Continuing our little stream of consciousness from Voyager – somewhere in the seas off the coast of Brazil, motoring north to Salvador da Bahia.
On Friday, Pat & I decided to make a special tour day and go with our guide to the gorgeous little city of Petropolis, in the mountains above Rio. It was the location of the summer court of the royal family and is utterly charming, with many exquisite houses and palaces built by the German architects whom the royal family favored in the mid-19th century. The old part of the city seems more German or Austrian than Brazilian, except for the amazingly lush tropical plants. It is somewhat disconcerting to visit the cathedral there, built in a very severe Gothic style, surrounded by gardens of palm trees, banana trees, and exotic flowers, such as anthurium and hibiscus. Sort of like being in some psychedelic world of Brazilian, German, and Hawaiian influences.
Most of the passengers – including your simple correspondent, Fred – who boarded yesterday in Rio, did so in torrential rain. While that aspect was not pleasant, it made for easy conversation as a shared annoyance. Often, shared annoyances are just as good for conversation starters as shared pleasures, no??
Despite the dreadful rain for much of Friday and Saturday, the rain gods gave us some respite during our sailaway yesterday (Saturday). As we sailed out of that “beautiful†(you can add your owned preferred adverbs, depending upon your own experience and preference for naughty language) harbor, Terry Breen was giving her astonishingly knowledgeable yet remarkably accessible commentary; and, suddenly, the Christ Redeemer statue (which had been for the whole day entirely obscured by thick clouds) appeared in the gentle mist. If I run into Terry on the ship, I certainly intend to ask her how she carried that little trick off. It was indeed pretty ****ing spectacular, to say the pretty ****ing least!! Clearly, that lady has some major weather juju. One might think of engaging her to ensure good weather at an outdoor wedding or bris, no??
One rather funny (or maybe horrifying, if someone has a fatalistic view of things) episode yesterday was the mandatory lifeboat drill. At the sound of the Assembly Alarm, we dutifully reported to our assigned muster station, Constellation Lounge, where we were rather brusquely informed that the space wasn’t yet ready for us. Geez, if not then, when?? After a few minutes of our watching crewmembers in jackets of a genuinely painful hue of yellow dash about in clear confusion, the Asst Cruise Director took the microphone to inform us (without the irony that would have been appropriate) that many of the crew had just boarded the ship that day and had not yet received any safety training and therefore couldn’t really assist us in this drill.
He hurried through a short instruction on donning the jacket and told us that because of the heavy wind we would not have to go out to the decks where the lifeboats were located. Then, he released us back to our cocktails, with the assurance that if there was a genuine emergency the crew would have been trained by that time… Please bear in mind that when this little adventure from the Twilight Zone occurred, we were already far out at sea, four hours from Rio. The one consolation Pat & I took from this episode was that we would be in a small group of passengers who would share a lifeboat with the crew – I think that fact should go a long ways to ensuring that we would manage in an emergency, no? In the ship goes down, I would much rather be in the lifeboat with capable seamen (and a chef or two) than with a bunch of hysterical Floridians who are worried about the status of their Louis Vuitton luggage. (Okay, Okay, feel free to begin the flaming about my being such an anti-elitest bozo…)
Well, fatigued readers, the cocktail bell will soon ring and I must throw myself into my suit and tie by then; so this will wrap it up for today.
The seas remain a bit rolling but quite tolerable.
Cheers, Fred
