Have I Done Any Good ...

May 7, 2013

Art 101 - Wyona
Scene from China

Some days I don’t feel as though I have done anything ... I mean really done anything. I did go for a one hour walk in the halls today – zero is too cold out on the deck when the wind is 35 mph and then boat is going 20 knots an hour as well.

I know this floor, the attendants on each quarter and what time most of the people come out of their rooms.

Art 101 - Wyona
Scene from Osaka Castle

The The Boutique Seminar was a video about how the Le Monde Travel Memory Globe is constructed and afterward some of the globes were on display. The idea of having a small (medium or large – depending on the body size of course) globe hanging from a chain around my neck, with a diamond, sapphire or emerald attached to each continent I have visited has never entered my mind. The sales person said that one person bought 7 extra jewels to put on the continents – one for each continent and then, since they have tickets for the first tourist travel voyage into space, they had another jewel placed in the ocean. I dream on such a small scale.

Art 101 - Wyona
Mt. Fuji

I slipped into a lecture called “The Wonders of Wallacea”. I didn’t make the connection between the lecture and the Wallace Collection that we used to frequent, the museum that was within walking distance of Greg’s flat. He brought that connection to my mind over lunch as six of us chatted over peanut satay – about places people at the table have travelled. I am still a “travel baby”.

The women from Kent, England talked about their lives at home. There is a programme with a name something like University for the Third Time – meant for older people. Retired professionals give the courses – anything from engineering to gardening. Their group has 1,000 members and sometimes they bus into London for the West End Shows – having just seen Top Hat and War Horse. Fun, that everyone at the table had seen War Horse. Even readers of this blog have seen it if they picked up on its transmission to a local theatre via National Theatre in HD. That seems to be a recurring theme among people who cruise this way. Many people have a story to tell that is constructed in the following form. “ I lived in rural village in northern Quebec when I was young.” I didn’t see an escalator or an elevator until I was 14. Another theme is “My parents were immigrants with a small business which went bankrupt. I had to make money for the family so I couldn’t go to high school.” People like this know how to have fun when they are old. Today I was trying to figure out what the world old means, since I am with a new cohort – the one I belong to, instead of being at the university, thinking I belong with people who carry books in knapsacks and are reading all of the time. The ones who think that turning an assignment in on time is having a good time.

Art 101 - Wyona
Free Form

This is a new group. They have their travel itineraries already set for 2015. They are out using the gym at 6 am, taking “Beyond the Podium” classes on board during the mornings and afternoons, Going to Elegant Teas in the mid afternoon, hitting the blues and jazz events in the evenings and dancing until the bands quit (at 1 am).

Art 101 by Arta
I gave it the title "Frustration"

I told Wyona that I don’t like going places where I am not the best at things, so I am quitting art. And I don’t have all of the Zumba moves down yet. I learned a new one with her a couple of days ago: left over right, light over left, slide, right under left, left under right. The move is so complicated there is not room for both of us to practise it in the same room without tripping each other. So I walk the halls in the morning, from forward to aft, where I stop at the back of the ship, catch my breath and do the move so my feet will remember it when I get onto the Zumba floor.

Wyona and I had split up for the morning.

She was at Water Colour Art 101.

I left lunch for Art Appreciation 101 (which is not doing art), and then off to a seminar on how to edit travel video photography. I am going to two shows again tonight – one show, really, two times – Dale Kristen who will be singing songs from old musicals.

Cruising along in happiness.

Arta