Dispatch 7: Did Covid Break My Cruise Fever?

Returning home after 33 days on a cruise from Los Angeles to Tahiti and back, following a 13-day cruise from Seattle to Tokyo earlier this fall, Robert and I have reached a startling conclusion:  our 40-year-long addiction to cruising just might be over.

Sometimes, our compulsion to cruise has felt like a fever. Just as we finished planning a land or resort vacation, a new cruise brochure would arrive . . . and we were hooked. An alluring sea itinerary was booked, the land trip was tossed to the side, and off we would go. And we loved every minute of it.

But Covid inserted an unplanned four-year gap in those trips. Until last fall, we had not been on a cruise since the summer of 2019. Over that time, something has changed. Maybe it’s us. Maybe it’s cruising. Or maybe Covid acted as an inoculation.

Will we be cruising forward or leaving cruising behind?

What happened? Why aren’t we loving cruising so much these days? First, the Covid break changed our perspectives. It shook our routines. After four years without lazy days at sea, we didn’t naturally slide into the comfortable grooves of the previous forty years of cruising. Instead, a few new travel grooves have been etched: land trips, theater excursions, family retreats.

Second, the cruise industry itself constantly changes. Many of the things that originally captured our hearts have fallen to the wayside. There are no more fixed dinner seatings—we developed so many friendships over the years at those eight-top tables. Formal nights which we loved are forgotten. Ships have gotten bigger. Safety concerns, or maybe faster speeds or stormier weather, seem to keep the promenade decks closed more often. And trivia contests, always serious, seem ever more cutthroat.

Then, as much as we are loathe to admit it, we too are changing. On our first cruise in 1984, we were only 31 and 29. On every cruise thereafter, it seemed we continued to be younger than the majority of guests. Now hovering around 70, aging concerns interfere with many of the cruising pleasures developed over the years. I gave up jogging during Covid, so there’re no more runs on the promenade deck as the sun sets. I also need to limit my coffee in the morning and my wine in the evening, or my heartburn demands a steep price. I think living in wine country and an expanding budget for expensive restaurants have made me more critical of the food and drink. After so many cruises, I also feel I could give most of the shipboard lectures, which tend to focus on the same topics. In short, I am more easily bored.

A fourth factor is that the world around us is changing. Nothing is more dramatic than the rise of the internet at sea. On our first cruise, we were completely cut off from the world. Ship to shore calls were $19 a minute, and no one did them. As the years went on, internet connections became possible. But it was slow and expensive, and we always rationed the minutes. Now, we—like every other person on the ship—have our phones and tablets connected 24/7 to the ship’s WiFi. It seems at times everyone is hooked into the online world. There’s no sense of escape or seclusion. The allure of getting away from it all has vanished.

Finally, I’m not ready for my personal changes ahead. I am especially not ready for the assisted living complex. But on the kind of long itineraries on the types of ships we like, we seemingly remain the youngsters . . . which is another way of saying that we are still surrounded by the ever more elderly with their myriad afflictions of aging. Hey, I am going to vote for Joe Biden, even though he’s old and walks slow. That doesn’t mean I want to get on a ship filled with people who need to walk just as slowly and carefully. I prefer looking into the mirror and still imagine the person I once was. I don’t enjoy being constantly prompted to think of where I will likely be in 10 or 15 years.

It seems clear from all these symptoms that my cruise fever is in remission. But just in case, we are testing it with a cruise booked next spring. After all, we still carry that infection of loving a great value, exploring new places, and meeting interesting people.

Stay tuned to see if we can fall back into our old grooves, or find new ones.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers.  Read all the posts about our French Polynesia cruise at FrahmannThoughts.wordpress.com

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 6 from the Voyage to Tahiti: Cult Warning Ahead!

There has been a travel-related longing inside me that I didn’t even know needed filling.

It was for quiet comfortable seating, perfect for reading and contemplation.  And not just in one style or setting. I needed open-air sofas high atop the sports deck, as well as quiet Swedish modern sofas with soft blankets and animal fleeces facing windows overlooking the sea. And lounge chairs around the pool with thick cushions and plush towels. And I wanted them always to be available, and never feel like I had to rush around to secure my spot before every seat was chock-a-block filled.

Explorer’s Lounge

The center pool

The sports deck

That’s not all. I also had an emptiness that could only be filled by stacks of books filling every corner of the ship, just daring me to pick up some obscure title and get caught up in a topic I had never thought about before.

Then there’s that primitive urge to have someone always know your name, and be, oh so willing, to pour you another complimentary glass of wine or fetch another beer.

And I have enjoyed so much being exposed to a constant diet of interesting speakers.

Oh, Viking, what have you done to us? Is there some chemical in those carafes of water left fresh in our room every evening and morning to bewitch us into becoming your acolytes?

Sometimes, I wonder. For the first week or so, it seemed the only question we were asked by fellow guests was, “Is this your first Viking cruise? Oh, don’t you just love it?” It was always asked both with enthusiasm and an expectation of total agreement.

On a Viking cruise, even if you are sitting at a table of two, it seems impossible to not be pulled into a conversation with people on one side or another of your table. One evening, Robert and I joked how we felt like the sacrificial lambs brought to the altar. On either side of us, two elderly ladies had such a gleam in their eyes to begin a conversation, and their respective husbands were just as eager to talk once the ice was broken. Soon it was a conversation for six. And they all loved Viking!

But we learned a lesson soon enough. Don’t say anything negative about this cruise line. Your fellow guests will do their utmost to convince you why you are wrong, or look at you as though you just insulted them. Or maybe worse, they will insist you go down to customer service to make your concerns known so they can be instantly fixed. And then check with you the next time they see you to make sure you did exactly tht. (We did not.)

After a while, we began joking about “group think.” Sometimes, it really did feel as though we had fallen into some strange cult of brainwashed wealthy travelers. 

For example, we keep discovering “secrets” well-known to the frequent Viking traveler. There are often tours of the bridge or galley—they’re just not announced, you have to know to ask about them. There are cooking classes that end with lunch; they were mentioned only once on the first day at sea, with no real details on time or structure.  Apparently, you have to know to sign up early. I could go on, but passengers love being part of the “in” crowd.

Perhaps, a bigger part of the sense of the Viking cult is the enormous conformity of this cruise’s passengers. Even if you wandered into an expensive seniors-only community in the Midwest or south, you would be hard pressed to find a more homogeneous group of seventy-to-ninety-year-olds marked by upper-middle-class attitudes, i.e. wealthy white conservatives. I have seen just 5 black male passengers and not a single black woman among the 800 plus passengers. There are no more than a couple of Indian-American or Asian couples. Add a few French Canadians and one German dude who always wears his polo shirts with the collar turned up, and you have largely explored the diversity of our fellow guests.

I don’t actually know what my fellow guests think outside of their attitudes about Viking. Like at a polite family Thanksgiving gathering, no one ever talks politics. That would somehow disturb the Stepford-wife quality of goodwill around us. Until this cruise, I didn’t realize how much I missed the many curious and challenging conversations about American politics we have had on Holland America cruises with Canadian, European, and Australian guests. 

One thing I won’t miss about this cruise is hearing one more passenger say how much he or she likes Viking, because “it’s just people like us.”  Somehow, that sentiment doesn’t seem to be reflecting the “no children” policy at Viking . . . but maybe we can give these guests the benefit of the doubt.

There you have it:  Beautiful ships. Fine service, food and wine. Friendly passengers. Not to mention a full promenade deck. What more could you want? Our souls may already be lost. We signed up to do a Viking South Atlantic crossing from Buenos Aires to Barcelona in the spring of 2025. 

Surely, Viking’s guests deserve another chance to make a better second impression!

Robert adds: Yes, it’s true. We actually did hear one woman say to us that the wonderful thing about sailing Viking was that “all the passengers are like us.” I have to say that sent a shiver down my spine just a bit. There was also a “where are you from” question to which I replied “California.” The response was “Oh that’s too bad.” And another overheard conversation, “Where are ya’ll from.” “San Diego.” “Oh, I’m sorry.”

On another note: I think this is going to be our first cruise in a very long time where I’ve gained weight during the trip.  That’s unfortunate.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. 

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 3 from the Voyage to Tahiti: It’s About Time

I don’t know about you, but I have a definite time limit for any museum.  It’s only two hours.  Maybe if a lunch or tea break were added in, I could do another hour of walking and looking. More than that, I develop a back ache and a headache.

Admittedly, most museums warrant more time than two hours. Still, it’s all I got for any single visit. Which brings me to visiting the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Undoubtedly it is the premiere spot for all things Hawaiian and Polynesian. And, to the credit of the excursions team at Viking, the ship’s tour allotted more than three hours to enjoy it. I just couldn’t do it.

The Bishop Museum’s historic exterior

First, a note about why I selected this ship’s tour. We’ve been to Honolulu several times. We’ve visited Pearl Harbor and the Royal Palace. We’ve hiked to the rim of Diamond Head, and we’ve tanned on the sands of Waikiki.  We’ve even driven the circumference of the island.

But I’ve never made it to the Bishop Museum. Because Robert wasn’t interested in visiting, I nixed my original plan for us to Uber over, spend my two hours, and Uber back. Instead, I booked the ship’s tour.

Which is what led me at the two-hour mark to find the coffee shop, buy a hot drink, sit, and read the LA Times on my phone until the ship’s bus came to pick us up.

But I loved my first two hours. One of the cool things about this Viking cruise has been the excellent series of enrichment lectures. On the five days of sailing here, we listened to multiple lectures about the geology of the islands, the migration of Polynesian people, the European discovery, and the native flora and fauna on land and in the sea.

Because of that, walking the displays of the Bishops museum was like cramming for a final on everything we had just been taught. Look!  There’s the skeleton of a sperm whale, the feathered capes of the early kings, descriptions of the plots of the perfidious Americans who over threw the royalty, and so much more.

It was a great reinforcement and enhancement of all we had heard.

But for me the highlight was something totally unexpected . . . a discussion of the Hawaiian calendar. They organized themselves around a 30-day lunar calendar, and there were distinct names for days based on the phases of the moon—from “hilo” for the threadlike new moon to “hoku” for the full moon.  Each named day came with expectations about what should be planted, celebrated, or fished, the state of the tides, and the timing of the moon in the night sky.

I don’t know why but I found the idea of being so attuned to the moon quite intriguing. In my day-to-day life, I barely notice what stage it is in. I would never be able to predict for the day ahead if the moon would still be visible in the morning sky.

It was a full moon last night, and the ship’s resident astronomer said the captain would be turning off all the ship’s upper lights at 10 pm. This was so we could get a full view of the night sky from the topmost decks. 

Even though we often enjoy seeing the Milky Way from our Cambria home, we eagerly made our way to the top of the ship around 10:15. But not eagerly enough. So many people showed up that by the time we arrived, the ship’s staff had closed off the doors. For safety reasons, they were preventing any more people entering the top deck.

I guess I need to start paying more attention to the inner calendars of the elderly crowd aboard this ship. As in Cambria, everyone shows up early and there may be nothing left for the late-to-arrive to enjoy.

Robert adds: We had inadvertently packed only half-full bottles of aspirin and Tums, so I headed out to walk to the nearby drug store that I distinctly remembered from our last visit to Honolulu. “Maps” on my phone didn’t show anything even remotely like I recalled, and sure enough, as I walked down a tree-lined pedestrian only street, there was no store in sight. But I headed out anyway for a 1.5-mile walk to a CVS. Memories were quickly erased and replaced with vacant store fronts, trash, and homeless men.

Otherwise, on board, we keep meeting people who are longtime Viking cruisers, but their stories are confusing to us. Of course, they love the ship, the food, and the crew. But a large majority of them seem quite confounded by the motion of the ship. More than confounded – annoyed. It’s almost like none of these longtime Viking cruisers have ever been on an ocean crossing before. Caribbean, Panama Canal, that kind of thing probably, but never across an actual moving ocean. There’s no end of complaints about losing their balance, etc etc etc. Dennis and I have wondered to ourselves, “Why on earth would they have booked a 33-day ocean trip if they didn’t like sea days?” The answer came a few days later. During one of the lectures, the speaker asked the theater full of people “who here has NOT been to French Polynesia before?” Surprisingly (to us at least), probably 75% of the audience raised their hands. Aha, I guess it was the itinerary that inspired all of these landlubbers to get out into the middle of the Pacific.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. Dispatches from other cruises can be found on my blog site:

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 1 from the Voyage to Tahiti: Perceptions of Luxury and Age

We’ve discovered the quick and easy way to feel younger. Book yourself on a month -long cruise with more than 20 sea days on a top-tier cruise line. It’s amazing how even at age 70, you suddenly seem so much younger than all those around you. Or, as the comedian on board joked in last night’s show, “Welcome to Viking, where it’s so nice to see so many prosperous retired people . . . and their parents.”

Yes, Robert and I are on another adventure—this time sailing from Los Angeles through the Hawaiian Islands onwards to multiple spots in French Polynesia before heading back to Los Angeles with a stop in San Diego.

So far, this journey has not only made me think about how perceptions of age are colored by your surroundings, but also that the same is true of luxury.

Viking Ocean seems a master of those details that make you feel pampered. Seeing a carafe of hot coffee on your breakfast table no matter where you sit in the restaurant immediately won me over. And even though bar drinks aren’t free on this line, they never bother you with a bill. The server simply asks your room number and discreetly punches it into his or her ever-present small digital pad.  (A surreptitious look over the shoulder also suggest that the interface brings up the guest’s photo and name providing a double bonus. Not only does that make it hard for someone to charge something to the wrong room, but the server can now address you by name!)

The whole atmosphere of this ship makes you feel as though you dropped in for a weekend visit at some wealthy’s friend’s getaway. That’s helped along by calling the main lounge the “Living Room” or the use of replicas in the Nordic eatery called Mamsens’ of old-fashioned Swedish china that belonged to the founder Torstein Hagen’s  mother. It’s also reinforced by very tasteful and consistent Scandinavian design focused on clean lines, light woods, and fabrics.

Stacks of books are used everywhere as a décor item, but apparently also as an invitation to dive in and read. Comfortable lounge furniture indoors and on deck are bestrewn with lively pillows and throw blankets, just demanding you to curl up and get comfortable. It’s almost as though the ship’s designer wanted to bring to life such European concepts as Danish hygge (a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life) or the Dutch gezellig (social coziness).

Certainly, all this is helped along with a plentiful flowing of wine. When we boarded the ship, we were handed a glass of sparking wine. When we won the first day’s trivia game, we were awarded a mimosa.  When we went to the ship’s sponsored gathering for LGBTQ passengers on day two, the staff handed out—you guessed it—glasses of sparkling wine.

Curiously, as noted above, while there is a charge for drinks in the bar, wine and beer at lunch and dinner is complimentary. And the pours are generous and frequent. It is almost like being a guest at our local dinner parties. You’re never left wanting.

But the biggest bonus of all that makes this ship feel like a pampered getaway is the simple abundance of space . . . lots of public space. We never feel crowded.  We never worry about finding a seat. 

And the space is quiet. Viking is a line that has no casinos, no art auctions, no sports bars, no loud music party clubs. But there’s music everywhere.  A piano performer in one lounge.  A classic duo in another. A guitarist elsewhere.  And vocal performances and shows in the theater. Just settle in and relax.

Viking is also a line with no children on board, which to some may be a luxury and to others a deprivation. I will admit that on other long cruises heavily tilted to the over-65 crowd, there were always the occasional grandparents who brought along grandchildren for a special trip. And whether those tykes were 5 or 25, they did add a bit of youthful color and energy that can be welcome.

Which brings me back to where I began on the perceptions of age. With no Gen Z or younger person anywhere in sight among the passengers, I can’t help but feel that I look “mahvelous.”

Robert adds: Dennis is quite right about a nice sense of space on this ship, especially space for just sitting and reading. The Star is a smaller ship than we have been on – fewer than 850 passengers on this sailing – and so there are not any hordes of people descending on the buffet lines or other things like that. But, we have also noticed that the smaller ship comes with a few trade-offs. One that confronts us every day is the size of the landings in front of the elevator doors. Very small compared with what we’ve experienced on Holland America. These Viking landings are nicely sized for the ship, but definitely not big enough for an entire show lounge of people to congregate while waiting for the elevator. This results in two things: (1) corridors get backed up preventing people from moving through, and (2) the landings backed up if you are trying to just get to the stairwell opposite the elevator doors. Throw in half a dozen or more people with canes, a few rolling walkers, and other folks with unsteady legs on a rolling ship, it makes for quite a challenge to “excuse me, pardon me, excuse me” one’s way through to the stairs for a quick exit.

As Dennis mentioned, we did win at our very first go at Trivia. Well, technically we tied for first place, but we did so by getting 100% of the questions right. Day two, we also tied for first place (even though we missed two questions). Dare we try for more? 

And yes, we do have the inevitable upstream-salmon-walkers on the Promenade deck here too. I’m trying to not let it get to me.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. Dispatches from other cruises can be found on my blog site, Frahmann Thoughts.

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

My Land-Bound Cruise . . . Travel in the Time of Covid-19

Right about now, we were expecting to be packing for a month-long cruise from San Diego to Tahiti and back. We would have been leaving Saturday.

Obviously, that’s not happening. Instead, we are now part of the 65-plus crowd in California that has been asked to stay at home and self-isolate. I’m all for flattening the curve. Still, mentally, I need to get myself into a different place—a more optimistic spot.

Since I live so close to the ocean, I have decided to think of the weeks ahead as a shore-bound cruise.  (Considering how many of our friends would consider a month on a cruise ship with tons of sea days torture under any conditions, maybe a month of forced solitude on shore for us won’t be so bad.)

On the plus side, we will have a verandah view room for this adventure, since our house has ocean-facing decks.  And just like on a cruise ship that’s moving, the wind is usually too much to enjoy sitting on deck and watch the ocean.

As for our daily shipboard routine of walking the promenade deck for a mile or two, we can still venture outside for a walk along the beach. There’s no one there, and we could probably practice a social distancing of 60 feet, or even 600 feet, without breaking a sweat.  And I can still do a ton of reading, which is always one of my main cruise activities.  I have downloaded many e-books, and made a final run at the local library’s used book store for their one-dollar paperbacks.

Of course, I know how to open a bottle of wine or shake a martini, so there’s no reason to bypass our shipboard habit of a cocktail before dinner. And even though we’re well-stocked for cooking, I think we’ll take advantage as much as practical and as long as possible of our local restaurants offering special delivery menus. It will add interest to our lives, and help local jobs survive this challenging time.

Our first home-delivered meal . . . Indian Lamb Curry from Robin’s Restaurant

On the other hand, there will be no way to end the evening with attending whatever entertainment is in the ship’s showroom.  But, by coincidence, I recently broke down and signed up for Amazon Prime . . . so we can always engage in binge watching.  Already we’re through the first season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisal.

Which leaves one thing—interacting with people.  We do love dinner conversations and meeting new people on a long cruise.  We will need to work on staying in touch with friends and relatives in a more robust way over these days and weeks ahead. Or, maybe, Robert and I will just learn to talk more to one another.

Have I forgotten anything?  Oh, yes, visiting new places and seeing amazing sights. I guess I can read travel books, watch documentaries, prowl through space on Google Earth, and the like. But maybe I will devote some time each day to reviewing and repairing all my old scrapbooks. We have 35 years of cruises stored away in photos and memorabilia in deteriorating albums. That should keep me busy and remind me of what I’ve already seen.

So that’s my plan to stay positive.  I’ll let you know how it works.

 

Please check out all my novels in paperback or Kindle format, including:  Tales from the Loon Town Cafe, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst—and my latest, The Long Table Dinner.

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Back to the Sea

In just a few days, Robert and I head out for another longer cruise – this time we’ll be traveling for nearly a month. We sail from Ft. Lauderdale, across the Atlantic and then on to multiple European ports.

For those who like to read about our travels, stay tuned. We will soon be back to a schedule of multiple blogs a week in which we discuss where we go and what we see. We hope you join us for the journey.

On board we will return back to a daily routine of sea vistas from our balcony, long walks along the promenade with the smell of salt air, and daily cocktails – in other words, a world much like our life in Cambria.  But it does come with the added bonus of meeting new people, seeing new places, and avoiding all daily chores.

Plus we leave for this trip protected by a personal umbrella of good feelings. In our quest to visit eventually at least 100 countries, we will be adding four more on this trip: Bermuda, Denmark, Estonia and Russia. That will bring us up to a total just under 80. The Century Club for travelers is within sight.

Along the way, we will also have the chance to lunch with some good Dutch friends in Amsterdam and later to meet some of my Finnish relatives in Helsinki. That includes a cousin whose father was the inspiration for a key part of The Finnish Girl.

Speaking of that book, I am feeling good lately about my novels. This past week, I was asked to be part of a panel of Finnish-American authors and do a reading from The Finnish Girl at this year’s FinnFest (which takes place in Detroit in September). Also a very positive review of my current book, The Long Table Dinner, was featured in the April 1 hardcopy issue of Kirkus Reviews (which goes to librarians around the country). And I had a fun book signing just yesterday in Morro Bay.

Our taxes are done, our financial advisor says things are looking good, and our recent house projects turned out wonderful. So why would we be blue?

Well, of course, there is that little matter of living in a country increasingly being run by incompetents, crooks, and amoral idiots. But I expect interacting with the Canadians and Europeans on board the ship will prove a bracing tonic to counter that bad fever.

If not, well . . . I did just pick up a copy of Fletcher Knebel’s 1965 bestseller Night of Camp David.  As summarized on the back cover, “How can one member of Congress convince the highest powers in Washington that the president of the United States is dangerously unstable—before it’s too late?”

Oh, how I love the literature of prophecy. And I’m counting on you, Adam Schiff, to give us the happy ending that I’m sure was written into Knebel’s book sixty years ago.

Bon voyage.

Kirkus Reviews describes my latest novel as “a finely crafted story about late-in-life regrets.” The Long Table Dinner, is available on Amazon and other bookseller sites. Please check out all my novels in paperback or Kindle format, including:  Tales From the Loon Town Café, The Finnish Girl, andThe Devil’s Analyst.

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Making a List for the Next Big Trip

Our upcoming lengthy cruise is not far away. We’ll depart San Diego in September to sail through the South Pacific to Sydney, Australia and then embark on a month-long circumnavigation of Australia. In all, we will be on a ship for almost two months— maybe three if we break down and opt to cruise home from Sydney on a different ship.

Needless to say, for a journey so long, there are many of items on our get ready list.

The first check box for us was obtaining new passports. The old ones weren’t anywhere near their expiration date, but because of our extensive travels since retiring, we had almost no remaining blank pages. Alas, the State Department no longer sews in additional pages.

So we had no choice to but to snap new photos and send away for spanking-new books. We chose the ones with the maximum number of pages, but we must also hang on to our old ones, since they include 10-year visas for Brazil and India. Luckily those visas remain valid when shown with the new passport.

But our new blank passports lack all the interesting stamps from places like Namibia and Thailand. I guess we will just have to go back to those places.

Goodbye, old passport!

In addition to the passport, our checklist included applying for an Australian visa. Luckily that’s a snap. (You can’t say the same about the aforementioned Brazilian and Indian visas. Those are as onerous to get for Americans as it is for most foreign visitors to snag a U.S. visa.)

Next check box: research. What do we want to see on each of our port stops? I am quite excited about multiple options in many Australian ports, but I’m still not sure what we should do in Pago Pago, American Samoa. (Robert was pleased to correct my mispronunciation. The town’s name sounds like pango pango.). And does anyone have tips for Exmouth, Australia? Can you even find the spot in your atlas? (Remember those? They’re hardbound books containing a series of maps.)

Our list can’t be focused just on shore excursions and activities abroad. We also have to tend the home fires. There’s confirming that a neighbor will pick up our mail each day; the post office has a 30-day max for holding mail. There’s thinking through how to handle the bills that will appear while we’re gone. For example, we will have to bring along the information needed to pay our property tax online in November. (And when will our local water company enable e-billing?)

And we haven’t even talked yet about the actual packing list: clothing, toiletries and that bane of older years, prescriptions. How many suitcases will we fill?

But don’t get me wrong. Prepping for a trip is always part of the fun. Anticipation is part of ensuring the resulting experience is fully enjoyed.

But one prep item is troublesome. Just how will I respond to all the talk I know I will get from Canadian, Europeans, Australians and others about American politics? I don’t worry about comments about Trump. I will quickly agree that he’s–choose one—an amoral narcissist, a danger to the whole world, an old coot with signs of dementia, or the commander-in-lies.

No, the challenge is what to say when they ask about what’s going on with Americans? How did we let this happen? Why are we putting up with it? I don’t feel I can defend the wisdom and morality of America as a society. And that may put a damper on many conversations in the months ahead.

But I console myself thinking about all the beautiful places I am about to see. Stay tuned to the blog and we’ll try to share our wonder with you.

Please check out my novels in paperback or Kindle format: Tales From the Loon Town Café, The Finnish Girl, and The Devil’s Analyst. Visit www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

I Guess I’m Dutch, Not Norwegian . . . At Least When It Comes to Cruising

Recently, Robert and I had our DNA tested to determine our ancestry. No surprises for either of us. Robert’s mostly English and German, and I’m mostly German and Finnish.

But when it comes to cruising, our recent adventure has convinced us that we’re really Dutch—at least in our loyalty to Holland America over Norwegian.

It’s funny, but when you’ve taken over 20 cruises like we have you can begin to forget what is really important about the experience—until the things you like the most aren’t there.

At the beginning of May, on a lark, we embarked on a 5-day repositioning cruise from Los Angeles to Vancouver on Norwegian Cruise Lines. We had a great time (more about that in a moment) but we also discovered what matters to us.

For me, I now realize I like my chocolate on the pillow each night, the 8-page New York Times digest each morning, the attentive server in the Lido who keeps your coffee cup full, and the bar staff each cocktail hour who remembers that I like my martini with a lemon twist. I prefer food that doesn’t taste as though I just opened my freezer and stuck something in the microwave. And above all, I appreciate finding quiet places to read and watch the ocean go by. Our long cruises on Holland America these past few years provided those small luxuries.

I didn’t get many of these favorite moments on Norwegian, although I must admit we did enjoy some high value production shows that were pretty amazing. You just don’t expect to see an acrobat bungee jump out of the ceiling of a theater on a moving ship! Or maybe you do. On the other hand, I had more than I wanted of crowded restaurants and bars, noisy children, and endless hawking of extra services.

With Norwegian’s Freestyle (or as I liked to call it, free of style) dining, there is no need to worry about fixed locations or tables. Instead you have to worry about reservations and timing, usually well in advance, unless you want to be disappointed by a fully-booked restaurant or a missed show. You also don’t have to worry about being stuck with unpleasant dinner guests.  But that’s never been our problem; instead, we found on this trip we didn’t easily meet other passengers. That was a miss. But that proved okay, because our short itinerary gave us two opportunities to meet up with folks we met on our last Holland America trip.

In San Francisco, we spent the day with John and Steve, who had been our trivia pals on the first leg of our 90-day cruise in 2016. It was great catching up. Then in Vancouver, we met Otto and Aida, two dinner mates from that same cruise. Again, it was as though we just picked up where we last ended. It was a great time in both cases.

For us, that’s the beauty of cruising. Yes, we get to see beautiful spots. And certainly Butchart Gardens in Victoria on a warm sunny spring day this May was fabulous. Enjoying so many tulips in bloom convinced we were Dutch at heart.

We also loved our walking tour of San Francisco. Hard to believe, but it was our first time in the Castro. But in the final analysis, it’s always the people we meet that make a vacation memorable.

Perhaps that’s why we still are in touch with a person we met thirty years ago on our first trans-Atlantic crossing, and why our Christmas card list contains names of people around the country and world.

So while we travel the world to see the sights, we also travel to become friends . . . because at the end of the day, we’re not really Norwegian, or Holland American, or Finnish or English or German or American. We’re just all people who are fun to know.

My newest novel, The Devil’s Analyst, is now available as a paperback or e-book on Amazon. com. To check out any of my novels, visit www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

 

A Visit to Los Angeles . . .and then the world

It’s 2016, and just days before we leave once again for Los Angeles where we’ll catch a flight to London and then travel to Southhampton to board the Holland American Rotterdam for its 89-day Passage to the Far East.

As usual on our journeys, my husband Robert and I will be making frequent joint postings on what we see and encounter. Previous readers will know that I tend to focus on the sights and history, while Robert’s piercing prose captures the foibles and eccentricities of the folks along the way. So stay tuned.

As a warm up, just before Christmas, we spent a few days in Los Angeles before flying to Texas for a family holiday. That stop provided a preview of what will likely be two themes in the months ahead.

The first is that we sometimes feel like the members of the Last Generation—the last group of people who still like going to theater, dressing up for dinner, reading the newspaper and being courteous. We went to a matinee of a traveling musical called If/Then starring Idina Menzel. The theater at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood was packed. But even though we are now in our early sixties, we definitely felt among the youngest and spriest on the floor. Do you need to qualify for a senior discount to be able to buy an orchestra seat?

Well, we better get used to it. People who take long cruises have to be free of jobs, children and other day-to-day responsibilities, so like the Pantages crowd, the average age on the Rotterdam is going to be in top quintile.

We can accept aging, but another observation in L.A. really smacked us in the face. Where we’re headed, we expect to see poverty and suffering, but we never expected to see it so visible on the streets of our former hometown. Along Beaudry, which runs parallel to a freeway going through downtown L.A., the sidewalks for a mile or more was lined with tents erected by the homeless—a shantytown set among skyscrapers. The modern subway was crowded with people, but the cars were dirty and we saw people literally sleeping on the seats, completely covering themselves with makeshift blanket tents. When we moved out of our loft in downtown L.A. just three years ago, neither such sight existed.

As usual on our city jaunts, we wanted to visit a new restaurant. This time we chose Neal Fraser’s Redbird, nestled in the peaceful courtyard of the former St. Vibiana Cathedral in downtown L.A. It was a jarring transition to move from the decrepit streets of the central city to that elegant interior, where a crowd of Millennials drank expensive craft cocktails and dined on exotic entrees even as a third-world scene co-existed in the surrounding blocks.

We’ll keep that observation in mind when we hear Americans on the cruise ahead tut-tut about the extremes that we will no doubt encounter along the way. We’ll remember that there’s a lot of work to be done at home.

Our next post will be from England after we board the ship.

 

To check out my novels, visit www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Getting Ready: Leaving the Country for Three Months

The countdown is on. It won’t be much longer before Robert and I begin our next long cruise on Holland America. (For those who read this blog only for our travel dispatches, you don’t have long to wait.)

This time, we’ll be departing from London on a three-month excursion that takes us though the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, around India, throughout Southeast Asia and then back again to England. Twenty different countries and thirty-three different cities along the way. Forget about those New Yorkers who go to Florida for the winter, or the Wisconsin farmers who head to Arizona. This year, our winter home is going to be the world.

In one regard, leaving can’t happen one minute too soon. I don’t think I could abide the debates and campaign news that will certainly dominate the airwaves from January through April. A daily recap on the shipboard newspaper will be more than enough for me.

That’s not to say I don’t care deeply about what happens in this upcoming election. I do. I just reach a point where I feel I’m drowning in the pandering and ignorance.

The other day, one of our friends said they thought I looked like John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio. Unfortunately, there’s no chance of making money off that similarity by being his political double should he get elected. In my mind, Kasich is the only Republican candidate who has the credentials of actually balancing the Federal budget, running a major state and of showing willingness to think and listen. Just like the reasonableness of Jon Huntsman in the 2012 election, that dooms any chance the Republican base will listen to him.

Instead, some appear to consider a man who contends the Pyramids were built to store grain. Seriously? I don’t think there’s enough storage space in those buildings to store the oats we kept on our little Wisconsin farm. Carson may be able to separate conjoined twins, but sometimes I wonder if there are two brains in his head, because I don’t know how else to explain the nonsense that he spouts with the fact that he possesses great surgical talents. But does it matter? I wouldn’t hire the world’s best banker to do my brain surgery, and I don’t consider being a great surgeon a credential for political leadership.

Then there’s Trump. He’s the best. And biggest. And smartest. And scariest demagogue to come along in American politics in decades. I think it’s time to tell him, “You’re fired.”

I could go on. But I’ve probably angered enough readers. Which is why it’s good that soon I will instead be trying to describe the wonders of places like Knossos, Petra, and the dragons of Komodo Island.

So here’s to a happy Thanksgiving, a merry Christmas, and a wonderful new year to all my readers. We’ll be back in 2016 with the all new adventures of Dennis and Robert! See you then!

 

To check out my novels, visit www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann