January 31, 2015

It doesn't seem possible that it's actually a week and a half since I got back from the cruise!  The Wednesday after that, I started feeling a little queasy - thought it was just car sickness as we went shopping in the park van - but the  next day and the following two days, I was down with a stomach bug - surfaced Sunday afternoon, after Dora fed me her chicken soup on Saturday - definitely has some magic properties, that soup! A day or so more of recovery and I'm back to normal again.  This Wednesday was great fun - we shopped in Galveston this time - had lunch at Fuddruckers, and after some sporadic morning texting, Donna and Luanne joined us for lunch and a bit of the afternoon.  Donna had to go back to work, but Luanne stayed to wander around the Strand for a few hours.  It does seem kind of amazing to me that I have made such good friends here, from such different walks of life: Donna I met in the Moody choir; Luanne was in the rv park last year, then bought a house in Galveston.  Donna and her husband were living on the Bolivar Peninsula when Hurricane Ike struck in 2008 - actually, they were on a cruise when Ike started to become a potential threat, and when they landed at Galveston, they were not allowed to go back to their house, it being too dangerous.  They and Donna's mother fled to Louisianna, where they stayed in a church for a week or two until they were allowed back into their neighbourhood.  All Donna ever found of her house were two claw feet of her bathtub; the entire house was demolished by Ike! So now she and her husband have had to start over:  from being mortgage-free, they've had to go into debt to buy another house - this time in La Marque, in a neighbourhood which is on ground high enough not to have been affected by the floods caused by Ike.  All her paintings - Donna is an artist - also went with the flood.  Can you imagine, losing everything except the things they packed for the cruise, and a few things left at her mother's hoiuse in Galveston - what incredible devastation!  Ike took a crazy toll on this area of the world!
Luanne's life story is equally incredible:  she retired from Microsoft at the age of 38 after being diagnosed with epilipsy, then bought an old rv, which she renovated a la 60's/70's and named The Pink Palace (for obvious reasons, once you see the inside), then spent about seven years helping out with disaster relief in various places.  She spent a few years in Mississippi, then Louisiana - Katrina left a wake of broken homes and lives which she helped rebuild - and then decided to buy a house in Galveston, in the historic district.  The window over her kitchen sink looks out to the Bishop's Palace - quite the view to see as you're washing the dinner dishes!
I do feel quite blessed to be able to call these two courageous women my friends.
The past week has been quite busy - I've started going for morning walks around the park, with Dora - and now a group of women is going walking on the beach every morning at 8:30.  We've gone for two mornings so far and plan to continue every week (not including the weekend, when I get to sleep in on Saturday, then go to church on Sunday. Today, I'll be joining Susan and Joan and Joan's niece for whatever activities they've planned - should be fun.  Valentine's Day dinner is coming up, and I|'m hosting the pre-dinner entertainment, including at least one solo by me, trumpet solos by Susan, a duet by Susan on trumpet and Ashton (Dora and Ron's grandson) on flute, and a singalong of golden oldies.  Joan has already written the script for the evening (she was the manager, as Susan was the Principal Trumpet, of the St. Louis Symphany Orchestra for forty years - both incredible professionals!) and we'll be finalizing details next week.  After that, it's the Dinner Theatre sponsored by the Moody choir - Donna and I and a few others are singing Abba's "I Have a Dream" for that occasion - so we'll be spending a bit of time rehearsing.  A week from Monday, Julia arrives for a whirlwind visit on her way to her cruise, which leaves from Fort Lauderdale that Thursday.  I'm very excited about this - finally I get to show her off here and get her to see my life in Texas!!

January 17th & 18th

Last day at sea, then back to Galveston:  We spent our last day in the hot tub, lounging in the partly sunny, increasingly chilly weather, then played dominoes (I learned), had our last dinner and said goodbye to our favourite waiter, Daryl, packed up in the evening and tried to get an early night.  On Sunday, we got up at 6:30, went to breakfast for 7:00 and were ready and waiting for the signal to disembark at 8:00 (that was the designated time for our deck).  I had to go through a special line for foreigners, so I got to the outside of the customs area later than most of the others - except for one couple, who were on another deck and had checked their luggage instead of bringing it with them - so we had to wait a few hours for them to appear.  Gary was there with the van, so we piled ourselves and our luggage in and headed for home, tired but sated. A really awesome experience!

Our little interior room

We played dominoes here, right beside the sea

Dora in a contemplative mood

The sea just never ceases to fascinate me!

My new t-shirt says it all / / / 

January 16th, 2015

Cozumel, Mexico today!  For today's shore excursion, Donna and I booked a tour of the Mayan ruins of Tulum.  This entailed taking a ferry from the island of Cozumel to the mainland of Mexico, then an hour's bus ride to Tulum.Unexpectedlly, on the half hour ferry ride to Playa del Carmen, on the mainland, I got a bit seasick - not bad, just uncomfortable.  I was sitting in the enclosed, lower part of the ferry - on the way back, I sat on the upper deck, at the back, in the open air - and had no problem at all!  As soon as we reached the dock, we were hustled off to the area where the excursion groups were meeting, then pretty quickly walked through part of the town to meet our tour bus.  Our guide this time was a tad boring, unfortunately - not like the livewires in the previous two excursions. Still, a very interesting drive to Tulum, seeing the places along the way where Mayan ruins have been found but not examined, due to lack of funds.
The Tulum site, itself, is clearly a tourist mecca:  the busses park in a large, clearly designated area;  passengers disembark, walk through a veritable town of craft, clothing, and food shops; then either walk or ride a trolley down a road about 1/2 km long to the entrance to the ruins themselves.  A stone tunnel marks the entrance to the ruins, then a path goes first through a riot of tropic plants and trees, then opens out into well kempt fields dotted with the ruins.  Lots of interesting history around these stone ruins - apparently, one used to be able to touch and even climb them; however, about five years ago, a few tourists graffittied some of them, so now it's forbidden to get close enough to touch them. Our guide was very knowledgeable, but I'm afraid that this sort of history has never really captivated me - all right, I got bored - but Donna was taking notes and after the guide finished his spiel and we were given time to wander independently, she was in her glory. Me? I had heard about the beach and went to look for it - had my bathing suit with me.  However, the beautiful sand and water were at the bottom of a very long, steep set of wooden stairs and by the time I got to the top, I had half an hour before I had to get back to the bus - so, regrettably, I didn't get to swim.  Sigh.  I had ordered a cartouche, to be picked up by the bus, so I hurried over there to pay for it - it has the letters of my name in Mayan on it - pretty cool!  By then, time was getting short, so we beetled back to Playa del Carmen to the ferry and were given preference, since we had to be back for our ship, which was scheduled to leave soon.  We were ten minutes late getting off the ferry and had to walk the very long deck to get onto the ship - as we were making that walk, they were casting off some of the ropes! We hustled to our room, changed for dinner, and made it to the dining room just in time for the start of dinner.

Excursion ticket!

Walking through town to catch our bus - mainly tourist shops

Cool metal horse sculptures 

Donna in a caught 'ya moment

We both bought Playa del Carmen hats

A lovely rat - one of several - in the bush along the road

Our tour bus

Our guide

Yep, even here . . . 

Mayan ruins just there on the side of the road - we didn't even get out of the bus to see this structure

Our guide told us to use this shop as a directional aid on the way back, as we would have to find our own way back to the bus

And a Starbucks!

From the trolley

Heading out of the town area to the actual ruins

Our wordy guide

Cool trees!

Some very, very large mother-in-laws' tongue

Gotta love those palms

A mockup of the ruins' area

Through the stone tunnel

Ta-da!

Donna taking notes

Cute, rather large lizard

Brain-shaped rock!

One of my fellow tourists was determined to photograph me to look as if I were holding the ruins in my hand . . . 

The enticing beach

But not enough time for all those stairs , , , 

From the ferry - two huge metal mermaid sculptures

Two other ferries

These people were part of a group of eleven - incredibly loud parents - they kept passing the baby around as she squealed and cried and  generally behaved like a baby

Stragglers hurrying back to the cruise ship

Every evening, the staff put a different towel figure on one of our beds. I put my new hat on this one!