#42 At Sea, Westbound Crossing

Pictures:

1. This is the Funchal Fish Market.  The row of black fish on the lower left side are the espada.

2. This is the welcome dancer from the Indonesian Crew Show.

3. The Saman Dance.

4. The Kecak Dance, King Rama and his wife Sita surrounded by villagers.

5. Part of the angkllung orchestra.  You can see the two bamboo tubes on the one the girl in green is holding.  The thinner sticks are the frame to hold the bar that strikes the tubes.

6. Diana on our veranda.  You are looking aft and the white streaks in the water are the turbulence caused by the ship's screws.  It's the bubbles produced by the cavitation effect that also cause the vibration at the rear of the ship.  Sort of a free version of the old coin operated 'Magic Fingers' machines on motel room beds.

May 6 through 12 – At Sea.  This will be the longest consecutive period I've ever been on a ship without stopping in a port, a full week.  Personally, I like the idea.  It provides plenty of time to relax, pack and prepare to meet the real world.  Since my routine is so boring during this period I decided to group them together and just report the unusual events, if any.

First day out we had a deck cookout.  Funchal has a large fish market and the ship bought a large tuna and several espada fish.  I should have mentioned the espada when I was writing about Funchal but forgot to so here goes.

The espada is also known as the black scabbard or swordfish.  They are caught in the deep waters off the coast of the archipelago and it's a favorite dish with the local population and has been since the early 1800s.  Almost every restaurant and café offers a variety of meals based on this tender, white, mild fish.  The filets may be very attractive but the fish is not.  It's a long thin fish something like a barracuda but even thinner and more eel like.  The snout is long and has barracuda like teeth.  Very ominous looking.  It's metallic black in color and has an iridescent look the oil on water.  The inside of the mouth and gills are black as well.  It has very large eyes and no pelvic fins at all.  The skin looks leathery.

It's a bathypelagic fish.  So it lives much to deep in the ocean for plant life to be present so being carnivorous the long, protruding fang like teeth make a lot of sense.  Since there's not much if any light either, it lives between the 600 and 5,600 foot level, the thick skin and the large eyes also seem logical.  They grow to over 43 inches in length but are mature at 3 feet or so.  Before becoming mature they don't go below 500 feet or so.  They were discovered by accident and developed into a resource when fishermen devised ways to fish for them.  First time I saw them in the fish market here I didn't have a clue what they were.

Back to the BBQ.  The chefs cut up the tuna and espada on large tables on the lido deck so everyone could see how they prepare a whole fish.  The tuna was huge, fresh and sushi quality.  Just across the way from the prep area were the large grills they set up for the on deck parties.  It was sort of a shame to see them grill the tuna but it was delicious all the same.  I took some of both fish and ate the espada first.  It's very firm textured like tuna but absolutely white and much more delicate in flavor.  It was excellent.  The tuna was even better and that is about as good as it gets.  Since the tuna had been frozen on the ship before preparation it was safe to eat as sashimi so I talked the prep staff into giving me a small piece.  Since they have wasabi, although not very good, on board for the 'sushi' (I put the word in quotes because, while it's ok, it's really only sushi-like.) they serve at lunch and soy sauce is easy to find on the ship so sashimi was totally doable.  It was excellent also.

The on deck cookouts are one of my favorite shipboard activities.

One afternoon they had the Desert Extravaganza Buffet at teatime.  The deserts were excellent.  Since it was teatime they also had scones and little girlie sandwiches (I mean, what's the 'no crust' deal?), which, sadly, I like.  I rarely go to the teas.  I mean, how many times a day can you eat anyway?  But on special occasions I make an exception.

Another afternoon they had the Lunch Buffet Extravaganza.  This is worth attending because they bring out all the fanciest food and the presentation is over the top.  These two buffets have several things in common.  The kitchen staff goes all out on the set up and the presentation.  They carve watermelons with absolutely fantastic scenes.  These are the guys you want to carve your Halloween pumpkin.  They sculpt butter, ice, chocolate, marzipan and any other solid food they can get their hands on into all sorts of objects.  This year they carved a huge basked out of a giant block of ice and used it as a fruit basket.  Biggest one I've ever seen.  They had a four-foot tall medieval castle made of chocolate.  Loaves of bread formed into animals and objects including a sign with the voyage logo and inscription.  Fruit and vegetable floral displays are located throughout the buffet, all edible of course.  They're so pretty that no one ever takes any part to eat.  I'm sure they wind up in the fruit salad.  One thing I really enjoy is their fruit and cheese kabob display.  The carve a base from a watermelon and then stick long wooden skewers with alternating layers of fruit and cheese into it.  The green base with the multicolored top looks like a flower display.  Pretty and delicious, a fantastic combination.

One afternoon they scheduled kitchen tours.  That in itself is not that exciting but this was a tour of the deck 4 prep and cooking kitchen that's not normally seen.  We've toured the deck 5 galley several times.  That's the serving space and final prep area.  Deck four is home to the butcher shop, the fish market, the bakery, the soup kitchen, the grill, the ovens, the produce area, the fruit zone and everything else needed to prepare meals for the passengers and the crew.  It was not surprising that meat and fish are stored and prepared in separate areas but they are about as far apart as they can get.  The soup pots are on gimbals, of course, and they're huge.  Everyone I know agrees that HAL's soups are great so when the man who works in that area was introduced he got a nice round of applause.  The salad prep area was larger than I expected and the butcher shop much smaller.

We toured successively colder storage areas for fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, pastries and ice cream the last being the coldest.  Next came the warmest and probably the most valuable, the liquor locker.  They have some very expensive wines and liquors on the ship and there were several cases of each in the room and hundreds of cases of the normal stuff.

On the way to the galley we passed the crew hallway.  The regular employees meet in the Boogie Lounge and the officers in the Viking Lounge.  From my time in the Air Force I know that this is not a class thing.  Larger bases had three clubs, Airman's, NCO's and Officer's.  Even the smallest bases had an Enlisted Club and an Officer's Club.  The system has several benefits for both groups.  The main ones are that the officers can relax and be themselves and the enlisted don't have to worry that the officers are watching them.  I can tell you for sure that the enlisted would rather have it that way, maybe more than the officers.  Come to think of it the crew on this ship is just about the size of the smallest base I served on, about 450.

At 6:15AM one morning the ship's fire alarm went off.  It wound up being a false alarm that they never could figure out.  It was interesting to see how different people reacted to the situation.  Those of us with military experience were not much bothered by it.  Some people went into a total panic.  The prudent thing to do is get dressed and wait for announcements.  When I was dressed I looked out into the hallway to see if there was any smoke in my area.  Obviously, there wasn't.  I did see one lady, barefoot, in her bathrobe and life jacket heading down the hall to who knows where.  Before Diana was even fully dressed the announcement came that it was a false alarm.  Diana didn't think she could get back to sleep but I told her to just lie down for a while and if she couldn't sleep we'd go up to the Lido for breakfast.  It was soon clear that the situation had not effected her much either as she was sleeping in five minutes. 

We did go to breakfast at the time I normally do, which is early for Diana on a sea day.  The Lido was much busier than usual at that hour; I guess the alarm disrupted everyone's schedule.  This set some sort of president as Diana and I had breakfast together four sea days in a row, a personal best.  Diana needs a lot more sleep than I do so if we go to bed at the same time, I'm totally slept out about 1.5 hours before she is.

The highlight of the days at sea was the Indonesian Crew Show.  Their show is usually very ethnic in nature with traditional dances and plays.  There's usually a Welcome Dance, Kacek Dance and a Saman Dance.  In between they have singers and to close the show they have an angklung orchestra.  Each of these probably needs a little explanation.

The Welcome Dance is a solo, highly formalized storytelling dance.  Its roots are in a dance to welcome the gods to an event.  It's very much like Hindu temple dances done in India.  The costume is very colorful and the motions are very intricate and organized down to the fingers. 

The Kecak Dance tells the story of the Ramayana (Rama's Journey), an ancient Sanskrit epic.  In the story the Hindu sage Valmiki, a monkey like humanoid, helps King Rama (an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu) fight the demon like King Ravana who has kidnapped Rama's wife Sita. 

Religion Note:  Hinduism is the only major world religion that I know very little about.  It's complicated and I'm not willing to study it enough to really get it.  For instance, the god Vishnu has had 10 avatars or incarnations.  Among them are names you will recognize like Rama, Krishna and Buddha.  There are many gods besides Vishnu, most of whom are locally revered but many are universal.  Shiva is best known as the destroyer but it's not as bad as it sounds.  He destroys in order to restore to proper order (dharma), like the demolition work before remodeling.  Ganesha is another well-known figure.  I'll let you Google him on your own for the story about how he got the head of an elephant.  It's pretty good.

The Saman Dance is performed by dancers kneeling in a line facing the audience.  They use their hands, arms, heads and torsos to perform synchronized movements that are a joy to watch.  Sometimes they wear white gloves and a portion of the dance will be performed with the house lights out and the stage lit with black light.  The white gloves glow and seem to be floating unaided in complex patterns. 

The angklung is an instrument made from bamboo.  It has two tubes tuned an octave apart that are suspended in a frame that allows the player to vibrate it back and forth to strike the tuned bamboo tubes.  Each frame only plays the two notes so an angklung orchestra is like a bell choir; one person plays either one or two angklung when those notes are needed.  It produces a sound that I find very pleasant.  They usually play some American music and a traditional tune or two.

The Indonesian Crew Show is always a lot of fun partly because they seem to have such a good time performing for the passengers.  Like the Filipinos, they always get a great reception and thunderous applause.

The last day at sea Diana and I spent more time on our veranda than we had the entire rest of the trip.  It's nice to have one I guess but we almost never used it and it certainly would not be worth the extra expense to us.

Since we got this through a free upgrade it was fine.  A few notes on the 'new' rooms all the way aft on deck 8.  They are nicely appointed and large.  I've seen where some people were not happy that they didn't have a 'walk-in' closet like the other rooms.  We found that to be an advantage.  The more traditional layout of the closets in this room allowed Diana and I to access items in the closet at the same time.  Not possible in the narrow walk-ins in most of the rooms.

Being way aft on the ship the rooms are subject to more motion than more centrally located rooms.  That doesn't really bother us much as we are not sensitive to the motion and actually find it to be enjoyable as long as it's not too violent.  Also when the bridge changes the pitch of the screws cavitations occur and that causes fairly heavy vibration in these rooms.  Again it doesn't bother me all that much.  I wouldn't have had to bring my alarm clock because when they changed speed to pick up the pilot at a port the vibration woke me up and gave me time to get ready for breakfast and getting of the ship.  Sometimes speed changes are necessary in the middle of the night and that was much less convenient.  The short version of all this is that I would sail in these rooms again but would probably not pay the extra to book one.  Based on the prices I could find on the Internet this cruise would have doubled in price if we had reserved this room.  For less than two hours of use during the 62 days aboard that would have been some expensive patio.

Disembarkation in Fort Lauderdale was uneventful.  I lucked out and got a Chevy Impala from Budget.  This is the ideal rental car when carrying luggage.  The trunk is huge.  On a cubic foot basis it may not be larger than those of the Ford Crown Vic or Merc Grand Marquis but you can get more luggage in it because it has a better shape.  Also it uses less gas and handles better than either as well.

After a couple of nights in Orlando with friends we headed west.  I decided to cross the Mississippi at Vicksburg, Mississippi on I-20.  This proved to be a good choice.  The river was very high but not a problem.  However on the Louisiana side the water was very close to the top of the levee.  If it had gotten over the top a large area of the state would have been flooded.  The trip was uneventful except for one section of the interstate where the traffic was completely stopped.  My GPS has a routing that senses when you are going way slower than the speed limit and offers to reroute you.  I hit the button and got a route that took me off the highway for a jaunt cross country that I'm glad I didn't have to figure out.  When we got back on the highway was empty so I assume the blockage, whatever it was, was still in place.  

This was a great trip but it's nice to be home.  Thanks for traveling with us.

#41 More Pictures

Pictures:

1. Diana in our wicker sleigh almost ready to launch.

2. Typical Funchal sidewalk.  For that matter almost anywhere in Portugal.

3. The flower festival display.  You can see that it's running across a wide area of gray and white cobbles.

4. This is Funchal as we are sailing out.  One of the many valleys that cut the city into parts is in the center.  You can see the short but very tall bridge that spans the valley just about dead center of the picture.  On the extreme left edge about one inch from the top of the picture you can just see a white object with two little protrusions on each side.  That's the church near the wicker sleigh start.

#41 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

Pictures:

1. This is Nun's Valley and the isolated village.  The mountain I'm on top of is just as high as those surrounding the town and there's no valley going through on any side.

2. If you look on the right side of this picture you can see the road running along the cliff face heading down to the village.  That's a fairly straight section.  Most of it is a series of hairpin switchbacks.

3. Church of Nossa Senhora do Monte with Diana at the lamppost.

4. These are the azulejos showing Mary's apparition appearing to the locals.  The tiles are so well executed that it looks like a relief carving.

 

May 5 – Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.  We've been here before but were glad to be stopping again.  It's a lovely place with nice people and very good facilities.

 

Funchal is named for fennel, the herb.  The city is 500 years old.  It's built on a very hilly section of the island that is cut by deep ravines; consequently the roads go every direction with only a very small section of the city right next to the ocean that has anything near rectangular blocks.  There are many bridges spanning deep craggy ravines and roads that run along the edges of those same valleys.  Most intersections are odd shaped; often three to five streets intersect.  Traffic would be a mess except Maderians are the most patient and polite drivers I've ever seen.  The only traffic law I saw being broken was jaywalking and I'm not even sure that's illegal here.  Even then the jaywalkers were very careful to cross quickly and only when no traffic is coming.

 

The people are very friendly and open.  They smile at you and nod.  If you give them a 'bon gia' (good morning) or 'boa tarde' (good afternoon) they smile even bigger and respond.  All the walking up and down hills keeps them in shape.  There are flowers everywhere; a mixture of tropical and temperate plants that you don't usually see.  In the suburbs and countryside the hills are terraced and the 5 to 12 foot wide terraces are used to grow bananas and grapes.  It's so steep that the walls holding up each terrace are usually as high or higher than the terrace is wide.

 

Many of the sidewalks and plazas are cobbled with mosaics in white and gray stone.  Sometimes the figures are just geometrical; sometimes they are people, animals or symbols.  It's a nice touch.  When I first saw this type of sidewalk I thought they were small tiles but then we came on some that were under repair and saw that they are actually long, rectangular stones set on end, true cobblestones. 

 

Several streets have been closed to traffic and are lined with shops and cafes.  Most of the closed streets are completely lined with cobbles.  The main street by the ocean is Avenida do Mar.  It has the marina, port and some recreational facilities on the ocean side and shops and restaurants on the shore side.  Right at the intersection with the main street going up hill they have two very exclusive restaurants, Pizza Hut and Micky D's.  Both were very busy by the way.

 

On the seawall opposite the docking locations, visiting ships have painted memorials to their visits.  Some are very simple affairs and some are quite elaborate.  One was by a US Coast Guard Cutter, the Dallas and another by the crew of the Prinsendam in 2006.

 

Madeira is noted for its wines.  They say they have four styles made from four different grapes, sercial (dry taste, light color), verdelho (medium dry, golden color), bual (medium sweet, dark gold color) and malmsey (the very first grape brought to the islands, sweet, chestnut brown).  I am here to tell you that all the wines, regardless of their description, are sweet by our standards.  It was very popular in colonial America because, as a fortified wine, it won't oxidize in the bottle and could be safely shipped to the new world.

 

One of Diana's favorite activities anywhere in the world is here, the basket sleigh.  Since Funchal is built on hills with the city center along the ocean getting into and back from town was a problem especially for older folks.  To add to the problem the upscale part of town, Monte, is far up the hillside.  Sometime in the 1800s an army officer with an invalid wife designed a wicker basket sleigh on wooden runners that two men could use to glide her down the hill.  Going up they used donkey carts, which proved to be unsafe going downhill.  Today they use these sleighs as a tourist attraction. 

 

Before heading up to Monte we drove out of town and high up into the hills to a viewpoint over Nun's Valley.  This area was so isolated that up into the 1950s people would be born here and die never having seen the ocean.  That's a bit odd as the ocean is only about five miles away.  The mountains between here and the coast are so steep and rugged that the trip took days.  In the 1950s a narrow winding, steep and very dangerous road was put in but as most of the villagers did not drive it made little difference.  It was easier to get food and merchandise into the town.  About 25 years ago a major road-building project started making it easier to get into the valley by digging tunnels and widening the road.  It's still quite a trip in a large bus but cars and small trucks have a pretty easy time.  Providing of course they don't meet a large bus coming the other way.

 

They've opened a hotel and gift shop at the foot of the trail you walk up to get the good view of Nun's Valley.  They welcomed us with a cherry brandy and a piece of cherry cake.  Most fruit brandies are either too sweet or so strong the fruit of origin is unidentifiable.  This one was not.  The cherry flavor was readily apparent and, while it was not weak, the alcohol content was not overbearing, as in grappa and the like.  Thus fortified we headed up the trail for the good view.

 

It was a little too late in the day for a good picture of the valley.  It's very steep on all sides and the little village sets on the small flat space in between.  It's a pocket valley in that it's surrounded on all sides by mountains, there's no way out but up.  The sun was very bright on two walls of the valley but the village was till in the shade with the other two.  The contrast was extreme on only a lot of Photoshop work will salvage a picture even worth looking at of the whole scene.  The sunny mountainsides could be photographed on their own, as could the village and the shady mountains but not the entire valley.  It was a nice stop and a chance to see some very rugged country.  The ride down the narrow road was as interesting as the ride up.

 

Because Funchal is built on many ridges running up the hillsides from the coast bridges abound in the city.  One bridge, although not very long is probably 400 feet above the valley floor at the center.  The drive across town from the city's edge to Monte is very interesting also.  The view from the bus varies from about 4 inches from a stone retaining wall to a wide ocean vista. 

 

After arriving in Monte we walked about 200 yards to a hilly street where they have wicker sleighs.  It was not quite our turn for the ride so we walked us some stairs to check out the local church, the Church of Nossa Senhora do Monte (Our Lady of the Mount).  This Portuguese Baroque church, completed in 1818, has the typical white and gray color scheme created when the flat parts of the volcanic rock walls are stuccoed and whitewashed.  It has twin towers and a porch with the typical three-arched front (one arch for each member of the trinity). 

 

The church is the principal pilgrimage site on the island.  A local story about the appearance of an apparition of Mary nearby, coupled with stories of flood victims being miraculously rescued by a passing ship, have created a deep veneration of the statue of Mary that rests on the church's main altar.  On Assumption Day, the day the Roman Catholic Church celebrates Mary's transport to heaven, pilgrims climb the 74 stairs in front of the church on their knees before entering the church to honor the small fifteenth century carving.

 

The church has one additional famous resident.  Emperor Charles I of Austria, the last emperor of the Austria-Hungary Empire, is interred in a simple black metal coffin in a small side chapel.  One might reasonably ask how the emperor of a powerful and vast empire might come to be interred in a small church on a remote Portuguese island.  An excellent question, I'm glad you asked.

 

Charles I of Austria (aka Charles IV of Hungary) renounced participation in public affairs 1918 but never abdicated his crown.  He may have set a record for 'royal lasts'.  He was the last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, last Emperor of Austria, last King of Hungary, last King of Bohemia-Croatia, and the last King of Galicia and Lodomeria.  He was also the last monarch in the famous line of the Habsburgs.  A very impressive list of lasts.  In 1921 he tried twice to regain his power but failed because he lacked support.  Later that same year the Austrian parliament cancelled the Pragmatic Sanction ending the rule of the Habsburg family.  After the second attempt he and his wife Zita, were taken into custody and transported to Madeira for exile.  Not quite as isolated as Saint Helena, the very remote South Atlantic island where Napoleon was sent after his escape from Elba, but distant enough to insure that Charles would not mount a third attempt to regain his throne.  Early the next year he caught pneumonia and died.  He was interred in the church here and he's still there despite several attempts to have his remains moved to the Habsburg crypt in Vienna.  Another odd fact is that both his and his wife's hearts are not on Madeira but are in the Loreto Chapel of Muri Abbey in the South Tyrol of Italy.

 

I never cease to be surprised at the things I discover while traveling.  Sometimes the most remote places have connections to prominent and important events and people.

 

On either side of the church entrance there's a picture composed of glazed ceramic tiles called azulejos in Portuguese.  In the fifteenth century the Moors taught the Spanish how to make glazed tiles and the Portuguese learned from them.  From their beginnings as decorative accents on buildings in Portugal, their use expanded and soon they were covering entire buildings with multicolored geometric designs.  This became very expensive and by the twentieth century they were again used as decorative accents.  The two applications on this church's porch are moderate in size, 9 tiles wide by 8 tiles high (about 36 inches by 32 inches).  One shows the last supper at the moment when Jesus offers the cup of wine.  The other shows Mary appearing to the locals in the story that resulted in the building of the initial chapel where the church now stands.  This technique of painting representative scenes directly on tiles was not begun until the sixteenth century and not perfected until the late seventeenth century.  That period and the eighteenth century were the 'Golden Age' of azulejo art.  These two scenes are done in the typical blue/white style of Delft china.  They're signed by Manuel Souza Pereira and dated 1936.  During the Art Nouveau movement of the twentieth century azulejo art had a resurgence that is still alive. 

 

The square in front of the church has a great view of the harbor and city.  The Prinsendam was easily the largest ship in port today, a status she does not often enjoy.  There's a statue of Charles I of Austria there and he sure has a view worthy of an emperor.

 

Groups are starting to arrive at the wicker sleigh starting point so we descended the 74 stairs and joined the line.  The ride is about a mile, about half the distance they used to travel when they were used as transportation.  The last part of the trip would be through the heavily traveled streets of Funchal, not a very wise idea.

 

Two men dressed in white shirts and pants with straw skimmer hats alternately pull and ride the sleigh down the hill.  They each have a rope hooked to the front of the sleigh's runners.  They use this rope to whip you on your way and then each jumps on the back of one of the runners like the musher on a dog sled.  They ride until the sleigh starts to go to slowly and then they jump off and whip you ahead again.  Most parts of the hill are steep enough to keep the sleigh going quite nicely but occasional flat spots where a street crosses the road cause them to jump off and give you a boost.  You probably never go faster than about 20 mph but they make the sled slide sideways and if you seem to be having fun they'll take you very close to the walls along the street and fast around the corners.

 

It's fun and Diana wants to do it every time we're here.  They slow the sleigh by making it slide sideways.  I could smell the wooden runners heating up.  To help with the friction, the pilots (I thought about calling them drivers, guiders, pullers and even mushers but settled on pilots) carry grease soaked rags that they place on the street and drag the sleigh's runners over.  The ride only lasts about 10 minutes but it's a unique experience and Diana loves it.  I have to admit, I like it myself.

 

Our next stop was an embroidery shop.  These places are somewhat unique.  They design and produce embroidered items from wine bibs to large tablecloths.  In the shop we visited they design the patterns and then produce the templates used to mark the pattern on the cloth.  The templates are then painstakingly traced with a punch that produces the transfer paper.  They wash and prepare the cloth and transfer the design's template to the cloth by placing the transfer paper on it and rubbing it with a sponge wetted with a water soluble blue solution.  Once the cloth is marked with the pattern they use the water-soluble liquid to mark the colors to be used on the pattern.

 

The cloth and thread of the proper colors are then packaged and delivered to ladies all over the island that do the actual embroidery and any other sewing needed.  For example, they make blouses so in addition to the embroidery; the blouse has to be assembled.  Once that is completed the cloth is returned to the shop and washed again, ironed and put in inventory.  The only additional processing here involves cutting the material away from some of the design if the embroidery surrounds a space that's a hole.  The ladies who do that are really under pressure.  They work with very small scissors and have to trim the cloth very close to the sewing but, of course, can't cut the embroidery threads.  They work using lighted magnifiers and it's tedious, exacting work.

 

The finished products are beautiful.  Some of it has so much of the material cut away it looks very much like lace.  The shop has a retail outlet and the finished products are not cheap.  The work is extremely well done and probably a good deal but I don't think I'd look that good in an embroidered blouse.  Diana, however, did and we bought a simple white blouse with white embroidery.  Very classy!

 

We decided to leave the tour downtown as they are heading back to the ship from here.  Last time we were here we got tickets to the 'Hop on, Hop off' double-decker bus that circulates the city.  That was fun and it gave me a pretty good idea of where things are in town so since the day was very pleasant we decided to walk.

 

The sidewalks and pedestrian streets are all cobbled here.  The cobbles are white and the same gray color as the stone used to build the older buildings.  They work designs into the walkways that are very attractive.  Some are geometrical but others are representational.  One popular subject is the caravel type sailing ship used by the Portuguese for exploring in the 1700s.  It really adds a lot to the public spaces. 

 

On our way across town we came upon a somewhat unique sight.  Apparently this weekend is a flower festival and the median of the main cross-town street is being lined with flowers.  The display takes up about 2 to 4 feet of the center of the median and consists of greenery and flowers laid out in various designs and patterns.  They use flowers from daisies to orchids and the display goes on continuously for blocks.  Well, it is interrupted by cross streets but where the median is uninterrupted, so is the display.  Parts of it were done but other parts were still under construction.  First they put down a base of greenery that lays flat on the sidewalk.  Then they put metal forms on top of the greens to help place the flowers to create a pattern.  Some areas are done freehand without a form.  It looks like a very colorful carpet of flowers going down the street and it smells pretty good too.

 

After that it was back to the ship to prepare for our 4PM sail away.  The location of the city should make this a pretty one.  And it was!

 

#40 Flamenco Pictures

This addendum to Cadiz is to send some flamenco pictures from La Cava Flamenco Taverna.  It was difficult to get good pictures as the movements are somewhat unpredictable and often the dancers face or feet will not be visible by the time the camera actually takes the pic.

1. This is the entire troupe at the taverna.  The man on the right is absolutely fantastic and the girl he's dancing with is probably the best female flamenco dancer I've ever seen.  She was good three years ago and she's gotten much better.  The lady seated and clapping was almost as good, some might say just as good.  The flamenco singer was also first rate as was the guitarist.  A great show in an intimate setting.  Her dress looks mostly red at this point.

2. She may be the happiest flamenco dancer I've ever seen of any gender.  A few more white dots showing.

3. This is where the dress becomes a dance prop.  There's obviously lots of dots under the red overskirt.

4. Here everyone is smiling.  This bunch has a good time performing and that's part of why I enjoy it so much.  This ladies skirt is not the two layer type, but it's still a prop.

5. When they're not dancing they form a clap chorus.  I love the syncopated clap rhythms they set up to the guitar's music and the singer's song. 

6. This shot tells the story.  Look at the faces of the seated members.  They are all staring at the dancer, even the guitarist.  I have never seen a man's feet move faster than this guy.  He could vibrate across the floor, tapping so short and quick that you couldn't see his feet move but there he went speeding across the stage.  It was so fast that you couldn't really distinguish the sound of the individual taps, it sounded more like a steady murmur. It's hard to see in the picture but neither of his feet is touching the floor.  One is on the way up as the other is on the way down.  This technique puts the power of his weight into the tap as well as the power of his muscles.

Gosh, can you tell I like flamenco?  "I knew you could." - Fred Rogers

#40 Cádiz, Spain

Pictures:

1. The Castillo de Santa Catalina and the grounded boats.

2. The Main Gate in the old city wall of Cadiz.

3. Diana and the City Hall flowers.

4. The Baroque/Rococo/Neoclassical Cathedral.  The mix of styles is so complete that it's hard to separate the features.

5. For comparison, here's the Baroque Santiago Church.  Pretty straight forward.

6. My favorite lido chef, William (on the right), with the giant paella pan.

 

May 3 – Cádiz, Spain.  We've been here twice before but it's a great city so it's always fun to come back. 

 

Cádiz (Ca'-dis) is on a small peninsula that juts out into the Bay of Cádiz.  If your shoulder were the mainland, if you extend your arm, Cádiz would be on your fist.  It's the home of the best flamenco, at least in my opinion, and sherry.

 

Once again our friends the Phoenicians were the first settlers, this time followed by the Carthaginians and then the Romans.  It was a thriving port in Roman times but became a forgotten backwater under the Visigoths and the Moors.  Under Spanish control it became important again as the starting point for many of the voyages to the newly discovered Americas.  It claims to be Europe's oldest city.  Cádiz in on the Costa de la Luz (The Coast of Light).  It's just outside the Mediterranean Sea before the Strait of Gibraltar.  On the other side of the strait past Gibraltar on the Mediterranean is the Costa del Sol (Coast of the Sun).

 

Politically Incorrect (but accurate) Historical Viewpoint: It has become popular to point out that since there were already people living in the Americas, the Europeans didn't discover anything.  How many times have we all had to endure a lecturer, documentary filmmaker or newscaster whining, "Those Europeans didn't discover anything, people were already there."  Well that's such a load of horse pucky that you could fertilized all the farms in Kansas for the next hundred years with it if you could just get it in a cart and ship it there.  Those manipulative, agenda driven hacks are counting on us to be ignorant or gullible enough to believe them and parrot back their drivel on command.  Get any competent dictionary and look up the word discover.  Never mind, I'll do it right here.  To discover: 1. to see, get knowledge of, learn of, find, or find out; gain sight or knowledge of (something previously unseen or unknown): to discover America (I was so pleased to find this example in the dictionary) ; to discover electricity (this is not in italics as it is not my opinion but taken directly from the dictionary).  Notice that although electricity has been in existence since creation we can correctly say it was 'discovered'. Various European explorers were the first of their continent to see, get knowledge of, learn of, find the Americas so they definitely 'discovered' America under definition number 1 (the meanings are usually listed in order by common use in the dictionary).  2. to notice or realize: I discovered I didn't have my credit card with me when I went to pay my bill.  Definition 2 really doesn't apply except in the sense that they did 'notice' the Americas.  3. To notice or learn, especially by making an effort: got home and discovered that the furnace wasn't working. Those pesky European explorers certainly made 'an effort' in learning of these lands so I think they would qualify under definition 3.  4. To be the first, or the first of one's group or kind, to find, learn of, or observe.  Again, they were the first of their group or kind to find, learn of and observe the Americas so they would qualify as the discoverers under definition 4.  It's fairly easy to see that in every sense of the word discover the European explorers did in fact DISCOVER the Americas.  Definitions 1,3 and 4 clearly fit and only one has to apply to qualify your use of the word as proper.  Is it any wonder I grow weary of the sloppy mental processes that pass for thought in the mass media of the USA.  We should be outraged and yet most of us sit passively by and let our culture be corrupted by these nonsensical notions.  None of us should tolerate fools lightly.  Unfortunately I don't speak out as often as I should but I am getting better as I get older.  There now don't you feel better?  I know I do.

 

 Sir Frances Drake attacked Cádiz to try to gain control of trade with the Americas.  Cádiz was among the few Spanish cities that withstood the siege of Napoleon and the country's first constitution was declared here in 1812.  Cape Trafalgar is nearby.  Today there's a nice lighthouse almost at the cape's point but in 1805 it was the site of one of the most famous and important sea battles in history.  It was just offshore here that my hero (I hear you all groaning, "Oh no, not more drivel about that pesky Nelson.  Sorry!) Viscount Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson whipped the combined Spanish and French fleets, a loss from which neither empire ever recovered.  Despite being greatly out numbered and completely out gunned (the combined French and Spanish fleet not only had more ships, their ships, individually, had more guns) the inventive and bold Nelson damaged, captured or sank a great portion of the fleet.  In those days ships were power and the French and Spanish were unable or unwilling to reenter the naval competition that had been going on for over 200 years.  Unfortunately, to inspire his men Nelson insisted on being in his full dress uniform on the deck of the lead ship, rather than direct the engagement from a command ship at a safe distance.  A French sniper in the rigging of one of the enemy ships saw him and he was mortally wounded.  He refused to die until the engagement was over and the enemy was completely vanquished.  He was put in a cask of rum for the voyage home to England and at his funeral; his men drank a toast to him with that rum.  To this day in the English Navy rum is referred to as Nelson's Blood.  We visited his tomb in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral in London and stayed in a hotel just off Trafalgar Square.  Don't tell me I don't honor my heroes.

 

This time we've decided to take a walking tour of Cádiz and see some flamenco dancing at a small club.  Since we are docked across the street from downtown I thought our walking tour might just leave from the ship but they are including a drive around the new part of town first so we had to climb on a bus.  We encountered a sculpture in the center of a traffic circle right downtown that looked like an open padlock.  The open end of the hasp was shaped like the nib of a fountain pen.  The intended message is that the pen can unlock the chains of mankind and the monument is dedicated to the institution of the democratic reforms that ended the grip of the military on the government of Spain.  It's a fine image as far as it goes but I'm afraid that it's somewhat naïve.  It was also a stroke of the pen that sent millions of people to concentration camps and death in WWII and countless atrocities through the ages.  It's the selfless and wise use of the pen that makes the difference.  Despite the problems with it's message, it's a very interesting sculpture and certainly inventive.

 

We drove past several schools that had knots of students outside waiting for classes to begin.  These scenes are interchangeable almost anywhere in the western world.  If it were not for the name of the school being in Spanish you could not differentiate these kids from the kids in any Flyover Country US city in the early spring.  California kids dress differently at least in SoCal where I lived for so long.

 

Our first photo stop was at the beach near the Castillo de Santa Catalina (Saint Catherine).  The tide was out and many of the small boats were grounded.  It made a nice picture with the fort in the background.  These forts were built to protect against the raids of pirates like the dreaded pirate Drake.  Of course in English history he's Sir Frances Drake but to the Spanish he was a dastardly devil.  Funny how that works out sometimes.  Drake was one of the prime players when Elizabeth I took on and burnt the Spanish Armada.  I'm pretty sure that the Spanish, and for that matter the French, are not too fond of my personal hero Lord Nelson but since he never raided civilian areas they don't hate him as much as they do Drake.

 

The Spanish in Colombia tell a story about Drake that I'm not sure is true but it's a good one anyway.  Apparently Drake sailed up to Cartagena Colombia and sent an emissary in to tell them that if they brought all their gold and silver to the wharf and turned it over to him he'd let them go in peace.  They claim that's what they did and he sacked and burned the city anyway.  Could be true, could be false or the truth might be somewhere in between.

 

We went in and out of the old city wall several times during the trip, sometimes through arches that were added to ease traffic flow and sometimes through very narrow original openings.  We did drive by the main gate and tower that are no longer in use.  There's a very wide arch through the wall to accommodate the large amount of traffic in and out of the city.

 

We left the bus at almost the same place we had boarded it and walked across the street into the old city.  The old town is filled with beautiful Eighteenth Century buildings. 

 

Pop Quiz:  I used to love to hear the groans when I said those words to my college accounting students.  (What I didn't tell them until after the quiz was that I didn't grade it but allowed them to grade it themselves and keep it as a reminder of which areas might need a little more study.)  So here's the question.  Which years are included in the Eighteenth Century AD?  Well I never said it was going to be hard.

 

Answer: January 1701 AD through December 1800 AD.  Remember no year 0 and the First Century was 1 – 100.

 

The Congressional Building looks a lot like Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, maybe you know it better as Independence Hall.  Not all that surprising as they were built in the same era, very neoclassical, columns and all.  The version in the Pennsylvania Colony is much less ornate because the artisans and materials for the carvings and external decoration were not readily available in the New World and the cost to add those touches would have been astronomical.

 

In front of the building they have some flower arrangements that look like giant, about 7.5 foot tall, gumdrops.  One stand was done in horizontal stripes of color while the other was one color.  They were very attractive and Diana had to have her picture taken with one of them. 

 

After entering the old city through a very small gate in the wall we passed the Hijas de la Caridad (Daughters of Charity) Convent of Saint Vincent de Paul.  These nuns were active here in the city for 137 years but the convent was closed in 2009.  The city now owns the very attractive building and has plans to convert it to use as a museum. 

 

The stroll through the narrow streets was very pleasant.  Everything was built in the 1700-1800s and the homes and public buildings were very attractive.  After passing through the Pink Arch (Arco de la Rosa.  Rosa is one of those 'part of speech and gender' dependant Spanish words.  As an adjective it always means pink, as a feminine noun it means rose and as a masculine noun it means pink again.  Since in this case it modifies Arch, it's pink arch instead of rose arch.  I'm writing about this as a reminder to myself as I always forget to check gender when translating Spanish and Greek.) we entered the older medieval walled quarter of the city.  Dating from 1100 to about 1350 many of the structures have been updated and modified since they were originally constructed.  Some of the original façades have been carefully maintained and are wonderful to see.

 

The Plaza de la Cathedral is a bit unusual as it has two large churches on its perimeter, the Cathedral on the south side and the Santiago Church on the west side.  One thing that's also a little different here is that the Baroque (1600-1750) Cathedral that was altered to neoclassical style (1750-1920) by the time is was completed.  The neoclassical style had some staying power and it wasn't until the advent of Art Deco that it was finally muscled aside as a dominant style.  The Santiago Church is definitely Baroque and was started in the style's sweet spot, the year 1635.  The Cathedral, on the other hand was not started until 1776 at the end of the Baroque Period.  Construction continued for 116 years.  During that period rococo (1650-1800?) elements were added and it was finally completed in the neoclassical style.

 

From the Cathedral Plaza we visited the Flower Square, San Antonio Square and Plaza de la Mina on our way across town to our ultimate destination the La Cava Taverna de Flamenco. 

 

When we were here last time they brought a folkloric group onto the ship to perform and I think it was the Quadro Flamenco La Cava.  Now I would never have remembered that but I travel with pdfs of all my old travel journals on my computer so I can look things up in them.  The note I made about this group was that it was the best flamenco I had ever seen, and I've seen quite a bit.  I don't know if the Taverna is related to that group or not but maybe I can find out.

 

The taverna wound up being a very small place with a T shape.  The small stage is where the bars of the T cross facing toward the long bar.  Everyone gets a very good view of the action.  We were treated to some tapas, olives, bread, manchago (from La Mancha) cheese and thinly sliced, air cured ham (probably Serrano) all delicious. 

 

When the dancers, two ladies, one man, a male singer and a guitarist walked on the stage my question was answered.  It's the same group we saw two years ago on the ship.  The male dancer and one of the ladies were the same but the singer, guitarist and the other lady dancer were different.  We agreed that the man was the best we had every seen but Diana and I had disagreed as to who the best lady dancer was last time.  I was happy to see that my favorite lady was back.  It's a phenomenon that I can't really explain but male flamenco dancers are uniformly thin, and I do mean thin.  Conversely, female flamenco dancers are also uniform but they are usually substantial women at least from the waist down.  From the waist up they may or may not be substantial but they are never thin.  The dancing was fantastic.  Again the male dancer was the undisputed king of the dance.  His work was athletic, graceful, powerful and dynamic.  No one in the audience or on the stage could take their eye off him.  It was not hot in the taverna but when he finished his shirt looked like it had been dunked in a bucket of water.  At flamenco you can shout 'bravo' but the real shout is 'ole'.  He got plenty of both from us and from his fellow performers.  The ladies were both excellent.  Again I thought the blonde dancer in the red/orange dress was the best and Diana agreed.  I would not have been at all surprised if she like the other lady better, it was that close.  It was a great show, the group was every bit as good as I remembered.

 

On the walk back to the ship we passed through the Plaza de España, a large square across the street from the port.  It is dominated by the Monument to the Constitution of 1812, a huge marble structure with a multitude of statues.  It was erected in 1912 to mark the Hundredth Anniversary of the constitution, which was issued in Cádiz.  We waited directly across the street from the pedestrian gate to the port that's about 20 yards from the gangway.  HAL had a bus pick us up and drive us to the vehicle entrance to the port, about a mile in distance and drive us to the parking lot near the ship's pier, a walk of about 10 yards.  We all got a good laugh about that.  I almost skipped the bus ride but I took it anyway because I thought it would be great to have the shortest bus ride ever in Cádiz.

 

Back aboard I went up to the lido to have some tea and maybe a snack.  I met some friends up there and we sat and watched the comings and goings in the port.  The only excitement we had was an ambulance that showed up we thought to disembark an ill passenger from the Prinsendam.  After a very long time we discovered we were wrong.  There was a lady already in the back of the ambulance that was going to sail on the ferry to the Canary Islands.  Why she had to sit in it for so long I'm not sure.

 

Because we are not leaving until 11PM they had another deck BBQ.  This time they brought out the giant paella pan and that's a huge attraction for me.  I love the stuff and again the ship's chefs did a great job.

 

After dinner we went to the folkloric show Thom has gotten on board.  It was Cuadro Flamenco La Cava again.  The man and my favorite lady were still with them but two younger dancers accompanied them.  Most excellent flamenco dancers seem to be older, 30-45.  The younger ones may be more limber and energetic but the expression isn't mature enough to be great.  They can really move their feet but flamenco relies more heavily on posture, arm and head position, facial expression and manipulation of costume (especially for women) than most dance styles.  At least it seems like that to me.  The young just haven't had time to develop all that.  The men hold their jackets and use them as part of the dance but the women, with their long dresses, fitted at the top but two layered and full at the bottom, really use them to great expressive advantage.  The show was excellent.  I'm glad we saw them at the taverna because I think Flamenco is like basketball.  You need to do it on a wooden floor that has some flex for it to be really good.  The stage at the taverna had that; the stage on the ship does not.  The rock hard surface changes a lot of things about the mechanics of the dance and is probably way harder on the legs.  Consequently the dancers were working way harder for less result.

 

Tomorrow's a day at sea and I'm ready for it.

#39 5/1-2 At Sea

Pictures:

1. This is the sunrise on May 1st while we were at sea.  You can see that the waves off the stern of the ship are pretty insignificant.  The brown smudge on the left is the exhaust from our engines falling far astern.  I've never smelled diesel exhaust on our veranda and it faces directly aft at the back of the ship.

2. This is the Rock of Gibraltar the next day.  As you can see we have sailed out of the bad weather that kept us from Motril earlier in the day.  The far peak of the rock is the logo for Prudential Insurance.  It's also the far end of the Rock.  On the only really flat part of the rock you can see a white structure with a tall spire.  This is the mosque that serves the Rock's 17 Muslims.  The King Saudi Arabia has made it his business to build mosques all over the world, even where there's almost no Muslims.  At the end of the Rock on the left is Europa Point and the old fortifications.  The Rock is riddled with tunnels dug for defensive purposes during various wars.  One large room in the caves serves as a theater for plays and concerts.

3. This is the Rock looking at it from end to end from the south in the middle of the Strait of Gibraltar.  The mountain in the distance is Spain as is the land on the right.  The city in the distance is also in Spain.

 

Short entry today as I wanted to send some pictures from these days.

 

May 1 – At Sea.  Another planned day at sea.  Today they have a program called 'On Deck for the Cure'.  It's a 5k walk for the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure, a breast cancer research and awareness group.  HAL does this on all its ships and has raised over two million dollars for the cause.  The ship clears the program for this event so if you're not walking there's not much else to do.  The only other special event was the Thé Dansant.  The ship has an afternoon tea every day but today they've scheduled a tea dance.  Usually the string trio plays for teatime in the dining room but today the orchestra will be playing in the Showroom at Sea for tea.

 

The evening's entertainment was the Prinsendam Singers in a program called Street Singin'.  It was a night of songs that had their genesis on the streets of Philadelphia in the 1950s.  Street Corner Music, as we called it (I lived in eastern Pennsylvania at the time), could be heard on Philly's streets any night of the week.  These male groups could be 2 to 4 people and sang in the close harmony style that has become to be known generally as Doo Wop.  I enjoy harmony so this was a great evening for me.

 

May 2 – At Sea.  Another unplanned day at sea.  Today we were supposed to be in Motril, Spain.  The weather is terrible and there's no chance to get into the harbor and therefore it's a sail-by for us today.  This creates a normal day at sea for me.  Nothing much special is on the schedule as we were expecting to be ashore. 

 

Because we didn't stop at Motril we had a daylight passage past the Rock of Gibraltar and through the Straits.  This gave us a chance for some great photos of The Rock although the peaks were mostly covered in clouds.

 

Because entertainers are getting off tomorrow we had a variety show.  Three of the past entertainers split a show so Perry Danos, the guitarist, Mike Goddard, the comic and Katzenjammer, the pianists all performed a very enjoyable show.