Lectures

Each day we have three lectures.  I take notes and have just finished my third notebook which will not come home with me.  None of them will accept maybe the last depending on how many empty pages it has.  The notebooks keep me focused and help me to remember the interesting stuff.  I certainly know more about the war at sea in WW II, the history of Cunard and Captain Bligh than I ever planned on knowing.  Below are some notes—unattributed since this is not what they said, but what I think they said.

Last night we traipsed to the rear of the ship on Deck 9 to look at the stars.  We found the Southern Cross which I think I could find again and two of the three brightest stars in the sky which I could never find again and Orion’s belt and Orion and the Orion nebulae which I really saw for the first time.  The speaker explained the light year as a measure of distance not time.  Light travels at 186,000 miles per second which is four a half times around the earth and that is one second of one minute of one hour of one day of one year and that is a lot. He explained the universe as like a ship’s wheel and our solar system as one spoke and the Milky Way as the next spoke over.  It was an imaginative way to explain the unimaginable.

The Burma Road is the main working alley way of the ship and the expression down the “Burma Road” is because ships used to actually bend down toward the middle.  Different companies have different names for the passage.  The ship can carry fifteen days of food and seventeen days of fuel at one time.  There are four decks below the passenger decks and twelve that passengers see and use.   The lower decks also contain crew quarters, and there are more elevators and stairs for the crew than for the passengers.

At the time of the Crusades, Europe is estimated to have had nine percent of the world’s wealth and Arabia about ten.  Today Europe holds twenty-two percent of the world’s wealth and Arabia about two.  What happened and why?

Forty percent of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day.

The biggest threats to your health on an average trip are dehydration, thrombosis and dirty hands.  The best protections are drinking safe water, moving, and washing your hands and using sanitizer.  Also, keep your hands away from your face.  That is how the germs on your hands get into the body.  On food:  boiled, cooked, peeled or forget about it.  Buy bottled water with gas.  It’s harder to fake.  Many brand name drugs have different formulations and uses in countries other than the US.  You need both brand name and generic name.  Face masks work to reduce infection only when worn by the infected person.

The importance of India in the years ahead was stressed by two speakers, a former Australian foreign secretary and a retired Australian general.  China’s governance will probably change, but India’s is set.  It has a rapid rate of economic growth and enormous challenges.

The West is without question anti-Arab and anti-Islamic, and this causes us problems on the street in the Middle East.  Terrorists are not widely supported, but they can do great damage.

Seventy percent of the planet is ocean.  The Pacific is about 30%.  The land about 30%, and all the other oceans of the world equal the rest.  Increasingly the problem of who owns what will be important.  There are, of course, rules about what you can claim and what various claims mean.  There are many Arctic claims especially from Russia.  The polar ice cap will melt and the Northwest Passage will open. 

There are from time to time lessons in painting, dancing, fencing, napkin folding and scarf tying as well as the ones that are really soft sells for acupuncture, massage, various spa treatments and the “five-minute” makeover.  So far I have succumbed to the makeover, napkin folding and scarf tying.

The real world seems very far away.  I am beginning to miss the real world.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

After days of empty oceans we awoke this morning to see an island in the distance and have traveled between islands from time to time all day.  Dolphins were reported on the starboard side, but I did not see them. 

I am trying to inspire myself to exercise since food control is not spectacular and some clothing seems loose but other things seem a hair tighter.  I was doing well and then we went through two rounds of infections.  Now I am faced with re-motivation which is always the hardest part.  I have a plan from Lupe, our dinner companion that she got from the CDC over the internet which seems solid and is free.  That with stretch classes, deck walking and stair climbing (not everything on any day) should keep things under control and offer at least a little variety.