Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Aboard the QUEEN MARY 2, sailing from Bergen to Trondheim

Apparently this run is very popular with Germans - of the 2620 passengers, more than 1600 are German.  Most of them, when they notice me, look at my skin color and curly hair and assume, incorrectly, that I do not understand German.  The casual racism of some of the older Germans has already irritated me but as I cannot throw them overboard, I have decided to ignore it or answer in German.  More worrying is that because my stateroom has a lifeboat in front of it - obstructed view - there is a ladder attached to the bulkhead and last night two drunken men were debating climbing it, to get to a lifeboat.  One actually started but the rungs were very slippery  They would have reached my balcony before reaching the lifeboat so no more sleeping with the door open.  Damn!!

More positively, Bergen, despite the monsoon, is a lovely city, beautifully placed, with a seemingly completely multilingual population.  I saw an information office, blundered in and discovered that it was information for the city transport facilities.  The agent, however, told me in unaccented English how to find a post office - back on my mission from God.  The clerk in the post office, much older than the bus agent, also spoke English as did the owner of the yarn store and on and on.  The rain didn't bother me a bit - you get wet, you get dry. And, my dinner companions - there are 9 of us - are positively delightful.  We are the "laughingest" table and the last to get up meaning the waiters sometimes have to cough a bit but we get the message.

Last night was the BLACK AND WHITE BALL and tonight is the BIG BAND BALL.  My "son", Irv, is playing.  More on that story tomorrow.  Now, I gotta dance.