82 degrees
outside with modest wind, puffy clouds, clear, bright, wonderful.
The rounds
Made the
rounds to get the newspapers, some postcards (these are supposedly helpful if
you have a taxi driver who doesn’t speak English but be careful they don’t drop
you off at the post office instead. The Sudoku and Crossword puzzles were not
yet out in the Library. One very chagrined lady made a remark about how “they
can’t get it right.” As if this were the worst thing to happen to her today.
Destination lecture
This time
about Guam. There have been a number of rumblings about this speaker. On Rabaul
she reported on the shore situation much as we would have based on our
experience 8 years ago, that is, no a/c, no springs, awful transport, beggars.
It turns out the transports are now pretty new with good AC and springs in the
seats and on the vehicle.
She is somewhat confusing in her
presentations.For example, it was hard to distinguish when she was talking
about Rabaul in praticular or the whole of PNG. So it is suspected that she
will be leaving us soon.
Can’t figure out what I did to change margin!
Next was a talk by the ship’s navigator about how the ship
runs, the equipment, the staffing, etc. The amount of redundancy is impressive.
They never assume anything is working so there are so many built in checks and
balances. And they all look sooo young.
Trivia
Ed and I played alone and enjoyed it very much. This afternoon
we played with our usual group but the questions were miserable (we weren’t you
understand: it was the questions!)
Battle of Midway
Further info on the ships and the battles with fill in about
the sailors and flyers. I am enjoying this but some folks consider the speaker
laconic (cant ‘disagree with that) and he does have the annoying habits of
sniffing, clearing his throat, and smacking as he speaks but at least he does
it at low volume.
In between we had a quick snack which doesn’t mean it was
less calories than we would have had in the dining room alas.
Dr. Chuck
As I said, he is the most travelled passenger and someone we
have known for a long while. He invited us to be his guests last evening at the
soiree. They give the 3 most travelled a gift and he had a gift bag and a
crystal medallion. So today I asked him what he was given. He no longer takes
the medallions as he has scads of them and they are just dust catchers, so they
give him two bottles of their cheap champagne.
In anticipation of Guam
We got the customs forms today to complete along with our
passports. We will need to be personally viewed by immigration before we
canleave the ship.
I think half the ship and staff are headed for the largest
K-mart in the world, at least that’s the assertion. There are 3 large malls on
Guam, one an outlet mall and there is a free shuttle to one of them. After that
you can pay $12 USD (they’ll take Aussie, Japanese and USD we were told) for
unlimited transportation among all 3.
More immigration papers
For Taiwan now and Hong Kong. I am so glad the ship keeps
track of all of this!
Supper
Everyone present and we had our usual fun. Ed and Frances
slipped away for a special wine tasting since I don’t care and Randy doesn’t
drink. They set up this elaborate table and go through the routine.
Tonight’s comedian
He was delayed in getting onto the ship in Rabaul because of
flight issues. In fact, the ship waited for him. He’s quite amusing and
unexpected in his humor. It was one of those things you would have to see in
person to get the flavor of it.
Our favorite photographer
Urosh has been so good about air dropping our photos from the
flash drive to his Mac and then to our iPhone and iPad. This is not something
they usually do. He does it on his own equipment.
Tomorrow is crossing the equator madness. I
wonder who is going to have all the old food dumped on them and which officer
will be dunked. More later.
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