British soprano named Annette Wardell. She was fantastic and got a standing ovation.

2015-11-15 Almeria, Spain

We set the clocks forward another hour last night. When we went up to the Lido for breakfast, there was a seriously great view of this huge Muslim castle in Almeria. It rambles all over the ridge. The castle was commissioned by a Muslim king in the 11^th century. Pictures of the whole thing turn out long and thin.

This morning we took an excursion up the coast of Spain from Almeria to Cabo de Gata & Nijar. It was a beautiful drive, partly because this is a Sunday and the traffic was light. We rode over several ramblas which are dry river beds. This is a dry area but not as dry as the eastern section of Spain. It was so dry last year that water was shipped from this area to the Catalonia area. This area has some desalinization plants. They work well to make potable water but use a lot of energy from coal, which is not so great.

This is also an area of many greenhouses. They are now the primary means of growing edible plants in southern Spain. Looking down from above, it looks like a “plastic sea”. The driver says it is even more pronounced in areas of western Spain.  90% of the greenhouses in this area are growing tomatoes.

Our guide had a double degree in geology and environmental science. He told us about the area along the coast which is being protected for wildlife. I asked him if Cabo de Gata had anything to do with cats. I thought he was saying “gato” which I think means cat. He said it likely has something to with amethysts which were discovered here before the year 1000.

2015-11-14 Tangier

We chatted with Made (Ma-day), the dining room superintendent, this morning about the attacks in Paris. He always goes to the temple with his mother before he leaves home. She gives him a blessing that he will be safe while he travels around the world.

There are many nationalities among the crew and passengers on the ship. Two of our Lido waiters are from Sumatra, Indonesia and speak the same dialect. They met for the first time when they were training for their jobs on Holland America. They can communicate in their particular dialect and no one else can understand them.

We hoped to meet some nice people at dinner last night and we did. We talked the whole time and tried to find some common ground but didn’t really hit it off with anyone. One of the men told an interesting story about traveling to Vietnam and meeting former Viet Cong combatants.

On prior airplane trips, we visited Europe; specifically England, France, Belgium, and Germany. On previous cruises, we visited Europe again; specifically Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain, and Denmark. That’s our second continent as we were born in North America. We visited Asia; specifically Japan. That is our third continent. We visited our fourth continent; South America, specifically Ecuador and Peru. Today, we visited Africa, our fifth continent; specifically Morocco. I am not sure that we want to visit Antarctica so I guess that we have to be satisfied with five continents.  We would like to see Australia.

We didn’t have a trip planned today in Tangier so we left the ship and went out to visit the booths on the pier. We didn’t buy anything. We took some pictures and went back in.

2015-11-13 On the Way to Tangier

We had several minor activities today. We woke up late at 8 am. We had our usual oatmeal for breakfast, even though there is a plethora of choices. We also picked up some fruit and our favorite raisin buns for later.

I attended book club at 10. We are reading Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud. The whole story takes place in Morocco so that’s the tie in. Two English girls travel by van to Marrakesh with their mother in the 1960’s. Their mother wants to learn more about Sufi, a Muslim sect and to have some adventures. The five year old girl narrates the story. She is an unreliable narrator since much of the action is hidden from her eyes and ears. Our discussion this morning was about the character of the mother. Is she a responsible parent?  What is her relationship to the men they meet?

I finished reading The Goldfinch, a book that was recommended to me by my good friend, Maria. It was excellent. I stayed up late to finish it because I just had to know what happened. The narrator was more reliable but since he suffered a head injury in an explosion along with one of the other main characters, you are left to wonder how much of his behavior resulted from his injury.

Right now, I am reading Orange is the New Black. Bill and I met the actress who plays the transgender character in the TV series but we have never seen the show. We met her when she spoke at the 2014 Equality Utah dinner. So, that gives the book more interest for me. I would be interested in any case, since I know nothing about life in prison except what I read.

In another incident, I was losing the sole on my shoe so I gave it to our room steward, Deo, and he had the handyman glue it back together.

Bill had another problem with his scooter but he was able to change the battery and get it back in operation without involving anyone else.

Our friend, Bob, has been lobbying the front office to get a reserved space for us at the nightly show. Last night, his request was honored and we all applauded for him as we pulled in to our spaces. But, the show was truly awful. They are usually so great but this was a British comedian whose comedy was mostly derogatory towards women. One of his first jokes was that he had a house and a bank account when he first met his girlfriend. It went downhill from there.

We have not yet been to dinner in the main dining room. This is a dress up night so we decided to get dressed up and go. I hope to have fun to have fun chatting with some new people. 

2015-11-12 Puerto del Rosario and Ecomuseo La Alcogida

We took a tour that included this place. 

Canarians used the same stone to make their walls and floors.

They ground up anything they could find attempting to make some kind of bread. In order to make the Gofio flour they are famous for, they roasted and ground up barley, wheat, corn, nuts and sometimes beans and peas. 

 

2015-11-12 Puerto del Rosario and Gofio Sweet Bread

Today we visited the “Grandma Island”—the oldest of the Canary Islands.  This island is old but the construction on this island is the newest of all the Canary Islands. They are just starting their tourist industry.  The major roads are single lane roads in two directions and in good shape because they are relatively new and not heavily used. Our bus was brand new and just arrived in the islands yesterday.

They had a small earthquake a few days ago. Some of the volcanoes on the island could be active. They aren’t sure.

The islands rise and fall because of earthquakes. The newest island in the chain has had thousands of major quakes and is just above sea level. If it grows another 180 feet, it will officially be considered an island.

Rosario is usually brown but they have had many times the usual amount of rain this year. Water is their biggest shortage. They used to grow corn but, now, everyone their fields in order to plant and so stone walls and floors are common.  They have no trees so buildings are made of concrete.

  

The residents call themselves Canarians. They are originally from Spain but many Canarians have moved back and forth from Cuba, Venezuela and San Antonio, Texas! Strange, but true. San Antonio was settled 400 years ago by Canarians who were sent there by the King of Spain. They have a student exchange program with San Antonio. Columbus stopped at the islands and took some Canarians with him on the voyage where he discovered America. They were poor sailors and were terribly seasick but they were good swimmers.

Today we sampled Gofio sweet bread. It’s pretty amazing because it’s not cooked in any way. It can be made from that grow wild and also sweet corn and garbanzo beans. The flour is roasted before being ground very fine. It’s brown flour rather than white and as fine as powdered sugar.  We watched a woman mix up the sweet bread in about ten minutes. She put a little salt in the flour and then added sugar, oil and water. She mixed it up with her hands. She said that everyone says it tastes like peanut butter. The taste and consistency reminded me of the peanut butter candy that Maria Nygard makes. It looks simple enough that even I could make it. Here is the guide explaining the process.

From a website called https://bakerim.com/gofio/