The People You Meet

Cruising is a great way to meet people. You are on a ship with hundreds of other people in a large but confined area. On other cruises, we have normally chosen the fixed dining option, where you sit at the same table with the same people at the same time every evening. This is great on a shorter cruise as it gives you a chance to get to know your table-mates pretty well by the end of the trip. There are many people who we have met on cruises that we keep in touch with. Strangely, other people who you get to know well on a trip, never contact you again. Or, you exchange e-mail addresses and possibly write back and forth a few times but then it stops. We met an older Scottish military man and his wife on one cruise and had a great time with them. He was not at all well, and his health was failing, and could no longer fly, so was traveling on the seas. He wore kilts and regimental regalia to formal nights and swore like a sailor, but he was a character you couldn’t help but like. I got his e-mail and tried to send him a picture we had taken of the four of us, but never heard anything of him. I worried that something had happened to him, but then years later I happened upon him on Facebook, and discovered that he had given me an incorrect e-mail so never got my correspondence, and we have kept in contact off and on since.

Now sitting with the same people for 43 days might be great, but what if they were not very nice or downright annoying? We elected to try the open seating on this voyage, and we sit with different folk every night. We have indeed met a few rather annoying people but the vast majority are interesting, friendly travelers and we regularly find ourselves happily chatting about hometowns, favorite trips or common interests when we notice the dining room staff waiting for us to leave so they can prepare for the next hungry diners. We have missed not a few events or amazing shopping opportunities because we lingered too long with our dinner guests sharing stories.

Our Ship The Noordam

The biggest difference to this is that although we have only been sailing for 9 days, we have met more people than we have ever before. As we wander from one event to another we are always being greeted by someone who we ate breakfast with, or shared a Lido table with. The biggest difficulty is recalling what their names are or exactly where we met them. Was that the guy who was going boar hunting in Australia, or was she the retired lumber baron? Did we meet them at breakfast in San Diego or was it while sailing to Hawaii. That is the advantage of travelling with Regis; everyone recalls her name. My name is common, but when we introduce ourselves we are often faced with a response to her name. “That’s interesting; What was it again?; Are you named after someone? Of course that other “Regis”, “what’s his name” always comes up.

One afternoon, we politely asked a man sitting alone at a large table out on the pool deck if we could share it with him, and he quietly said “Sure” and went back to his book, head down. Twenty minutes later we knew that he was from “South Texas – as far south as you can get!”, and he had no idea where his wife was in her walker. Although shy and quiet at first we have now seen him many times around the ship (And he still can never find his wife . . .) I recall his name, but I forget the names of the people we came up on the elevator with . . . . where did we meet them?

People You meet

One on the nicest things about travel is the people you meet. This trip has been especially good that way. We spent the first ten days visiting friends and family, and it was nice to reconnect with people we had not seen in a while. You discover that most people do not change much. Even if you have not seen them in years you usually just start up where you left off as if it has only been weeks. But for this blog, these “friends” don't count because we already know them.

You meet the nicest people on a cruise

On the cruise, it is hard not to meet people. There are 1400 people together on a ship for almost 20 days; unless you hide in your cabin, you have to meet people. We ate in the main dining room every night at the same time at the same table with three other couples. I don't know how the cruise lines do it, but we always seem to be seated with very nice people who we get along with very well. As we got to know these people we had dinner with, we did more and more with them, often meeting up after dinner for the shows and other events. As we parted ways on the last day, everyone exchanged contact information and promised to keep in touch.

Or on shore excursions

You meet people wherever you go on the ship. Whenever you go in to the dining room for breakfast or lunch you are asked if you want to sit with others, and so we always met different people at these meals. Even if you eat in the Lido Buffet, you often share tables. You also meet people in line for coffee in the morning, at special programs, or sitting in the show at night.

We met a woman from Texas one morning. She had been living in Texas for forty years and had lived in New Jersey before moving to Texas. You would have thought she might have developed some accent during that time, but no, her German heritage still overcame all her time in the US. She even had lots of helpful advice on Kansas City for us because her son lived there. Her advice on the Airport shuttle was perfect.

Then there was the couple who we met at lunch one day who after a pleasant chat over our meal, said that with all the people on the ship, we probably would never see them again, but in fact we saw them over and over again, including on one of our tours and in the airport as we were flying to Kansas.

And of course "What happens on the cruise . . .

Now with the fierce debate over the US government shut-down, and Obamacare, we often were faced with questions about our Canadian health care system. The interesting thing is that the supporters of the democrats want to hear about how long we have to wait for things, and the Republicans want to hear how everyone has good care at no cost. They all love to talk and debate the Health Care issues and compare Obamacare and Canadacare, but no matter what you say, it doesn't seem to change anyone's opinion. We actually tried to avoid these discussions whenever we could, saying that we really do not know much about it, because it works so well we don't even think about it.

Arriving in Kansas, we discovered that although different in many ways, the natives of this city are much like good old Nova Scotians. They are friendly, cheerful and always willing to help. One interesting thing we noticed is that like Maritimers they always apologize for things even if it's not their fault. Two people stepping out of the elevator at once, and both say “Sorry” and step back to let the other go first. Two people come around a corner almost running into each other; two “Sorry's”.

My first day at the Kansas Speedway, I had to call to arrange the hotel shuttle. I had no cell phone, but the man sitting behind me in the grandstands gladly called for me, and when I had been standing out by the road waiting for a while, and started to worry about the violent thunderstorm getting closer and closer, the lady directing traffic, called again to check on it for me, and even left her number for them to call back when the shuttle was closer. The security guard walking by was probably thinking “What is this crazy guy doing standing out in the open waiting on the storm? Does he know his is indeed still in Kansas?”, but what he said was “You have a pleasant evening?” Walking to the bus stop the gardener for the hotel inquired as to where we were going, and when we told him about going downtown, he suggested visiting the Steamboat museum down by the river. I did, and it was the highlight of the daytrip to KC.

Yes, you really do meet some nice people.

All Alone in St. Pierre

We went out for dinner on the first evening here on St. Pierre. The restaurant was right around the corner, one of many in the town within walking distance of our hotel. There was no one in the restaurant, except the server and us, but we were early so I didn't think anything of it, especially since the chef walked in dressing his street clothes a few minutes later. I could almost imagine the server slipping into the back room after seating us and calling his home . . . "Some crazy English tourists are here for dinner; come quick!". It did get a little better later, with a young couple dropping in for drinks and another English couple for dinner, but that was it. On the upside, we did chat with everyone there - you can't do that when the restaurant is full.

Leaving the restaurant at about 8:00 pm we exited to empty streets. Not a person anywhere; not a car on the streets; complete silence. It was like aliens had beamed up the entire population. We walked back to the hotel in complete and utter silence. We met no one, and heard nothing but the wind. It was odd, and a very little bit eerie, but we figured that there was a hurricane bearing down on this little French colony, so perhaps everyone was hunkering down indoors. We were told the next day that it was the day before school started, so everyone was home early getting ready for an early evening. WOW, in the cities I'm used to, the teenagers would be out for one final night of freedom before a year of school. Talk about culture shock! I should have been teaching here.

Overnight the hurricane came and went, leaving the island relatively unscathed, so when the sun came out at 10:00 we set out for a walk. Eventually we found a paved road leading out of town into the hills and decided to explore. We were gone for over three hours and saw one car and met no one on the road or the trails through the hills. That evening we tried another restaurant, this one with lots of people, but again when we left to walk back to the hotel we were presented with a dead empty town. Not one person on the streets and we walked through a silent town.

The next day we decided to explore the town and discovered that indeed there were people who lived here and the streets were busy and full of people. There were cars, buses, tractors, construction crews, and lots of people on the streets and boats moving in and out of the harbour. The town was actually alive! BUT . . . . . 12:00 noon arrived and everything stopped. Really;  everything completely stopped. The town went silent. No people on the streets, traffic stopped. the streets were dead! We walked back to the hotel past closed shops and empty streets. We were once again alone in St. Pierre. Looking at the signs in the shops we realized that everything shuts down from 12:00 to 2:00, and they really do shut down. It is very weird to suddenly have an entire town go so completely silent. It seems that the same thing happens in the evenings. No "Night Life" here, they roll up the sidewalks and go in for the evening.

I have learned to adapt, and I'm quietly writing this inside at the hotel at 1:57 pm, oh wait a minute I can hear the whole town waking up and coming back outside. Time to finish this blog entry.

Pictures of People

I take hundreds of photographs when I travel, and already on this trip to China I have close to 1000 pictures. I take pictures of scenery, sunsets, cars, and doors and windows (Stay tuned for a post on that), but I do not take a lot of pictures of people. My wife gets annoyed at me because I have to be reminded to even get her in some of our “holiday snaps”. Here in China I have actually done a better job at this, thanks to one of the teachers in one of my classes.

I asked all the teachers to e-mail me a little bit of information about themselves, and I asked for a picture of them so I could try to get to know them all. I started noticing a lot of pictures of the teachers and their children, but never was there any husbands in the photos. In fact often there was not even a husband mentioned. I couldn't help but wonder about this, but I was sort of afraid to ask. Why were there no husbands? Was this something I could ask, or should I just keep quiet about it? Was there a cultural thing I wasn't understanding?

Finally one teacher sent me a lovely picture of her, her daughter, her Mother, and her “husband's” mother. No husband, but at last he was sort of mentioned if only off-handed. I decided to e-mail her back and ask?

Of course the answer was simple. Her reply was short and to-the-point. There is never any husband in the picture, because he is always taking the picture. There are lots of pictures with the husbands, but it is the Teachers then taking the pictures themselves, so since I wanted a picture of them, I got the ones without the husbands. Duhhhh????

From then on, my mission was to take as many pictures of families, so they didn't have to have photos with one absent family member. As I explore the city, every time I see a husband taking a photo of his family, I stop and ask if I can take a picture for them with all of them in it. I've become pretty at explaining this with gestures and slow English, and most people really appreciate it. I also found out that although very few Chinese speak very much English, they all seem to know the phrase “Thank you very much”.

I have also noticed that I am a favouite subject of pictures. Many times I catch people sneaking photos of the strange foreigner with a beard and big hat. When I catch them doing this I stop them and then insist that I pose with them and then ask them to pose for a picture with my camera. In Shanghai we met three lovely young people with excellent English who we chatted with for a long time because they wanted a picture with me.

As a result of this, I find that I am actually taking more pictures of people in other situations, and I even have quite a few shots of my wife while she was visiting.