Blogs from Oceans and Seas
May 27th 2012
new blog, new stories- some travel, some not, check it out if you like. all the best. totsiens!! http://wherethesunrisesandsets.wordpress.com/... read more
May 25th 2012
A 4 hour plane ride to LA, 16 hour plane ride to Sydney, and 1 hour (but 2 hour delay) plane ride to Ballina, we have reached our final destination in Gonobellah, Australia! It's been an exhausting, but adventurous few days of just getting here. It's always said "getting there" is half the journey, and it has not been nearly half of our month long trip, but yet, myself and the 3 other girls I'm traveling with have already managed to lose a boarding pass to Sydney, had to pay extra money for over weight in kilos, and we flew over a sugar cane field! Some fun first time experiences for all of us. The 15 hour flight is not nearly as rough as some people make international flights out to be. Each seat has a ... read more
May 19th 2012
Slow, slow, quick, quick ….. Back in the olden days when everything, of course, was in black and white my friend Bob Withey and I decided to join a ballroom dancing school that was running a series of classes over the Easter holidays. We had no interest in dancing and no idea what it really entailed. The theory was that ballroom dancing classes were an excellent way to meet girls. Haven’t you always found that there is a significant gap between theory and practice when things social and personal are involved? Well, we signed up for the class at the front office and then stumbled in our boyish way into the dance hall. Blimey, strike me down with a fever – girls? The hall was full of them – about 30 all told – and just ... read more
May 13th 2012
True or False 1. The death of Napoleon I seem to remember that, in my youth, there was a television programme (yes, such things did exist in my youth – although on a black and white screen that would sporadically disappear upwards on a never ending cycle) that had as its tag line the following ‘the following story is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent’. Well, the tag line of this blog entry might have been ‘the following is true, only the facts have been changed ….’ So, some strange and unusual things about St Helena – you will have to decide which are true. Some have claimed that the term ‘bogeyman’ derives from the time of Napoleon Bonaparte. Although this charming little ditty seems to suggest that parents weren’t unhappy ... read more
May 7th 2012
Bulaaa everyone! Da er vi nok en gang ferdig med et land. Denne gangen Fiji. Det har vært seks dager med total avslapning, noe vi virkelig trengte etter tre hektiske måneder med mye farting. Da vi ankom flyplassen i Nadi, Fiji kjente vi varmen strømme på og det var bare å ta av seg alt av fleecejakker og langbukser. Selv om det har vært flom her for tre uker siden merket vi hvertfall ingenting til det. Igjen har værgudene vært med oss! Etter å ha sovet en natt på fastlandet var vi klare for å utforske de tropiske øyene rundt hovedøya Vitu Levu. Fiji består av i alt 320 øyer, men vi hadde bare tid til to av de. I to netter har vi vært på Beachcomber Island. Da vi ankom øya ble vi møtt av ... read more
May 4th 2012
Well, I’m sure you’re waiting to hear about the skittles, eh? The first difficulty was a 9.30 start in the evening. Who has heard of a 9.30 pm start? Certainly we who have ventured into the nether regions of Shropshire seeking glory as part of the Wenlock ‘B’ bowls team, like to be back in the comfort of our homes by that time. Here in Jamestown things are done rather differently. Having spent an hour or so in the Consulate Hotel (rather nice and charming atmosphere with, you chaps out there will be relieved to hear, no dogs and owners imitating the opening day of Crufts) having a beer (South African lager) or two, I stumbled out to the skittles alley at the local community hall. I arrived early to watch the previous match so that ... read more
May 2nd 2012
A lot of people have asked me what it is like to travel around the world on a ship so I have pulled together some random thoughts on the matter. There are approximately 650 students, from gap year students through graduating seniors; 100 or so faculty and staff from well known institutions like Princeton, Cornell, Stanford and the like to small, to obscure schools that no one outside of the local community has ever heard of; around 50 children ages 2 through 17 who are traveling with their faculty or staff parents; and 150 members of the crew, most of whom we never see. Our vessel is 590 feet long, which means that no matter how hard you try, you can’t get very far away from anyone. We have only a handful of communal spaces – ... read more
May 2nd 2012
Hi! First entry to start the blog before we actually start travelling. In just two weeks we will be in Rome, spending 3 days touring before boarding the Holland America ship Noordam. Hope to keep up the entries as we travel and tell of the highlights of the trip, as we celebrate our 30th Anniversary! So we will be talking (or typing and reading) soon.... read more
April 29th 2012
Well here I go off on my little adventure. First challenge is getting over the Atlantic Ocean. My original plan was to head to Heathrow and go south from there, but as I am currently almost nothing about travel goes the way you expect it to. I found that a ¨repositioning cruise¨ would actually be the cheapest way to get over to Europe and as luck would have it the cruise ends at Barcelona. They are so cheap because they go over the atlantic and there is nothing but sea and the godless abominations known as flying fish the whole way. So with the exception of a lovely afternoon in the Azores it was 11 days of badly needed relaxation. Cruise ships are not great places for action, but they are great places to plan out ... read more
April 22nd 2012
As Frank might have said Or as my new friend Peter (isn’t it wonderful to be surprised even now that it is possible to think that, ‘I have a new friend’) might have put it ‘I’m working at living in the moment’. Pretty well taking all we can from the then and now, the pleasure of the sublime, the ordinariness of every day life. But being aware of these everyday things and heeding them, even if not taking pleasure. Some of you will know that my literary hero is Frank Bascombe who is the narrator in Richard Ford’s wonderful trilogy of novels ‘The Sportswriter’, ‘Independence Day’ and ‘The Lay of the Land’, which I assume will be as satisfying as the previous two as I have read only the first 10 humorous and wise pages. In ... read more
