Here and There Blog

My life revolves around one stretch of road from the hotel to work. Not much happens so when hotel kitty makes an appearance it's always a fun time. There are numerous stray cats and dogs that wander the island. The humane society does a round up for three weeks each year and spays and neuters all strays to reduce the population. I am told that the program is working and there are less homeless animals than five years ago before the program was started.

It turns out what I thought was a rainstorm was much worse. Since we didn't know better, we thought the street flooding and the runoff plus the waterfalls were normal. The local paper ran a story about how bad this last storm was and schools had to close early. Now this being Samoa, many of the schools are not inside but outside buildings that resemble a family picnic structure more than a school. Today the mosquitoes were out in full force and additional geckos are stalking my room. One is enough unless they are going to get busy eating bugs.

Still alive - been working/no wireless. The rain started hard this morning and the water was going everywhere. The reflections are from the flash against the raindrops. The gecko is still wandering my hotel room but not eating the spiders. Bummer.

The lagoon water is warm the pool water is cold. To get to this beach you have to walk through sharp sand due to broken shells, wander through the fields of beach hermit crabs, and try to elude mosquitos. I never see or feel the mosquitos but my legs and arms are showing the evidence. Today I'm buying some deet!

7:00 am, American Samoa. The sweat is rolling down my face and I blog from my patio. The wireless signal doesn't pick-up in my nice air-conditioned room so here I suffer. I think all computer work will take place after sunset from now on. Such is island life. So begins the series of palm tree photos for the next two weeks!

1/2 of the day's travel is complete. I'm outside at Honolulu's wonderful airport where you can still be inside security but feel as if you are in Hawaii. The ocean beckons on one side and the mountains on the other. I wish the trip was stopping here for a few days. I'm in the mood for Maui Taco and there are no outlets at the airport. Two hours of the layover done, two & 1/2 more to go.

The turkey is digested and the bag is packed once again. Somehow my suitcase for a 2 week business trip to Samoa is about 30% lighter than my suitcase for a 2 week cruise. Amazing how that all works out! I've managed to complete my homework assignments for both this week and next so I'm in good shape for a while. So here it is another Saturday night that finds me at a LAX hotel contemplating the joy of the 4:30 am wake-up call and a 18 hour day of travel. Tidbits of today's news that interested me: Kuwait's government is giving the ministry wider authority to crack down on women working after 8:00 pm. Saudi Arabia women are protesting the lashing sentence of the woman who was raped. As a result, many women are starting to remove the veil that covers their eyes. This doesn't seem like much but it is. Lebanon has no president and the military tanks have rolled into the city to prevent the start of any violence that might lead to civil war. Malibu is burning down again...

My geek moment.

Even Q can take a beer photo!

The sign says it all! Even the loo is done up Hobbit style! More of the remaining hobbit frames.

On the second to last morning of the cruise I looked out the window and saw the first sunrise of the trip. I only had seconds to grab my camera and get these shots. This is off the coast of the North Island of New Zealand.

The last morning/day of the trip! I'm at a netcafe right now checking things out and waiting for airport time. It's finally hot and sunny after weeks of cold weather. I am so happy to have been on land for 24 straight hours. Even the 14 hour flight home will be better than being at sea. I enjoyed parts of the cruise a lot but I could never recommend that trip to anyone but true ocean lovers who don't get seasick. Best ports were where I did the LOTR stuff. I'll post a few final photos this week once I'm home and organized.

The cruise is ending with Hobbiton. I'm on my last 5 minutes of wireless so I'll leave you with this for now.

Today we are "scenic cruising". This means there is a whole lot of water and then something will appear. The first scenic appearance (and so far the only one) was White Island. It's an active volcano that could erupt at any time. The main ven is below sea level but it is shielded from the water by high crater walls. Neat to look at but you can only stare at volcano steam for so long and then it's back to endless water.

My name in Elvish.

Part of the Wellington LOTR tour was a stop to visit the cartographer for all the movies - Daniel Reeves. He was a great speaker and shared his story of how he came to work on the movies and showed us the evolution of all his lettering and maps. Below is the font guide to the different languages. He also gave each of us a card with our names in Elvish. Very cool.

Napier was a zombie port for us. Both LJ and I were drugged out on seasick meds and were trying to walk them out of our system. It didn't really work and we stumbled about the town like zombies. Napier is a pretty little seaside town and full of shops and restaurants but this is about all that we could manage.

One of the best eating moments is the midnight dessert buffet. This is the time for a free-for-all where you pile as much different desserts on your plate as possible. If you don't like the first one, then move on to the next one. I didn't care for the cream puff but the black forest cake was the best!

On some of the Trek cruises we have a PJ party. This was one of those years. Of course, no one really wants to be seen in their PJ's so we improvise to look like we really wear these outfits to sleep in. This year, we had our beer and found a fellow beer lover to share the Stout and Triple Malt with. All was fun and good.

Napier - After another rough night of gale force winds and 20 ft. waves, I am drugged out from all the seasick tablets once again. Both LJ and I, along with many others left dinner about 10 minutes into the seating. The sea was too much to take and rather than making a big mess on the table it was safer to retreat to the cabin. Ugh. I'm at the public library right now taking advantage of fast internet and will post some Wellington photos later. We're getting down to the wire now. Tomorrow is another dreaded sea day and then we finally get to Hobbiton for another LOTR tour. After that we dock in Auckland and return to Sydney before flying home on Monday. I have to say that I will hopefully never be on a cruise again with this many sea days. If so, I think I'll leave my suitcase on board and fly or drive to the next port!

Napier was the wine tasting port. We went to 2 wineries and a one-stop tasting shop. Pretty much the highlight of the day was this calico cat at the first winery. Poor LJ! Wine glass is empty and the winery served so-so wines. Lucky Karen! My wine glass is full.

At the top!

The picture above is where Theodred's burial took place in the Two Towers. Nothing remains of the movie sets since this is a national park and the filming requirement was that everything had to be returned to a pristine condition. Here's the view of the valley below.

To get to Edoras, we had to cross 3 streams. This one was the hardest due to the current and high winds. The plants in the front of this photo are bent to the right due to high winds. No one fell in the stream. Then we had the hill climb. These people aren't falling over due to the steepness of the hill but the fact that strong wind gusts were blowing them over.

Today we are hiking Mt. Sunday otherwise known as Edoras in what was the filming location for Rohan in LOTR . Edoras is this rocky peak in the photo above. While not snowcapped , it is a straight up 300 ft. climb to the top. The valley is surrounded by mountains.

After the chocolate it was time for the brewery tour!

Today's stop was Dunedin. We went on a chocolate and beer tour. First up was the Cadbury chocolate factory for a Willy Wonka style tour followed by chocolate!

Cruisin' the fjords and enjoying the view from our balcony.

Doubtful Sound in Fjordlands National Park, New Zealand

After crossing the Tasman Sea and another bumpy night, we have arrived at the New Zealand coastline at last! Today we are cruising the Fjordland area and the first stop was in Milford Sound. There are waterfalls all along the fjords and if you look really, really hard, you can see two small ones in this photo. The area is dramatically beautiful in person but due to the clouds the photos don't convey this.

This is at Creative Paper in Burnie, Tasmania. The paper is made from recycled "Roo Poo" and while it takes a while to get over the squeamishness of handling the paper, the colors are brilliant and the paper is unique and not just in the poo way. Lisa is posing next to sculptures made out of "Roo Poo" and in the back there is random art.

The view looked a bit better in person. It didn't seem so dark and gloomy while we were hiking up the volcano in the You Yangs reserve.

Another sea day. The waters have been calm and no one is seasick today. If it wasn't for the Star Trek events, I'd be bored to tears. We've got Trek Trivia, Family Feud, Actor Entertainment, Behind the Scenes and more on the schedule. Combine that with the gym, eating, and port lectures, the day will be complete. I think the perfect cruise has zero sea days. This one has 5.

Burnie, Tasmania - the view from the cabin. Not quite the best view but luckily Tasmania is full of green countryside and cute houses. I didn't take pictures of those. The beer is the Dark Isle Pale Ale. The beer was good.

Tasmania - we didn't get to a pub or a microbrewery but the man at the bottle shop sold 6 pack samplers of Dark Isle - a local brewery. No, we didn't drink all the beers right away but so far the Brown Ale has been the best. We're saving the Stout for later and hoping to avoid Triple Malt until the end.

LJ hiking up the trail in a park that I can't remember the name of right now. We thought after a full 36 hours of being sick and not eating that this hike up an extinct volcano was a good idea! Well it was beautiful at the top but not for the out of shape or out of food! No, LJ has not completed her task!

Internet at last! We arrived on the ship to find that the server had crashed and that they had to fly in a tech from Miami to meet us in Melbourne. That meant no internet for at least three days and we had a sea day right after leaving Sydney so no land net cafes either! Then in Melbourne, still no internet . We spent the sea day sick in the cabin since the ocean had been rough with 14 ft waves for 24 hours. What a loss! At least we go adjusted to the time as we lived on 6 hour seasick pills that the front desk was handing out all over the place. This photo is at Bondi Beach. I've been flying for 17 hours and then we were picked up and taken sightseeing with no time to change!

LJ and her wine. This is for the Intuit group.