DAY 3....2ND FULL DAY AT SEA

I forgot to mention that, given the size of the shower, I instantly made an appointment for yesterday morning to have that frangipani hair oil treatment, scalp massage and washing.  Same thing I aways get.  I come back to the stateroom and mousse and dry it. 

 Well, I got up there, completely at the other end of the ship (a lot of people to pass with my hair brushed out and sticking twenty feet in the air, people look, nano second eye contact then quickly look away, some trying not to laugh, others looking like they just saw a crazy person, really embarrassing) and was met by the most intimidating hair dresser I have ever met.  He was very flamboyant, talkative, and extremely firm about what was about to happen. 

 He doused my dry hair with the oil, proceeded to massage the hell out of my head.   After 30 minutes of hair ripping, scalp pounding, and endless amusing stories about ungrateful boyfriends, he informs me, in such a manner that brooks no argument that I must now leave that slimy crap in my hair all day as my hair is very  very dry.  He then proceeds to twist my hair so tight my eyes slanted, tucked it into a donut bun, stabbed pins so firmly into it (only three) that I couldn’t get them out later, and says Voila!!  I was horrified.  I looked like every super ugly fat relative I have ever had, times a hundred, oil slicking down my face, pin head..which instantly makes you look even huger..AND..no hair wash!  What the hell????  And like a timid meek little mouse I squeaked out an “Okay”  and payed and left!!!  So not only did I have to head back down the length of the boat, wending my way through people, looking like an almost headless fat seal, but feeling totally whipped!  Me!!  Whipped...this is NOT a familiar feeling for me.  AND then as soon as I got into the room I had to get into that ridiculous little shower, go through two bottles of their shampoo and try to wash the crap out of my hair.  So, at least an hour later, the bathroom in a shambles, shower curtain suctioned to my legs, blinded by oil...I finally got my hair washed.   Serves me right for being such a ninny. 

 I will be going back next week, and I will be taking charge...no frigging oil and he will damn well wash my hair.  No massage, no treatment, no stupid little donut bun, just washed and rinsed hair.  And I am going to complain about Bill the whole time he is doing just exactly what I want!

On another note, in the daily schedule they hand out every day, there is a daily section that reads like this:

TONIGHT’S DRESS CODE:

Smart, Jacket required

Smart shirt and trousers with

a jacket for gentlemen, smart

separates or an elegant dress 

for ladies.

Seriously?  Elegant?  Would it make a difference?  And trust me...they enforce...with force.  I am beginning to think that cruising with predominantly a British crowd is like a giant step back in the world of cruising.  You change for dinner, you ballroom dance and you most definitely have a drink before, during and after dinner.  “sigh”  we just don’t fit in.  Awkward!

I am compelled to say, near the end of the second full day on this boat, that the people on this cruise are amazing.  They are so friendly, non judgemental, not shy, generous with their info about themselves, totally interested in who we are....it has been without a doubt the most friendly trip we have ever had.  And so far, we are the only couple not from Britain.  Each couple we have visited with has confirmed that!  There is not one ethnic person on this whole boat.  Not one, other than the staff.

And that brings up another observation.  We are used to Indonesian and Filipino crew..whom we love.  They are sooo hard working and friendly and I am now facebook friends with a lot of them.  On this cruise they are predominantly from Goa and trust me...they ain’t friendly!  And...they aren’t very helpful either.  They aren’t outright rude like the Eastern European crew members on other trips, but they darn near are.  I have given up smiling at them and saying please and thank you.  Gotta earn that just a little.

Tonite is Asian buffet night.  Wish I was hungry, but I am not.  Too much fish pie at lunch!  Tomorrow is Lisbon.  We didn’t book a shore excursion.  I want to catch the #28 tram up to the top of the Alfama area and walk down.  And...its supposed to be 30 degrees...aaarghhh I shall die!  TTYL

DAY TWO AT SEA

It’s the middle of the night and we are wide awake and starving.  Jeez!!  The people in the next stateroom had one dilly of a fight a little while ago.  They were slamming things around, bashing on the wall, yelling and screaming at each other.  We sleep with our balcony door open a few inches to let in fresh air, but the fighting neighbours smoke, and smoking is allowed on the balconies on this ship.  So, a few minutes after things quieted down the smell of smoke comes wafting in through the door.  I can’t believe they allow smoking on the balconies...they don’t on any other ship we have ever been on.

There are a number of differences on this one I have noticed.  I think we are the only couple that isn’t British.  Last night we went downstairs to the large atrium area where reception is to ask one more time about Bill’s missing bag.  We decided to sit down there and have a cappucino.  On our way there, passing various night clubby type venues, we noticed that everywhere there was music, couples were ballroom type dancing.  You hardly ever see that on the other ships.  It was weird to watch these old couples, some of them barely able to hobble over to the dance floor, suddenly become graceful and ...well just different...when they hit the floor.  And hundreds of couples were dancing.  I think it must be a lost art at home...I have never seen anything like it!  They all looked like they just got out of dancing school.  And they took it soooo seriously!

When we got back to the room and we were just getting into bed the phone rang...it was front desk letting us know they found Bill’s missing suitcase..thank goodness!!  So no dirty short shorts at the formal table tonight!

The internet on this ship totally sucks.  Totally.  It won’t let me load even one measly picture and after I get on within five minutes nothing is opening or loading.  So annoying.  And I see they have review sheets for ‘during’ cruise opinions...I shall be giving mine...what a waste of money.

I hate to admit it, seeing as how I don’t like people, but we have been meeting the most amazing people.  They are all Brits and they are all old to older, and they are the sweetest kindest most honest people you could ever meet.

  Tonight Bill and I were sitting across from a couple from Yorkshire.  They ordered a wine I hadn’t heard of before and I could tell from the colour that I would probably like it.  So I leaned over and asked if it was dry or not.  Well, she and he launched into a great discussion about how they don’t like dry wines, had me hand them my empty water glass and poured me a glass to try!!!!  Who does that??!!  And it was delicious! 

 Turns out it was Mateus Rose, a wine we are very familiar with. They did not pronounce it the way I am used to ! Its not sophisticated in any way, just totally delicious!  We shall be ordering a bottle tomorrow night!  

From there they gave us the complete history of yorkshire pudding!  And after great discussion, the real way is in the roast pan after the roast is finished, to be cut up like a cake when baked.  I remember Uncle Jim liked it like that.  One time in Bamfield,  I accidentally had to use a cake pan instead of muffin tins to bake it and I remember him telling me that that was the way he liked it.  Funny, I never forgot that and now and then that is how I make it.   

We have been sitting with people at every meal and we have thoroughly enjoyed every single couple.  We have met couples from Norfolk, Essex, Surrey and Yorkshire. 

Well it is once again bedtime.  They have a kettle and coffee and tea makings in here.  This is a first!  But, Bill noticed a sign up in the lido disallowing us to bring cups of coffee, glasses of juice or dishes and cutlery to our rooms.  Hmmm  I wonder why?  Maybe too many people were purloining these treasures?  I can’t imagine why anyone would want to steal that stuff!  hahaha...anyway, with a clear conscience I am off to bed! TTYL

DAY ONE....SOUTHAMPTON..CAST OFF

Well here we are, up in the buffet, day one!  This is the biggest ship we have ever ever been on!  This tub is HUGE!!  There are 3500 passengers and everyone of them is ancient.  I thought Holland America had  the oldest customers, until now.  Holy Hannah!!  At every elevator there are line ups of wheel chairs and walkers and “stick people” as they call them here.  After the mandatory drill down at the bottom of the ship we all had to come up.  We are on floor 14 (actually 13, I don’t know who they are trying to fool)  and if Bill tried walking that it would be Christmas before he got up there.  So we got in line and waited...for 22 minutes.  We finally jumped on one going down and stayed on til it went up.  Hopefully it will be better as time goes by.  Oh God!  They are playing Taylor Swift on the musac..kill me now and now people are going to sit with us at our table....ahhhhhhh!!!  I really must talk to Bill again about the virtues of room service.

This is a new ship to us, but it is based on the Princess ships.  Its really very much the same, except bigger and one other very basic difference...the rooms are tiny, the bathroom is tiny, the beds are smaller, the balcony is ridiculous.  And the shower!!!! Now for those of you that have read my blog on past trips you already know about how shower curtains suction to your body and as you try to turn,  the curtain goes right along with you and then back again and before you know it you are wrapped tighter than a mummy.  I hate that.  I have noticed too that there are no bathrobes (thats okay with me, I don’t dare try one ever again, the last one...well lets just say that didn’t end well!)  but it does show how this ship is really doing it on the cheap.

When we got back to our room, my bag was waiting for me but not Bill’s.  And guess what?  Its totally missing!  They don’t have it anywhere!  Bill is really upset...it has all his clothes, his camera bag, some of his extra pills and all the odds and skodds one travels with.  So far I have stayed out of it and let Bill go down and talk with them etc...but if it doesn’t show up here shortly I will be getting involved...and not in such a nice way.  Lets put it this way...I have noticed that this ship, being English I presume, is obsessed with what you wear to dinner.  The rules are RIGID and you must be well dressed for every meal.  Tomorrow night is formal, tux, black tie night and we will be showing up with Bill in his dirty Tilly short shorts.  And when they ask us to leave we shall say that we have no choice as they LOST his luggage.  You aren’t allowed to even wear shorts in the lido for heaven’s sake!  I shall report back later!!!  TTYL

HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY

I am so hungry right now I could eat my right arm.  Yesterday (?) morning at home I finished off a caesar salad we had in the fridge.  I didn't eat again until one small measly meal we got on the plane.  and now its about 11 at night here in Portsmouth, in the hotel, and I am STARVING.  No food til morning though.

We had a really easy flight over.  We were in a practically brand new Air Canada 777.  There were no screaming babies, no problems with headphones, no problem with annoying fellow passengers..just an easy peasy trip.

We landed at 11:30 am London time and sailed through customs and baggage claim and as we were leaving through the arrivals line I spotted the guy we hired holding up a giant sign with Helen Price written on it.  So cool!  I wasn't sure when we left if the quick last minute arrangements had actually gone through.

He drove us down to Portsmouth in lickety split time to our hotel.  And I picked the best one of all!  We are right down in the heart of the docks...with all the new trendy shops and restaurants and fun things to do.  I can't wait to get out there look around.  But.....the first thing we did when we checked in around 2:30 this aft. was to go to bed.  I don't even remember hitting the pillow.  I slept soundly til nine thirty in the evening.  And..of course...now I am not even a whit bit tired.  Jet lag sucks, big time.  And Bill is over there in bed snoring away and probably will until morning.  I don't know how he does that.

We unfortunately woke up about five and no way could we go back to sleep.  We were so hungry it made us grumpy.  I can see this is a state that we are not used to.  Finally six thirty rolled around and we headed down to the food trough and ate sausages, eggs, croissant, baked beans and coffee. Mmmmmm  so good.  Later we found a Wagamama's out there on this delightful Quay and had a lovely lunch...NO I take that back.  I ordered a chicken salad with Miso dressing and a bunch of things in it.  It was a very limp greens with mushy chicken all greased up with some kind of tasteless mayo salad.  It really wasn't good.  Oh well, most the time their food is good.

Now its early evening and we have found a place to walk to for dinner.  The internet here is so slow and so awful I am going to try to post this and then turn the lappy off.  I will post tomorrow night from the ship!  TTYL

I DON'T WANT TO GO, I WANT TO MOVE

Day Date Port or Activity Arrive Depart Sat Sep 7 London (Southampton), England Embark Sun Sep 8 At Sea Mon Sep 9 At Sea Tue Sep 10 Lisbon, Portugal Morning Afternoon Wed Sep 11 At Sea Thu Sep 12 At Sea Fri Sep 13 At Sea Sat Sep 14 Valletta, Malta Morning Afternoon Sun Sep 15 At Sea Mon Sep 16 Ephesus / Kusadasi, Turkey Morning Afternoon Tue Sep 17 At Sea Wed Sep 18 Yalta, Ukraine Morning Afternoon Thu Sep 19 Odessa, Ukraine Morning Afternoon Fri Sep 20 At Sea Sat Sep 21 Istanbul, Turkey Morning Overnight Sun Sep 22 Istanbul, Turkey Afternoon Mon Sep 23 Lesbos (Mytilene), Greece Morning Afternoon Tue Sep 24 Athens (Piraeus), Greece Morning Afternoon Wed Sep 25 At Sea Thu Sep 26 At Sea Fri Sep 27 At Sea Sat Sep 28 At Sea Sun Sep 29 Vigo, Spain Morning Afternoon Mon Sep 30 At Sea Tue Oct 1 London (Southampton), England Disembark

Travel It doesn't seem real to me right now, that we are leaving tomorrow and going to all those places.  I am ready I think to stop this travelling and settle down.  We have a new house I love that needs a new kitchen and two new bathrooms.  At least we get to spend a week in London at the end.  My favourite city (nest to LA!) I am kind of ticked off at the moment.  I was totally sound asleep this morning when Bill came in, around 6:30 and woke me up.  With a start, I wake up and he is standing there holding a plate of breakfast and coffee...which is a lovely gesture but so early?  Today we are going to about seven different spots to get different things...dog food, money, nose drops, camera stuff, head phones etc....and the first store doesn't open til nine thirty.  WTH???  Someone did not finish his suitcase packing yesterday as planned and wanted to get to it in the bedroom.  I, on the other hand, ironed, packed and closed my suitcase.  It was lovely to have breakfast but not so damned early!  And not only that I am sitting here on my bed, it is 8:30, Bill's unpacked suitcase is sitting here beside me and I can hear him snoring out in the living room in his chair. I am missing April already.  This is our very last day living with her.  I am happy that she will be branching out on her own but I am really going to miss having her downstairs.  Its funny but I didn't feel this bereft with the others when they moved out.  I know we aren't going to see much of her once we move.  I will have to make trips over here...see the doctor, fat lady store, pharmacy at Safeway and we can see her at the same time.  Maybe we can contribute to her rent fund and help her get a two bedroom.  That way we can stay with her when we come over.  It wouldn't be all that often but we wouldn't have to stay in a hotel that way.  But probably not. I am typing right now on my new little lappy.....I LOVE it!!!  Its tiny, just a wee bit bigger than an iPad.  And its so light but it does everything and more than a big laptop.  I was looking at other brands, and yes they are cheaper, but they don't sync with all my other devices and they don't have iPhoto, which is all you need for editing pics...especially if you are trying to keep your photos as real and untouched as possible.  I love this thing!  And it means I can pack a few extra things in my carry on..like underwear. Well I guess I had best go and give Bill a boot and get the second part of this day started.  I am going to be blogging everyday...as long as the wifi over yonder allows.  After reading the reviews on the P&O ship we are going on I believe I will have lots of blog fodder.  Pics will have to go on Facebook.  For those of you that I am not friends with and have asked me, you can friend request to helen price North Vancouver. I am looking forward to the trip, but looking forward to getting home even more! Hahaha...I was just rereading my last post and I see I left out part of the last bit about my phone.  It was April texting me from Eithne's, asking if I would give her a ride home.  I could hardly read it!!  My sight isn't so great at the best of times but first thing in the morning with no glasses on I am virtually blind.   I was going to either say no, I am still sleeping, or wait til later,  when there was a great whack of thunder.  She immediately texted a panicked message (scared to death of thunder and always has been) and my mother mode kicked in.  So I got out of bed and drove down and got her.  I get interrupted so often when I am blogging and I usually reread things but somehow I must have missed that one! Now its dinner time.  We sallied forth and headed all the way out to our vets across town to get the dogs flea treated.  It took forever!  We then beat our way downtown to find that they don't carry at least one of the things we needed in that particular store.  Jeez!  I had Bill bring me home and he headed off to complete the list and I finished up a few things here at home.  Right now I have a beautiful rib roast in the oven and its smelling awfully good.  I shall blog from the airport tomorrow.  The plane leaves at 6:30 pm and if I know Bill we will be there super duper early!  Lots of time to blog  TTYL

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??????

Dear Helen,

Thanks for your inquiry for Heathrow airport transport. It is regretted that due to exceptional advance demand for our service, we have no further vehicles available for your requirements. Please accept my apologies but we are unable to assist in your transport at this time.  (I booked this guy months ago, had a confirmation, and was expecting to be met by him at the airport)

That is what came in this morning!!!!  I am going to hunt that dude down and smack him.  With only two days left I swung into immediate panicked action.  Of course every transfer company is fully booked and that took me 1 1/2 hours to find out.  You have to email and wait for their response...which was repeatedly a no.  Then I started to google, asking Jeeves (actually ask.com but I still call him Jeeves) what the scooptydoop was available over there.  It ended up taking me to taxi companies and obviously I am not the first one ever wanting to go to Portsmouth!  Really?  So I did find a taxi co. (and they are a whole lot cheaper than the transfer companies I might add) and we shall be met at arrivals!  I forgot to print out all the reservation numbers, dates, addresses of all the hotels, flights etc...before packing the printer.  Now I am doing it all old school.   My hand hurts...*whimper whine.....or 'wine' as my educated sister says.

Well yesterday I bought a mac book air...and I am taking some heat from certain people about this (not Bill, he is totally on board with this).  They think I have too many laptops already.  But, when I talked to the Apple peeps about photo storage, the kind where I can access the pics ALL the time ANY time, they suggested that what others are doing is storing all their photos on a desk top or large laptop, backing that up, and using the air for travel and initial photo download.  It is so little and weighs about a pound.  This makes a huge difference to my legal allowed carryon bag weight of 22 pounds.  I am pretty happy with it.  I love setting up new laptops.

Costco is closed and we need some stuff before we go, so we are going to get ALL our trip packing finished today,  I need to iron and edit.  I have to remove ten pounds somehow.  I really don't want to do anymore packing, organizing, thinking of a million details, cleaning, changing beds.....my brain is used up!

Last night, Bill is back, I was nicely asleep when I was suddenly violently shaken awake.  Bill was on one of his exits from the bed to the loo (about four or five a night) and woke me up completely.  Do you think I could go back sleep?  NOPE!!!  I lay there and lay there and lay there for hours until it was fully light out.  I finally fell sound asleep and suddenly my phone dinged...a text.  I grabbed my phone and with my bad eye shut, and my barely good eye (when I have glasses on, and I didn't) I put the phone right up to that eye and could barely decern 

April just made the most delicious tomato basil bisque for breakfast.   It was absolutely delicious.  She is such a tasty cook...lots of flavour.  And now I must bounce and get to the packing!  TTYL

A TRIBUTE TO SPEED OF DARK

I am feeling like I should say something about Bill here.  Over the last few days, even though there has been a lot to get done around here, he has managed to fit in three trips to the Island, taking his son around the Victoria area, go out for dinners, come home, get in at supper and then still go outside and load that truck up with another load of all the heavy dirty awkward things.  Last night we went out for dinner to the Noodle House, came home, and he went out and loaded the adirondak chairs and all the leftover dirty things in the shed, heavy stuff.  He gets up super early in the morning, packs his little suitcase, just in case he needs things, and gets on the really early ferry.  He goes to Nanaimo, drives for about an hour to the house, unloads.  Today, he has just left for the ferry, and he plans to come home tonite as well.  And at 80, he does all this strongly and well.  I'm amazed and awed.  I don't know very many eighty year olds that could do all of this.  I know this morning he was tired, but he still got up and took off.  So he may be the speed of dark, but man! does he ever get things done.

Its been a nice couple of days since I was last on here.  Cookie came over day before yesterday.  We had such a good time...we always do.  We sat here and had coffee and visited.  Then we headed down to the mall just below.  I had received a notice that there was a parcel for me at the post office and at the sender's request it was to be held there for me to pick up.  I wracked my brain but could not think what it was.  We went down and I picked it up first and......it was a "good customer" gift from Telus...a box of Purdy's chocolates.  Mmmmmmm.....

Cookie always looks so nice so I decided to not just wear my ratty old shorts like I always do.  I put on a new pair of dark grey with a silver fleck pair of pants and a black shirt.  I NEVER wear pants but I bought these the day before for the cruise.  As we were walking through Winners, Cookie remarks that she isn't used to seeing me in pants, just tights (which I wear a lot).  Then she says she isn't used to seeing me in 'baggy' pants.  Then she says, "okay, you have to go home and change.  They just don't look good on you!"  Haha...they were so awful.  When they fit around the waist, they are just too huge everywhere else.  I am shaped like a barrel on two toothpicks.  So home we went and put something tighter and shorter on!  I must stick to tights or skinny jeans.  I returned them to the Fat Lady store and got skinny pants.

We went to home depot and bought light fixtures.  We both found what we wanted immediately.  Then off to HomeSense....nothing.  She was taking me out for dinner so off to Milestones, and who should come waltzing in but April and a friend...they sat with us and we had a most enjoyable dinner.  Back home and more visiting before she left.  A great day and we were remarking that that was the last visit she would be making over here to North Vancouver and this house.

I have decided to get a macbook air, just for travel and all our pictures.  Storing pictures is a true conundrum.   I have given this a lot of thought.  I won't put any of my banking or personal stuff on it, just email and limited bookmarks, like purple room vents, and all pics.  Then I can use it on trips, the thing only weighs about a pound.  And its small.  So its off to Oakridge today to the apple store.
Oh oh...I just heard a car smack up outside.  I am going to go look.

Have I said that I can't wait to blow this acidic awful town?  And have I said how much I don't like people?  Well, what I just saw outside has totally reinforced both of those things.  Some guy ran the Doran Rd stop sign (not uncommon) and the guy coming down Fromme screeched to a halt but still hit him, not hard but hard enough to do damage.  But then, he got out of his car and went over and hauled the poor kid out of the offending vehicle and started to yell and scream and shake him like a rag doll.  What the hell?  Who does that??!!  Oh yeah right!!  People in Vancouver do.  He stopped yelling but kept going after him verbally, telling him what kind of an idiot the poor kid was and how he shouldn't be driving yada yada yada.  Finally the kid started yelling back, told the other driver he was going too fast etc....  And now the cops are there sorting it all out.  This really is the most entertaining corner and I shall miss it.  You should see the gong show when it snows!

Anywhoo...off to accomplish things.  TTYL