11/13/11
Greetings from the land of the Kiwis!
Sorry it’s been awhile since my last post! I think because a lot has happened, and I know you all have lives of your own, I will try to be short and sweet with the interesting bits since the last post.
Melbourne was a lovely, lovely city! I got off the ship and went off on my own and did some shopping, had lunch at a beautiful little café, and just strolled about the city. Everyone was really friendly and I met a girl from New York at one of the stores and we chatted about life for a few minutes, that was a refreshing change!
After Melbourne we had a day at sea which was like any other day at sea, then we were in Hobart, Tasmania. I again decided to go off on my own, mostly in search of some WiFi and a good hearty lunch. I found both! Mission success. I also managed to get some supplies from a local pharmacy that should help me with the minor pains/soreness I’ve been having in my hip as of late.
Then we had two days at sea which were again pretty usual, but rather chilly! Coming from the northern USA you think “south” and you think warm! But no! Here, since southern Australia and New Zealand are pretty far from the Equator…and closer to Antarctica than you’d think…it gets a wee bit chilly!
The night of the 12th we had a party up in a bar called the “Starquest” which is a space for guests to have late night dance parties, but the Executive Officers decided to close that space to guests for a night so that the crew could have a party there! The theme was “OPP Level 1” which was celebrating the fact that we’ve been able to stay at OPP Level 1 (meaning we haven’t had any cases of the gastrointestinal virus on board in a long time) and everyone had a blast!
Today we were in Dunedin, New Zealand, which is a little town that was “colonized” by Scottish people. There were bagpipes playing, lots of little cafés, and it was a really nice little area. Even though it was Sunday there was just enough open that nobody was disappointed. I had a mighty delicious sandwich at a little Irish pub with Jason, his wife Lauren, Dave (the Musical Director) and Cori (one of the dancers)—it was chicken, brie, cranberry sauce, aurugla and tomatoes on a multigrain bread. DELICIOUS. I will certainly be eating that again when we’re back here next time! I was also able to find some good, fast WiFi and I instant messaged with some dear friends who happened to be online (you know who you are) !
Tomorrow we will be in Akaroa, New Zealand and then we head to Wellington (New Zealand) and after that we’ve got two days at sea then we are back in Sydney!
Before I go, I have a quick social observation to make: in case you missed History class in high school, Australia was originally colonized by England, and they used it as a place to send their criminals and convicts because prisons on the mainland were getting too full. When they arrived, just like in the USA, there were already natives living on the land…but they took over anyways. The more time I spend with Australians, the more I realize how much they joke about their heritage. Now, I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing; I’m simply observing that they seem almost proud of it. Last night, for example, we had a musical quartet of sorts as our entertainment and they were going through talking about the heritage of each member and they got to one of the women and the singer said “And this one, she’s of strong convict stock!” and everyone cheered. Maybe they just sarcastically joke about it…I don’t know….it’s hard to tell sometimes because Australians have a way of saying something in a positive yet sarcastic tone, therefore meaning it in a negative way. Anyways, I don’t really know what I’m trying to say here…I’m not saying I don’t like Australians because I do, and I’m not saying that people who come from “convict stock” should feel ashamed or anything silly like that…I just think it’s interesting!
I promise I’ll try to update more and upload more pictures to the blog and to Facebook soon!
Much love to all of you!
B
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