Course Day In Canada

Despite my propensity for procrastination and my self-diagnosed ADD, I did manage to accomplish a quite extraordinary feat today.

I began working on the fourth unit of my online course and managed to work my way through it all. I have to wait around for other people so that I can respond to their writing for Activity 5, but as of now I am completely finished Unit 4. It is due on March 9th!

I'm not entirely sure what came over me. I think that it was the panic and rush of having to finish the previous two units at the last minute that made me want to push through and get this one finished early. A part of me hopes that I will be working tomorrow and not have time to devote to an online course. It might also be the fact that I love being finished before everyone else. They are going to log in and see all my assignments handed in neatly while they have to struggle to get started. I guess that's the jerk in me.

So, one more unit to go plus my independent project. I can't believe how simple the course is and yet how many hours I will have had to put into it. The ironic part is that I may never teach again.

Milk Toast?

I just came across a new word: milquetoast. It means meek, timid, unassertive nature.

Fair enough, but I was particulary interested in the etymology of the word.

Dictionary.com has a fascinating write up:

"Word History: An indication of the effect on the English language of popular culture is the adoption of names from the comic strips as English words. Casper Milquetoast, created by Harold Webster in 1924, was a timid and retiring man named for a timid food. The first instance of milquetoast as a common noun is found in the mid-1930s. Milquetoast thus joins the ranks of other such words, including sad sack, from a blundering army private invented by George Baker in 1942, and Wimpy, from J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye comic strip, which became a trade name for a hamburger. If we look to a related form of popular culture, the animated cartoon, we must of course acknowledge Mickey Mouse, which has become a slang term for something that is easy, insignificant, small-time, worthless, or petty."

Just when I thought that words couldn't get any cooler.

Donnybrook

Ian forwarded me this story. It's too bad that I didn't see the event or the result. I think that it was particilarly funny that he made sure to mention that he didn't fall, and that the reporter made sure to include that in the article.

"You never got me down, motorcycle thugs. You never got me down."

Real Interview This Time

It looks like I passed my grammar and spelling test (who knew?) and I'm supposed to head back to the CBC building for an interview on Wednesday.

There isn't much else to say about it other than the fact that I think that it would be pretty rocking to work at the CBC and that it would be even better to get hired the day before my birthday.

Now that I've probably totally jinxed it, I will continue to scour job websites and to continue my dozens of applications.

I had a good night last night. I'm not sure how I made it home, but I did wake up in my bed. The tail end of the evening is a blurry mess.

The house alarm went off this morning. I'm not sure what triggered it, but I staggered upstairs at 9 or so to turn it off. I think that the contractor might have set it off, but I have no idea how long it was blaring before I realized it.

When I went back to bed, I had a horrible nightmare. I was working with my Dad and sister in the fields of his farm. My Mom was in the house. We noticed an airbus circling around above us. It was flying much lower than it should have and we were quite nervous about it. After about a half a dozen flybys, a squad of fighter jets swooped in and began shooting at it. It wasn't long before the plane went down. It screamed over our head and crashed into the house. The heat sent trees ablaze and melted the cars.

I don't know what it means, but I am glad that I don't believe that dreams have hidden meanings.

Lazy Days

It seems that my days have been unusually strange. I haven't experienced days like this before and I'm not sure what it all means.

For one, I'm feeling very creative. I feel like I could sit down and do something great, but at the same time I've been gripped with unshakable lethargy. Yesterday, I woke up at 10:30 in the morning and was back in bed by 1:00. I slept and read in bed until 5:41 in the afternoon. That's too much sleep in one day, but I managed to sleep a full night anyway.

Today, I decided that I should get back upstairs and paint. Boy, I haven't missed it. That job is so bad and is twice as bad when you're only a few hours from being totally finished. The last day of work is way worse that the first.

I've been reading Charles Bukowski's Post Office and listening to all the CBC Radio 3 Podcasts that I missed while I was incommunicado.

I shovelled the walk today.

I cooked two poached eggs and ate them on a Country Harvest 12 grain bagel. I reheated yams and a hamburger from yesterday, and had a piece of frozen pecan pie.

Tonight is a big piss up. I have a milestone birthday on Thursday. My buddy, Colin, and I were born only five days apart so we decided to have a combined party this year. There were virtual invitations and people were supposed to RSVP. I hope that everyone actually shows up because it'll likely be a good time. The only problem is that I've been obsessively checking on the responses. Every few hours I would recheck to reread everyone's messages and who will and will not come. So far, we're up to 37 people, which sounds like a good time to me.

I have had a terrible headache for the past month now. There is still a violent stabbing pain above my right eye that seems to be developing an unhealthy tolerance towards ibuprofen.

Guilty Pleasure: Shower Beer

I just enjoyed probably my best guilty pleasure: I had a beer in the shower.

In a hot shower, there is nothing (well that might not be entirely true) more enjoyable than enjoying an icy cold beer. It's a nice refreshing way to improve the almost perfect.

Laugh and scoff if you must, but don't knock it until you've tried it. I'm not encouraging you to have a beer with your morning shower; I would never do such a hideous thing. If you're planning on heading out for an evening, and need to get that long-day's-stink off, then grab a 50 and enjoy a truly new experience that takes everything you knew about pleasure to a shocking new height.

Though I would like to take credit for the idea, I'm not sure if I can. I was staying in Paris at the Hotel Opera Cadet at the tail end of my trip to France in July of 1993. After a long day of people watching and drinking beer on patios at age 16, I hopped in the shower with a Carlsberg and have never looked back.

Though I hiatused the idea for many years, I must admit that even if I only have one beer in a night, I can't think of a better place to have one.

The only drawback is that you might seriously find yourself waking up at 6:30am and wondering why you aren't enjoying your shower as much as you usually do. In that case, cross your fingers and hope that someone opens up the curtain and joins you.

Cancer Update

My sister had her Thyroid removed on February 6th. There was a large tumour on the gland and a biopsy indicated Cancer cells.

Both my Dad and I felt horrible about being away during her surgery, but things seem to be successful. The doctors removed the gland and the tumour, which they later tested to confirm it as a cancerous tumour. They said that it was not at the spreading stage and that things look positive for a complete recovery.

She will have to undergo radiation therapy in April which involves taking a radioactive pill and complete isolation for a couple of days. She will be able to return home, after a couple of days, but won't be able to see her baby daughter for two weeks. This will be hard on the both of them, but they will use this as a weaning opportunity.

So that's good news. We have breathed a collective sigh of relief and hope that everything continues well.

CBC Appointment

I headed down to the CBC building today to have what I thought was an interview. It turns out that I only had to take a test. I had to proofread a two-page essay, and to correct 15 misspelled words. It was quite easy and I finished in 14 minutes. I just hope that I didn't make any stupid mistakes. The essay was such a complete piece of garbage that wanted to completely rewrite it rather than simply correct the grammatical errors.

They are going to correct my test and then call me in for an interview if they think that it's warranted. I guess I'll just have to continue waiting.

I did manage to see Brian Williams and though I was tempted to slap his smug face, I decided that it was better to just walk by.

Weird Wednesday

It has been a very strange week. I don't really feel altogether myself, as I am still adjusting to being home. Travelling plays tricks with the mind and the body, and leads me to believe that humans should not take air travel lightly. Waking up one morning in Buenos Aires and then sleeping the next day in Toronto is a difficult adjustment.

I've been working hard finishing up the third unit of my English course. It hasn't been taxing, but motivating myself to sit down and get it done has been the only challenge. Everything is due tomorrow, but I just finished before I began this blog. With luck I won't have to redo anything. I am pleased that I did not take the easy way out and use my obvious excuse, but instead persevered and got the work done ahead of schedule. Small victories, I guess.

I got an interesting phone call this morning from the CBC. Over the past few months, I have been applying for jobs at the Corporation and I finally got a call asking for an interview. The job is for a closed captioner, which certainly isn't an ideal position for me but one that I think wouldn't be too difficult to handle. I need a job to keep myself busy and one that will last through the summer. I've come to the sad realization that I will have to take a summer job. My government dole runs out sooner rather than later, and I need to have something before that sad day arrives.

I'm hoping that this job will lead to something better, and might be a stepping stone to a full-time position doing something a little more my style and interest. I'm debating the future of my writing and what I might do with it. Maybe this is something that will lead to something great? Who knows, but at this point I'm glad to have a bloody interview since I haven't had one in months despite dozens and dozens of applications.

I watched the hockey game this afternoon, and it was without a doubt one of the worst preformances I've seen. I really don't know why organizers continue to pick tough teams for international events. Having players like Bertuzzi and McCabe are recipes for disater on big ice. Tough hits are punished with penalties and slow feet means backtracking and defensive fall apart. The worst part about it is that we will have to listen to people complain about the state of our game for the next six months.

It's time for dinner and I'm dreading trying to find something to eat. I think that it'll have to be something small and quick as I'm afraid that if I leave it too long, I'm just going to give in and order something greasy and expensive. After two weeks of gluttony, I need some healthy living.

The Long Journey Home

After our final dinner, we all went to bed early. We were supposed to meet and disembark at 7:05 am so that meant a horrific 6:00 wake up call.

As expected, the wake up call beckoned early but my Dad got up and showered first so that meant that I could sleep in a little more. I got up shortly after 6:15, showered and did my last bit of packing.

We had decided the night before that leaving at 7:05 was a dumb idea since our tour guide was not going to meet to pick us up until 9:30am. Either we could leave the ship early and sit in the harbour terminal amid 2000 tourists, or relax comfortably in our rooms. We decided to hang out on the ship. We didn't care if they were angry with us for not leaving at 7. After getting up so early, we had a leisurely breakfast and sat around and chatted about things until 8:45.

We disembarked the ship without queuing up and when we arrived at the terminal it was dead easy to find our bags because almost all of the others had already been picked up. We zipped through security and found our guide rather easily. She and our tour van driver had our bags packed and were on the road by 9:25. I expect that if we had left the ship at 7:00 that we would have waited in line for such a long time that we likely would have not been much before 9:30 anyway.

We toured the city for a while and saw a bunch of sites. We stopped at a huge antiques market and the old harbour area of the city. We saw an assortment of old buildings, and monuments as usual. The day was very hot, but our bus was nicely airconditioned. We had lunch at a restaurant called The Happening. It was a vrey swish restaurant and we had an incredible meal of empanadas and sausage, steak frites, ice cream, with a hefty amount of beer.

After our meal, we headed to the airport to catch Air Canada flight 93 from Buenos Aires to Santiago, Chile. The airport was nothing unusual, but we waited in line for a long time to check in and then in to pay the airport tax and then in security and then in immigration. By the time we made it through we had only 30 minutes before take off. We pooled all of our Argentine money together and bought some water and a few beers. I left everything extra in the tip jar.

We boarded and found our seats. I decided to crack open on of my newly purchased beers, and start a sudoku. Everything was fine until a flight attendant said, "Is that your beer?" A dumb question, sure, but I responded "yes" and she proceeded to inform me that I wasn't allowed to drink my own beer on the flight. Then she took the half empty bottle away. I was surprised since they serve beer anyway, but I wasn't angry or anything. It felt much the same way as it did in high school and university when the police would make you pour out a beer if you were drinking in public. At least there wasn't a fine this time around. I was a little embarrased too because I had offered one to the guy sitting beside me and he had declined.

The flight was about as good as it gets. The meal was awful and I ordered a gin and tonic so that I could keep and take home the little mini gin container. It came already mixed, and I didn't feel like drinking it. I had only ordered it for the bottle.

When we landed in Santiago it was about 8:15pm. We had to leave the plane so that it could be refueled, security checked, and then restaffed. In the airport, I changed from shorts and a tshirt into jeans and a sweater so that I would be ready for Toronto. I considered shaving, so that I would feel a little better, but the bathroom wasn't a place that I wanted to spend much time for frivolities.

We waited to board our plane and did so at 9:15pm. I got right back into the same seat that I had been in from Buenos Aires, which made the stopover all the more ridiculous, but that's just the way things go. I worked on some sudokus for a while.

I had a terrible flight. I was in the middle seat and my Dad hogged the armrest. There was a stranger on the other side so I didn't want to hog his armrest. He just read The Davinci Code and listened to his iPod. I was also very self conscious about my body odour. I had been up so long and it had been such a hot day. I had also run out of antiperspirant a couple of days prior and had been forced to resort to using my Dad's deodorant. That junk never works for me.

I wasn't able to sleep much at all. I watched the in flight movie, "In Her Shoes" which wasn't altogether terrible, but certainly not a life altering piece of filmmaking. I tried and tried to sleep but I just couldn't do it. I was so uncomfortable, that I ended up just being really antsy and squirming in my seat from 12:30 until 7:30. At 4:30 I was psyched because they had said that they were going to give us breakfast shortly before we began our descent to Toronto. I knew that we were getting close and that we were almost home. I realized that I was still on Chile time, and that I had to put my watch two hours back. That was very demoralizing.

We did land on time, and we touched down at 6:25am. We went through customs without any problems, and it didn't take too long to get our bags. We said all our goodbyes and headed out to meet my brother-in-law. We found him easily and drove downtown.

I arrived home with my Dad at about 8:00 and the reality of things began to hit. I had been able to escape the horror of my mother's death, but now had to begin my life again. I haven't really been home since January 27th, and when I walked into the apartment exactly the way I had left it, I was saddened to have everything come rushing back.

I decided that I needed to clean up. Job one would have to be the laundry situation so I started that: it wasn't pretty. I need a shower so I did that. I also needed to do the dishes, but since they've been sitting where I had left them three weeks ago, I needed to soak them first. I filled the sink and couldn't stay on my feet anymore, so I went to bed.

I woke up at 12:24, and finished cleaning. There was a lot of dusting, and vaccuuming to do, but I managed it. I switched the laundry up a few times and it's finally done. I also managed to get some filing done while I watched the Olympics.

I'm feeling better now that my place is organized. I have a bit of an emptiness as I usually do after ending a vacation. This one is a little different, because I also have the emptiness of this being the first real moment that I've had alone since my Mom died. With the rush of the funeral arrangements and the trip, I haven't had a chance to really contemplate what my life is going to be like without her. The last time I woke up in my own bed was to my father's telephone call about the crash.

I had a wonderful time in South America and it is a place that I hope to return. My father's friends were wonderful, caring, fun people who I had some great times with. Now that I am back I am looking forward to reconnecting with my own friends all of whom I know are going to help me through this.

Catch Up Montevideo to Buenos Aires

(11:35)

I did manage to watch “The Interpreter” which I thought was alright, but not great. I’m not sure exactly what I didn’t like about it, but I think that it could have been better. I didn’t end up playing in the black jack tournament. I didn’t really know how it would work and I chickened out. There were too many hotshots, and I couldn’t take the pressure. I ended up watching people play for a while.

I struck out at Bingo and then headed up to the room, where I fell asleep quite quickly, and slept for two hours. I was completely passed out and didn’t move much because when I woke up I had lines all over my arm and shoulder. I haven’t had that in a while, so that was worth it.

I showered and got ready for dinner. We went down to one of my Dad’s friends’ room and had some drinks. I drank one of my 970ml beers, and it was worth the 84 cents that it cost. Actually, it was worth far more, but that’s all it cost.

Dinner was uneventful. I tried lychee for the first time, and it wasn’t too bad. I couldn’t believe that I ordered the cauliflower soup, but it tasted alright. I put up with cauliflower but I don’t usually enjoy it. I had the rack of lamb, and found it a little too salty. I did have a delicious chocolate napoleon for dessert.

After dinner, everyone headed up to the show, but I wasn’t interested so I watched people play craps. This guy lost a thousand bucks so that was kinda fun in a sickening way.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

This was one of the first days that my Dad was able to sleep in, but he got up at 7:00 anyway. The blinds were whipped open and, sadly, I was also up at 7:00. I didn’t get out of bed until 8:30 though.

I took a quick shower and as I was scanning the activities list, my Dad came back from breakfast. I decided that we should head upstairs to participate in the “Wordgames” activity. I figured that it would be a cinch, and I wanted to win some prizes.

When we got there they were already on question 6, and we found out that it wasn’t even close to a word game except that words were used to create trivia questions. We didn’t win since we missed the first 5 questions, and neither of us are tremendous trivia players anyway.

After that, I went to the spa and had fruit and yogurt for breakfast. I ate some of the best yogurt of my life. It was from The Netherlands and was 100% organic. It was vanilla flavoured and was made with real vanilla beans with the grains in it. There was only 5 grams of fat but had 667 calories (150gram container). It must have had a lot of organic cane sugar, but it was worth it.

I headed back up to the room with my Dad and we called some of his friends to see if we could get together for Bridge or Monopoly. We decided that we’d head to Bingo at 11:30, so I’m putting in some time before I head up to the Cosmos to play.

(Pause)

At Bingo my Dad won again, and took an $88 prize. I was close a few times, but didn’t have any luck. After Bingo we decided to play Bridge, and then we were kicked out because a tournament was starting. We all had lunch and decided that we would head up to the Cosmos to watch the talent show, and then play in the final Bingo of the cruise. It was for $1000 top prize.

The talent show started off badly, but really wasn’t that terrible. Bingo was a wash, but it was fun. I was one number away a couple of times.

When Bingo was over we got ready to go for dinner. Since we were arriving at Montevideo, Uruguay at 8pm, we thought that we would have an early dinner and then go out for a while. We were all dressed and ready to go at 6:00, but one of the other dentists wanted to go to the late sitting instead. We had 2.5 hours to kill so we decided to play some scrabble and some cards and we headed down to the card room.

As we played our shipped docked. The harbour was very narrow and the ship had to really be careful on its approach. It’s amazing that despite how large the ship is how easily it is for it to navigate tight situations. I guess ship technology has advanced much like everything else.

We had dinner and then I headed to bed. I wasn’t interested in going to the nightclub even though the singers, dancers, and orchestra were going to be there.

Friday, February 17, 2006

The next morning our excursion was a city tour and then a visit to a winery. We were up at 7:00 in order to get ready and have breakfast. We had read that there was no food provided on the trip, so we ordered sandwiches and cookies from room service. Just as we were about to leave for breakfast, the food arrived and we took a few minutes to pack everything up.

I rushed to the café to have breakfast and then zipped down to the theatre to meet the other people on our excursion and to catch our bus. This time we were on time and we boarded our bus without incident.

The city of Montevideo, Uruguay has a population of 1.5 million which is half the population of the entire country. Uruguay is neutral and does not have a large military, but instead spends its money on social programs. The country has public health care, and public education programs. Frommer’s Guide states that it is a progressive country that is an example for its South American neighbours.

The city was quite beautiful. Our tour guide, of course, only showed us the positives, but the city really was extraordinary. The streets are clean and very safe. The buildings are very European and the people seem prosperous, happy, and attractive.

We traveled around throughout the city and saw an assortment of buildings and monuments. It was a very hot day, so we didn’t do a lot of wandering around. After a three hour bus we headed to the Juanico Winery for a wine sampling.

There isn’t much to say about the winery. I learned a few things about wine and had 8 glasses in about 45 minutes. Everyone was nicely toasted considering we started before noon and hadn’t had any lunch. My Dad and I bought a couple of bottles to bring home.

We staggered back to the bus and then drove back into the city. I listened to my iPod and looked out the window while everyone else slept. The city is by no means perfect, and there seems to be a lot of poverty as in any city.

We did a bit of shopping after our bus tour. There was a lot of leather and jewelry, but nothing that I had to have. We headed back to the ship by 3:00 and just as we boarded the ship, I remembered that the Spelling Bee started at 3:30.

We went to the spelling bee and had fun. We got caught on a few words (facetious and myrrh). We were marked wrong on the word exuberant, but as I type it now, I realize that we were correct. It didn’t matter since we were tied with the other team and we all got a deck of cards for a prize.

We stuck around for Rock and Roll Name That Tune, and we got completely smoked. We earned a whopping 14 out of 40 and finished in last out of three teams. After that, I headed to bed for a nap.

I woke up at 6:15 and headed to the gym. My workout was super terrible and I felt really terrible after only 10 minutes. I decided that I had better stop and when I got back to the room, I decided that I was very dehydrated. I drank a ton of water and felt much better. I took a shower and then got my tuxedo on for dinner.

We went over to the Olympic for dinner again, and had a wonderful meal with extraordinary service. It was a great time and a nice way to wind up the cruise. I headed to bed after eating and crashed.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Our room attendant woke us up at 8:05. I guess she wanted us up and out of bed, but used the excuse of giving us back our passports. We couldn’t get back to sleep after that so we woke up and started getting ready for the day.

I decided that I would start packing, since we are to have our bags ready outside our rooms by 11pm. I hauled all the laundry out of the closet and sorted through it, trying to find something clean enough to wear today. I did, luckily.

I put the bag on my bed and started dumping my clothes into it. I stuffed everything in and was just about finished when an alarm began to sound. We couldn’t figure out what it was, and why it was going off. I opened the door to see if it was ship wide, but it was confined to our room. I rushed to get the attendant, and he came in and took down the smoke alarm and took the battery out. We couldn’t understand why the smoke alarm was going off, but after the attendant left, I realized that it was the stench of my clothes that had started it.

Dad and I headed to breakfast shortly after that and I began typing this entry. We arrived overnight in Buenos Aires and are planning to spend the day shopping and going to the art gallery.

7:30pm

It was a very busy day. Buenos Aires is an exciting city with a lot going on. It’s Saturday and the streets are not overcrowded with people, but things are quite busy. It is very hot today (mid 30s and high humidity).

We caught a shuttle bus to downtown and went into a store called Silvia Y Mario and looked at incredibly leather jackets, and cashmere sweaters. The goods are of very high quality and are very reasonably priced. My Dad’s friends and I all bought a lot of stuff for ourselves and for gifts.

Afterwards we walked down Florida Street which is a pedestrian street with lots of shopping. People would come up to you and try to give you brochures to get you to shop in their stores. It was quite overwhelming at first, but you get used to not making eye contact fairly quickly.

We stopped and had lunch which was very inexpensive and it was nice to sit outside and watch all the people go by. When we finished our meal, we walked to the art gallery. It was a long walk but it was very nice to wander through the streets experiencing the city outside of a tour bus. The streets are very clean and well policed, and we felt very comfortable window shopping and enjoying the sights.

The art gallery was very nice. There were lots of the Greats (Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, etc) as well as more of the modern famous (Pollock, Rothko, Kline, etc). There was an entire floor devoted to Argentine artists, but since I wasn’t familiar with them or their art history, it wasn’t as interesting. I’m sure that it is much the same thing when it comes to Canadian Art and artists at the National Gallery; it’s good art but you need to know the stories.

We were exhausted after being out in the hot sun since early in the morning and we caught a cab back to the ship. We arrived without incident, boarded and headed back to our room. I was then presented with the problem of what to do: nap or pack.

I decided that I should probably take a shower and stay up to finish up a few things and to get packed before dinner. I felt better after showering and my Dad and I watched Barcelona and Bettis on ESPN while we packed. We have tons of space and regret not having bought more stuff since things are so inexpensive here.

We are heading off to dinner shortly and then probably to bed. We depart at 7am tomorrow morning and then go on a tour of the city. We catch our flight to Toronto at 6:30pm and so we have to get there by 4:00. We arrive home at 6:05 on Monday morning and then it’s back to reality.

Another Day At Sea Ended

(11:35)

I did manage to watch “The Interpreter” which I thought was alright, but not great. I’m not sure exactly what I didn’t like about it, but I think that it could have been better. I didn’t end up playing in the black jack tournament. I didn’t really know how it would work and I chickened out. There were too many hotshots, and I couldn’t take the pressure. I ended up watching people play for a while.

I struck out at Bingo and then headed up to the room, where I fell asleep quite quickly, and slept for two hours. I was completely passed out and didn’t move much because when I woke up I had lines all over my arm and shoulder. I haven’t had that in a while, so that was worth it.

I showered and got ready for dinner. We went down to one of my Dad’s friends’ room and had some drinks. I drank one of my 970ml beers, and it was worth the 84 cents that it cost. Actually, it was worth far more, but that’s all it cost.

Dinner was uneventful. I tried lychee for the first time, and it wasn’t too bad. I couldn’t believe that I ordered the cauliflower soup, but it tasted alright. I put up with cauliflower but I don’t usually enjoy it. I had the rack of lamb, and found it a little too salty. I did have a delicious chocolate napoleon for dessert.

After dinner, everyone headed up to the show, but I wasn’t interested so I watched people play craps. This guy lost a thousand bucks so that was kinda fun in a sickening way.

Puerto Madryn, Argentina

6:30

When I returned to the room, I spent some time sitting out on the balcony writing postcards. I watched a gigantic line get longer and longer and then shrink away. The pier is a long way from downtown and there was a shuttle service to transport everyone. My Dad and I didn’t see the point of rushing downstairs to queue up for an hour so we waited in the room until it disappeared.

We headed out to Puerto Madryn at about 12:15. We walked right onto the bus it wasn’t even full. We were dropped off right downtown, and we wandered around for a while. We stopped in at an Art gallery, and then decided to walk along the beach.

The beach is huge, and it was nice to put my feet in the ocean. The water was quite cool and there weren’t a lot of people on the public beach. We wandered around until we got thirsty and then decided to stop at a café for a beer.

We ordered 5 big beers (680ml) and five empanadas. The total came to $17US. I couldn’t believe how cheap everything is in Argentina, but with the currency problems a couple of years ago, I guess it’s understandable.

It was very hot when we left the restaurant. Most of the stores were closed up for a siesta, but we wandered around looking for a post office so that I could mail my postcards. Sadly, everything was closed up. I guess they’ll have to wait until Montevideo.

It became unbearable hot by 3:00 and the temperature was in the high 30s. The land is very much a desert, there are very few trees and much of the land is barren. We decided that we would head back to the ship, but wanted to pick up some beers to take back. We went to the grocery store. The prices were ridiculous. A 980ml bottle was 2.49 pesos which translates to less than one Canadian dollar. For some reason 330ml bottles were 2.45 pesos, so we went with the big boys.

After being hit with a wall of intense heat when we left the grocery store we staggered to the bus and back to the ship. We ordered some room service and I took a nap. I just woke up and I wanted to type this up before I get changed and ready for dinner.

We leave for Montevideo at 10:00 tonight. We have a day at sea tomorrow.

Happy Valentine's Day

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

After blogging yesterday, I had a light lunch and then went back to the stateroom to figure out a plan for the afternoon. I fell asleep, as usual, and didn’t wake up until ten after three. I rushed down to the theatre to watch the movie, but I missed a lot of it.

I met up with my Dad and one of his friends after the movie and then we decided to go to Bingo. When we arrived there, a few more of his friends were already there, so there was quite a large group of us. I didn’t have any luck. I was one away on the four corner game but my Dad won that one so I wasn’t upset at all. He would have won $105 but at the last minute someone else claimed a Bingo and they had to split it.

When the games ended we sat around for a few minutes chatting. A woman came up to us and told us that because we missed our port of call at the Falkland Islands, they were opening up the bar. Drinks were completely free from 5:00 until 6:00, so we decided to take advantage of it.

We each put back a few drinks and then I decided that I would go to the gym. I was just a little tipsy so the workout was fine.

When I got back to the room, at 7:00 I discovered that they were also opening up the bars from 7:30 until 8:30 which was perfect since it was right before dinner. Everyone headed down to the martini bar and proceeded to get downright loaded. It was quite funny. I acted as waiter since it was way faster for me to go to the bar, rather than have to wait for a waiter to bring us drinks. It wasn’t in their best interest to be prompt.

We staggered to the dinning room, and had a few bottles of wine. It was another dinner of laughing, having fun and making trouble.

After dinner, everyone was quite drunk. I was feelin’ fine, but wasn’t nearly as gone as everyone else. They decided to go up to the nightclub and most of them immediately got up on the dance floor and were being crazy. I just laughed and made jokes with some of the group, but didn’t really feel much like dancing, because I really don’t care for it.

After a while, the music changed to more modern music and that cleared everyone out rather quickly. Everyone stumbled back to their rooms and I doubt if all of them are up by now.

I got up at 8:30 and had some breakfast. I’m waiting for the room attendant to finish in the stateroom. I’m not sure what the plan is for today. We are at Puerto Madryn today, but we haven’t scheduled an excursion. I think that we are going to go into the town to look around and do some shopping.

Lazy Day At Sea

Monday, February 13, 2006

After blogging last night, I decided to go up to the Cosmos Nightclub. It was about 12:30 and I wanted to see what it was like. There were a lot of people dancing, and there were a few groups of staff who were hanging out.

I ordered a beer and decided to stick around for a bit. A few more staff came in and the dance floor got pretty busy. Mostly it was staff, with a few guests thrown in. Many people were in their twenties so that was nice for a change.

Since I was sitting by myself, one of the waitresses kept coming over to me to find out why I was all by myself. I told her that I was with my Dad and he had already gone to bed because he had to wake up early for a course the next morning. She seemed confused, but I told her that I didn’t mind. I didn’t want to get into the whole long story of why I was here and all that.

It wasn’t too long after that that a guy named Edward introduced himself and asked me to join a group of staff. I accepted and went over to the staff section of bar. I met a lot of people and chitchatted for a while. I met the captain and I talked with him for a little while. He’s from Greece and was a nice guy. Even though he was chatting up a girl, he gave me some of his time. I excused myself after a few minutes, because I knew he was busy.

Nothing really exciting happened, but I just had a couple of beers with some of the crew. They were all excited about missing the Falklands and having an overnight in Montevideo. It was nice to talk with some younger people and to get the lowdown on the ship and how things work. They told me that there is a staff bar on the first deck, and that it was totally rocking last night, but very crowded. The drinks are much cheaper and it’s exclusive to staff. The staff don’t really have to pay for drinks since most of them are good friends with the bartenders and they just help themselves. This is the real life of the ship that I’m really interested in.

I headed up to bed at about 1:40 and crashed. My Dad was up at about at 8:00 so that he could get ready for his course. I tried to get back to sleep but didn’t have much luck. I looked at the schedule for the day and decided that I’d go to another Abs Blast class at 9:00 so I got up and headed off.

My workout wasn’t that great. My stomach felt fine, but I must be doing the exercises wrong because my back got quite sore and my neck was very stiff. I don’t think that I should keep doing it if I get so much back pain. Maybe I just need to focus on posture and mechanics so that I can do them right.

I had some yogurt and fruit for breakfast and then I returned to the room and took a shower. I was going to play a table tennis tournament, but everyone was way too good. I’ve played ping pong about 12 times in my life (no joke) and I wasn’t ready to be pelted by 76 year old experts.

I bumped into my Dad. He and the other dentists were on their break, so we sat in the café and talked for a while. There was a ton of debris in the water. It looked like wood, or plastic floating on the surface of the water. I wonder what it was. It looked almost like the remains of a boat or something. Maybe it was just garbage that floats around on the open seas. We are a long way from land so I was intrigued, but haven’t cracked the case yet.

I headed down to the card room to play some scrabble with some strangers, but no one else showed up. I decided to just sit there and people watch for a while. It was interesting as always, but not very exciting.

So I’ve basically been wandering around the ship all morning trying to find something to do. I’m going to have lunch soon and read for a little while. I have a Sudoku puzzle in my pocket so I might try that too. “The March of the Penguins” is being played at 2:30 so I’m going to check it out since I haven’t seen it. After that it’s Bingo and I haven’t decided if I’ll go. I’m planning to go for a run later on this afternoon. I’d like to see about playing some cards or board games, but I don’t know what my Dad’s plans are for today. Most of the time I like to spend time with him and to keep him occupied and distract him as much as possible.

At Sea En Route To The Falklands (Sort of)

(11:50pm)

The afternoon was very unproductive. After blogging, I went back to the room and watch “The Incredibles” until I fell asleep for two hours. By the time I woke up it was 1:00 so I headed down for lunch. I bumped into some of my Dad’s friends and they told me that they he and some others were having lunch at the spa. I headed over there to meet them and to have a light lunch.

At 2:00, we all went to a presentation by the resident historian, James Reid, and he was supposed to talk about the war of 1982 in the Falklands. It seemed like he talked about everything but, and I fell asleep for a while. I didn’t fell that badly though since even the keeners found it a snore. My Dad slept for about 45 minutes and didn’t miss much.

When it ended I played some Bingo. I was one away in 4 out of the five games which was pretty good, but pretty disappointing at the same time. In the final game I was one away on the full card, and I had three calls before someone else was one away. I was looking good for a while, but my B12 didn’t come up. I also missed the raffle by one number: I had 535 and the winner was 534. Oh well.

When I got back to the room, I changed and went to the gym. I ran 2.5 miles which I guess is about 5 kilometers. I felt good afterwards and I think that I may actually be losing weight on this cruise. After months of lethargy, I’m glad to be doing some exercise, and I hope that I can keep it up when I get home.

After my workout, I returned to the room. Dad and some of his friends were having wine and cheese. I took a quick shower and then attempted the New York Times Crossword, with little success.

The others left and my Dad took a shower. I got dressed into my formal wear and started watching a Billy Bob Thornton movie about football. It was pretty bad, but tided me over until people came over for drinks before dinner.

Dinner was fun. My Dad and his fellow dental conventioneers all received a $26 bottle of dealcoholised wine and we decided that we would trade them in at dinner for something decent. That was kinda fun, since we were all in our tuxedos and evening gowns and we were trading in our grape juice for wine. I told you these dentists like to party down.

As we sat enjoying our wine and conversation, the captain came over the PA and informed us that due to bad weather we weren’t going to be able to land at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. We were all pretty bummed out, since that was the highlight of the trip for most of us. Instead of a port day tomorrow, we have another day at sea. I’m not sure what our exact schedule is now, but we are spending an extra day in Montevideo including an overnight, which means that we can go out partying on the mainland for an evening. That should be interesting.

After dinner I went to the casino. I had a $5 matchplay coupon. I played single hand blackjack and even though I hit blackjack on my coupon, I ended up losing $16. It’s okay since I had fun, right?

My Dad has his dental course tomorrow morning, and I can sit around doing nothing again. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, since the schedule was changed at the lst minute, but I hope that it will be a fun day.

Ushuaia, Argentina

Saturday, February 11, 2006

We woke to arrive at the town of Ushuaia, Argentina. The community battles with the city of Punta Arenas for the title of the world’s most southerly city, but Punta Arenas doesn’t believe that they are large enough to qualify as a city and therefore shouldn’t be entitled to the claim.

I was supposed to get up at 5:00 to look at the glacial ice fields, but I was too tired and at 5:00 it was pitch black; I didn’t think that I’d be able to see anything, so I decided to wake up at 6:10 at sunrise.

My Dad came back at about 5:20. He’d been up to the helicopter pad at the very top part of the ship only to find the place deserted. He bumped into the ship’s naturalist and was told that they had past the ice fields at 4am. We weren’t sure why we were told to wake up at 5:00 to see the fields until we arrived at Ushuaia. We sat at the dock for about 2 hours while the immigration authorities checked out the ship to make sure that everything was in order. I suppose that the captain knew that the paperwork was going to be a hassle and decided to gun it in order to get to port as early as possible; a few pictures of icebergs by a few passengers became a minor concern.

I ended up getting out of bed at 8:30. I took a quick shower and headed for breakfast. I decided on banana pancakes with strawberries. I wandered down to the computer lab to send an email to my sister and then went back to the room. It was about 10:00 and my Dad was nowhere to be found.

We were supposed to go on an expedition at 10:30 so I watched “Ray” on TV and waited for my Dad. He arrived at about 10:20 and we headed down to the Celebrity Theatre for our tour.

My Dad had forgotten his wallet and sent me back to the room to fetch it from the safe. I did grab the wallet and made my way down to the theatre. The captain came over the PA system and announce that there was going to be a emergency and safety drill for the crew at 10:30. As I wandered around the alarm went off and the drill began. By the time I arrived at the theatre it was completely deserted. Granted, I was late, but I expected to see someone.

I figured that the tour had left and it was important for me to leave the ship and try to find my Dad and his friends outside on the pier. The problem was that I got completely lost. The lower sections of the ship are extremely difficult to navigate and many sections are completely closed off to guests. I asked someone and they told me to go to Level 1 Midship, which I tried to do but only got confused and lost.

Eventually, I decided to head back upstairs to a floor I recognized and then make my way down again. I found it this time. I went through security and then zipped outside. I heard my Dad shout my name and I ran through the photo stand and over to the catamaran that we were supposed to board. Apparently, when my Dad arrived the gangplank to the catamaran was already lifted and they had to replace it in order for my Dad and his friends to get on. They were just about to leave when my Dad told them that he wouldn’t go without me. At that moment I exited the ship and they waited the fifteen seconds for me to run over and jump on.

The trip on the catamaran was amazing. It was a bright sunny day without too much wind so it felt quite warm. We puttered along down The Beagle Channel named after Charles Darwin’s ship that navigated these waters during his South American expeditions. We saw islands covered with sea lions, and local birds. It wasn’t vastly thrilling, but I really enjoyed watching the sea lions lazing around in the sun and frolicking in the water. It was just nice to be outside and to have such wonderful weather. There were a lot of albatrosses coasting around and they were quite mesmerizing.

When we returned to the pier, we zipped back to the cruise ship to have lunch, and then we returned to Ushuaia to look around town. We did some shopping and took some pictures. I bought some postcards and looked at some artisan shops.

Ushuaia is a beautiful city. Once a penal colony, it became an important stop for ships navigating the difficult waters around the tip of South America. All these port towns began to suffer with the opening of the Panama Canal, but now rely on tourism. Ushuaia is a staring point for many research expeditions to Antarctica. In fact, a National Geographic ship (Endeavour) was docked beside us.

I sent some postcards from Ushuaia, and returned to the ship. When back on board I realized that it was time for the Spelling Bee and so I headed to the Rendez Vous lounge to enter. When I arrived, they were already on word 9 of 15. I asked if it was too late and the woman in charge sent me to sit beside a woman at the front. I spelled the remaining 6 words out on a piece of paper.

When the bee was finished, we corrected the words, and I discovered that the woman that I was sitting beside—her name was Pat and she was a mother of 4 from Pittsburgh—were a team. I corrected the spelling of all her words (the ones that I had missed from being late) and we ended up getting 15 out of 15 right. I was shocked that the other teams were getting 9 of 15. We ended up blowing everyone away and we won an insulated cup for our efforts. The words weren’t difficult: kaleidoscope, denouement, chimera, for example. Still, it was fun to win. Next time, my Dad and all his friends and I are going to be on the same team so that we can all get a free cup.

It was about 5:00 at this point and we decided to go up to our room, so that my Dad’s friends could teach me how to play Bridge and we could all have some drinks. We cracked open some bottles of pisco sours and I had a lesson. Before we knew it it was 8:00. We not only had been drinking for three hours, but we had had to get ready for dinner.

Dinner was quite good. I was ready to have a few more drinks, but everyone else had hit the wall and were quite tired. It was a much calmer and less rambunctious evening than ones earlier in the trip, but that was fine with me. Our friends at the other table were mysteriously absent so I was happy that I wasn’t going to have to absorb any knuckle sandwiches.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

This morning, we woke up at 7:15 so that we could go up on deck to get a good view of Cape Horn. Cape Horn is the southern tip of the continent with nothing south until Antarctica. There is a lighthouse which not only warns ships, but is mainly a way for the Chile to claim the land and to prevent it being taken by Argentina. Apparently the land has been landmined by the two countries to prevent it from being claimed and taken. Sounds pretty dumb to me, but that’s the way things are.

We took a few pictures. The weather is crummy today. It’s rainy, overcast and gloomy. My Dad and I went downstairs for breakfast and watched the scenery go by. I had fruit, yogurt, and a pain au chocolat.

We went back up to the room and my Dad got ready to go to his course. Since this is a dental cruise, he needs to take a course for five hours this morning, Tuesday, and Thursday. He’s not too happy about it, but he knows that he has to do it. I think that I’ll go peek in a little later. Maybe I’ll point and laugh through the window, just like I might do if I had a spare and all my friends had to sit through Chemistry.

There isn’t much happening today. I’m going to go for a run, and maybe a swim. The casino opens again tonight, and they are giving everyone a $5 matchplay chip. I figure that I might play a little. It’s a formal night again tonight and I like being at the casino in a tuxedo.

Punta Arenas, Chile

Friday, February 10, 2006

I ended up doing some work on the next unit of my course, and then at 4:00 I went to Bingo. The grand prize was a free Alaskan cruise. I was within one number on the first game for a $194 prize, but I didn’t hit it. In the final grand prize game, two people had legitimate bingos and then they had to go to a sudden death where the first person to have a drawn number on their card won. An American lady won. Can you imagine losing in that situation? I’d rather be 15 numbers away.

After Bingo I worked a little more on my course and then did that Abs Blast. It wasn’t that hard but I could feel that things were working. I did a 3 kilometer run on the treadmill after workout.
I headed back up to the room and took a shower. I drank away my workout by having a couple of Cristal, and then headed down for dinner. It was pretty good. I headed to bed after dinner because it was an early wakeup call.

Room service called at 5:55am and my Dad and I had breakfast. I didn’t eat very much as I’m finding the food very salty. I took a shower and after getting dressed and waiting for my Dad, we headed down to the Rendez Vous lounge for our excursion.

We arrived at the most southerly city in the Americas: Punta Arenas. It seemed like a nice town, but we didn’t spend much time there. We caught our tender and arrived on the mainland after two full days at sea. We quickly boarded a bus and drove to the ferry. We boarded the ferry and began our two hour ride to the Los Pinguinos Magellan Penguin Habitat/Sanctuary.

The ferry ride was brutal; small uncomfortable seats, and impossible long. As we approached the island, schools of penguin were swimming around and bouncing out of the water. It was amazing. They came right out of the water like (I imagine) dolphins would. You could see huge masses of penguins waddling down the hill to the ocean.

We disembarked and wandered around the island. There were thousands and thousands of penguins. This year’s babies were molting and losing all of their baby feathers. The island was specked with soft white feathers. They seemed to pay no attention to all the people wandering around. Whether they were burrowed in this underground nests, preening, or moping around, the penguins ignored us. I was surprised that they didn’t run away, but most of the time would approach us. They were never close enough to touch, but we got a lot of great pictures.

We wandered around for about 90 minutes and headed back to Punta Arenas. I slept for most of the ride and listened to my iPod. I got really sad at one point thinking about my Mom, so I decided to wander around the ferry. Just as I came out onto the deck I looked overboard and saw two dolphins swimming along beside us. They swam along for a few seconds, but by the time I got my camera out, they were gone. It was pretty cool since I’ve only seen dolphins at Marineland, and those don’t really count.

The bus dropped us off at the city square. There is a huge statue of Magellan, with two native South Americans below him (most people didn’t seem to see the significance). Tradition is to touch the foot of one of the natives; apparently it brings good luck. My Dad took a picture of me touching the foot, and then he touched it.

We decided to wander around. I wanted to get some Chilean wine for someone special, and my Dad and I needed to buy laundry soap. I brought a lot of clothes, but most were packed dirty. I figured that there would be a Laundromat on board, but it is unreasonable (a pair of boxer shorts cost $1.25US to wash!). We are short on clean clothes so we needed soap so that we could do some laundry in the sink.

We headed to a supermarket. I bought some of their most expensive wine and we got some detergent. After we paid, and we on our way to the ship, I noticed that the cashier hadn’t charged us for the most expensive bottle of wine. A bottle that would no doubt cost $50+ in Canada was free! We headed back to the Magellan statue to touch the foot again.

We walked to the port and boarded the tender back to the ship. We ordered some room service and then I washed all my laundry. It took a helluva long time and my hands are pretty sore. How pathetic is that? I hung everything out to dry so I’m hoping that it won’t take too long. When I finished the clothes, I came down to the Internet café where I sit and type now. The boat is moving along towards the town of Ushuaia. We will arrive there sometime tonight.

10:50pm

I’m just back from having dinner. It was another raucous evening with the crazy Canadian dentists. There has been a lot of discussion about a certain woman on the cruise. Without a doubt she is every bit of 65, but tarts herself up as though she was 25. She clearly has had a tremendous amount of plastic surgery. It is quite appalling and repulsive.

Earlier in the day, we were on our tender to the mainland and she walked in with four inch heels (I’m not exaggerating) and climbs the thin steel stairs up to the top floor. At the top she slipped and fell rather hard, much to the laughter of many (NOT including me). My Dad suspects that she may even have been born a man, and I think that that might be entirely plausible.

Anyway, at dinner, this woman and her husband were at the table a short distance away and everyone was talking about her and making a big deal about how she looked, and what her story was. This guys she is with doesn’t look like someone that should be trifled with. He’s a big guy with lots of money by the looks of it and guys that look like him don’t make lots of money calmly listening to a variety of opinions or by making polite conversation. If there is a misplaced comment or something said slightly too loudly, there could be a major shitstorm. As the youngest person in the group, I’m going to be the one to step forward to take one for the team. I may be heading home with a black eye, because these dentists love to drink and things could get messy.

Finally, An Entry

I've been blogging everyday of my trip but I wasn't able to post until today. You can read about the adventure.

I will be posting regularly while at sea now that everything is organized.

Sorry it's so long, but it's there at least.

A Long Blog That Has Been Waiting (Trip Catch Up)

Saturday, February 4, 2006 (6:00pm)

I am sitting in front of our hotel window that overlooks a large swimming pool. The pool has a second level filled with lounge chairs that overhangs the pool and is complete with a waterfall. In the background, the Andes Mountains jut into the blue summer sky.

We had planned to leave home to get to Toronto by 9:00, but that didn’t happen. I wanted to spend the afternoon doing laundry and cleaning up my apartment before I left (I hate returning to a filthy house). We had so much running around to do though that we didn’t end up leaving until 2:00. By the time we arrived in Toronto, it was 6:00 and I still needed to pack.

My brother-in-law’s mother was arriving in Toronto at 5:30 so he was going to drive us to the airport and then pick his Mom up. He still managed to do that, but she had to wait for an hour before we arrived.

My Dad’s friends found us in the check in line and told us that they had allowed us to be admitted to the First Class lounge. That was sweet. It was very civilized. My Dad and his friends had wine, but I managed to down three pints of Guinness before we had to board the plane.

We immediately had a meal and I had a couple glasses of wine. I was surprised to find out that alcohol was free of charge on the plane. I thought that Air Canada changed that policy with their financial difficulties, but after a few gins and tonic, I was happy that this little perk was still in effect.

The flight was 10 and a half hours. The in-flight movies were The Corpse Bride and Shakespeare in Love both of which looked alright, but I wasn’t interested. I tried to sleep instead so I listened to my iPod and dozed off. I think that I probably had about 90 minutes of sleep on the flight. I was quite grumpy when we arrived and after waiting in line for an hour at reciprocity tax, immigration, and customs, I was looking forward to sleeping for a while.

At the hotel, I immediately took a shower. We were given 45 minutes to relax before our tour. I considered skipping it and lazing out by the pool for the afternoon, but I figured that that would be a supreme waste since there was a tour and I have never been to Chile before. The tour was about as nice as any guided tour in any city in the world. You end up looking at old buildings, but they really don’t mean that much to you. The gratuitous pictures here and there, but nothing too terribly earth shattering. Of course, it was interesting, and I enjoyed seeing the city, but you can’t judge a city by the bus tour.

When we returned to the hotel. I met my Dad who had decided to skip the tour. He spent the afternoon sipping pisco sours beside the pool and relaxing. I figure that if anyone deserves to sit and relax, he does.

I headed up to the hotel room at about 3:30pm, and I couldn’t undress fast enough to jump into the big cushy bed and get some sleep. I slept like a log until 5:45 and then I got up and got dressed for dinner and started writing this blog entry. My Dad took a shower and we headed out to the restaurant at 6:30.

(Pause)

I’m back from dinner. We jumped in our little van and headed up a mountain to a stature for the virgin Mary. The statue wasn’t anything amazing; statues are statues the world over. What impressed me the most is that the city of Santiago is built up all around the mountain. It stretched out in all directions almost as far as you could see and was quite breathtaking.

The city of Santiago really surprised me. It is a modern city. It is cleaner than Toronto from what I can tell. The buildings are have a heavy European influence and the city feels very European (certainly more Paris than New York). Of course we see the nice areas with the fancy buildings, but I feel very safe here, and the people all seem very very nice.

The wine has been incredible here. With dinner tonight, we had about a bottle a person, and it was great fun. After the stress of last week, a long flight, and one day in South America, it was a great day experiencing new things and escaping the everyday. There are only a few countries that I would like to return to and visit again, but Chile would definitely be one of them.

It’s only 10:00 now, but I’m going to bed. We have to repack and be ready to have our free breakfast and then catch our van to the ocean for 8:30 tomorrow morning.

Sunday, February 5, 2006 (9:00am)

Right now I am sitting in a van driving from Santiago to Valpariso. It’s about an hour and a half by car. Valpariso is on the coast and we are taking a bit of a tour and then having lunch at a restaurant.

My Dad woke up at 5am and he immediately booted up the computer. He clicked on the light and periodically cursed under his breath at the computer and I would have to get up and rescue him. I wasn’t able to get back to sleep.

At 6:30 I was hungry and thought that I would head down for breakfast before things got really busy. There was a ton of pastries and fresh fruit and was a nice treat since fruit in Toronto these days tastes more like Styrofoam than food.

I headed back upstairs for a shower and to pack up everything that I had strewn throughout the room. I watched a terrible documentary on Brad Pitt and some golf highlights.

My Dad had a panic attack when he realized that we didn’t have our tickets to get onto the boat. In this day and age a real life physical ticket is all but extinct and I told him that all we’ll have to do is show them our passports and they’ll type a little on the computer and we’ll be organized.

Monday, February 6, 2006

Before arriving in Valpairso we stopped at a town called Vino A la Mare. It had a nice beach and we did a quick driving tour of the town. Then we headed into Valpariso.

We took a short funicular ride and then went to a rotating restaurant for lunch. We insisted, however, that we stop at a supermarket to get some wine. Our guide couldn’t believe it, but we knew that they would charge about $30US per bottle on the ship. So we stopped at a grocery store, and we bought all kinds of wine. It was quite amazing. Even though it was a grocery store and not very fancy, we managed to score some great wines. The vin ordinaire that was packaged in a tetra pack cost a grand total of $2.25 CDN and was entirely drinkable; great even. In total we bought 10 bottles of Chilean wine, 18 bottles of beer, and a bag of chips for $65CDN. I expect that the “worst” bottle of wine would be comparable to about a $20 wine from the LCBO. Sadly, we are only allowed to bring back to Canada a paltry 2 bottles per person.

After dinner, we were dropped off at the harbour and, exactly as I predicted, after a few clicks of a mouse our reservations came up and we were registered. We took a short bus ride to the ship and we boarded.

Greeted with a flute of champagne we were escorted to our stateroom. It’s not huge but it is comfortable. We have a balcony with a table and a couple of chairs so that we can sit out and watch the waves as we float along. It really is quite lovely, and reminds me a lot of Saskatchewan as you can see the horizon bends in all directions.

I had a really bad headache so I took a nap while my Dad reconnoitered the ship. I’ve had a headache since my mother’s death and am on a constant ibuprofen regimen. I daresay that it might be a migrane, but that strictly a self diagnosis. I’m using alcohol to dull some of the pain.

I slept for 2 and a half hours and got up at 6:00. I wandered around the ship for a while and searched for anyone that might be in their twenties, but to no avail. Most people on this cruise could be my grandparents, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but is a little uncomfortable. As a result, most ship events are not really my style. For example, there is almost constant Bingo, shuffleboard is huge, and the after dinner show was a tango performance. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I managed to watch a little of the Superbowl. I headed to the Cosmos bar where they had a big screen set up. I was hoping that there would be some younger people there, but it was mainly just a conglomeration of grey haired Americans. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I internetted a little before bed and printed up a bunch of documents for my course. I sent a few emails and then crashed at 12:15.

This morning, I woke up at ten after nine. I showered and got dressed and then grabbed a quick breakfast. I had a mushroom and bacon omelet, two sausages, a fruit salad, croissant, and a cup of yogurt. It was tasty but really rushed because we had our ship safety drill at 10:00.

We all had to be in our rooms where we were to put on our lifejackets and then walk to the muster station and then to our lifeboat stations. It went off without a hitch but I expect in a non-drill situation, there would be significant trampling.

When that ended, my Dad and I went to the tuxedo shop and I bought a tuxedo shirt. Tonight is a formal night and since I managed to dig up a tuxedo (minus the shirt) from my Dad’s closet, I’m dressing up in a monkey suit tonight. It should be fun since I’ve never worn one before.

My Dad headed off for a haircut, and I wandered around looking for a 110 volt North American plus at a quiet place on the ship, but I couldn’t find one. I asked Guest Sevices if they could help me out and they’ve opened up one of the conference rooms for me. I’m sitting in a room with two circular windows that look out upon the rolling waves and a clear blue sky. The ship is rocking slightly from left to right, but nothing that would cause any discomfort.

Right now blogging is my means of procrastinating. I have to get started on my course work now. I finished unit one on the 26th, but haven’t done anything since. Unit 2 is due on the 9th which gives me three days to finish. I’m not at all worried, but I just have to put in the time. I’d much rather be up in a lounge chair beside the swimming pool, but I can take comfort in knowing that my no charge all I can eat lunch is about 37 minutes away.

7:30 pm

I spent the morning and afternoon working on my course. I got a huge amount finished, so I’m sitting pretty. I sucked that I had to work, but it wasn’t that bad. The only problem that was when I was in the computer lab, everyone thought that I worked there. They would come up to me and ask me all kinds of questions. “I don’t work here. I don’t work here” was all that I could say. I suppose that it’s understandable since I am one of the few under 55.

I decided to have lunch at the sit down restaurant. You end up getting seated with strangers so I sat with a merchant captain and his teacher wife from Miami, FL, a Spanish writer and his painter wife, and a tax accountant and his teacher wife from Cleveland, OH. They were all very nice, but I had to make mindless chitchat for an hour. All I wanted was the pad thai, but it really wasn’t any kind of hardship. It was a nice break from my work.

After lunch I headed back and did more work. All these people came in to see if the room I was working in was where the AA meeting was happening. I said no, but I felt badly for them. It must be hard to be on a cruise and not be able to drink. I hope that no one fell off the wagon because I was hogging the room.

I returned to the room and relaxed a bit by writing some postcards. When I headed down to the postbox, I ran into Guy Lafleur. That was pretty cool. I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled for him later on. When I went to the bank to mail my letters I got chatting with the cashier and he said he was from Vancouver. I asked him frankly how a 29 year old has fun on a cruise with so many seniors and he said that most of the staff will be in the nightclub in the evenings. The only problem, he said, was that in the early stages of a cruise they all have such a huge amount of work and don’t do much partying until things calm down a bit. He said that he worked for 22 hours yesterday. Most of the staff is my age or a little younger so rather than trying to meet the one set of newlyweds on the cruise, I will try to have a few drinks with some of the staff. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Tonight is the formal dinner with the captain, so I’m planning to head down to the casino later on whilst wearing my fancy duds. Maybe a little roulette or some three card poker.

My Dad’s in the shower now and I’m at the desk in the stateroom. I’m having a Cristal and trying to get a buzz on before dinner. For a day of school work, I couldn’t imagine anything better.

Tuesday, February 7, 2006

Last night’s dinner was a lot of fun but everyone had a great laugh at my expense when on the way down to the restaurant a gentleman asked me, “le theatro?” I shook my head and said, “I don’t work here.”

The meal was fantastic, as I am coming to expect. After dinner, we went to the theatre to have a free drink and to meet the captain and his crew. It was fine, but the problem was that following the introductions was the Celebrity Cruises’ Tribute to Broadway. I headed out after my wine was finished and hit the casino. I watched people play three card poker for a while, sent some email, and then went to bed.

The wake up call came at 7:20. I got up and took a shower and then went for breakfast. I had a made to order strawberry pancake with whipped cream, two sausages, bacon, and watermelon slices.

After breakfast I rushed back up to the room in order to get packed. Sometime during the night we arrived in the city of Puerto Montt, Chile, and our excursion for the day was a white water rafting trip. I packed up a bathing suit, sunscreen, towels, and a change of clothes. We headed down to the “Rendez Vous Lounge” to meet the rest of our group.

We sat around for about a half an hour before we disembarked and boarded a bus to the Kokayak Rafting Tours.

When we arrived we immediately began a lesson on rafting safety and were told what to do in case we fell out of the boat. I think that everyone, including me, was very nervous about it, but we continued on. We got our wet suits and helmets, changed, and took a short van ride to the river.

I was seated at the front of the boat because I am “a strong man”. We did a brief practice run in calmer waters and headed down the river.

We were all, I think, quite unsure about what we were getting ourselves into but after the first set of rapids (our first soaking) we were all laughing and having a great time. We listened to our guide who told us what to do, and we swished down the 14 kilometre trek down the river beneath the Andes mountain range and the Oronos Volcano. It was quite spectacular and an incredible experience.

When we arrived back at the base camp (for lack of a better term), we changed as quickly as we possibly could since the wet wetsuits were beginning to chafe and were heliuncomfortable. There was food set out for us, and I ate like crazy. We were all very very hungry. They served us what are called pisco sours, which is the national drink of Chile. It’s a very strong lemon based 20% alcoholic drink.

I had no idea that dentists partied so hard. Each one in the group downed 7 glasses. To be honest, I could hardly finish my three glasses, but these dentists were the life of the party. Making jokes (actually funny ones) and laughing like crazy we were certainly the trouble makers. I couldn’t believe it. I bunch of mild mannered Canadian dentists getting smashed after a day of white water rafting. What’s going on here?

We stumbled back to the bus and immediately passed out. We boarded a tender and headed back to the ship. I busted open a beverage and took a shower. My Dad hit the bed and hasn’t moved since.

I’m sitting now on our balcony. I’m listening to my iPod and writing this entry. We are about a half a kilometer from shore. Puetro Montt is a port city with heavy German influences nestled into the hills. Houses are piled around the bay. There are a few high rises, but not many. It is 5:55 local time and the sun is beating down upon me from the West. The sun will set at 9:15 and we will head to dinner at 8:30.

I can’t believe that this is only day three. I could catch a flight right now and be supremely happy with my vacation. To think that there is 11 more days of this is a pleasure that leaves me not only feeling guilty but I can’t express how privileged and lucky I am to be here. It really is a beautiful world and I’m embarrassed at just how little of it I have seen. I just can’t describe the beauty that surrounds me right now.

Wednesday, February 8, 2006
12:36pm

After blogging last night I was very proud of myself for getting to work on my course. I worked like crazy for a couple of hours and got a shockingly large amount finished. I couldn’t get out of the computer lab because so many people asked me questions. They thought that I worked there, but I tried to help them anyway. I helped a few people send emails and simple stuff like that. Everyone was really nice and appreciated that I was doing this to help.

I returned to the room and had to wake my Dad up. He was still feeling it from the afternoon as we headed down to dinner. He ordered a G&T for some hair of the dog action, and he seemed to perk up. We had a nice dinner with his friends who were remarkable quiet and reserved. There were a lot of jokes about the mass consumption of alcohol, and I got a real kick out of it.

When I found out that the show last night was a pianist rocking out to oldies, I decided to head to bed. I watched “National Treasure” and its preview predictable plotline and conclusion.

I woke up at 8:20 and took a shower. I headed to breakfast and ate scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes and fresh fruit. It sounds like a lot but the quantity was small. I headed back to the room and got my laptop.

I wasn’t allowed to work in the conference room until 3:00 so I grabbed my iPod and headed to the computer lab. Luckily a staff member was working and I could focus on my own work. That guy was being run off his feet helping people do the simplest things. It really is amazing how little people know about computers. I judge myself to be rather hopeless, but I’m sure he’s seen much worse.

I worked for three hours and got a lot accomplished. I’m finished almost everything. I have to figure out how to transfer the work on my laptop to the internet. It’s going to be a little tricky. The laptop doesn’t have a CD burner so that’s out. It does have a dial up internet connection which might work. I could buy a wireless modem and then connect to the internet directly, but the adapter is $45US and the fee for wireless is $10 a day. I could also buy a USB jumpdrive to transfer the files. I might try to explore the possibility of transferring the files via my iPod, but since I’ve never done that before it’s a real long shot.

I’m heading off to lunch and maybe I’ll see about some exercise or some other activity. It’s a day at sea today and since I’ve been working in all my spare time, it would be nice to do something fun.

7:00pm

After finishing my work and blogging at noon, I wandered around the ship to try to find something to do. I thought that I might play some basketball, but with 45 minutes before it began I returned to the room. I fell asleep until 3:20 and missed it.

I thought that I should get off my butt and do some work to try to get the work on my Dad’s laptop onto the Internet. The tech guys were teaching an Adode Elements class until 5:00 so I decided to go the sports centre to learn how to play paddle tennis at 4:00.

When I arrived people were already playing. I decided to do some running, so I hit the track that is on the upper deck of the ship. I ran two kilometres as the ship sped through the Chilean Fjords. With the Andes on one side and a series of rocky tree covered islands was quite extraordinary. It is intensely beautiful here and it seems that no matter what I’m doing, I seem to be enjoying myself.

I didn’t want to push myself too hard on the first day so I decided to watch some people play paddle tennis. It’s really much like tennis, but is played with a paddle instead of a racket. I suppose that this accomplishes two things: one, it eliminates broken strings; and two, it reduces the velocity of the ball making the game a little slower and much simpler to play. I’ll play one of these days, but for today I was content to watch.

I returned to the room to take a quick shower before meeting with the tech guys at 5:00. I watched some of the Fat Albert movie, and then headed to the lab. As I was changing the maid brought some hors d’ouevres.

When in the lab I presented my problem. How can I transfer my files to the computers in the lab. Here are the options:

1. Floppy disk: No drive on my computer or on the lab computers.
2. CD: No CD burner on my laptop for some insane reason.
3. Wireless Adapter: No wireless on my laptop.
4. Jumpdrive: A good option. In fact I managed to borrow a woman’s jumpdrive and when I plugged it into my USB port the computer wasn’t able to install it. The OS on the laptop is Windows 98 and it doesn’t come with the drivers built in. Since I didn’t have the drivers of CD I couldn’t install.
5. Purchase Jumpstick: As with number 4, but with the added problem of shelling out $117US.
6. Use iPod to transfer files: Again similar problem to 4. I don’t have the iPod drivers.
7. Purchase wireless adaptor: I could have purchased a wireless adaptor but it cost $45US and seemed like a waste.
8. Steal a high speed connection: I found a plug in the conference room but I couldn’t figure out how to connect it. There was probably a way but I wasn’t sure how, and I was afraid of getting caught.
9. Connect via dialup. This was the option that ended up working. I purchased a dial-up kit and hooked it up to the telephone in my stateroom. After some initial problems, one of the tech guys jiggled the cords just right and it worked. This cost $10 for a one day rental of the equipment.

I transferred the files to my Webct course and it appears as though I have finished the unit. I’m waiting to see what will happen when the instructor reads it. I’m worried that I’ve missed something. It is a very odd taking a course from a cruise ship in another hemisphere. I am constantly afraid of being online since the Internet costs 75 cents per minute. Can you imagine having to take an online course in a place that charges $45US an hour for the Internet! It’s insane, but I have to do it if I don’t want to fail the course, lose my $865, and then have to retake it this summer and repay another $865. Despite the cost the alternatives are much more costly.

While connected, I managed to also transfer my blog. I’m hoping to post it sometime soon, but I’m not sure when.

With that taken care of, I typed an email and then began this entry. We are having dinner at the Olympic restaurant which is made out of materials that we on the Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic. It’s supposed to be fancy and my Dad says that it is really nice. That starts at 8:30. I’m heading back to my room now to have a beer(s) and watch the scenery go by.

Thursday, February 9, 2006

We arrived at dinner at 8:30. The restaurant was really fancy and we decided to have the exclusive menu with butterfly service. Each of the 6 courses had a specially selected glass of wine to complement the food.

The meal began with a salmon pate with caviar. The soup was a roasted pepper and mozzarella bisque. One of the highlights of the meal was a goats cheese soufflé. After that we cleansed our palates with a mango and pomegranate sorbet. My entrée of rack of lamb en croute melted in my mouth. (My Dad said that his beef was the best steak he had ever had and after 61 years of eating steak that’s saying something). After the main course we had a selection of cheeses with a glass of port. For desert, I had the Grand Marnier soufflé.

We stumbled back to our rooms at 12:35 and crashed until 8:00.

Today is another day at sea. We are at the Skua glacier right now. I had a quick shower and breakfast and headed up to the 14th deck to see the glacier. The crowds were insane up there. People were all lined up trying to get a picture. It was a little claustrophobic and there must have been about 6000 photographs taken up there. After getting rained on a little, I headed to the computer room to escape the craziness and to type this. I can see the glacier over the top of my computer screen.

There isn’t much to it, but it is quite beautiful. There is a large mountain in the back ground and two smaller mountains in the foreground that come all the way down to the water on the left and right side. In the middle is a large swell of ice that comes all the way down to the surface of the water. The ice is jagged and has a bluish hue with some dirt near the mountains. The water is specked with large chunks of ice that seem to sit much like ice cubes in a glass.

1:30pm

I wandered around the ship for a while this morning. I sent a Valentine’s Day card but sadly I don’t think that it’s going to arrive for another 2 weeks. I tried, though. I was all set to join a Bridge class, but I found out that it was for intermediate players and since I have never played Bridge in my life I didn’t want to join an intermediate class with a bunch of fanatics.

So I instead headed back to the room to watch a movie. It is a cold, overcast, and rainy day out. We are almost at the southern tip of South America and even though it is summer here, it’s comparable to the Canadian Arctic in the summertime. It’s pleasant, but you still need to wear a sweater and with it pissing rain, most people are staying indoors.

I feel asleep watching TV and woke up at about a quarter to 1. I headed up for lunch. I was really disappointed with the food today. It was very salty and all the seats were taken so rather than sitting with anyone, I decided to eat standing up at a bar. I ended up having a salad and some fruit.

So now I’m here typing again. I checked in on my course and it looks like I’ve successfully completed Unit 2. The next one is due on the 23rd. I will try to poke around and do some during the cruise, but I’m not going to panic as I have this week. This last unit was very hard, because with my mother’s death I wasn’t able to work and I fell far behind and had to do it all in a couple of days. A good lesson to avoid procrastination.

I’m not sure what the afternoon will hold. I’m planning to take an “Abs Blast” lesson/workout at 6:00 but until then, who knows?

TNP

So my Dad and I were driving to Ottawa to pick up my passport, and we were in the car at 11:30 this morning. I switched on the radio and we listened to The National Playlist.

Each week, 10 songs make up the playlist. People can vote for the songs that they like and the top 6 songs stay on the list and the bottom four in the voting are replaced. Music pundits talk about thier songs and each guest pitches two songs to be added. At the end of the week the panellists choose which four songs will enter the playlist in the bottom four positions.

Each week the host, Jian Ghomeshi, submits a listener’s pitch. This week he chose my pitch for Sloan’s "Underwhelmed." I wrote up a short little blurb about the song arguing why it should be added. As my Dad and I were listening, we heard my pitch read on the air. The songs was then played, and then the pundits weighed in on the song and whether they believe it should make it.

It was a pretty unanimous choice that the song was indeed a good pick, but that it wasn’t necessarily list worthy. They of course would much prefer to see their own songs make the list. They were very nice about it, but we will have to wait and see what happens.

Tomorrow the panellists will pick the four songs that will be added, and we will have to wait and see if my choice will be added to the list.