PS- I am trying to get some photos on here, but the satellite on board is really slow and they charge me by the minute for e-mail, so time will tell what I can provide.

Gale Force Winds

Sept. 29

The Captain came on the loudspeakers last evening and apologized for the rough ride while acknowledging the winds got a bit rougher that he earlier predicted. He said we were experiencing force 10 gale winds with 50 mile an hour winds and 40 foot and higher waves, so he adjusted course as best he could so we were going into the waves as opposed to broadside as we has been. All along we have been experiencing this tremendous trembling every time the bow would slap down on the sea or the props would chew air instead of water. We have become somewhat used to the rough weather, but I know I am more tired than usual and I’m sure it’s from constantly fighting to stay upright and not fly into walls or collide with rapidly approaching decks. I would say we are all sea weary. A flat little pond sounds very inviting right now.

When I first boarded the Amsterdam I noticed the elevator had a carpet that said Friday on the floor. I absently thought Holland America must name each elevator after a day of the week so you knew which elevator took you to which part of the ship. Please don’t laugh, I’m sea weary remember? Well, I finally did figure out that they changed the carpet each day of the week because you become so disconnected from reality that you really have no idea what day it is. So Holland America provides you with this gentle little reminder. Today I got up and went to mass, used the elevator, which yesterday said Tuesday, got to mass and was told by the priest that we obviously knew now we were were celebrating the Thursday mass. I knew no such thing! If it was Thursday I had to get back to my cabin immediately and call my daughter as she was leaving today to study in Rome for the year. I panicked. I hadn’t read the elevator carpet! What happened to Wednesday when I was going to call my daughter? And then I remembered -- we had passed the International Dateline and while I was kneeling up in bed in the middle of the night, watching the tremendous swelling ocean and the Big Dipper in a brand new sky I’d never seen before, someone was changing the elevator carpets from Tuesday to Thursday. Very clever. And quite cool too, my very first time at losing a day. I wonder if I look younger…..

Oct 1

See, I lost Sept 30. That is very weird. And the ship can’t quite figure it out either because each night they have been having us put our clocks back one hour so when we arrive in Russia tomorrow we will be on local time. I managed to miss one night and got up an hour too early after I bought a new $10 watch and forgot to switch it. But this morning I again used the ships’ wake-up call system for my morning mass alarm. It woke me at 7:15AM informing of the time, so I jumped out of bed, checked the dark and dreary weather and started getting ready. It seemed darker than usual, but we are getting close to Russia and I’ve always imagined Russia as pretty dark and grey so I wasn’t concerned. I even turned on the ship TV channel to check the time and it corresponded with my wake-up call. So off to mass I went to find I was the only one there. I went to the front desk where the only clerk was answering phone calls concerning the time and I found out the ship’s clocks were off as were the wake-up calls too. I had to eat breakfast before mass which really threw off my schedule. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do!

It’s really funny because the ship plans multitudes of activities all thru the day and hands out the schedule the night before in a handy little tear off form so you can run from activity to activity clutching this paper like a high school student. Only everyone is really old. I know I mentioned a lot of these people are Extreme Travelers and when some of them get these schedules they take out their own notebooks and parcel their days into 30 minute allotments and take off running each morning. It is very daunting if you are trying to relax and just want to attend one or two classes because these people are scary. Some of the husbands and wives only see each other at dinner and bedtime. Others will tell you in no uncertain terms exactly what you should and should not be doing. And DO NOT get in their way or sit in their place during one of their activities. These are opinionated, professional travelers and don’t you dare interrupt a placemat-making demonstration!!! Actually, many of them are quite kind and very open to the solo traveler such as me. I have met many wonderful people and had the opportunity to really observe human nature in this closed sort of environment. And I find the animal is coming out in me in one of my two activities: treadmill and watercolor class. The treadmill I can do on my own and I found it’s safe to go to the gym in the middle of the day. But early in the morning if you don’t sign up on the sheet for a treadmill I am told you get berated by fiends with canes and varicose veins. So…. mid-day in the gym for me. But watercolor class starts at a very particular time in a very small space with poor lighting, so if you want a good seat near the window, you need to get there early. Well look out Blue Hairs, I have no talent ( the teacher really couldn’t find anything nice to say about my painting yesterday and she always has something nice to say), but I can beat you to the window seat! So I may laugh at all these scheduled people, but I make sure to get to my class early so I get the good seat. We really never graduate from high school.

And I am totally exaggerating when I say everyone is old, partly because I forget I’m getting old and partly because, well, there are a lot of old people onboard. But not all old, some are middle aged like me, and 2 or 3 are younger. That’s the truth. Aside from staff there can’t be more than a handful of people under 50 unless they are hiding. And many are solo travelers; travelling alone as I am and this often cause me to reflect upon the single condition. I see so many solo travelers and some are out making connections, involved in activities, obviously very social. And others are quiet, alone, reading, eating, perhaps attending a lecture. And I know people are observing me – do they feel sorry for me when I eat alone or go to an activity alone? Sometimes people approach me and ask me to join them, sometime s they just ignore me, and I don’t really take offense one way or another. Being alone is a learned activity. We grow up in a family, in school, at work, in a marriage, with a built-in social systems. We don’t know how to be alone in society, only perhaps in our homes; our personal spaces. And when we find ourselves alone in life we have to choose: stay in that space alone or go out in society alone. And that is a big step for every single person. So my heart goes out to the solo traveler who is just starting, who is shy, really, really scared and has no idea what the world will do to them. Because we are not taught to do this. This is only my second trip alone, but I am more outgoing than some people and a little more comfortable with aloneness than others. I don’t hesitate to walk up to the sour looking single person and say something. Maybe I get rebuffed, maybe I get a smile. It doesn’t matter. I tried. I offered. Last night a man came and sat down with the two other women and myself who were listening to the really boring sing-a-long in the Piano Bar. That took a lot of nerve. Today I was eating my breakfast alone and he saw me and asked if he could sit down. Then he told me today, October 1^st, was the first day of his retirement. I hadn’t even realized it was October. He really wanted, and needed, to tell someone that big piece of news and I was so glad he had found someone he could tell. I guess that was why God messed up the ships clocks and got me up to breakfast early.

There are a lot of charities we hear about today and a lot of needs, but no one talks about the needs of the lonely. And I don’t mean the beggars, the homeless, the poor – they are all so needy and must be foremost in our minds and pockets. But the lonely are all around us, and no one is collecting money or setting up foundations for them because they don’t necessarily need money, they need time, a little coaching, a little listening, some encouragement, a prayer. This is a ministry everyone can partake in because we all know someone who is alone, someone who may be lonely. Single people take cruises like this, because they don’t have any other way to be with people and still see the world. Yes, they have the money, but it only buys them a ship full of people and the hope that someone will say something kind or touch their hearts or fill their otherwise empty days. Please say a prayer of thanksgiving for all the people in your life who love you and fill your days with joy, and pray for those who are alone that they may find God’s peace and friendship.

Now I need to put on my jogging suit, track shoes and boxing gloves to get ready for watercolor class.

Here We Go Again

Sept 28

As predicted, high seas appeared in the night. I find it soothing in bed except for the noises of whatever cannot be secured. I was sure someone was knocking repeatedly on my door, but it was the phantom in the closet somewhere. Failing to locate it, I simply bid it good night and let the rising seas rock me to sleep. My king size bed is right under the window so the sounds from beyond mimic a wailing snowstorm from my Wisconsin winters. I could have sworn when I woke up I would find mounds of the white fluffy stuff waiting to be shoveled and not salty spray beating on my window. I guess in this manner, nature is similar all over the world. We may tamper and tinker, intrude, pollute and invade, but her power and inevitability are undeniable and unavoidable. We build a big strong ship to cross her seas, but today I cannot even see the ancient chain of islands once known as the Catherine Archipelago as we sail right past.

We are cruising the now more commonly referred to Aleutian Islands today; a chain of more than 300 small volcanic islands in the Northern Pacific. These are those islands that sort of reach out from Alaska to the left on a map toward the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula, and if you’re like me you have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m just reading what the boat sends me. But interestingly enough these islands cross longitude 180 degrees  - again confusing. But we are also told this makes the Aleutians the westernmost and technically also the easternmost part of the United States. Now that’s pretty cool! And I would be happy if someone would explain that to me as I went up to the ship’s library and checked the globe and I still don’t get it. Although there is no sight of them right now, I spotted a faint outline of islands early this morning before complete cloud cover moved in. And I saw BIRDS. Yes, I felt like Noah with the dove and olive branch, for birds mean land and even if we can’t see them, we know by the birds flying by that the islands are out beyond the clouds.

Each morning I eat a huge breakfast as the orange juice is fresh squeezed and I am a snob who won’t touch the frozen kind, the eggs are made any way my heart desires and as many as I want, the papaya is ripe and cut up for me, the pastries fresh and varied as the personalities on board, the coffee and tea delicious and every kind of food you could possibly want is available.  And it’s morning—you get to wear it off! After all, the treadmill said I burned up 100 calories. That takes care of the chocolate they leave on my pillow each night. But the tremendous breakfast means I can skip or at least skimp on lunch. But that seems to hurt the feelings of my waiter Madi, and if I don’t show up in the Lido Buffet at lunch I get reproached at dinner. Life is difficult out here on the wild and rough seas, and pleasing people is never an easy job.

3:30PM  We are fully in the Bering Sea right now and the waves we are experiencing presently make the others look tame. My cabin is on the lower deck and the swells routinely rise above my window and the splashes rise above my deck. And there are crew decks below mine. They attempted to have high tea in the Crows Nest today. That’s on the highest deck at the front of the ship – deck 9. My friends’ chair kept sliding back and forth, we clutched our cups in our laps, and the string quartet all got sea sick and had to leave. They finally just packed up all the china and food and took everything away from us when the spray rose over the windows on deck 9 as the bow crashed over another swell. These are the monster waves I’ve only read about or seen on TV. The crew even looked scared.  You cannot walk without holding onto something and the floor is constantly dropping right out from under your feet. Really quite fascinating if you’re not sea sick; which is why I’m going to sign off now. This brings new meaning to”May the road rise up to meet you”!

Calm seas and God’s peace.

Sept 26

Medium Seas

Today dawned with some blue, some fluff of white in the sky and the same deep  grey of a rolling, but not bounding North Atlantic. When I think of the rough seas we are traveling in this large ship and the small vessels they use in these same waters on The Deadliest Catch I am awed beyond belief. So many people have been so sick and the day to day movement on the ship was so hindered by the high seas that I give great kudos to the crew for ever getting anything accomplished. The dining room last night was constantly being interrupted by diners’ hasty exits and platters and silverware flying to the ground with great crescendos and gong-like banging. I sat at lunch on the Lido Deck reading my Kindle and watched my ice tea glass slide to the right, slide to the left, and then repeat. It was more entertaining than the book I was reading.

Fortunately today I feel better. I never had sea sickness of the stomach, (I managed 3 full meals, thank you very much!) but having suffered the last 4 years with atypical migraines that often manifest as dizziness, I was quite dizzy all day yesterday and the constant severe motion intensified these tendencies. So I took a 2 hour nap and just stared at that ocean and wished I could will it flat. Being a past lover of a rocking ocean I felt like a traitor, but I also felt powerless in the face of this mighty and endless sea. And really, really sorry for the badly ill people and the crew I saw cleaning up after them all over the ship. It really was a good lesson in humility. Little Barf Bags hanging all over the place to be easily in reach of everyone, were used often as evidenced by the poor women I rounded the corner and found bent over one. Do you stop to offer help or pretend not to notice? I figured I would rather be ignored, so I moved on. Even the very hardy and well traveled have had it with these high seas.

Sept. 27

Finally a Horizon

Today as I awaken and peer out the window I finally am able to see a clear horizon, blue sky, deep blue ocean and wispy white clouds. We seem to have left the brooding and angry weather behind at least for now. They say you never know in the North Atlantic, but walkers have been able to go outside on the Promenade Deck and rumors are circulating of whales being spotted. It makes the idea of going to Siberia almost cheery! That’s out first stop on October 2 – somewhere unpronounceable and I believe as dreary as Russian communism could make it. But we’ll see. They do have vodka. I checked!

Now, my fellow travelers: the vast majority of the 1,075 passengers are retired. Many are using canes, walkers, wheelchairs and scooters. As you can imagine, they get their way in the buffet lines. I find it best to go at off times so as not to be run over or tripped. Although there is a segment of the population that also seems to sleep right through whatever activity they are attending so they never relinquish the chair they are in and you trip over them too. And lest they get lost or their keepers lose them, they all seem to put their cabin key cards on lanyards like they are attending an expo or something. I have an irresistible urge to grab their cards and run off and see what they would do. I suspect they would crumble like I pulled out their power packs or something. Oh, I’m not trying to be cruel, I’m just trying to mentally prepare myself for me in 20 years. Actually most the passengers are spry, cordial and Extreme Travelers. And by this I mean they have traveled extensively for years, been to most of these ports several times and are rarely home. They can’t count the cruises that have taken, the tours they have been on or the countries they have been to. They only know the handful of places they have not been.  I am a neophyte among experts. Yet…. yet many are terrified to go out on their own. They cannot leave the ship without a tour and the thought of actually striking out on a trip like I am doing by myself to New Zealand isn’t even in the realm of their imagination. They are astonished when I tell them my plans. These people who have spent years traveling everywhere have never really experienced the places they have been except through the eyes of guides, tour operators and travel agents. All very valid and safe ways to travel, but over time I would think one would want to delve a bit deeper into the cultures and come face-to-face with the people. But perhaps that is just my personal style and I hope to find like minded people on this ship as the cruise progresses.

Today I did my treadmill overlooking the bow and the North Atlantic sailing through the Alaskan sea, as it is a bit too brisk for me outside and getting brisker by the minute. I started my first water color class which is really funny because we were taught to mix colors and I simply cannot get the hang of making black. I mean, isn’t that the color we kept coming up with as kids accidentally? I can’t do it. And why can’t I just buy black? Anyway, as I was failing miserably as a painter, the captain came over the loudspeaker to give us our location, etc. We will be sailing past the Aleutian Islands tomorrow and could actually see some land perhaps, but another lovely north Atlantic storm system is moving in as I write and blotting out the sun and the blue color I so warmly welcomed back into my life. ( I can make that color  in my watercolor class!) This baby is expected to last through tomorrow night.  So we may have to divert away from the islands. I forgot to mention that when I went for my massage yesterday all the cabinets were duct taped shut and I wondered if that was part of the massage process also. It wasn’t. And in the bars they have had to roll up towels and place them in front of all the liquor bottles to prevent wholesale crashing to the decks. I can’t tell you how excited everyone is for this next storm ! It’s so much fun trying to sleep at night as you’re thrust to and fro and everything in your cabin is rolling and banging and dropping and creaking. Simply marvelous. Everything they write about in the brochures!

Come and sail the Deadliest Catch Seas. Watch the horizon from your glorious state room window – now you see it, now you don’t. Here’s your lunch, there it goes!

Anyway, if the seas are as bad as before I guess my dizziness will return and I won’t be able to type. So I’ll sign off for today and pray for smooth sailing and God’s peace.

P.S. As I post, the horizon has slipped into the clouds and mist. Fresh supplies of Dramimine, patches and Barf Bags are being handed out.

Sept. 25

HIGH SEAS

I’m on board the Amsterdam! I NEVER get sea sick; in fact I love high seas because I love the soft swaying effect in bed and the comical affect of everyone trying to move about the ship. I always want a high deck cabin so I get the most sway affect. This time, because a high balcony cabin cost more than most new cars for a single traveler, I am in the bowels of the ship with a lovely picture window. I went to sleep last night quite disappointed because I felt no ship movement at all, though I did see a gorgeous moon shine a path right to my window. The captain warned we would be moving into storms, but they always say that and then little swells appears and we rock a bit. Well, 2:00AM came around and this baby was rocking and rolling and the waves were crashing against the side of the ship high enough for me to hear them and the engines were trembling beneath me as we ploughed through very high seas. When the sun was up I knelt on my bed to open the curtains to take a look and through spray-washed windows I saw gray, gray sky meeting deep gray water as far as I could peer and only the white of swell peaks or the splash from the ship broke the grayness. Terrific, I thought. Well I went to mass and we all staggered like drunks up to communion, I followed three lovely women to breakfast and ate like a lumberjack, went to the gym and spent 28 minutes on the treadmill where I discovered you should not watch the bow go up and down and the spray fly overboard while clinging desperately to the violently swaying treadmill – a true full body workout, and the beginning of not feeling completely perky. Imagine that feeling you get right before an elevator stops at your floor – sort of a moment of weightlessness accompanied by a stomach flip. With seas running in the 20-25 foot range we are getting that feeling every 5-10 seconds and I am finding it affecting my head more than my stomach. Although with the number of bark-bags they are handing out, leaving by the elevators and the poor woman I just passed in the hall, I would say it is affecting lots of stomachs too. That being said, this computer is adding to the problem and I am signing off until sunny skies and calmer seas greet my window.

Peggy’s Excellent Adventure

Sept. 24

My day of departure began with a momentous and beautiful gesture: My son, a priest of two months, said a private mass for my two daughters and me.  But what was momentous was that the mass was for me and my safe journey – just me. No other dead people like you usually hear in mass, no special saints – ME. Pretty cool. I now have my own personal Grace Valet! And if my other son who is also studying for the priesthood becomes a priest, I am like Super Mario and become Super Graced. Thanks God.

After mass it was on home to finish packing which for me has been a month long process. I am the original­­­­­­­­ Uber Organizer. I make lists, then I make more lists, I make piles, I re-arrange the piles, I get out suitcases, I buy new suitcases, I change the lists, I check off lists, I buy all the necessities, then I buy them again. I am prepared for nuclear holocaust, worldwide famine, Armageddon, dinner with the Queen of England, an audience with the Pope;). So the final closing of the suitcases comes down to which pair of black shorts I will bring. After modeling for my daughters that little matter is decided and my son reminds me to be sure and weigh the suitcase ahead of time. I assure him I did that 3 days ago and had an extra 15 pounds. After all, I am the Uber Organizer! So on this very hot 90 degree Fall day where I refuse to turn on the AC in the house, I struggle to close the last suitcase. Failing because my arthritic fingers can’t get those stupid little plastic clippy things together, my daughter quickly snaps them for me and I zip it shut and smugly drag it to the scale. After several ridiculous attempts to balance the teetering case I finally read the weight at 55 pounds!!!!!! Ahhhhhhh! Not possible. I had this planned! I grab the other case and do the same stupid acrobatics –46 pounds. I’m starting to hyper ventilate. There is NO room in the 46 pound case. I had this planned. Everything perfectly in it’s proper place just like always. I’m starting to feel very warm. My daughter very practically tells me to leave something home. Horror! I had every item meticulously planned and accounted for for weeks. I take out a tiny, little travel candle. I guess I can live without that and it is contraband on the ship anyway, but it doesn’t weigh four pounds. I try to take from the larger case and put in to the smaller case and eventually, after much staining of zippers and some choice words (I have now lost all the grace received at mass that morning),I get them within a pound of the 50 pound limit. But now I find I cannot carry the brand new suitcase I purchased just for this trip as it is too heavy and full to fit onto the other suitcase for me to pull them together – as planned. I am now sweating profusely, or perspiring as my mother used to say, and the clock is ticking. I run to the basement to look for other possibilities. Now please understand, my son leaves in 2 days for his final year of 5 years of study in Rome and my daughter leaves in 7 days for her year of study in Rome. Suitcases are at a premium at the moment in our house and I cannot steal from their source. I review the left-over’s and choose a rolling duffel I have turned up my nose at for many years and never before considered as up to my standards. Praise the Lord I never gave it away. I race upstairs and do the most un-Peggy-like thing I have ever done before: massive, uncontrolled throwing of my precious folded and segregated items into an unregulated cavern of duffeldom. I’m smashing underwear next to shoes on top of medicine next to pj’s filled with books crammed with hairdryer and curling iron – where are the nice little dividers and pockets!?! But I did get to put back the candle. And….. it all weighed in just about right if the scale gods at the airport were smiling when the time came for me to fly away.

And fly I finally get to do. I tell Billie Jean to be good as I say good bye and I ask St Francis to give her a peaceful and easy death if she should die before I return. She has followed me all day in my frantic packing mode knowing something is wrong, but now she simply wags her tail assuming I’ll be home later on. Good dog Billie.  After tears with my older daughter in the morning, the two Rome children take me to the airport. I kiss my son the priest good bye at the curb and hold back the tears pretty well. How many times have I left this son at the airport, first to travel the world, then to study in Rome? That is a whole other story and now it is his turn to leave me at the airport. My 19 year old daughter helps me in with my luggage because I am really a klutz with the 2 heavy pieces, 2 carry-ons and my bad arthritis and I don’t have on my glasses so I can’t read a thing the kiosk is telling me. She is doing everything for me and I wonder how the heck I am ever going to get through the next three months alone if I can’t even get my luggage checked without help. We are both laughing because it is pretty comical and because we know we have to say emotional good byes before we both embark on major journeys in our lives. After the luggage is checked she walks me to the escalator and we hug, say I love yous and start to cry and laugh and cry and laugh. We are so silly, but she is off to study abroad and I am off to travel alone – who knows what lies ahead and all I can do is wrap her in my arms and wish I could protect her with super powers, but prayer is the only power I possess. So I promise to pray for her as she does for me and off I go—alone.

Here's the Plan

No, I am not doing the Eat, Love and Pray thing, I am simply following the call of the road, nature and diverse cultures which I have felt since my teen years. Life and growing up got in the way and now I have the time and opportunity to answer some of those calls. I'm leaving behind my family who will be just fine without me as they are leading diverse and full lives and Christmas will bring most of us together again. But my dog of 14 years may not be waiting for me when I get home, so I'm putting up a photo of beautiful Billie Jean because I want to remember her and I need to know how to put photos on this blog somehow anyway:)

I'm a devout Catholic, mother of a newly ordained priest and another future priest, and two fine Christian daughters so I may go on about God sometimes and I'll certainly ask for prayers especially when I decide to do some scary or non-age appropriate activities. But I promise I will not bungee jump. Other than that, it's still packing time!