Day 13. People are getting desperate. The bar is out of Margarita mix. Fistfights are breaking out at the Guy Fieri hamburger bar, as overweight men scramble for the last of the precious "donkey sauce." Women are selling their virtues in exchange for clean linens. All hell is breaking loose.
Well, maybe not that bad, but it is monotonous. Our cruise director "LiA" (I kid you not) makes cheerful announcements over the P.A. system, each seeming more desperate than the last. It is hard to put a novel spin on the same old thing, after weeks at sea. Every morning, the same breakfast. Eggs Benedict sounds dreamy, until you've had them ten days in a row, and they are often served cold. I've taken to eating corn flakes instead - kind of hard to screw up cold cereal but I am sure they will give it a try. This AM, the last of the butter disappeared, only to be replaced with margarine. Tiny, soggy bagels are offered at the buffet, undertoasted at 4AM this morning, and now just a cold, bready mess.
It is not all bad, of course. The entertainers are not too bad. One fellow plays the classic guitar in the lobby. Turns out he is an unpaid volunteer. Perhaps he gets a discount for doing this. A violin trio does interesting interpretations of popular songs - but with a cue track, much as the "piano bar" player does. A nice older couple who clearly studied Ballroom glides across the floor to everyone's amazement and applause. I saw him later and said, "You guys are great! But save some for the honeymoon!" His wife looked exhausted after the tenth dance. I wish I had that energy.
Speaking of which, I am feeling better in terms of digestion - getting over whatever I had and whatever Juan had before me. The Parkinson's thing seems stable, no better or worse - maybe slightly worse. Walking is odd - I don't try to walk like Frankenstein, it just happens. One big problem is my lifemate is always looking for signs of trouble. Juan asks where he can plug in his phone and I point to the lamp beside his bed. "There's no USB port there!" Mark says condescendingly. I reach out to move his ear buds which are blocking the USB port and he slaps my hand away. "There's no plug there!" he says, almost smugly. Ol' dementia Bob is off his meds again!
I finally reach around him and push the ear buds to one side, revealing the USB port. "Oh!" he says, "I didn't see that!" No apology. No admission he was wrong (and wrong to talk to me like I was some child). It seems he thinks my brain is already shot and I need to be cared for like some old decrepit grandpa. I mean, it may come to that, eventually, but let's not rush things! But this sort of thing causes tension. I guess he means well, but gee, it seems like he's almost enjoying this a little bit.
Oh, well. I ain't perfect, either. But, like screaming at deaf people (or refusing to repeat yourself when you talk in a whisper, facing away), chiding a memory care patient for not remembering something is just plain cruel. I remember things - too many things - but often I forget the names of these things. This is a common symptom.
Well, we are off the coast of Florida, passing the Dry Tortugas. We are 500 miles from New Orleans, which we could reach in a day, but for some reason, won't dock for two days. A day or two in the Big Easy to relax, and then back home via rented car.
We are a few days from docking in New Orleans. Progress is slow - about 19 knots or 20 MPH or so - covering a scant 500 miles a day, if that. Boredom sets in and certain food items have run out. A waitstaff person tells me I took the very last banana. Someone screwed up on the provisioning!
Carnival caters to a lower-class clientel than Holland America. Instead of movies on demand, we get a 24-hour channel of "paranormal investigators" and HGTV. "Carl is an assistant paper-clip sorter and his wife Ella is a homemaker. Their annual income is $15,000 a year and their housing budget is $1.5 million." Who are these people? And of course, Ella passes up a great house at a great price because one of the bedrooms is painted green. These channels tell me a lot about their target audience.
Juan fell ill in Barcelona, complaining about diarrhea and then later, leg pains. He was nauseous in the morning and Mark ribbed him that maybe he was pregnant. He got better in a few days, but then whatever it was hit me. I don't think it is sea sickness, as Juan had it on dry land. I am mostly over it now, although my stomach is gurgling loudly.
The abbreviated rocking of the boat (stabilizers almost male the ride worse - causing a choppy back and forth movement) does tend to induce a mild dizziness in the hardiest of seafarers. And this is during calm weather, too! Right now, we are in two-foot seas, no whitecaps - calm weather, following seas. On both crossings there were days when the bow of the boat plunged through 12-15 foot waves, throwing up an impressive spray. Oddly enough, that was a more pleasant ride as the weather overwhelmed the stabilizers, producing a gentle, rocking roll. But those stabilizer (fins) are probably the only thing keeping these top-heavy cruise ships from rolling over, like the SS Poseidon. Not sure I want to do a Shelly Winters.
The Carnival Valor's regular route is a 4-5 night cruises out of New Orleans to Cozumel or Caribbean island ports. This transatlantic crossing is a one-off for her, as the only purpose of it was to drydock in Cadiz, Spain for new carpet and paint (and a new sauna facility!) among other improvements. We stopped briefly in Cadiz after leaving Barcelona, to take on more workers to finish some minor repairs. I think they were flown home from Punta Delgada.
Unlike the Holland America Oosterdam, the Valor doesn't make an annual habit of crossing the Atlantic to move with the seasons - from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean, much as Alaska cruise ship winter over in Hawaii, serving the island trade. So I guess it is not unexpected that the crew was unprepared for 15 days at sea - ten of them uninterrupted.
(I whine about 15 days at sea, when we met a"Cruiser" who just came off 71 days of cruising. The thought of it makes me ill - again).
We sailed right by Bermuda, whose lights could have been seen on the horizon, but for a cloud bank. We are poised to threat our way through the Bahamas and then pass by Key West on the way to New Orleans. I suspect they are not stopping at Key West due to the Jones Act, or perhaps because of the delay it would cause - and the port fees. No great loss. Key West is no longer the Key West we used to know and love, and cruise ship dockings - which dump thousands of people onto Duval Street for eight hours at a time, are part and parcel of the problem.
This may be the last cruise we go on. We were never big cruise ship fans and my previous postings on the subject verify this. Still, it was interesting and novel, to travel by ship, but not something I need to do again and again, as some "diamond guests" do - going on as many as 20-30 cruises during their lifetime.
Speaking of which! The big hubub on the ship was the announcement that the frequent cruiser program was being overhauled. I have written time and time again about these loyalty programs - designed to lock you into one brand and one company. You never get ahead in these games and even if you did, well, they simply change the rules of the game much as the airlines have done over the years, again and again, with "frequent flyer miles." Time was, you could fly the whole family to Hawaii on your flyer miles. Then, as overbooking became the norm, the best you could hope for was an upgrade. Today, even that is gone and the best thing you can hope for with frequent flyer miles is to be the last person bumped from the plane due to overbooking. Some treat!
The frequent cruisers are pissed-off. They spent thousands - tens of thousands - of dollars over the years, trying to build up their cruiser "status" and patiently wait until they climb the latter high enough to get venerated diamond status. Now, it is all being taken away, or at least they have been kicked down a few rungs. Anxious couples sit closely together in the quiet Eagle lounge, studying the new terms of the contract, looking for a new hope. "Well, you do get a free bottle of water!" one wife says to her husband, "that's something, anyway!"
The husband merely grunts in return. I feel his pain. I have four of these bottles of water on my desk in my stateroom. A cheerful note on a necktag attached to each bottle informs me that I should stay hydrated! At $4.95 a bottle! No thanks!
You can't win chasing these award points or miles or ten cents off a gallon of gas. Maybe, at best, if you end up shopping at a certain store or going on the same airline, you can use these points for a minor discount or upgrade. But don't kid yourself you are getting anything for "free" - even a $4.95 bottle of water. But if these programs alter your financial decision-making, well, then you are losing badly.
I recall a guy writing an article in the Post a few years back, about how he would book his business trips to take the longest flights possible - going from LA to NY by way of Portland, Chicago, Houston, and Boston - just to rack up more flyer miles. Spending ten hours on an airplane for points makes no sense to me. But people do this stuff all the time, distracted by the ancillary "deal" and neglecting the underlying transaction.
So yes, I indulged in a little schadenfreude over this cruise-line screw-job. The veteran cruisers were getting the shaft, and all the medallions listing their previous cruises - adorning their cabin door like medals on a North Korean General - now mean nothing.
Well, that's all I have for now. See you on shore!
Europe seems to be more practical about many things.
There are so many little things - and large ones - that distinguish Europe from America. You don't realize how much of a cash-grab the USA has become over the years, in the name of "free-dum." Time was, you could buy a house and raise a family on the salary of a milkman, mailman, or policeman (as the Up With People!idolize). Today, only the policeman is making out financially, thanks to a strong union. But who knows? Maybe that will be privatized next.
I mentioned the ice before - it comes in small bags of enormous cubes - so large that a typical glass holds only one. Perfect for a sipping drink like bourbon or scotch. In the US, commercial ice machines (and I do own one) make tiny cubes - perfect for shaking a martini, but also perfect for making a "fountain drink" 70% ice and 30% drink. I'll miss the ice.
Plastic bottles have a cap that is retained by a ring, so when you open a bottled water or soft drink, the cap stays attached. No loose caps littering the ground and recycling is easier. Speaking of which, recycling is much easier, as is garbage disposal. Huge recycling bins, each the size of a small car, are placed on nearly every block. One for glass, one for plastic, and another for general trash. It is never hard to find a garbage can in Spain, and as a result, the streets are cleaner. Well, that and an army of street cleaners - both the machine kind and human kind, wash the roads and sidewalks daily instead of annually. And the guys on the highway picking up trash? They are paid employees, not convicted criminals doing "community service."
There are, of course, some downsides. The fascination with diesel engines, for example. More efficient, I guess (slightly, compared to hybrids), but also more polluting. And diesel is not more expensive than gasoline (or not much more) so I guess that drives the narrative. Yes, fuel is expensive. We paid anywhere from $1.25 to $1.80 a liter for diesel (about $5 to $7 a gallon) which is a lot more than we pay in the States. Smaller cars are the norm, and yea, it takes some getting used to, to see a BMW 5-series "M" model with a diesel engine.
But I am not sure that "cheap gas" is worth all the other hassles we have in America. The delta in the cost of fuel is far outweighed by the expense of student loans or health care. We cheer for a our cheap gas, and then blow the advantage by purchasing fuel-hog vehicles. I never measured the gas mileage on the Fiat (Ram Workmaster) van we rented, but it never seemed like a lot of money to fill it up. And since everything else was much cheaper than in America, it was a wash.
As a result of expensive fuel, people buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, which can be quite roomy, like our Kia Hamster is. Plus, the level of public transportation blows America out of the water. Even when the trainmen go on strike (because they actually have unions here) there is luxury bus service from competing companies to take you almost anywhere in the country,
Bike lanes are the norm everywhere and people seem to respect bicyclists, even on narrow country lanes. And pedestrian crosswalks are as wide as a car lane and controlled by leisurely traffic lights. In uncontrolled crosswalks, the default is the pedestrian has the right of way over any car. Walking in any city is a treat, not an obstacle course. And people walk everywhere, sometimes just to walk or paseo. Europeans think nothing of walking a kilometer or two, whereas Americans would reach for the car keys.
Like I said, bike lanes - everywhere. Of course, the e-bike (and the e-scooter) rules the road - or the bike lane, anyway. Meanwhile, in the US, we are told that wide sidewalks and bike lanes are impractical and should be sacrificed for yet another lane of traffic - to protect the auto industry, which today, comprises mostly foreign makes or foreign-owned US brands. There are other ways to live!
Of course, this is not to say it is a Shangri-La. Locals complain about the price of housing. A one-bedroom condo might cost you $150,000 in the big city! Not a lot of money, but then again, salaries are not very high. Many young people work two jobs to make ends meet. And the right wing complains about illegal immigrants. We are more alike than different.
I could go on - there are so many other little things, too, which seem, well, just practical. You see a parking space across the street? No need to do a U-turn, just park the "wrong" way. You won't be ticketed or towed (a handy feature when trying to wrestle a van down the side streets in the "old" town). In fact, the presence of police seems a lot more subdued, although in one city we visited, the police vans had fold down riot cages that slid over the windows. I guess they do expect trouble from time to time.
Anyway, we are on the Carnival Valor halfway across the Atlantic. What a change from the Holland America Oosterdam. No lectures to attend, or art classes to take, but two giant water slides and a huge (and well-attended) casino. Carnival touts itself as home of the "Fun Ships!" and the fun, I guess, comprises alcoholism and compulsive gambling. It is darker and louder than a Holland America ship, but at least we did get an upgrade to a balcony stateroom.
The entire ship is decorated in patriotic tchotchke. The Washington Dining Room, the Lincoln Lounge, the Eagle Bar (America Eagles dominate the ship - literally hundreds of them!). It is an interesting welcome home to America. And no, the "Hall of Presidents" bar and lounge doesn't have a bass relief of Trump - yet.
But maybe that is the one thing that distinguishes Europe from America. They've lived through wars and fascist dictatorships and don't want a repeat performance. Perhaps. Then again, the rise of far-right parties across the continent seems to indicate that the younger generation hasn't learned from history.
Fascism isn't new, nor it the urge to go back to "the good old days."
Back in the 1920s, people were having altogether too much fun. My own grandmother was a "flapper" who bobbed her hair and wore tight dresses and went to "blind pig" speakeasies in New York, much to the chagrin of her strict Lutheran parents. In other parts of the world, liberalism also took hold. New ideas were being flaunted, people were toying with ideas like Communism. In Germany, gay rights groups were formed.
Then it all came crashing down in 1929.
And like clockwork, people decided that our economic problems were not caused by economic causes, but by social ones. Too much liberal thinking! Scandalous behavior! If only we went back to the good old days, things would be better!
How that would fix the economy is anyone's guess. And the crash of 1929 wasn't caused by liberalism, but by capitalism run wild. A few people made a lot of money in that crash - a lot lost a little and some lost everything. This was, of course, by design. And I suspect the attempt to blame our woes on social issues was also by design.
And if you go back through history, you see this pattern. Crops fail? Burn a witch. Failing that, well, persecute a minority group with a pogrom. Blame the "others" for your self-inflicted problems. It has always been a popular sport.
We were treated to a diatribe by an Uber driver in Portugal about how "immigrants" were ruining the economy. You see, as I have harped upon time and time again, this immigration thing is not unique to the USA. The population of the earth has expanded by a factor of three since I was a kid, and the battle for scare resources is getting increasingly ugly.
Sure, you might think of some war or conflict in terms of religious or political conflict or tribal warfare, but the bottom line is, people are fighting for land and the resources that come with it. And those caught in the middle are looking at Western countries and their high standard of living and thinking, "It's worth risking my life to go there - I have literally nothing left to lose!"
Like gas expanding to fill a container (Boyle's law) populations migrate from crowded areas to less crowded areas - from areas where resources are scarce to places where they are plentiful. It is almost an inexorable force that cannot be stopped with walls or deportations, only perhaps managed at best.
So here we are again in 2025 facing economic insecurity and a worldwide struggle for limited resources, and the far-right is blaming it all on transgender people and immigrants. The real reasons, of course - exponential population growth and squandering of scarce resources - are dismissed out of hand. In fact, the far-right promotes even greater population growth, claiming it is a civic duty to have children. And they also claim that resources on a finite planet are, in fact, infinite. It is a hell of a sell-job.
But it has been years in the making. When I was a kid, there were protests and riots such as at the 1968 Democratic convention. Those on the right claimed this was a sign of moral degradation, and if only people would get their act together - and march in lock-step, the world would be a better place.
People protested "Down with the Police!" or "Up with Pot!" so this phaseology become common. The CEO of Avis, the car rental company, even published a book, called "Up The Organization!" which is a good read if you get the time.
So the phraseology was co-opted by the far right to create "Up With People!' - a singing troupe of a hundred clean-faced young people singing in harmony. And the songs? Well, the best I can say is they are along the lines of the "I Love You, You Love Me!" song sung by Barney the Purple Dinosaur. Insipid. Vacuous. Superficial. Boring.
The organization itself was an outgrowth of the "Moral Re-Armament" movement that dated back to the 1930's. Same shit different day - in the depths of the depression, the founder of "MRA" opined that the solution to our economic problems was to install a theocratic dictatorship. And say, that fella Hitler has the right idea! Too bad about the Jews, thoug!. No, he really said things like that. MRA needed a re-branding and Up With People! fit the bill.
So, Up With People! was formed in part to ditch that tainted legacy and present a clean-cut view of how America should be. Why can't kids today be more like the Up With People! singers instead of dirty stinking hippies? It was an easy sell to Mom and Dad America, but not necessarily to their kids.
And as you might imagine, it was sponsored by major corporations who wanted to see more social order and preserve the status-quo. Coca-Cola was one of the big early sponsors and they sort of co-opted the idea with their "I'd like to teach the world to sing!" promotion, which sort of sold the same message as Up With People! albeit with a bottle of coke in hand.
It kept going for a few decades, although it sort of petered out by the 1980s. They are credited (by some) as creating the first Superbowl halftime show that didn't involve marching bands. It is still around today even, in a limited form. But what got me started on this - other than nostalgia - was the idea that political or economic problems could be solved by enforcing moral standards onto other people.
Saving and Loan crash? Can't be lax regulation! Must be the Gays! Throw in a religious angle - that we have somehow displeased God - and you have a perfect storm. Just have to find a witch to burn, or some other handy scapegoat.
For Hitler it was the Jews. For the new right-wing, it is immigrants who eat dogs and cats, Furries who put litter boxes in classrooms. Trans people using the "wrong" bathroom (which is to say, any bathroom, apparently). It won't be long before they go after other minorities and in fact, they already are. Spanish-speaking people are being assaulted for speaking Spanish. Blacks are being "put in their place" by claiming any accomplishment by a black person is due to "D.E.I." This is how it starts, and as economic conditions worsen, well, they will find more and more scapegoats to go after. Perhaps you. Probably me.
The struggle for resources isn't just limited to migration. Just as in 1938, we have Putin invading Ukraine to expand his empire, with plans to vacuum up other former Soviet bloc countries thereafter. Trump talks of annexing Canada, Panama, and Greenland. Everyone, it seems, is in the land-grab business. We need more land for our population to grow! Lebensraum! Hey, there's plenty of room on Mars, right?
Of course, you only want to expand the population of the right kind of people. You know, Up With People! kind of people.
Up! Up with people! You meet ‘em wherever you go, Up! Up with People! They’re the best kind of folks we know. If more people were for people, All people ev’rywhere, There’d be a lot less people to worry about, And a lot more people who care!
There is something very creepy about that lyric, particularly the second-to-last line.
The van comes with big urethane bumpers front and rear, which are plain black plastic. The right front had a small dent it in from a previous renter, and after "the incident" with the flat tire, the dent was much bigger. After a few weeks, we decided to fix it. You can pull dents out of these urethane bumpers by applying some gentle heat from a hair dryer and then pushing in from the back.
I unscrewed part of the inner fender liner so I could reach in. I could push the bumper out, but it bounced back. Having no hair dryer to soften the urethane, I was stumped. Mr. See suggested hot water and boiled a pan on the stove. We gently poured the hot water on the bumper and it cascaded down the bumper, even underneath. I gently pushed in from the back and it popped out! I pushed again and even the small dent from the previous renter was gone. I kept massaging it until the tiniest wrinkles were gone.
But would it stick? Or would it bounce back to the old dent? Mark ran in and got one of these huge Spanish ice cubes from the fridge and I rubbed it all over the formerly dented area to "set" the repair. When I took my hand away, no dent! Not even a scratch!
I've done this in the past, even with painted bumpers, although usually they show cracks in the paint when you are done. Still, it looks better than a dent. Why people drive around with dented urethane bumpers is beyond me.
We did stop in Benidorm, which is an ex-pat enclave, mostly for Brits. The big deal there was the two-seat tandem handicapped scooter (coming soon to a Walmart near you!) which was made popular by a television series about that town. If you like crowds - in the stores, the restaurants, and on the beach, this is the place for you. Yea, it had its charms, but TOO CROWDED! And some Brits really make Americans look reasonable by comparison.
Cities are nice and all, but I've had my fill of "tourist attractions" - museums, cathedrals, and "sights" to see. Just the quiet sound of the surf in the background and the warm (-ish) Mediterranean sea.
