Friday February 22 and Saturday February 23, 2013
We have enjoyed some real rolling seas which increased today (Saturday) and will be with us all the way to Albany tomorrow. We like the roll of the sea, but lots of people are wearing wrist bands, or taking sea sickness medication.
Friday was a formal night with the theme of Medieval Times. The poor dining room stewards were dressed in full English armour costumes consisting of plastic headdresses and chain mail made of metal thread. They were dying of the heat. The place was decked out in black and red, and since it was a Captain's dinner there were only 3 of us at the table, but we had a very interesting conversation, followed by another fantastic show. Two violinists - a young man and woman - he originally from Hungary, and she from Italy, who are now an item personally as well as professionally. They were unbelievably energetic, fun and extremely talented. For those who don't usually appreciate violin, they really put a twist on things. The night before there was a 24 year old British pianist who was also sensational. We cannot believe how fortunate we are to be entertained so richly each evening.
When I retired I gave myself a year to start to regain my health, after years of over work, not eating properly and virtually no exercise. I am very proud of myself, as I have lost a lot of weight this year, and one of the promises I made to myself, once I recovered from my January illnesses was that I would work out in the gym. I mean how easy can it be to wake up, walk up stairs, get breakfast, and walk to the bow of the ship to the gym, with classes and instructors and equipment. I have been going to yoga classes, have a personal trainer, and this morning I did my first every spinning class!! I am the oldest in the class, and I feel such a sense of accomplishment that I made it through the class. Our instructor is my trainer too (Kristina) and she is a tough, but terrific instructor. One of the other guests was new to this and today was her 20th class and she high -fived me at the end of the class and told me how proud she was of me. She assured me that if I kept it up I would soon be having fun. Hard to imagine that just yet, as my legs were like jelly as I walked down to our cabin, but I am sure feeling pretty great after a few weeks of exercise, although tonight I can barely walk from the spinning class.
The other highlight of our day is that Barry met a gentleman a few days ago, who sat next to him in a lecture and he called today to invite us to meet him for lunch. John Stutterheim is a hero. He was a child prisoner of war, in a Japanese labour camp on the island of Borneo in the 2nd world war. He has just published a book on the 3 years he was interred there. He said that few people know that the Japanese had children in labour camps and he needed to tell the story. He enthralled us over lunch with stories of how he survived and how his younger brother, mother and father did as well. His mother who was 37 when they were freed was tortured. There were 3 children in her room ages 6, 5 and 4. John was able to hide a diary which contained his memories and drawings of the details which are all used in the book. I urge all those interested in the men, women and children who suffered so greatly to obtain a copy of this book. He is a retired physician who lives now in Tacoma Washington.
The name of his book is " Diary of Prisoner 17326" published by Fordham University Press at the Bronx. ISBN 978-0-8232-3150-8. Paperback edition came out in Dec 2012 at $25 from Amazon.
We ended our day with an Irish comedian who got off to a slow start, but finished strong and had us all laughing. The seas are really swelling tonight so "rock a bye baby". We hope to call our children tomorrow when we land in Albany as our internet connection has been pretty pathetic since all the new people got on - limited bandwidth. We are missing them greatly and need to have some talk time. We also gained another 2 hours since we left Tasmania, so we are even more challenged to find times that work for them and us, and where we have connectivity.
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