A Farewell to Otto

Every once in a while, good fortune enters one’s life. For Robert and me, that happened on January 8, 2016, the day we met Otto Witteveen.

For the next 89 nights, we would dine each evening with Otto, his wife Aida and two other couples aboard the M.S. Rotterdam on a cruise that left Southhampton, England to sail through Europe and Asia. This was an assigned table seating that truly enriched our lives.

In my trip blog back in 2016, I wrote, “We lucked out on this trip by having an excellent dinner table of eight. We are particularly taken with Otto, an eighty-plus Dutch native who now lives in Vancouver with his Filipino wife Aida. He’s adopted Robert and me as brothers he says, but Aida is quick to point out we won’t be in the will.

“Otto always keeps the table regaled with his life tales ranging from pathos (standing as a nine-year-old with his mother on a Dutch railway station platform watching Nazi soldiers prod Jewish families into cattle cars) to hilarity (sometime we’ll tell you why as a young night steward on a cruise ship in the ‘50s he threw the padded bra of a nurse out an open porthole window) to the political (even though he’s Canadian, Otto follows with disgust the Republican debates and has no use for Mr. Trump). He thinks that I need to write him into my next novel, and I have promised I will make him a character. My fear is that he just might take over the story.”

Our brotherhood did not end with our final dinner on the cruise. We visited Otto and Aida once at their home near Vancouver. More importantly, we have had long phone talks every other month or so for the past eight years. Otto always had something to say about U.S. politics, and how the MAGA movement was testing his love for America. From his early career working on Holland America ships and his wife’s later work with the same cruise line, he kept us up to date on the cruise industry—especially during those dark days of Covid. Through the two of them, we had an eye into Canadian life as well as the Dutch life of Otto’s extended family still in the Netherlands. Otto always had something amusing to say.

And I kept my promise to Otto. I used him as the model for a character in my last novel, The Long Table Dinner. As I feared, the character Otto did take over the story—at least in the sense of his character being the moral center. With Otto’s permission, I even had my character Otto tell the real Otto’s story of the nurse and the padded bra.

Over these many years, Otto has always amused us with his fantastic storytelling skills. He has also been a needed anchor of political sanity for us as we watch what’s happening to this country’s social structure. He frequently reminded us how he, as a young Dutch boy, recognized all that could be good in our country from the way we liberated his birth land.

I don’t know what causes certain people to connect as kindred spirits. But I could see it between Aida and Otto in their relationship, and Robert and I felt it deeply in our connection to both of them.

On the afternoon of April 3, 2024, Otto passed in his sleep after an extended illness.

I like to think that those we love and those who love us live on within our memories and continue to help guide us. So, as Otto always liked to say in his stories before the big finish, “Now, here it comes . . .”

Otto, you’ll be with us forever.

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 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 5 from the Voyage to Tahiti: Green Hill, Blue Skies, Crystal Waters

Imagine a group of islands that stretches from Stockholm to Barcelona, from the beaches of Normandy to Bucharest. Now imagine you compress all the land together and it’s no bigger than half the island of Corsica or just northern San Luis Obispo County. Populate it with no more than 300,000 people or so. Now you have an idea of the scale of French Polynesia.

French Polynesia superimposed over Europe

And we’ve been sailing through more than a bit of it. After traveling 6 days nonstop from Oahu, we arrived at Bora Bora, and on to Raiatea, Tahiti and Moorea, with a few days sailing ahead through the atolls of Tuamoto before our final stop in the Marquesas.

Consider the ingenuity and perseverance of mankind that resulted in these islands being discovered and settled more than a thousand years ago. So now, these islands and their native people share not only the same language roots but much of the same culture and mythology.

But I am most struck by their shared beauty. Yes, scenery varies. Some islands are majestic weathered volcanic peaks. Others are sandy atolls atop the remnants of volcanos long since sunk and eroded beneath the sea.  On an island like Tahiti, the beaches are black from volcanic sand, while on others like Moorea they are glistening white with ground-up coral.

But all of these islands share some constants. One is a lush landscape which seems intensely green. Another is the intensity of the sky and the sun. It’s past rainy season, and all of our island visits have been blessed by sunny days. But with temperatures well into the eighties, few clouds, and only the lightest of breezes, I just want to relax on a lounge chair with an icy drink. Even that leaves me drenched in sweat

And they are blessed with amazing water. Many of the islands are surrounded by barrier reefs. Once anchored within them, we see waters of the lagoon that are not only strikingly calm, but also incredible shades of blue. In the distance, you can see the dangerous breaking white line of the ocean bashing against the coral reefs. But in the lagoon, it is only calm. 

It’s hard for me to look down and judge how deep the water might be. You can clearly see the sandy floor of the lagoon, and rocks with colorful growth. Small fish dart about . . . sometimes not so small, as rays and reef sharks gather near our guide.

Looking at the sky, the green cliffs, the gorgeous colors of the cool water, I understand why people are willing to spend $1500 a night or more for one of those over-the-water bungalows of the many five-star hotels dotting these islands. 

What could be more removed from the world’s care and more in tune with the pleasures of the day than basking in French Polynesia?

Robert adds: The people here live in paradise, but with a cost. Without tourism, there is very little economic activity, and we’ve been told by every guide on every island how dismal things were during Covid lockdown. I can’t imagine. Nor can I imagine what school kids have to go through here. There is a small high school on Moorea; too small to accommodate all the teens here. So the others have to commute to Tahiti, visible across the water. At 5am there is a 45-minute ferry ride from Moorea’s largest town to Papeete. But some kids live an hour away from that ferry pickup point, so they have to get up at 3:30 in the morning to catch a bus. Arriving in Papeete, they have another bus ride to the school. (The same goes for adults whose jobs are on Tahiti.) And then, reverse the process at the end of the day. Five days a week.

Funny story about all the loose chickens on these islands. When asked if people caught the chickens to eat, one guide said they are very tough and not good, but there was one recipe. You get a large pot of water over a roaring fire, toss in the chicken along with a large rock. When the rock is fork tender, then the chicken is good. Haha.

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 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 2 from the Voyage to Tahiti: Landing in Hawai’i

From Los Angeles, it takes more than five days by cruise ship to reach the Hawaiian Islands. It then requires just as long to go on to French Polynesia. These islands are more distant than any other spot from everywhere else on the globe.

Robert and I have been to the islands several times in the past. By now, we have visited most of its famous top tourist destinations. Since we are on a Viking cruise, which includes a complimentary tour in every port, we decided to take advantage of those excursions. What new things might we discover?

Our guides have been quick to tell us how the big dramatic contours of the place are naturally born from the volcanic processes that erupt from a Pacific hot spot connected to the mantle below. Technically, Mauna Loa on Hawai’i is the largest mountain on the planet rising from deep in the ocean and still reaching high enough to be snow-topped. 

With such volcanic geology, we get the tall peaks, dramatic cliffs, beautiful waterfalls and lovely beaches we all associate with the place. Our tours brought us to several such lovely spots, including Rainbow Falls on Hawai’I and the Iao Needle on Maui.

But what about the greenery, the birds and the people? When and how did they arrive on these specks in the ocean?

Not a lot of life made it naturally to this spot. Only two land mammals are truly native to Hawai’i—the Hawaiian monk seal and a bat. Nothing else mammalian managed to cross the thousands of miles. Surprisingly, many plants you might consider naturals are also foreign. The coconut palm only arrived with the first Polynesians a little over one thousand years ago.  

Other than sea birds, the types of birds finding their way here were also limited. No hummingbirds could survive such distances. The flycatchers that made their way expanded to fill a myriad of ecological niches.

Then came mankind. The first settlers brought pigs, chicken and rats, along with key plants. Now pigs and chickens overrun the place. (We did have a cute visit to feed some of the “native” boar.) But the newcomers weren’t kind to the original plants, and the islands have many endangered native species.

Wild pigs, with a mix of Polynesian and European genes, are everywhere.

Next came the Europeans with Captain Cook and the introduction of still more animals, plants, and customs. Not long after, King Kamehameha the Great united the islands to create the only kingdom that would one day be forced into the United States following a businessmen’s led coup. 

Images of Kamehameha are also everywhere.

A global variety of other plants, birds, and pests arrived over the years. Things like pineapples and sugar cane, eucalyptus trees, mongooses, and cardinals. Today, the lush landscape that we associate with the islands is almost entirely non-native. 

All the while the hot spot beneath the island chain keeps feeding volcanos with molten lava as the Pacific Plate moves below. The islands continue to grow and change.  

We’re just happy to have a chance to enjoy its current moment in the sun.

Robert adds: “The Fun of Being a Tour Guide” – Yesterday, on Maui, I was reminded of our visit to Casablanca years ago where a tour guide pointed to the location where Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman filmed some scenes in the classic movie. No matter that the film was from 1941 and the building we were in was built in 1971.

Skip forward to when I worked at the Disney Studio and occasionally gave walk-around tours. I would joke with friends that I could say literally almost anything – with enough authority – and get away with it. Not that I ever did. 

Skip forward to yesterday and our bus ride around Maui. “See that house way up on the hill? Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, that was Marilyn Monroe’s vacation home here on the island.” Lots of oohs and aahs from the tour group. Back on the ship, I was compelled to ask Google. Well……. Turns out that no, that’s not true. Here’s the story. In 1949, Wright designed a luxury home to be built near Fort Worth, Texas, but the project never went anywhere. The same house design was altered in 1952 for a home to be built in Acapulco. Not built. Then in 1957, Marilyn contacted Wright about building a home for her and Arthur Miller in Roxbury, Connecticut. Wright expanded the previous plans, but the couple’s marriage fell apart, Wright died shortly after, and the unfinished plans were put in the archives in Taliesin West. Skip ahead to 1984 when a businessman contacted the archives hoping to use unbuilt Wright designs for a project. An architect combined all three earlier designs (!) and eventually, in 1993, the project was completed – the King Kamehameha Golf Course Clubhouse. A much more interesting story.

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

Movies Make the World Go Round

I’ve come to the conclusion that most people really do believe in love and are keenly interested in the rest of the world.

Earlier this month, our little Cambria Film Festival opened up sales for the VIP Festival Passes for the February 6-9 event. In one week, they sold out. (Don’t worry. You can still purchase regular Film Passes.)

Our Festival showcases films about romance, romantic comedies, and the complexities of love. People want to experience that.

And around the world people want to make films about love. We had over 3,000 submissions this year. As the festival director, I did the initial review of about half of those submittals to determine if we would put them into the formal screening process.

I learned a few things:  People are more alike than they are different. Relationships can be challenging. Parents can be distant. Children can be misunderstood. Love can be unrequited. But ultimately, people care about people, and that is what matters.

Still, diversity is fascinating and powerful.  Stepping into another culture sometimes opens your eyes to your own. I’m looking forward this year to a film called Cook-Off, about a Zimbabwean woman who finds love on a cooking show; to Julia Blue which explores finding and accepting love during the current war in Ukraine; or Love Bugs, in which two married entomologists explore their mutual happiness and love in understanding insects.

What I particularly like about so many of these films is that they let me step into another world and lifestyle.  The food may be different, the scenery fresh, and the rituals unknown to me. But beneath it all beats the simple truth that we are more alike than we are different.

I am happy that so many want to explore the world through film. In fact, I wish every American could also experience traveling the breadth of real world, like Robert and my chance to visit more than 85 countries so far.

We’ve seen outstanding beauty.  From the mountain tops of Machu Picchu in Peru to abandoned Buddhist temples on the plains of Bagan in Myanmar . . . from the splendors of the Catholic Seville Cathedral that was once a mosque to the grave of the prophet Job in Oman . . .  from the idols of Easter Island to the splendors of the temples in Borobudor, Indonesia, we’ve seen the mixture of natural beauty and man-made worship in every environment.

What has always struck me is how much faith motivates people in similar ways and how much religions share in common. To me, it has always seemed the height of hubris to believe that the great majority of your fellow mankind follows the wrong faith. Each faith is only a small minority in our greater humanity.

Ultimately religions and all moral credos seem to seek to help us achieve a life worth living and to be the most of what we can be:  kind, loving and willing to share a world.

And after scanning so many films from around the world, I think that is what everyone wants.

So here’s to movies and travels . . . and to every experience that broadens our horizons, opens new doors, and supports the potential fulfilment of individuals and relationships.

 

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 Cafe, The Finnish Girl, and The Devil’s Analyst.

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

THE THREE WEEK COUNTDOWN

After more than a year of planning and maybe (at least for me) a lifetime of dreaming, my partner Robert and I are only twenty-two days from departing on what most would call a trip of a lifetime.

It truly will be a trip worth the planning. We drive to San Francisco where we board a non-stop flight to Hong Kong.  After a few days exploring that city, we board a Holland America ship to embark on a 57-day cruise. Before we arrive back home nearly two months later, we will have sailed in three major oceans, touched land on four continents, visited 16 countries and seen sights ranging from gambling casinos in Macao to safaris in Africa to the waters of the Amazon.

Other than our final port in Ft. Lauderdale, every place we visit will be a brand new experience for us. Despite our long history of travel, there is a whole swath of the world still unexplored by us. That’s about to change. Whether it’s the beach in places like Phuket or the Seychelles islands, the cityscapes of Singapore or Capetown, or the natural wonders of places as varied as Madagascar or Belem, it will all be for us a brand new world.

What do we expect along the way? Well, we hope to meet some interesting people, see some incredible sights, and gain an appreciation for the incredible variety and beauty of this planet. Some laughs, a few good reads, a better tan, and some time spent writing are also likely to be some of the benefits. It’s also a time to acknowledge major milestones. During the quarter ahead, Robert and I celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of our meeting, and I turn sixty.

So the preparations for the grand journey are nearly complete. The Brazilian visas have been secured; the passports are in place. We’ve gone shopping for appropriate clothes. We made sure our tuxedos still fit for those formal dinners. We’ve been exercising to leave some of the weight behind, since we’re sure to pick up a few extra pounds in the weeks ahead. And we haven’t forgot the mundane: we’ve set up online payments for all our bills for while we’re gone, and we’re working hard on those tax returns so they can be mailed before we leave.

Last fall, when I retired from Sage, one of my employees gave me a fantastic digital camera and exacted a promise that I would post lots of trip pictures and video on this blog. So, Mike, if you’re reading this, I’m committing to do just that. Instead of a monthly blog, you can expect to see weekly, if not daily, postings, usually with a few photos.

I hope you find them interesting and visually stimulating. As we travel along, I also encourage you take the time to send us some feedback and reactions.

And as for this being the trip of a lifetime, I actually am hoping it is only one of many adventures ahead.