Past Paradise

It is amazing how fast a situation can change into the exact opposite. At one point it is all turmoils outisde and waves as high as 9 metres!! The next it is all calm. As the captain predicted, as of January 8th the sea conditions changed. When I woke that morning I even thought that we were standing still. It was so quiet and peaceful! It is such a different life now compared to the beginning. Most of the time during the days at Sea I spend at the Lido Pool. Relaxing, sunbathing, swimming, reading, going to the hot tub. Or as my friend Barbara (who was with me on the last cruise on Queen Mary 2) would say : the hot pot. Fun memories :)

Other things have changed as well since we arrived in the US. As soon as the temperatures outside got warmer, the AC has been turned on inside. It’s awful, you’re freezing off almost all the body parts you have!! I do love the US to travel, really, but certain habits I just can’t get used to. And this definitely is one of them. Another one would be chlorine in the water. Now who can drink that?! So I guess I just have to stick to Coke and sweet wine, and maybe a Cocktail inbetween ;) One thing that has not changed though is me being asked if I work on the ship. Well, no, I just look that young and, which I hear over and over again, just don’t fit into the age group. Once in the Elevator, when I was on the way to the evening show, I even got asked if I am going to perform there. I wonder as what :)

And as a footnote to entering the US, I can’t remember having entered this country as fast as this time! No fingerprints, no taking off shoes, no photo being taken, no stupid questions as to where I am going, where I am staying, how long I am staying and as a consequence for that, no having to go to a "special room"  and being asked the same questions again. These are the wonders of being a transit guest I assume. From now on I’ll just enter the US in transit. Let’s see what the Los Angeles customs will have to say about that on April 1st :)

The days ashore so far included Miami city life on a sunny Sunday. An airboat ride in the Everglades, seeing quite a few huge alligators and even two baby gators. A special way of seeing Barbados: in Focus. A Photography Tour with a Barbadian photographer. Which of course was the ideal thing to do for me. Was quite worth it. Then a few hours in the city of Bridgetown and a walk on the beach. Which in the end turned out to be a private beach and I had to leave ;) It’s a pity we didn’t make more stops in the Caribbean!! There are so many places we could have gone ashore as well. But we just sailed by all those paradise islands. And instead our next stop turned out to be Fortaleza, Brazil. We gave it a chance, but I don’t think that this is the city I will have to go back to!

The lazy days are over soon. No more sleeping in and lying around. And to be honest, I am not unhappy about that. It's time for a change. Plus, there's lots to see and do in Argentina and Chile. What's left now is one more week on Queen Victoria. Two more stops (Rio and a day in the countryside of Uruguay, which happens to be on my birthday) and four more days at Sea. Then I get off in Buenos Aires. Where the real adventure is just about starting for me.

 

 

It is better to have your head in the clouds and know where you are ... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them and think that you are in paradise.

 

- Henry David Thoreau -