Day, 50-51 At Sea February 23-24, 2018

Ok, dear reader we are once again are at sea, the seas are pretty much calm and the wind is not presenting a problem. And it is getting warmer, I think we can pack our jackets, in the suitcase under the bed. And get out the Off, as Asia will bring out the bugs. Other than that, back to the same routine of sea days. 

But there are a few changes, we had a presentation on what to see and do from Bali to Singapore, it can all make your head spin. There are so many things to do it is hard to know what to do, and what will just wear you out. 51 days of good times can really be expensive and exhausting. Even sea days can be exhausting. When you do this for even say 45 days, it’s a vacation this is becoming a life style,,,,,,,,, 

Today besides the talks, there was crafts class, and I haven’t really told you about some of the things we have made. Today we made cloisonné earrings, and also chain Malle bracelet, you could have made a mans or woman’s. 

And then there was a visiting chefs presentation,  Isabella Jakubiak in the Test Kitchen. What a great personality, I can see why she has an award winning cooking show on tv in Australia. Her first day, she just warmed us all up, with smashed avocado, feta and tomato bruschetta. Then the second day it was Kangaroo and macadamia sausage rolls, and bush tomato relish! Did you know that bush tomatoes, look like little red berrys, almost like a cranberry, but, where would I get those never mind the Kangaroo meat, she did say we could substitute venison, and sun dried tomatoes. LOL. Then there was the Wattlessed Pavlova, we really are in another country when in Australia.

 

Isabella and her Pavlov with wattlessed, they smelled like coffee. And the infamous kangaroo sausage rolls. 

Ok the next  day was focused around the fact that we are going to be in Bali, so many of the crew is from Bali, they are getting so excited about coming to their home port, we are loosening our main waiter Aris, he has been on board for nine months and to say he is excited is putting it mildly. Also our room stewards are both from Bali so most of our section have put up little signs on the door to say they can skip cleaning our rooms for the two days we are in port. I think it is a nice thing to do, and God knows we can make our own bed for a couple days. 

The show on the first night was a good one, Matilda and Patrick Murray, she is a puppet he is a very good ventriloquist, We laughed and laughed. 

We also had Gala night on the second night it was a Pan-Asian Dinner, combining culinary delights from Indonesia and the Philippines, well they flunked in mine and Ed’s opinion, the worst dinner of the cruise. And it wasn’t just the different food, it wasn’t prepared well. We both ordered the Indonesian curry lamb chops,  and the sauce was wonderful, but the lamb was tough and overdone, oh well you win some and lose some. It was fun anyway. 

The man on the left is Aris, nice man and so happy his contract is up for now, and he will be able to spend time at home. 

Quotes

 “Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones.” 

- Anne Sophie Swetchine

“ We travel not to escape life, but for LIFE to escape us.”   -Anonymous 

(Backup) Day 48 & 49 February 21 & 22, 2018 Fremantle, Australia

Good-by, Australia 🇦🇺 it was a wonderful visit. The people in the country are very kind. And we enjoyed our time in this vast country. We have been traveling around Australia for 10 days, and as of this morning, the 23rd as I write this we are still going around, heading north, to Bali, which will take us three sea days. 

Screen shot on tv, 

So now on to what we did in Fremantle for the last day and a half. We arrived about 4 o’clock on the 21st, and our tour to the aboriginal dance and dinner was to leave at 4:30. And indeed it did, there were two busses. Not knowing what to expect, we were full of aspiration. They drove us around Fremantle first and I was happy to see we could do some shopping there the next day, would you believe they had a Target store?  Not quite the same as the ours, but still proved the next day to be good. Any way back to this day. It took us about an hour and a half, to get to the place where they had the dinner, and this was a huge surprise!  It was like driving into a resort in old Palm Springs, beautiful green grass and large palm trees, and eucalyptus trees, that they called “gum” trees.  Seems they have over 400 species of eucalyptus, who knew?  

 

Our dinner venue. 

The dinner was very interesting, we ate Kangaroo, Emu,  and for desert there was an Australian peach, that looked like a cheery, but didn’t taste like either. Any way the food was good, in my opinion, there were other things too, but they didn’t give us a menu, so who knows what we ate. LOL

Then a family of aborigines, came and did some dances for us, that we didn’t understand but enjoyed watching. 

We didn’t get back to the ship until midnight, but we had a great trip through Perth, so now we didn’t need to take the train the next day to see the city, looked to be a very modern city. 

So the next day we took the free shuttle into Fremantle to check out the Target store and see what else we could find. I did find my eyebrow pencil, it was Maybelean and only $9.00 and I had AZ money to use up any way. Then we found the best thing, a pub for fish & chips and two Australian beers. 

It was back to the ship and say goodbye to Australia. 

Tomorrow is a sea day and a busy one at that. 

Quote “The IMPULSE to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of LIFE.”  - Cherkasy

Quote  “Oh the places you’ll find if you don’t stay behind.” - Unknown 

PS I sent this out but it didn’t go and I thought I lost it, but low and behold I found it! 

Day 45,46 At Sea and Day 47, Tuesday February 20, 2018 Albany Western Australia

Well here I am again and behind, but I will catch you up if I can in the time I have this morning. It is 7:03 am here right now on Wednesday, but, at your house it is still Tuesday and it is 6:03 pm. So I’m not as far behind, he-he. 

So the tw sea days were pretty uneventful except, I met Fiona, in watercolor class, and come to find out, we were going to see her and her partner Penny in the show that night. They do a singing duet mixing opera, and contemporary music, called Divalicious. Where they dueling Divas, they compete for both the top notes and the spotlight. It was very entertaining as they competed for high C on the high seas. 

The next day we bought them a drink and had a good chat, at happy hour. 

Ok, yesterday, we docked in a small town, called Albany, Western Australia, Australia 🇦🇺. And we did some walking around. I found some art supplies I needed and a few personal items one of them being a eyebrow pencil, but I refused to pay $22 NZ for one. Where the ones I brought with us are I don’t know, I guess they are in the suitcase under the bed we can’t get to. We did get some things we needed, like Fritos, would you believe you get a craving for junk food when you have all this good food. LOL

So here are some pictures of the pictures from the town, it was like we were back in the 60s. 

 

Quote 45, “Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world”. Gustauve Flaubert

Quote 46, “Live, Travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.”  Jack Kerouac