Sunday, July 28, 2013

NEW YORK - NEW YORK Thur. July 25




            We passed The Statue of Liberty on our approach up the Hudson River at 4.45 am. Needless to say I was not one of the intrepid who were on deck at that hour to see her. Nor was I one of the first to see Manhattan when we docked at Pier 90 at 6am. But when I surfaced there it was right outside our balcony. The skyscrapers of The Big Apple.
            We knew everyone had to go face to face with USA Border Security in the Cruise Terminal before we actually set foot on USA soil, so we were up early enough to be available at 9.15am when it was indicated those going ashore independently would commence interviews after all the Princess Tour Groups had set out.
            Before that it was announced that there was a back-up of passengers waiting in the lounge, so we should leave it a bit later to go down and pick up our numbered ‘Going Ashore’ tickets. We presented ourselves at the Lounge and picked up tickets 345 and 346. They had barely started at Number 1 yet!
            We took ourselves to The Lounge Area in the Deck 5 Atrium and had hot chocolate sitting there while we waited. And waited. Eventually Bruce went off to check at the gangway to see what number they were up to. We still had 100 more numbers to go. Because I was riding the electric scooter – which is described as a “wheelchair”- the security at the exit eventually called us up a bit earlier than our numbered tickets.
            So we proceeded to the Cruise Centre where interviews were happening. There were about 25 Border Security Officers interviewing passengers, and the holding area was full of people in one of those airport zig-zag queues inside tapes. As it’s a bit hard to drive the scooter round and round the zig-zags an officer took us up to the front where the queues finished and we waited there until someone called us to go to an officer who was available at our end of the row of interview desks. That was a piece of luck for us.
            We presented passports and the required documentation. He called me up, took my photo –without glasses – to compare with the photo on the passport. I must say if he thought I looked like the passport photo I’d be offended. The passport photo looks like one of the three witches from Macbeth. Then came the finger printing. Right hand four fingers, then thumb. Left hand four fingers and thumb. They weren’t clear enough, so we did it all again with him leaning over to press my fingers harder onto the glass one by one.
            Then it was Bruce’s turn. No photo and no finger printing. Why? No idea. In the middle of the documentation being checked, a single voice from the pack of bored passengers called out “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” and most of the bored pack responded with the obligatory “Oi! Oi! Oi!” The Security Officer (covered in his medals and Id stuff) jerked his head up, half stood, and reached for his gun. Pause. Nothing further happened in the bored pack. Was he expecting the revolution to start on the signal?
            Anyway, he was not amused. He took his hand away from his gun, sat down, glared at Bruce and demanded to know “What was that about?”
            He was hardly mollified by the explanation that it was a harmless cry of national identity that began in 2000 Olympic Games.
            On our way through the cruise terminal to the street we were greeted by two far more relaxed Security people, who told us the cool 16°C was a very welcome relief from the 100°F they have had for a week. We turned right onto 12th Avenue – where there was a wide ‘Cycle Path’ with both directions marked – and set out along the waterfront for Pier 83.
            Next along from our Pier 90 we met crowds lining up to visit Pier 88 where the Aircraft Carrier USS ‘Intrepid’ was now moored as a museum showcasing its own past, restored aircraft, a submarine, a British Concorde Jet, and a Space Shuttle Pavilion. No wonder there were keen crowds lined up.
            Pier 83 boasted its address as West 42nd Street. A prestigious address: 12th Avenue and 42nd Street. This was the Pier of the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises. We bought tickets on the 3 hour Full Island Cruise in New York Harbour.
It was quite a big ferry. Several hundred passengers crowded both decks. Lots of young people in groups from some Universities having  a good day out on their ‘New York Excursion’ Trips.  (‘Old Teacher’ comment.)
            The windows were large and clear, and the views good. The commentary pointed out the significant Manhattan tall buildings as we passed: The Empire State Building, The new National September 11 Memorial Tower at the World Trade Centre site, Brooklyn Bridge.  We came to Ellis Island where so many Immigrants came ashore until 1954. Then the magnificent views of the Statue of Liberty herself. It was an unreal feeling to see her out there, up close enough to pick out the people in the queues lined up to go to the top. Something so familiar from magazines and movies – and now just over there across the water.
            We went under umpteen bridges – great and small – and were very carefully slow under some of the older bridges as there wasn’t much clearance for our ferry. We passed skyscrapers, apartment buildings everywhere and less densely populated areas with impressive looking houses on the banks.    
            By 3.30pm we were back at Pier 83 where there seemed to be lots of people lined up for the next Ferry trip. One very large ferry which advertised itself as ‘Dinner Cruises’ had tied up in front of our ferry, so we guessed the multitudes in a long, long line were waiting to embark.  Again there were lots of young people in the queues. Well dressed young people this time. Older Uni students on a cruise and dinner? By then the wind was whistling along the wharf and the temperature was still very unpleasant for cocktail dresses. But they were young and excited.
            From there it did not take us long to go back along 12th Avenue up to the Sea Princess at Pier 90.
That evening from 5.30 there was a ‘Sail-Away’ commentary on Deck and TV by Hutch – the Future Ports Lecturer – except this time it was Hutch’s own city he was describing. When we were out in the Atlantic Ocean and Hutch had finished, we went up to Level 14 for some dinner. So did most of the other passengers who had all been listening to Hutch. Up there we met the Dining Room waiters  who had been re-allocated to help as the Dining Rooms were almost empty.
There were long queues and the quest for a table when you finally had some food was long and frustrating.
Now and in the lifts we heard the stories of how long people had to wait for their  Security Clearance. We were lucky enough to go off at 11.30, so we were in time for the Circle Line Cruise at 12.30. One couple said they walked off just after 7.30am before the big rush of Princess Tours people came. They were lucky. Others told of waiting hours till their number came up. One very cross grouchy man in a lift said he didn’t get off till 1 o’clock after he’d had lunch.
One thing all agreed on was we hoped there wasn’t the same performance when we get to Los Angeles and Hawaii later on in the trip.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

AT SEA Tues. July 23




            Rain again!  An hour or so ago we had some very welcome blue sky. I decided to do a small update on what’s been happening since we didn’t visit Torshavn (July 18). Most of the time since then we have had fog, rain and a lot of rough sea.
            Every morn I’ve been waking to the dismal sound of the fog horn bellowing every two or three minutes; every evening I’ve gone to sleep to the same mournful sound. Although there’s no fog today – yet. (10.30am) The skies are leaden and the sea has once again started to have ‘white horses’ and look very unsettled.
            The Captain warned us earlier that the North Atlantic was noted for rough weather. And rough weather we’ve had. He also said he was taking a course between two Low Systems to avoid as much unpleasant weather as possible.
Four nights ago we ran into the worst of it. I just took to early bed. I know that works for me when things get really bad. I don’t get sick if I climb into bed, cover my eyes and tell myself I’m being rocked on the bosom of the deep. Then I drop off to sleep.
That night Bruce decided to go down to the show in the Theatre. About 9.30 the door flew open and he arrived back.
He said “Well – they’re all staggering around out there like a mob of drunken sailors!”  In this he included himself.
The ship was kicking and bucking occasionally in a most alarming way likely to throw everyone off their feet. The Captain recommended moving around the ship cautiously, especially on stairs, and advised the use of handrails. It’s funny how a big ship like this can be hit by the occasional wave which feels like some sort of Titanic adventure. (Mind you, we passed within 14 miles of the Titanic wreck the other day. No icebergs around.)
At midday today the Captain tells us that totally unaccounted for bad weather has struck again, and winds of 35 to 40 knots an hour are pushing the sea up into ominous waves. Too bad. Maybe it’s bed for me in a few hours. Again.
What else has happened as we have progressed in a mainly South Westerly  and Westerly direction towards New York? Three times in the last few days we have had to put our clocks back an hour overnight. And it’s coming up again tonight to get to New York time: 4 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.
Sunset and sunrise have also changed dramatically. At Torshaven  the sunrise was at 4.17am and sunset at 10.47pm. Today sunrise was at 5.23am and sunset (provided we have sun) will be at 8.33pm. And the changes will progress in the next few days.
Temperatures have also changed as we moved South into warmer climes.
Torshavn – low of 11°C and high of 12°C (really turned out colder than that with the fog). Today they told us to expect low of 14° and high of 20°.
            At noon the Captain said the unexpected weather deterioration was likely to continue through this afternoon and evening.
            Oh well . . . .

Friday, July 19, 2013

THE FAROE ISLANDS- Torshaven Thurs. July 18




What a disaster today is! Deep fog outside the balcony so we can’t even see the twenty (?) metres to the sea just below beside the ship. Just thick white blanket outside and the deep foghorn of the ship sounding mournfully every few minutes. That foghorn is a dismal and depressing sound that reverberates through you.
The Captain came over the TV into the cabin while I was still in bed to tell us the sad story. Winds outside were too strong so the ship couldn’t safely berth at Torshaven, and attempts to make it a ‘Tender Port’ were abandoned when the winds prevented positioning the ship for anchor.
He said the safety of passengers and ship were his priority, so he sadly abandoned our visit to the Faroe Islands. Things have not improved, with the white blanket all around us. Air temperatures outside are up to a cold 12°C. We can’t see it but the sun was to rise at 4.17am and will set at 10.47pm. The night is fairly light before and after these times. Though I have not stayed awake to see if and when it gets quite dark.
At mid-day the Captain came through again with updates on the weather and the ship’s course. The winds are still strong – up to 35 knots per hour, and likely to get worse in this North Atlantic Ocean.
He has planned a course to avoid the worst of the weather. It’s not the shortest route, nor one that would take us through the fishing banks off North America as weather there is regularly rough and foggy. There are two ‘Lows’ coming in from the West so he is planning a course between them as the least rough and uncomfortable on the way to New York by July 25th.
We have passed below Iceland which straddles the Arctic Circle and will be travelling at approximately the latitude of Bergin, Norway, for the moment. We are South of the Shetland Islands of Britain, and heading roughly West to South West..




OSLO, Norway Tues. July 16




            Our day in Oslo started badly. Today we had a tour booked with Viator, as we had in Dublin and Istanbul. In both those places there was someone waiting outside the Security Area holding a sign with names on it. No one here. We looked in vain for a person with a sign. Anybody holding a sign. Nothing.
            Bruce consulted his paper again and found we were to meet at Wharf 3. We set out and found a building marked ‘3’. Again – nobody looking for anyone. We passed the “Hop on Hop off” Oslo Red buses, and two picturesque little trains looking for customers to take around Oslo site seeing, but nothing that looked as if it was for us.
            Bruce went off seeking some sign of our tour, and left me scanning everything in sight in front of the little building labeled ‘3’. Around me was a large paved waterfront area with no vehicles. A pedestrians only ‘square’. After what seemed a long time Bruce turned up again to say he’d found out what happened.
            The ‘Wharf 3’ referred to was way at the other end of paved area and he’d found a Tourist Information Centre which was the one we should have been at. The tour we were booked on was a ‘Bus Tour’ of Oslo, which had left at 10.30 without us. The Assistant had our information and accepted Bruce’s Voucher – and some more money – to book us on an afternoon Tour of Oslo leaving at 12.45.
            I found this quite unsatisfactory, given our previous experience of our Viator bookings.  The ship had not docked till after 10am. We had taken our turn to disembark, and wasted time looking for a person with a sign and then the ‘Number 3’. There was no way we could have been on a Bus Tour taking off at 10.30 even if we had known where.
            Anyway, it turned out well in the end. We calmed down together and decided to go for a walk to fill in the time. We strolled along – this time me in the Singapore wheelchair and Bruce pushing. We had only expected to have to use the wheelchair as far as our pick-up and other short distances, so I felt anxious about Bruce pushing me too far. I am no fairy-lite burden. Fortunately it was mostly flat.
            We walked down past the Town Hall opposite that large paved area, and were surprised at the statues in a long row outside it. They were all of working men. Tradesmen with tools.  Carpenter. Bricklayer. A sweaty steel worker. And others.
I said to Bruce – “Are you sure this is the Town Hall, and not the Trade Union Headquarters?”
“Yes,” he said. They told him this was the Town Hall and we had to catch the Tourist Bus near it.
When we turned the corner we came to six standing framed pictures by Edvard Munch. I didn’t recognize any of them, but I thought one would be ‘The Scream” as that was what I associated with the name ‘Edvard Munch’. Though I’d have to admit I didn’t really recall he was Norwegian, but probably thought from Scandinavia somewhere.
We passed very few people walking around, and those we did pass we suspected may have been from the ship. The doors to shops and office blocks all seemed closed, though there did seem to be lights inside. The next corner we turned we saw MacDonalds’ yellow arches up the street, and this made us feel a little bit more secure. But MacDonalds’ door was also closed – with lights on inside. We were  puzzled - until a man walked up to the doors and they automatically folded away before him.
We followed him in while they were open. Inside, we watched people confidently walk up to the folding doors from inside and outside, just expecting them to move out of the way.  We thought that may have been to do with keeping out the winter cold, and just maybe that was why the other shops all ‘looked’ closed.
Time was moving on, so we had coffee there and sat watching the comings and goings until it was time to find the bus stop for the afternoon tour. By now the clouds were darker and there were rain drops. Not heavy – just big, cold and intermittent. There were lots of tour buses behind the Town Hall, but none with the name of our tour company on the side. Eventually our bus came along and we were welcomed by a young woman who was surprised we hadn’t been met at the ship in the morning.
From there the day improved. We had an interesting drive around the city and along the foreshore out to The Viking Ship Museum. Everywhere the foreshores were crammed with yachts, two and three deep. They must be worth millions of dollars, sitting there. We went out past the Royal herd of dairy cows in very green pastures and the Summer Royal Residence. The guide told us everything was so green because of several very good summers with lots of rain. The ship told us to expect a High of 20°C. We found it cold, especially when it began to rain. Later our competent young lady guide told us it was a lovely summer day. She also told us about people swimming in the sea half an hour drive from town. We couldn’t imagine it. Then – we are not Norwegian.
 We joined lots of buses and throngs of people at the Viking Museum. Inside were three Viking long ships unearthed within the last hundred years from the mud near the Oslo Fjord. The mud had largely preserved them since 800-900AD when they had been used as ceremonial Burial chambers.
The best preserved and repaired of the three housed the bones of two women – still there as part of the display. Well – I think the real bones had been given re-burial and the ones on display were copies. The skeletons were incomplete because the grave had been disturbed within a few years of the burial. The bones had been scattered and artifacts removed. One woman was said to be in her early 50s, and the good condition of her teeth showed she had probably had a privileged life. The other was probably in her 70s. She was old, her bones showed arthritis and she probably had trouble moving around and turning her head.
The interpretation is that these two women were probably a royal person and her servant. Though there was not enough evidence to know which was which. Both the other graves contained the remains of one man – probably an important person. The artifacts from all three ships were displayed in one area and were surprisingly preserved. There were a pair of soft leather shoes from one man. They looked comfortable, and were smallish, so this man was not the big Viking  we might imagine. I did not have time to read the conjectured information about age etc of these two men.
From here we went on to the Museum of Arctic Exloration, which seemed to have been built around the complete ship “Fram” towering above us to the ceiling. ‘The Fram’ was the ship in which the Arctic Explorer Fridtjof Nansen had spent three years locked in the Arctic Icecap to prove that the Arctic currents moved the ice right around the North Pole. Nansen was an explorer who was also a scientist, politician and Nobel Prize Winner for his work with refugees after the First World War. He is a man of whom the Norwegians are very proud.  
The three years in the ice of the men and dogs on the Fram were well documented. There were actual photos with commentary in lit displays all around the walls. Their life aboard for the three years was detailed, and there was a model of the Fram in the ice, and a diorama of a very big Polar bear and other animals. One of the photos was of a bear attacking the crew on the ice, before Nansen emptied a shotgun into its head to rescue them.
There was a small section about Amunsden and Scott and expeditions to the South Pole, but the whole museum was really of ‘The Fram’ and Nansen. It was possible to go up and onto the deck of ‘The Fram’ and down into the cabins and living quarters in which these men spent their three years in the Polar Ice Cap.
We did not have time to visit the Kon-Tiki Museum of Thor Heyerdahl’s journey on the raft of balsa logs from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. Or the Museum of Norway’s Sea exploits.
The last museum we visited was the Munch Museum which was a special exhibition of Edvard Munch’s paintings for the 150th Anniversary of Munch’s birth. We arrived just in time to pick up an English language commentary, and that was just so satisfying. ‘The Scream’ was just in among the paintings of its period, was smaller than lots of others, and not given any priority. Security was very high as ‘The Scream’ was stolen from its frame six years ago, and found in the back of an abandonned vehicle several years later, rolled up, with no indication of where it had been, or who had stolen it.
I learned there are four paintings of ‘The Scream’ painted with slight variations at different times of Munch’s life. One of them has been in a private collection for most of its life and was sold to another private collector in New York recently for US$1.3million. The previous owner was raising money to establish a museum in a house where Munch lived in Oslo. The story of ‘The Scream’ given by Munch was that it was about a great feeling of anxiety he had one evening out walking with friends. I can believe that. The picture conveys deep anxiety.  And I discovered that Munch, the artist, had suffered from anxiety much of his life.
Our route back to the ship took us past the extraordinary new Opera House – all in dazzling white.  Carrera marble from Italy was brought and the design is meant to convey the ice and snow of Norway.  It certainly does.
My last expedition of the day was into the Cruise Terminal shops of Norwegian products and souvenirs. I liked the warm woolens on display and was tempted to buy – though they are not for Sydney winters. Sydney’s winter temperature today is higher than Oslo’s “lovely summer day.”