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slow boat to Oakland
May. 25th, 2009 10:23 amI am in Adelaide, on the ship. Which was due to leave 0700 today (this involved an 0600 Customs visit[0]), then 1100 today, and now 1300 or later. I am getting a little antsy; it's a bit neither-one-thing-nor-the-other, waiting to have left but not actually being gone.
I have just spent ten minutes trying to write things about one or more of:
- Australia in general
- the last fortnight in particular
- people I care about
- the waiting-room feeling of being sat on the ship, here but not quite
- the feeling of having a brain overstuffed with Things that I can't quite get a handle on right now
- [a whole bunch of complicated emotional stuff about going and leaving and people that I can't even manage to write clearly about in this kind of non-specific summary form]
and yes, have basically failed to be able to say anything that is not one or both of trite or uninformative (or something else equally unhelpful), so I am going to give up for now.
ION: my cabin is enormous (sitting room, bedroom, bathroom), my window looks forward towards the bow, and I've been watching big cranes loading containers since I boarded yesterday. I am right up top just below the bridge (which apparently I can visit whenever I like as long as I keep out of the way etc). Have met the Captain & Chief Engineer (both v friendly chaps), and a couple of the crew - I'm the only passenger until we reach Auckland on Saturday night.
Due into Oakland (SF) on the 16th, at present. It should be an interesting 3 wks; I am hoping that my belief in my immunity to seasickness proves to be correct!
[0] They asked me more questions than I'm used to getting from passport control - were you on a work visa, when did you get here, were you also working in Mongolia/Vietnam/etc (after looking at my Extensive Visa Collection), why are you boarding at Adelaide when you've been living in Sydney - and then had to hunt through their bag of passport stamps to find the right one. "We don't have to do this much - I've only ever stamped 4 regular passengers out!" one of them said.
I have just spent ten minutes trying to write things about one or more of:
- Australia in general
- the last fortnight in particular
- people I care about
- the waiting-room feeling of being sat on the ship, here but not quite
- the feeling of having a brain overstuffed with Things that I can't quite get a handle on right now
- [a whole bunch of complicated emotional stuff about going and leaving and people that I can't even manage to write clearly about in this kind of non-specific summary form]
and yes, have basically failed to be able to say anything that is not one or both of trite or uninformative (or something else equally unhelpful), so I am going to give up for now.
ION: my cabin is enormous (sitting room, bedroom, bathroom), my window looks forward towards the bow, and I've been watching big cranes loading containers since I boarded yesterday. I am right up top just below the bridge (which apparently I can visit whenever I like as long as I keep out of the way etc). Have met the Captain & Chief Engineer (both v friendly chaps), and a couple of the crew - I'm the only passenger until we reach Auckland on Saturday night.
Due into Oakland (SF) on the 16th, at present. It should be an interesting 3 wks; I am hoping that my belief in my immunity to seasickness proves to be correct!
[0] They asked me more questions than I'm used to getting from passport control - were you on a work visa, when did you get here, were you also working in Mongolia/Vietnam/etc (after looking at my Extensive Visa Collection), why are you boarding at Adelaide when you've been living in Sydney - and then had to hunt through their bag of passport stamps to find the right one. "We don't have to do this much - I've only ever stamped 4 regular passengers out!" one of them said.
