It’s our last night on the ship (sad). We are all packed and
ready to go. We will leave the ship at 8:45 in the morning and head back into
Barcelona. I can’t believe how quickly the trip went. It was so interesting and
very fun. The cruise was so smooth, too. Today is really the only day I have
felt motion. Everyone has commented on how smooth it has been and how lucky we
are.
We have met some great people from all around the world. Our
dinner companions were from Germany and Ottawa (Canada). Our stateroom attendant
is from Indonesia. Our waiters (we have the same two waiters every evening at
dinner) are from India and Peru. We have heard several languages spoken and
have had some interesting conversations through good old fashioned body
language.
Today when the ship was really rocking a Spanish speaking
woman standing near me started to talk to me about the choppy seas. It was
quickly obvious to her that I had no ability to comprehend, so she stared to
act it out. I responded in kind and there we were having a full blown
conversation without the assistance of words.
This was of course one of many times that I found myself
trying (and sometimes succeeding) to communicate with people whose language I
didn’t speak. When we were in Florence I met a Spanish speaking lady in the
bathroom line. This seems to be a universal place to make friends. Men just don’t
seem to understand this bonding, probably because they don’t have to wait in
such a long line. In the U.S. once we have spent more than fifteen minutes in
line there is always someone who will suggest the rebellious idea of using the
men’s room. For some reason we all act like 1. We have never heard the
suggestion before and 2. We think it is a fabulous idea. This was no different
in Florence Italy as I stood in a very long, slow line. I was finally at the
front of the line and the Men’s room was empty. The Spanish speaking lady
started pointing, gently pushing and saying to me “hombre, hombre.” So off to
the men’s room I went. Later that day I saw the woman again. I said “Hola,” and
she had this flicker of recognition like she knew me from somewhere, but…so she
started a long conversation with me in Spanish. I replied like every educated
person in my position with a couple of grunts, a few “si, si”s a shoulder shrug
and a nervous giggle. Works every time.
When we were in Rome Mike was getting directions from a
woman who was speaking fairly understandable English. I was confused though
when during the discussion of the best way to get to the Spanish Steps she
suddenly asked, “What’s the country of London?” I was about to say “England?”
when Mike said “short.” And she said “Oh, yes, yes, short!” I was totally
confused. When she was out of earshot I asked Mike about it, she hadn’t asked
about London. She asked “What is the contrary of long?” She was trying to tell
us the shortest route to get there.
I am totally envious of people who are able to speak more
than one language. The fact that so many people in Europe speak English as a
second language has made our travels fairly easy. Still, I am inspired to learn
a language before our next adventure (yes I am already hoping to plan another
trip, though it will be a while before we can afford something like this
again). Our ship is an English speaking ship, so the entire crew speaks
English. People from every nook and cranny of the world work on this ship and
each and every one of them speaks English. Additionally many, many of the crew
speak Spanish as well. It’s fun to listen to the announcements and try to pick
out words here and there.
We have been busy touring the ports and playing around. We
haven’t made a ton of friends, but we have had some great conversations with
great people. We have bumped into our dinner table companions several times. We
even saw them in Venice, they happened by a restaurant where we were dining al
fresco. Madison and Max played in the pool today with Ainsley, one of the girls
from that family. We exchanged addresses with our other dinner companions,
Klaus and Anja from Germany. They hope to do a Pacific Northwest vacation some
time and we hope they will look us up if they do!
One of my favorite people onboard is our stateroom
attendant, Inyomen from Indonesia. He is always so happy and jolly. He misses
his wife and daughter, but even through his homesickness he is always cheery
with us. Our waiter Kumar will be heading home to India after this trip. He has
a newborn daughter who he will be meeting for the first time. He has been at
sea for seven months and she was born two weeks ago. Our assistant waiter Raul
is from Peru. He was another cheery, happy person who just loved to chat with
us once the dinner plates were cleared and he had some downtime.
It’s been fun meeting people from all over the world and
seeing firsthand that there’s more we have in common than not. As they say in
Disney, it’s a small world after all.
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