October 23rd, 2006, 11:27
CROWN PRINCESS CRUISE DESTINATIONS
1. Grand Turk is a seven mile long island out in the
Atlantic Ocean. It is only one half mile wide, and is
flat. Its main industry in the past was the sale of
salt from the many large salt ponds on the island.
There is one town on Grand Turk, called Cockburn.
Grand Turk is a part of the British Crown Colony of
the Turks and Caicos Islands. Geographically these
islands form the eastern and southern edge of the
Bahamas, in the Atlantic Ocean to the east of Florida.
The cruise ship terminal is on the southern end of the
island, so we took a van the three miles into town,
where we walked along the sea road. The people on
Grand Turk are very gentle folk. We talked to one old
guy who is one hundred years old. They seem to use
bicycles a lot, but there were a couple of buses too,
and cars of course. Lots of chickens running around.
2. San Juan is on the north side of the rectangular,
mountainous island of Puerto Rico, on the Atlantic
Ocean. On the south side of the island of Puerto Rico
is the Caribbean Sea, or Caribe in Spanish. San Juan
is a large city of a million and a half, I think. Do
you know that the three large islands of Puerto Rico,
Hispaniola, and Cuba form the northern border of the
Caribbean? And that there are two countries on
Hispaniola, Haiti and the Dominican Republic?
The ship docked in the Old Town of the city, which is
on a peninsula which has an old fort at the end. The
Old Town has the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista (St.
John the Baptist), and gorgeous old restored
buildings, and fancy shops in one area that rival
Beverly Hills. We found the Old Town Starbucks, where
they had free internet of laptops. A high school girl
wearing a uniform came up to me and said something. I
thought that maybe she worked in the store, but no,
she repeated very slowly to me, "Que hora e?" (What
time is it?). I figured here was my chance to
practice my Spanish on her, so I said "tres menos
cuarto." (A quarter to three). She corrected me
immediately, "tre meno cuarto." They drop final s in
Puerto Rico, so the s at the end of the word must
sound bad to them. So I got a quick lesson in
Spanish.
CROWN PRINCESS STORIES
NOTE: THE SHIP IS BEGINNING TO SHUDDER OCCASIONALLY,
THE SKY IS DARKENING, THE WAVES ARE GETTING LARGER,
AND WE ARE NEAR BERMUDA, WHERE WE COULD NOT LAND, DUE
TO WINDS. IS THIS THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE?
The price of doing email from the ships are coming
down, so I will try to email you now from the ship,
since it could be the last you will hear from me!
It is now Monday, October 16th, aboard the Crown
Princess. This ship is so huge, that it even has a
bag lady passenger. I can't imagine how she got it
together enough to purchase a ticket and get onboard,
but she is here, wandering around the ship!
There are ninety honeymoon couples aboard. One couple
even got married in the chapel aboard ship.
1. There are many nationalities on the Crown Princess.
The captain and officers are English. The largest
groups among the crew in the dining rooms are, from
Asia, the Philippines, Thailand, and India. From
Europe the largest numbers come from Portugal,
Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, plus Poland. And then
there are some from Mexico.
The singers and dancers that do the shows are from
Australia, except for one star dancer who is from
Iowa, and is the only non-white dancer. This is
unusual, since on other ships, the dancers are mostly
Americans.
As for the passengers, the largest numbers are from
New Jersey. I am learning the names of many New
Jersey counties. Next come Cantonese from New York
City. After this comes Russians from New York City.
These passengers are on the ship in numbers above 300
each probably.
This cruise has 150 Persian ladies, a few with their
husbands. They come from both New York and Los
Angeles and all seem to know each other. The majority
of the Russian, Persians, and Cantonese are speaking
their respective languages. I met two couple from
Guyana in South America. They are of East Indian
background, and speak an English Creole among
themselves. One couple lives in Brooklyn, the other
in Orlando, Florida.
Also on the cruise are many Europeans. I have met
quite a few English, and also Scots and Dutch. There
must be people from the rest of the USA onboard, but
to identify them is not easy, among the three thousand
passengers!
2. The Princess Love Boat Dream is "a heart shaped
mousse on a ganache base." This dessert is so good
that the new husband of a honeymooning couple that I
ate dinner with the other night, has two every day at
dinner. They are from Syracuse, and have never been
west of Ohio. I liked them.
3. Two mischievous little girls were on the elevator
one evening. A couple got on, and the lady exclaimed
with great annoyance the all of the buttons were
pushed! This is a lot of buttons, since the Crown
Princess has 16 decks. The little girls said somebody
else did it, and the lady said that it would be
quicker for them to walk down the stairs, and got off.
4. I liked the order that one lady gave the waiter at
dinner, "I'll take the Fettuccine Alfredo and Open
Heart Surgery!" Her husband has a Rolex watch; they
are from New Jersey. They are very hard on the
waiters!
5. One of the waiters who I have talked to a bit is
Hungarian, and has worked on ships for twenty five
years. Cunard and Seaborn, the most elegant. But
after communism fell in Hungary, he opened a business
there, but it failed, so he is now working on the
Crown Princess, owned by the same company as Cunard
and Seaborn.
5. The flying fish are most fascinating. These
little silver fish actually fly for about 10 seconds,
skimming about a foot above the water for quite a
distance before plunging back into the sea. I guess
their fins serve as wings. They certainly seem to be
rapidly flapping. They must jump out of the water as
the ship approaches in order to avoid being hit, which
is a very successful maneuver, which they also use to
escape predators, who must be quite astonished to see
their prey disappear upwards.
There is also a type of golden algae which is seaweed
that floats in clumps arranged in long rows on the
sea. These rows may extend for miles, as far as I can
tell. The rows are lined up every fifty feet or so
for mile after mile in some places. And we are way
out in the Atlantic Ocean, not anywhere close to
shore.
6. The Princess ships have actually silver plate
dinnerware, and the china is English with a poppy
pattern. It is labeled Dudson, Stoke-on-Trent,
England 1800-2006. 2006 is the year that the Crown
Princess was built.
7. This is the first cruise where I have had several
of my favorite soups. Matzoh ball soup, beet borscht,
and won ton soup. They also seems to be specializing
in several types of one of my favorite desserts,
meringues.
8. They had a German buffet one evening, and here are
some of the things that they had:
weisswurst, frankfurter, debreziner, bratwurst,
kielbasa, stuffed pig, kassler in brottieg,
kalbsgeschnetzeltes, apfelstrudel
The stuffed pig is really that, with the skin and head
of the pig stuffed with the cooked pork, just like
they did in Russia with stuffed fish, gefilte fish.
The kassler in brottieg is a pork roast wrapped in
bread and then cooked. Kalbsgeschnetzeltes is sliced
veal, I think.
9. There are many magic acts and comedians on the
Crown Princess, but my favorite comedian has been a
young guy named Scott Wyler who does 250 oneliner
jokes in less than an hour, in the tradition of Henny
Youngman, Jackie Mason or Woody Allen. I got his CD,
so if you want to here him, let me know.
10. I liked the talk given by the Chinese herbologist
on the ship. He told us about acupuncture,
reflexology, herbs, and such. He is from Singapore,
and is setting up Chinese medicine centers on four of
the Princess ships. You can spend a couple of hundred
dollars if you want to consult with him. And did you
know that in ancient China they used the bones of
freshwater fish for acupuncture needles? Fish from
salt water have bones that are too soft to use, but
freshwater fish have very hard bones. Also that under
Mao, traditional medicine was suppressed until the
end, when Mao needed surgery. He refused to be put
under anesthetic, since he did not trust anyone. So
they used acupuncture instead, and then he allowed it
to be used again in China.
What I liked best about his talk was that I learned
that "Fat is Good, and Exercise is Bad." In China,
anyway. If you are fat in a good way, your hands and
cheeks are fat, like a fat child's. If in a bad way,
you are just fat in your midsection, and need "body
balancing." This starts with your feet, which are the
"roots of the body" like with a plant. That is why
the flow of energy is different in two legged humans
than in four legged animals.
Here is the story that tells you why exercise is bad.
"An old man and a young man set out on a race to reach
the Great Wall. The young man ran, and never made it
since he got too tired. The old man went slowly and
got there with no problem." He had more energy, while
the young man wasted the energy that he had. Like on
a treadmill, or jogging?
11. I have got a little bit acquainted with maybe
fifty to one hundred people out of the 3000 passengers
and 1200 crew on the ship. What percent is that? I
recognize another fifty, who I keep noticing and would
like to meet. But my favorites are:
An elderly couple from Nutley, New Jersey, Essex
County. They travel a lot and have been on 35
cruises. They are always in a good mood, friendly,
and eager to talk. They meet a lot of people, even
someone else from Seattle on this ship, they told me.
Steve, of Essex County, graduated from college in
mortuary science. But he is now a lapidary, and wears
a silver ring made from a tooth crown, which he made
for a dental convention. During his career, he worked
in water purification systems, big equipment that is
used to chlorinate water. He says he thinks that
these systems are too expensive for third world
countries to buy in any quantity. And Steve's wife is
active in the Kingsland Manor Historic Renovation
Society. They have spent 30 years restoring this
house, which was built in 1753.
These New Jersey residents went into New York City
only to go to the opera. For many years they went up
to four times a week during the season.
Robert and Malcolm. Malcolm is 75 years old, and has
lived his whole life on Manhattan in the vicinity of
6th Avenue and 16th Street. His father had a company
that dealt with cruise ships, so he has been on these
ships his whole life, always sailing out of New York.
He claims to have been on 400 cruises since about
1930. He went to school at the Grace Church for 12
grades; the school has only 40 or so students, and had
very high standards, so he went to Columbia University
at age 17, majoring in journalism. He ended up on
Madison Avenue with his own firm in advertising. He
wrote the slogan which he said is still used by Sara
Lee Bakery, "Everybody doesn't like something, but
nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." Then he wrote song
lyrics, while doing stock trading, also setting up his
own firm on Wall Street. He says he had a bad year
last year, and lost $60,000 on the stock market.
Now his health is bad, so he always takes a friend,
usually a lady friend, on the cruises to look after
him. He does not travel any more with his ex-wife,
who lives around the corner from him in Manhattan.
Malcolm is taking a lady in January for a 60 day
cruise around South America, followed by a 40 day
cruise across the Atlantic to Europe and the
Mediterranean.
Robert is accompanying Malcolm on this cruise, though.
Robert lives near Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he
takes care of his brother, who is in ill health. He
is quite jumpy with all of the orders that Malcolm
issues to him. Robert believes that the Illuminati
are plotting to take over the world. One of their
headquarters is Columbia University. Their
organization consists of the leaders of most of
America's leading institutions, and they already
control the government and press. Next on their
agenda will be to combine Mexico, Canada, and the USA,
and abolish the states. After that, we will all be
slaves. There is also something about how the
pharmaceutical companies are suppressing the use of
herbs to cure cancer and other ailments, in a plot to
kill us all. Robert had a heart attack in 1997, and
has a "stent." Plus Robert says that AIDS was a
product of the germ warfare program of the government,
and that it was the drug AZT that killed everybody.
I am looking forward to finding out more from Robert;
it is comforting to know how the world works, isn't
it? By the way, in New York, the headquarters of
Scientology was next door to the hotel, and they had a
fifteen minute film that they urged passersby to see.
I wanted to go in and see it, but Birch was afraid to
go in, and thought that they might lock me in a room,
so I didn't go alone.
And then last night, I finally met some real New
Yorkers! In the theater. Three of the guys were
Manhattan firemen. One lives on Manhattan with his
Chinese girlfriend, who works in a jewelry shop in
Soho, called Versani. Another was with his wife, who
had blonde hair and heavy makeup, and had not heard of
Cole Porter, which is what all of the songs were.
They live in Far Rockaway, but both grew up in
Brooklyn. We later saw them in the casino. These
people were different. They talk different and look
different. Like from another country. Not like you
and me.
1. Grand Turk is a seven mile long island out in the
Atlantic Ocean. It is only one half mile wide, and is
flat. Its main industry in the past was the sale of
salt from the many large salt ponds on the island.
There is one town on Grand Turk, called Cockburn.
Grand Turk is a part of the British Crown Colony of
the Turks and Caicos Islands. Geographically these
islands form the eastern and southern edge of the
Bahamas, in the Atlantic Ocean to the east of Florida.
The cruise ship terminal is on the southern end of the
island, so we took a van the three miles into town,
where we walked along the sea road. The people on
Grand Turk are very gentle folk. We talked to one old
guy who is one hundred years old. They seem to use
bicycles a lot, but there were a couple of buses too,
and cars of course. Lots of chickens running around.
2. San Juan is on the north side of the rectangular,
mountainous island of Puerto Rico, on the Atlantic
Ocean. On the south side of the island of Puerto Rico
is the Caribbean Sea, or Caribe in Spanish. San Juan
is a large city of a million and a half, I think. Do
you know that the three large islands of Puerto Rico,
Hispaniola, and Cuba form the northern border of the
Caribbean? And that there are two countries on
Hispaniola, Haiti and the Dominican Republic?
The ship docked in the Old Town of the city, which is
on a peninsula which has an old fort at the end. The
Old Town has the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista (St.
John the Baptist), and gorgeous old restored
buildings, and fancy shops in one area that rival
Beverly Hills. We found the Old Town Starbucks, where
they had free internet of laptops. A high school girl
wearing a uniform came up to me and said something. I
thought that maybe she worked in the store, but no,
she repeated very slowly to me, "Que hora e?" (What
time is it?). I figured here was my chance to
practice my Spanish on her, so I said "tres menos
cuarto." (A quarter to three). She corrected me
immediately, "tre meno cuarto." They drop final s in
Puerto Rico, so the s at the end of the word must
sound bad to them. So I got a quick lesson in
Spanish.
CROWN PRINCESS STORIES
NOTE: THE SHIP IS BEGINNING TO SHUDDER OCCASIONALLY,
THE SKY IS DARKENING, THE WAVES ARE GETTING LARGER,
AND WE ARE NEAR BERMUDA, WHERE WE COULD NOT LAND, DUE
TO WINDS. IS THIS THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE?
The price of doing email from the ships are coming
down, so I will try to email you now from the ship,
since it could be the last you will hear from me!
It is now Monday, October 16th, aboard the Crown
Princess. This ship is so huge, that it even has a
bag lady passenger. I can't imagine how she got it
together enough to purchase a ticket and get onboard,
but she is here, wandering around the ship!
There are ninety honeymoon couples aboard. One couple
even got married in the chapel aboard ship.
1. There are many nationalities on the Crown Princess.
The captain and officers are English. The largest
groups among the crew in the dining rooms are, from
Asia, the Philippines, Thailand, and India. From
Europe the largest numbers come from Portugal,
Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, plus Poland. And then
there are some from Mexico.
The singers and dancers that do the shows are from
Australia, except for one star dancer who is from
Iowa, and is the only non-white dancer. This is
unusual, since on other ships, the dancers are mostly
Americans.
As for the passengers, the largest numbers are from
New Jersey. I am learning the names of many New
Jersey counties. Next come Cantonese from New York
City. After this comes Russians from New York City.
These passengers are on the ship in numbers above 300
each probably.
This cruise has 150 Persian ladies, a few with their
husbands. They come from both New York and Los
Angeles and all seem to know each other. The majority
of the Russian, Persians, and Cantonese are speaking
their respective languages. I met two couple from
Guyana in South America. They are of East Indian
background, and speak an English Creole among
themselves. One couple lives in Brooklyn, the other
in Orlando, Florida.
Also on the cruise are many Europeans. I have met
quite a few English, and also Scots and Dutch. There
must be people from the rest of the USA onboard, but
to identify them is not easy, among the three thousand
passengers!
2. The Princess Love Boat Dream is "a heart shaped
mousse on a ganache base." This dessert is so good
that the new husband of a honeymooning couple that I
ate dinner with the other night, has two every day at
dinner. They are from Syracuse, and have never been
west of Ohio. I liked them.
3. Two mischievous little girls were on the elevator
one evening. A couple got on, and the lady exclaimed
with great annoyance the all of the buttons were
pushed! This is a lot of buttons, since the Crown
Princess has 16 decks. The little girls said somebody
else did it, and the lady said that it would be
quicker for them to walk down the stairs, and got off.
4. I liked the order that one lady gave the waiter at
dinner, "I'll take the Fettuccine Alfredo and Open
Heart Surgery!" Her husband has a Rolex watch; they
are from New Jersey. They are very hard on the
waiters!
5. One of the waiters who I have talked to a bit is
Hungarian, and has worked on ships for twenty five
years. Cunard and Seaborn, the most elegant. But
after communism fell in Hungary, he opened a business
there, but it failed, so he is now working on the
Crown Princess, owned by the same company as Cunard
and Seaborn.
5. The flying fish are most fascinating. These
little silver fish actually fly for about 10 seconds,
skimming about a foot above the water for quite a
distance before plunging back into the sea. I guess
their fins serve as wings. They certainly seem to be
rapidly flapping. They must jump out of the water as
the ship approaches in order to avoid being hit, which
is a very successful maneuver, which they also use to
escape predators, who must be quite astonished to see
their prey disappear upwards.
There is also a type of golden algae which is seaweed
that floats in clumps arranged in long rows on the
sea. These rows may extend for miles, as far as I can
tell. The rows are lined up every fifty feet or so
for mile after mile in some places. And we are way
out in the Atlantic Ocean, not anywhere close to
shore.
6. The Princess ships have actually silver plate
dinnerware, and the china is English with a poppy
pattern. It is labeled Dudson, Stoke-on-Trent,
England 1800-2006. 2006 is the year that the Crown
Princess was built.
7. This is the first cruise where I have had several
of my favorite soups. Matzoh ball soup, beet borscht,
and won ton soup. They also seems to be specializing
in several types of one of my favorite desserts,
meringues.
8. They had a German buffet one evening, and here are
some of the things that they had:
weisswurst, frankfurter, debreziner, bratwurst,
kielbasa, stuffed pig, kassler in brottieg,
kalbsgeschnetzeltes, apfelstrudel
The stuffed pig is really that, with the skin and head
of the pig stuffed with the cooked pork, just like
they did in Russia with stuffed fish, gefilte fish.
The kassler in brottieg is a pork roast wrapped in
bread and then cooked. Kalbsgeschnetzeltes is sliced
veal, I think.
9. There are many magic acts and comedians on the
Crown Princess, but my favorite comedian has been a
young guy named Scott Wyler who does 250 oneliner
jokes in less than an hour, in the tradition of Henny
Youngman, Jackie Mason or Woody Allen. I got his CD,
so if you want to here him, let me know.
10. I liked the talk given by the Chinese herbologist
on the ship. He told us about acupuncture,
reflexology, herbs, and such. He is from Singapore,
and is setting up Chinese medicine centers on four of
the Princess ships. You can spend a couple of hundred
dollars if you want to consult with him. And did you
know that in ancient China they used the bones of
freshwater fish for acupuncture needles? Fish from
salt water have bones that are too soft to use, but
freshwater fish have very hard bones. Also that under
Mao, traditional medicine was suppressed until the
end, when Mao needed surgery. He refused to be put
under anesthetic, since he did not trust anyone. So
they used acupuncture instead, and then he allowed it
to be used again in China.
What I liked best about his talk was that I learned
that "Fat is Good, and Exercise is Bad." In China,
anyway. If you are fat in a good way, your hands and
cheeks are fat, like a fat child's. If in a bad way,
you are just fat in your midsection, and need "body
balancing." This starts with your feet, which are the
"roots of the body" like with a plant. That is why
the flow of energy is different in two legged humans
than in four legged animals.
Here is the story that tells you why exercise is bad.
"An old man and a young man set out on a race to reach
the Great Wall. The young man ran, and never made it
since he got too tired. The old man went slowly and
got there with no problem." He had more energy, while
the young man wasted the energy that he had. Like on
a treadmill, or jogging?
11. I have got a little bit acquainted with maybe
fifty to one hundred people out of the 3000 passengers
and 1200 crew on the ship. What percent is that? I
recognize another fifty, who I keep noticing and would
like to meet. But my favorites are:
An elderly couple from Nutley, New Jersey, Essex
County. They travel a lot and have been on 35
cruises. They are always in a good mood, friendly,
and eager to talk. They meet a lot of people, even
someone else from Seattle on this ship, they told me.
Steve, of Essex County, graduated from college in
mortuary science. But he is now a lapidary, and wears
a silver ring made from a tooth crown, which he made
for a dental convention. During his career, he worked
in water purification systems, big equipment that is
used to chlorinate water. He says he thinks that
these systems are too expensive for third world
countries to buy in any quantity. And Steve's wife is
active in the Kingsland Manor Historic Renovation
Society. They have spent 30 years restoring this
house, which was built in 1753.
These New Jersey residents went into New York City
only to go to the opera. For many years they went up
to four times a week during the season.
Robert and Malcolm. Malcolm is 75 years old, and has
lived his whole life on Manhattan in the vicinity of
6th Avenue and 16th Street. His father had a company
that dealt with cruise ships, so he has been on these
ships his whole life, always sailing out of New York.
He claims to have been on 400 cruises since about
1930. He went to school at the Grace Church for 12
grades; the school has only 40 or so students, and had
very high standards, so he went to Columbia University
at age 17, majoring in journalism. He ended up on
Madison Avenue with his own firm in advertising. He
wrote the slogan which he said is still used by Sara
Lee Bakery, "Everybody doesn't like something, but
nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." Then he wrote song
lyrics, while doing stock trading, also setting up his
own firm on Wall Street. He says he had a bad year
last year, and lost $60,000 on the stock market.
Now his health is bad, so he always takes a friend,
usually a lady friend, on the cruises to look after
him. He does not travel any more with his ex-wife,
who lives around the corner from him in Manhattan.
Malcolm is taking a lady in January for a 60 day
cruise around South America, followed by a 40 day
cruise across the Atlantic to Europe and the
Mediterranean.
Robert is accompanying Malcolm on this cruise, though.
Robert lives near Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he
takes care of his brother, who is in ill health. He
is quite jumpy with all of the orders that Malcolm
issues to him. Robert believes that the Illuminati
are plotting to take over the world. One of their
headquarters is Columbia University. Their
organization consists of the leaders of most of
America's leading institutions, and they already
control the government and press. Next on their
agenda will be to combine Mexico, Canada, and the USA,
and abolish the states. After that, we will all be
slaves. There is also something about how the
pharmaceutical companies are suppressing the use of
herbs to cure cancer and other ailments, in a plot to
kill us all. Robert had a heart attack in 1997, and
has a "stent." Plus Robert says that AIDS was a
product of the germ warfare program of the government,
and that it was the drug AZT that killed everybody.
I am looking forward to finding out more from Robert;
it is comforting to know how the world works, isn't
it? By the way, in New York, the headquarters of
Scientology was next door to the hotel, and they had a
fifteen minute film that they urged passersby to see.
I wanted to go in and see it, but Birch was afraid to
go in, and thought that they might lock me in a room,
so I didn't go alone.
And then last night, I finally met some real New
Yorkers! In the theater. Three of the guys were
Manhattan firemen. One lives on Manhattan with his
Chinese girlfriend, who works in a jewelry shop in
Soho, called Versani. Another was with his wife, who
had blonde hair and heavy makeup, and had not heard of
Cole Porter, which is what all of the songs were.
They live in Far Rockaway, but both grew up in
Brooklyn. We later saw them in the casino. These
people were different. They talk different and look
different. Like from another country. Not like you
and me.