Happy New Year my Beloveds

The photo is a good summary of my day- the good, the bad and the very hungry. H took me on a longer hike than my legs wanted, and I skied like a drunk (her words, loosely translated). The good news is that my worst day this year is a lot better than my worst day last year. So....my worst is less worse? 

Somehow I have to put something on for tonight over the blister and dry skin. Will send photos if I manage to take any, but there is a serious chance that I will be asleep in my elk consommé. 

More soon. 

little teeny update- but with videos! (new tech)

from todays tour

Thought I might throw in a very quick Lech update, though I don't know what I can say that I haven't said every other winter.

Harumi told me to get slightly wider skis and they have been a game changer.  At Christmas the Schneiders handed out old photos to each table- some were really old and frankly horrible- but some were amusing. We have a new room with views to the south and west, and we have both walked into our old room several times.

Thomas is doing these really really long hikes and comes back so tired and happy. It is some sort of nectar to him, all this exercise.

I have also seen some of the worst behavior I have ever seen here- rich people's temper tantrums over perceived slights, one man coming to the dining room in his dirty pyjamas and divorcees trolling for new husbands in full view of the husband's wife. You know- the usual.
It does lead one to a kind of five star mini depression. The sanest ones are the mountain guides- so I try to stick close to them.
Harumi's son is my love- he comes to the hotel by skis, and he likes to hold a little briefcase (instead of ski poles) that holds his baby giraffe. I will upload that video and more after dinner.
more in a jiffy. xx

One oldie from Lech. F must be about 6.

view from my bed

ok below is H's son on his rounds with briefcase. He already has a lot of his mothers ski style- the way he pushes into the mountain left and right. You must put it into full screen and listen for the baby Japanese at the end. I told Luis S that he would be ruling this town for only a few more years- a new bachelor with longer eyelashes was coming. He claims that Fuyuki has maxed out on cuteness and it's all downhill from here. No pun intended.

and Harumi just sent me this one (she takes a lot of me...which I sort of hate because I hate looking at my own style especially in the back country; 

but you get the idea of how remote it is out there

For Unto Us An Ocean is Given

The waves today were about 7 meters, or over 20 feet. In his noon address, the Captain announced it was a “Magnificent day on the north Atlantic!”- He described it as gray and rainy and windy and “Isn’t it a joy to surf these mighty seas??!”

The waves are indeed something to behold- we gape slightly open mouthed, and then shake our heads and smile- smile at their might; smile at our relief they have until now, avoided us.

I decided that water like this was too sacred to watch while podcasting, so I put in Handel’s Messiah and walked around the 7th deck, which translates to about the 7th floor. Some of the swells were so high, it was like the water wanted to come up and say hello. As I listened to sopranos raised in song, (FOR UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN!)  a few of these monsters crested, and the tops turned a vibrant, turquoise blue. (AND HIS NAME SHALL BE CALLED WONDERFUL!)
It was such a beautiful sight; it made me tear up.

In fact, I was so moved, I yelled hello into the wind. Hello you glorious, dolphin filled waves! “HELLLOOOOW!!!!!!!!!”  Thank you for bringing me to England.

Luckily this is not at all strange behavior here. Many people drink at lunch, so it is hard to tell who is drunk and who is just a Wehlen.

Went for manicure and hit pay dirt. This sassy Jamaican woman of great beauty and a rather don’t mess with me vibe, described the safety procedures. She seems to be a bit of a nerd like I am on the exact protocol, and she reserves very harsh words for people who are on their phones during the safety briefing. Says if she sees any of these slackers in a real emergency “You don't want to know what I will say to him, maan.”

She is clear that one needs to stay on the Queen Mary for as long as possible. “Don’t be jumping off, girl. She is safer than de life boat…”
(“Don’t be worrying,” I said…..)

Best of all she described what happened a few weeks ago- the night that woke Osman. The waves were 50 feet (that is 5 stories of water coming at you) and it lasted two days and a night. She said that the bow of this enormous ship went up so high- it looked vertical, like it would flip over. She said “Dat storm need to go back and not happen again..”

She and the spa girls were terrified; and it is hard to find crew who have ever been scared. She said there were two kinds of passengers: the seasick/terrified, and the ones who still insisted on French manicures.
She told them: “ A french manicure? In this weather? We outta a de white polish maan”

And so on this beautiful Advent evening…may I say to all my beloved fellow seekers: Jews and Gentiles; Muslims, atheists, ocean worshippers, tree huggers; Catholics, lapsed and devout: May I remind you tonight of the gift of this beautiful ocean. Visit it from time to time, and say hello won’t you?  It will do your soul good.



Pictures from solid land I promise. xx

Fair Winds and Following Seas

Portrait of a girl in a wind blown skirt holding chocolates

If there is one thing this blog has hoped to convey over the years, it is that one should not attempt to cross the Atlantic in just any old canoe. We are having a lovely day - walking around and around and getting chocolates handed to us by handsome Turks, and yet the seas are 20 feet and the wind is gale force. Thanks to the Queen Mary, we get to look at this magnificent ocean without getting our hair wet. Most of this is due to the fact that today the waves are coming from our stern. Since we are going the same direction, and more or less the same speed, it is all mellow up here.

The entire crew had a two hour security practice yesterday including looking for bombs and life boat drill. Thomas and I were knee deep in our step counting and this threw us, because much of the deck was closed to the passengers (the captain kept calling us “guests”). He repeated that this was for exercise only, and the guests didn’t need to start jumping off or handing out life jackets. (Im paraphrasing).

I saw my BFF Osman leading his group to his future life boat. At lunch I told him that I would be getting in his boat no matter what, so he should make room; he said he would hold the caviar.

He knows I want any gruesome ship details he can provide, with an emphasis on suicides or rogue waves; and boy does he provide. He told us that people jump off all the time, because the ship is a bit of a suicide tourist destination. They are mandated to search for the victim for one full day, even though these people jump off at night into a black, roaring, freezing sea, and there is no way they can be found. Thomas said it wouldn’t be that bad, once you were in. The cold would make you sort of blasé pretty quickly like on Mt. Everest.

He has taken his trivia game up a notch this trip (more on that later) and then said something to the effect of “93% of people who commit suicide regret it.”

With all the walking, we haven’t had much time for massages or planetariums visits, but I have added a handsome Turk to my rotation. (can never have too many) He is the man who gives me blow outs in the evenings, and he adds some juicy details while the hair mask is on (he is big on hair masks). Apparently there would be 150 of us in one life boat; some water and some power bars; but no water the first day, because one never knows when one will be rescued. The first order of business would be to give everyone a sea sickness pill, which has the benefit of putting us all to sleep. But this was my favorite part: We will be given little fishing rods. “Fishing RODS?” I asked…How long are we expected to be out there? He said it is not for the fish, it is to keep us busy. If we should catch one, we are not even allowed to eat it because that will make us thirsty.
 “ Because of the soy sauce?!!”

All the life boats would be tied together, and there would be no driving, just bobbing. If occurred to me that I didn’t understand what would happen next. “How would we get onto another ship? (In rough seas no less…)”
 “Ladder”….
“Ladder!? All of these elderly people up a ladder of an oil tanker?

Point is, as much as I like the idea of a little romantic bob with handsome Turkish men, one of whom will be holding caviar, and the other massaging my head before wrapping it in a hot towel, it doesn’t seem like the post entering the life boat part has been really thought out.

In my walks, I catch these little snap shots of people, and I collect them like seashells. Today into the elevator came a couple - the type where the husband has the face lift but not the wife. He was perhaps 90 with a jaunty little hair transplant of red hair, an utterly garish Versace shirt and plenty of bling. She was more circumspect in her grooming…but you could tell she thought she was the lucky one, married to a gorgeous peacock like that. They were holding hands to keep from falling over with the ship movement. After they got in, he pretended to knock on the elevator door as if to get it to open…she laughed and sighed and fake hit him, as if to ask the rest of the elevator: ‘Can you believe I landed this one?”
Then the doors opened, and they reached for each other again.

I am telling you, it is a romantic ship.

Photos soon, I promise. xx

Queen Mary, Christmas Edition!

 Greetings from somewhere near the resting grounds of the Titanic. We are off the coast of Nova Scotia, near Sable Island- the “graveyard of the Atlantic”. Sable is a mysterious nature reserve inhabited (says Wikepedia) by horses and seals and the Ipswich sparrow. Since the 17th century, 475 ships have run around on it after getting caught in the mixture of the Labrador and Gulf currents. When these currents meet, they create very rough seas and there is always a lot of fog. Making it even more treacherous is the fact that Sable Island is ever shifting with no fixed position in the ocean. Bit like the Bermuda triangle out here. 

This story was cheerily relayed to us at the noon announcement by our captain, whom we have met on a previous crossing. He is rather funny: he answered my question about rogue waves years ago by saying he was against the whole business, says he is afraid of bad weather. 

Speaking of bad weather…..we have had a little of it today. The winds were huge - force 11, which is classified as “violent storm”  and translates to 55-65 knots, with a sea state of “rough”. If the winds had kept up, this would mean 37-52 feet high waves. It has however died down, and is now force 8. 

The decks were officially closed but lots of people were out, including us step counters (did you really expect anything less?)  It didn't seem that much bigger than summer storms, until we went down to the second deck. This was amazing…a few waves suddenly, completely covered the windows in front of our chairs.  It was a bit like when Frederick was very little and we were standing in front of the window of the polar bear enclosure at the zoo. In an instant the bear swam up and put all four limbs on the window separating us. It was just like that- like having nothing but some glass separating you from a polar bear. I asked Thomas if he flinched as I did, and he said yes…it was genuinely frightening.

But of course this is nothing. The captain says one should use the hand rails; and that is about it. A few weeks ago they went near a hurricane and that was really bad. Osman (handsome Turk) says he was awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of a bomb going off. He sleeps in the bow, so it’s worse there. Apparently they were hit by a wave, or more likely, plummeted down from a big one, and he says he has never heard anything like it. 

So basically, we have had some huge winds and a few large waves, but it didn't stop the tea or canasta.  No one is sea sick and our sleeping is extraordinary. I slept the first night from 9:30 to 7:30 and then took a huge nap later in the day. 

I have to get these photos up, so I will make this short today. Most exciting is the below video of a wave I took. Having issues getting it to work, but let's see. 
xx

Caviar Count: 1

Crêpes Suzette: 2

Steps taken as a family on the QM2

85, 702. (but who’s counting)

our living room; bedroom out of view

our deck

This was after the wind mellowed. Imagine the wave really fully covering the window for a few seconds.