I’m sure you noticed that the title of the last journal entry should have been “A serendipitous and pleasant day in Paradise”. Oops!
0378 Here we are with two of the cast’s singers on the right and two of the dancers, on the left.
Sept 30 to Oct 2 – At Sea. 30th Pretty much a normal sea day today. Our entertainer was Stephen Clark a flutist from Northern Ireland. He was great the last time we saw him and he was just as good this time.
Oct 1st Another very calm day today. There’s a new speaker on board, Ed Kess, and today he discussed the various major people groups we’re going to encounter this trip. According to him they are all Austronesians. This group is subdivided into three main parts, Micronesians, Melanesians and Polynesians for small islands, dark islands and man islands respectively. Each of these groups is further subdivided but he said that for our purposes that’s as far as he wanted to go.
It’s formal night tonight, with the Black and Silver Ball. It’s always fun to see who tracks the captain down for a dance. Diana and I danced a few times but mostly watched the action. It’s fun to see who dances with whom. On the way out we came upon the female dancers from the Amsterdam cast. Diana wanted me to take her picture with them but one of the male dancers offered to take the picture if I wanted to be in it. Who am I to turn down a chance for a photo with five lovely women?
2nd The Tai Chi class is progressing nicely. Cathy Chen is a very good instructor and she’s teaching us the Hong Kong 24, a very basic, yet interesting form. We sailed with her on the 2008 Around Africa cruise. That was her first on board class and she was still working out how to make it fit into the ‘at sea’ schedule. I’m pleased to say that she has gotten it down pat. Her class is still excellent but now it flows more smoothly. After a little more than a week aboard I am also glad to say that the quality of the sushi is still great and probably will be for the rest of the trip. I figure they’ll restock their fish assortment in Japan and we might see some new sashimi after that stop.
Author’s Note: I’m going to tell you a little secret. Before leaving the USA I did quite a bit of research on the unusual ports we’re going to visit. Some are not only a first visit for the Amsterdam but the first visit for any Holland America Line ship ever. This usually becomes a big deal with presentations to and from the ship and local officials. Often the items given to the ship are unique plaques to commemorate the event and the ship usually has one to give to the port. We’ll have to see what shows up in Majuro as it is in the category of first Amsterdam and first HAL visit. More to the point, my introduction to these odd ports will be a blend of things I find out from the locals and information I found during my pre-trip research. I don’t, but should, use footnotes on some of this but my blog and journal are not intended to be scholarly research papers. If I use any maps or pictures from other sources I will document those.
I’ve spotted three couples that I know but hadn’t seen before. Winds up that they all got on in Honolulu. There must not have been many because we are not on ‘quarantine’ protocols, i.e. we can still get our own drinks and food at the Lido buffet.
The show this evening was provided by the Amsterdam cast. It’s a show we hadn’t seen before, ‘Love Crazy’. It had a variety of love themed music from 1920s Paris, I think the original of the song was done by Edith Piaf (at 4’8” dubbed The Little Sparrow) to 60s Love Generation music. Some songs were excellent, others were definitely not to my taste but they finished up with a medley of 60-70s songs that included The Association (Cherish the #1 song of 1966), the Beatles (Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), the 5th Dimension (Up, Up and Away) and some peace and freedom hippie songs I know but could care less who sang them. They also sang ‘I’m a Woman, W O M A N’ (you know “I can fry up a mess of slop before Billy Bob can beat his dog.” I’m paraphrasing but you get the drift.). That song has to be a show tune; it sounds terrible even when talented voices sing it. Except for the chorus it has no meter and definitely no lyric phrasing, it’s inconsistent and just a mess.
Whoever selected the songs, probably the producer, did not include any of the really great ‘tear jerkers’ of the 40s to 60s. I’m a sucker for melancholy sweetness and this was the perfect theme to include some, You Belong to Me, Crazy, As Time Goes By, You Don’t Love Her, I Remember You, You Don’t Know Me, gosh the list could go on and on and I’m not even to the Rock and Roll much less later tunesmiths like Jim Croce (Operator) and Jimmy Webb (MacArthur Park If you want to give your strongest singer a song to knock them dead with, that’s it.) hardly every wrote a song that didn’t tug at your heart strings. Actually it’s inconceivable to me that you could produce a show about love songs without including Bette Midler’s ‘The Rose’. This Amanda McBroom wonder is from 1980 but I’d have put it in anyway, the time frame I gave was my observation not the subtitle of the show and it’s the most elegant love song ever. True poetry set to music, and brilliant music at that.
Oct 3? – Crossing the International Date Line. This is the day that never was. When we turned our clocks back one hour last night we went from one minute before Midnight on the 2nd to Midnight on the 4th. Pretty cool because I decided to walk on deck at one minute before Midnight and stop at 1 minute after Midnight so I got 24 hours and two minutes of exercise yesterday and today. The time just seemed to fly by. J
Oct 4 – At Sea. Today is a regular day at sea except for the free wine tasting (courtesy of HAL because we have so many days with them) and pre-dinner cocktail party provided by our travel agent, Cruise Specialists. At this point everyone is ready to hit the beach in Majuro. What a historic place from the WWII standpoint.
Our entertainer was Phillip Huber with his marionettes. You really don’t see much of them anymore. He had some great characters and it was entertaining. Not that I’d want a steady diet of puppeteers, but it was nice to see something different.
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