Rorotonga Part 4

Spent the morning catching up on my blog.  At lunch time, I was seated at a table with 5 other former teachers.  One had been a college professor and she had a lot of interesting tales to tell.  One of the men had spent a few years of his childhood living near Queenston Heights.  His dad was a boss on one of the farms around there during the war years.

On my way back to my cabin after lunch I had another interesting encounter.  I was walking down the hall towards my cabin, when I passed a lady who was walking with 2 walking sticks.  She was carrying 2 bundles of laundry and was trying to open the door to her cabin.   I stopped to offer help and we struck up a conversation.  She invited me into her cabin and we found that we have an awful lot in common.  Both of us are former music teachers and she is 3 years older than me.  Both of us are on a world cruise for the first time and travelling alone.  She is from Rochester,  New York .  She is not severely handicapped with her walking – she just uses the sticks as a precautionary measure to help with balance.   She told me that she was a bit lonely and sometimes bored on the cruise.  I found out that it is her first time away from home for any length of time and that she hasn’t gotten very involved with activities aboard the ship.  She told me that I was an inspiration and that she would get more involved.  We promised each other to keep in touch.  She goes to the early dinner seating and I go to the late one, so we won’t be able to have many evening adventures together. 

The cruise director just made an announcement that the tenders are no longer ferrying people to shore because of the deteriorating weather.  The priority now, is to get the people who are on shore back on, before we set sail in the late afternoon.

Tomorrow is a sea day.  We have 2 more small islands to visit before we reach New Zealand, with a sea day between each visit.  We’ll be very busy when we reach New Zealand because we have many stops with no sea days between.  There will be a lot to see.  I have heard that New Zealand is a very beautiful country so I’m really looking forward to getting there.

Well.  I’m really proud of myself.  I’m all caught up with blogging.  Now if I can only get connected to the Internet, so that I can send the messages. I’ve tried several times this afternoon to send “Rototonga Parts 2,3 & 4”  without success.  Anyhow – best wishes to all of you.  I wish I could have packed you all in my suitcase.  We’d be having a ball together ! ! ! !