Container port. Surprise, surprise. To be fair, this is where Boston usually put us – this is their cruise terminal, but still, it is a container port, nonetheless. At the end of the runway of Logan airport (named after a local war hero, Edward Logan, who never set foot in it because he hated to fly), so the planes take off over our heads. I may have mentioned this a while back, but it’s still neck-damagingly entertaining to watch (have you ever tried looking up and ducking at the same time?!).

It’s odd, though. This trip has been a real eye-opener as regards national differences in attitudes towards holidaymakers. The United States see cruise terminals as very utilitarian places. Customs, passports, x-rays, out, a bit like when you arrive at an airport. That’s it. No shops, no cafes, you get a vending machine and some toilets if you’re lucky. That’s your lot. In the Caribbean, a cruise terminal is a cluster of shops, stalls, cafes, restaurants and information desks, not to mention crowds of taxi drivers vying for custom. It makes for a quite a stark difference in the tone of your arrival. In America, they just corral you onto to buses and off, out and on your way. Whereas, elsewhere, you stroll, you browse, you chat, you smile, you meet people. I think I know which I prefer…

Due to the speed restrictions last night, we didn’t arrive til 10am, so it was all a bit rushed. We were asked to collect a raffle ticket, in an attempt to make the disembarkation less chaotic (they would call us in groups of numbers to prevent everyone charging to the exits at once). This, however, was thwarted at the very outset by the fact that no one turned up to hand out said raffle tickets. I had to go down to Reception and make a scene. I spoke to a young man I’d never seen before, and told them that the queue was now over 125 people long. The young man said that the newspaper said the tickets would be handed out at 10 and they would be handed out at 10, not earlier. When I pointed out that we had docked early, he just said the same thing again. Then he said, ‘You’re not allowed off until 10 anyway’, to which I responded that I wasn’t asking to be allowed off, I was asking for the raffle tickets to be handed out – the idea was to reduce the scrum when we WERE allowed off. I noticed that, behind him, the supervisor, Kylie, was speaking to a blonde girl I didn’t know, but I did notice that, in her hand, said blonde was holding a book of raffle tickets. By the time I got back to dad in the queue, two decks up, the blonde had arrived to start handing out the raffle tickets. It’s as if thought is an alien concept to these people. Seriously, if one of them had a spark of initiative or independent thought, they’d explode. Did it really not occur to anybody that the raffle tickets needed to be handed out BEFORE the Captain allowed us to disembark?!

Shuttle bus to Quincy Market, which is an old market building that has been made into a sort of Covent Garden, only smaller. Inside, it has only a single aisle down the middle, and is entirely filled with food stalls. There is nowhere to sit to eat said food, except for a few benches in the centre rotunda. That’s it. All the ‘proper’ bars and restaurants are outside, in the cobbled streets that run down either side, along with some lovely shops that vary from the quirky to the REALLY expensive! I split up with the parents and browsed the shops at my own pace, including the obligatory visit to the Cheers memorabilia shop. After fighting my way between the mysteriously high number of schoolchildren in matching t-shirt parties being herded through the market, and shopping myself (or at least my credit card) out, I walked down to the waterfront and took a look at the marina, park and carousel, before heading back to the shuttle stop.

Once back at the ship, I dumped my bags in my cabin and picked up my hat (the sun came out after I’d left this morning), before grabbing a snack and heading back ashore. I was booked on a 1pm excursion to Salem.

The bus trip took us the long way round (the quick way is by ferry), through several towns, including Lynn, home to Lilian Pinkum (Lily the Pink). You probably know the Scaffold song about her (‘Drink a drink, a drink, to Lily the Pink, the Pink, the Pink, the saviour of the human race, She invented a medicinal compound, most efficacious in every case’). If not, try Youtube, but I warn you, once you hear it, you’ll have it in your head forEVER. Lilian invented a sort of herbal remedy that consisted of, mainly, let’s not beat around the bush here, 18% alcohol. It was so popular, particularly with women (for whom conventional medicine, particularly as regards women’s problems, was, at that time, virtually useless)(18% is quite an effective painkiller for a start…), and Lilian became a millionaire many times over. Despite selling it at only a dollar a bottle, she was able to support her husband, which was rather unusual at the time. The city of Lynn used to have a rather dodgy reputation generally – Lynn, Lynn, City of Sin, You won’t go out the same you went in. Very naughty. Ironically, on the way from Lynn to Salem we saw a church – for sale… still fairly Godless here then!

When we arrived in Salem, I was surprised it was so modern. The houses are virtually all old and made of wood, and are mostly very well maintained. Quite a lot are three stories high, which only happens in New England, as they built an extra floor to deal with a sudden influx of Irish immigrants. But in between them is a modern town. They have made no attempt whatsoever to blend in with the old stuff. They have just plonked down the new stuff in between the old bits. The only commonality is that some of the old public buildings are made of brick and the new buildings are likewise brick. Even when we went to the Memorial to the Salem Witch-hunt victims, it was bang opposite a brand new, modern museum, all bricks and glass. Very odd.

The Memorial is a small park with twenty stone benches around a rectangular lawn. Each bench has the name and date of death of one ‘witch’ on one end, so that you can sit down without damaging the carving. At the entrance, their respective last words are carved into the path. They have built over the words, so that they end in mid-sentence or even mid-word, to symbolise their sudden and untimely ends. “Oh Lord, help me”, “I am wholly innocent of such wickedness” and “I can deny it to my dying…” are just a few of them. What I didn’t realise, is that seven of the twenty who died were MEN. (What happened in East Anglia, with Matthew Hopkins, was much more misogynistic.) Nineteen were hanged, but Giles Corey refused to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty and so he was pressed to death by having boulders placed on top of him. It took him three days to die, Heaven help us. The Salem witch trials are where the phrase “She will make devils of us all” comes from, and it’s not hard to see why. All caused by the hysteria of a group of schoolgirls. Having just finished reading “Connected”, I would have liked to hear more about the hysteria at the heart of the problem, as this is the aspect I find most fascinating. The deaths of twenty innocent people are chilling under any circumstances, but simply based on the madness or folly of some teenage girls somehow makes it even more horrible.

We then went to the Salem Witch Museum, which is located inside an old church (no irony there then). First, there was a very dramatic diorama presentation, where different scenes from the events of the Salem witch trials were portrayed by waxworks, lit in turn. The commentary and background music were very spooky, but the really chilling bit was when they used the real words from the court transcripts. Made me shiver. Not everyone accused was killed. Over 150 people were accused – some ended up in jail, some just went free. All the victims who died received posthumous pardons in the Eighties. Then we had a presentation from a live human being, who explained the origins and development of the various stereotypes about witches, including Hansel and Gretel, the two in the Wizard of Oz and the first advent of the idea of a green face, and talked about modern Wicca as a genuine and bona fide religion (recognised in the US in 1986). Then there was the shop.

And that was it. Back on the bus and back to the ship and dinner and watching the Oracle boat keel over on the news, which I’m afraid I find very entertaining. World’s most technologically advanced sailing yacht tips over just as easily as any other. What’s not to find funny? I’m glad we left Boston before the hockey started. The Boston Bruins won. It’ll be mayhem in town now.

I have just finished reading “Why We Make Mistakes” by Joseph T. Hallinan. The chapters have titles such as We Look but Don’t Always See, We All Search for Meaning, We Connect the Dots, We Skim and We All Think We’re Above Average. It’s a fascinating read and I highly recommend it. Some of it feels like stating the obvious, but some of it is quite revelatory. 65% of people forget their new password within the first week. Each extra syllable in a price reduces the chance of remembering it by 20%. So seventy-seven fifty one (eight syllables) is harder to remember than sixty-two thirty (five syllables). Isn’t that odd? When you ask people to estimate distances, they will judge the distance TO a place to be less than the distance FROM the same place. Like I said, it’s a fascinating read.

So now we are on the home stretch. I don’t know how much more there will be to say, really. We might get to Ponta Delgada (the Azores). We never have before, mind you, and we’ve gone past it three or four times, but you never know. Maybe this time, we’ll get there. Now it’s all just laundry and packing and To Do lists and how on Earth am I going to get it all in and do I really need the Horizon newspaper from every day of the cruise?

Tender port. And, which is more, only a half day. We are leaving at 3 because we have to go slowly on the way to Boston as we pass through some Atlantic Right Whales and we’re not allowed to hit any. So to hell with Newport, apparently. We get only a few hours and then we’re off again. And remember, you have to allow extra time for tendering to and from shore.

So up at the crack of, fight for a place on a tender, 20 minutes to get to shore. Good start. It was also raining, although by the time we actually made it to land, it had stopped and the sun had come out, so that was okay.

I pootled around the shops while mum and dad went up the hill to the Touro Synagogue. Guess what? They wouldn’t let them in. You’re only allowed in on an organised tour, which you have to pay for, and they don’t start til 12. So sod you. What is it about old synagogues in foreign climes? We had this nonsense in Cochin. None of the courtesy and kindness we got in Singapore. Seriously, it seems the older the synagogue, the less likely they are to let you in! Well, they got what they deserved. Absolutely nothing. Everyone just turned around and walked away, so they didn’t get a single cent. Fools.

I wanted to go to the other end of town for a glass-blowing lesson, but there were no cabs and there wouldn’t have been time if I had walked it. So that’s that. No glass-blowing for me. Just can’t be done in half a day. Sorry, Thames Glass. Although, as an fyi, you might want to change your website to mention international shipping, as many cruise ship passengers visit Newport from countries other than the continental United States.

So we met up again and went back to The Mooring for lunch. We ate here the last time we were here. We won’t be eating here next time we’re in Newport, that’s for sure. It has really gone downhill. Instead of the casual, good food overlooking the marina we experienced last time, they have now lowered the deck so you’re just looking at the side of two boats, max., rather than over the top, and it is now a Bag of Words Seafood Restaurant that takes itself far too seriously. You will recall that a Bag of Words menu, is one where nothing is listed with less than two adjectives. The lemonade they served was nice, but it was a Nantucket Nectar, from a jar, not homemade, so no brownie points for that. Mum and dad had fish and chips and I had a hamburger. All perfectly adequate. It came to about twelve quid a head, which although not eyewatering, was definitely overpriced for what we got. If you’re into shellfish, by all means give it a go. Otherwise, don’t bother.

We were, of course, short of time, again, thanks to P&O, again, so we paid and tried to leave. They rang a cab (Rainbow Cabs). Fifteen minutes. Really? Surely you can drive from one end of town to the other in less time than that, and that’s including time for traffic lights? We waited. And we waited. And we waited. For nearly half an hour. At which point, we left and started to walk back. We couldn’t afford to wait any longer, because if forced to walk it, mum would have to stop for a rest on the way and we had to back by 2.30pm. We needed to allow enough time to get back to the tender embarkation point.

I appreciate that this is a seaside town, but there is no sense of haste whatsoever, even if you tell people you’re in a hurry. We’re not in the South, the Caribbean or on Island Time. We’re in New England. So ignoring our need for haste, after we have specifically requested it? That’s just rude. It demonstrates a lack of consideration that we have come to expect ON the ship, but not off it. Not impressed, Rainbow Cabs, not impressed at all.

We were, in fact, within sight of the queue for tenders when we finally spotted a taxi. It was the one on the way to The Mooring to pick us up! Mum and dad got in – no idea why – and got a tour of the one-way system for ten minutes. To be fair, the tender queue did move fairly quickly, as each tender holds 150 people, but I didn’t make it back to the ship until 2.35pm (for a 2.30 bob).

And that was Newport.

Got back to my cabin and went to bed. Slept for three hours straight and only just woke in time for dinner. Must have needed it.

No need for an early start today. We caught a cab (despite another Carnival ship pitching up alongside and spewing out another 3,000 passengers) to Macy’s. A very jolly driver, who was convinced that mum was stinking rich and offered to accompany us on the rest of our voyage in one of our suitcases (NOT the first to make that particular offer…). Macy’s New York is The Largest Store In The World. Brace yourself, it’s quite hard work. We basically started at the top and worked our way down, floor 7, then 5, then 4, stopping only to go back up to 7 for a brief Maccy D’s at the feet of Mayor McCheese.

I bought a couple of pairs of trousers, and a couple of tops and three pairs of shoes. Mum also got a pair of shoes. Well, it’s not my fault, there was a sale on. Every time I tried to pay for something, the price went down!

We were shattered by about 2 so we took a cab to Central Park South and sat in the sun having drinks and hot dogs (halal, couldn’t find kosher – quite peppery!). Unfortunately, a bagpipe player, who had obviously been hounded from his home by his neighbours, decided that our bit of the park was the perfect place to practice, so we were forced to leave.

We caught a cab down to Ground Zero, but when we got there, we found that, having argued for ten years as to what to do with the site, they are only now building and most of it was hidden by hoardings. Mum was very upset to see they were building on it at all, and no amount of assurance that the actual footprints of the buildings would be left untouched helped, so we stayed in the cab and returned to the ship.

We have two new people on our table. Nice enough, Sally and Bert, but Scottish, and although Sally is perfectly intelligible, Bert is not so much. He has a very strong accent, a stutter AND he mumbles! Mum and dad don’t stand a chance! Even I struggle and I have perfect hearing! The other couple have yet to show up.

Today is not so much a travel blog. It’s a bit more personal, at least to start with.

Today we disembarked at ten and struggled to find a cab. This was not because it was hot or humid – it was slightly chilly, actually, but just because they are very badly organised, which is not what you expect from New York. They have a single line of cabs to collect everybody from two ships arriving at the same time, and they are mixed with private vehicles who have come to pick up relatives disembarking the Carnival Sensation which is parked next to us. 3,000 of them and all we want to do is go to Grand Central Station.

When we finally grabbed a cab – no queue, per se, just every man/woman/child for themselves, we found ourselves in stationary traffic. On a Sunday? Yes, because half the city had the roads closed for the Puerto Rican Day Parade. It took us so long to get to the station, we started to worry, and we’d allowed over an hour before the train!

I’d never been to Grand Central Station. It really is a beautiful building and a marvel of 1930s architecture. I particularly liked the paintings depicting various constellations on the ceiling of the main hall.

The nice lady at the ticket counter directed us to the wrong platform, but we found the right one anyway. It was downstairs in the 100s, and it was as hot as Hell itself down on the tracks. Thank heavens the trains are air conditioned! We were on the slow train, which stopped at 16 stops in 49 minutes. Some stations were so close together that the announcements for the last station were still playing when we arrived in the next one! Bronxville looks pretty. None of the others interested us greatly.

We arrived in White Plains and caught a cab to our cousin’s apartment. The cab driver tried to put another three people in our cab, to give them a lift at the same time, but we objected very strongly and we kept it to just the three of us. I’m not even sure you can fit six people in an ordinary saloon car taxi. Luckily, I had noticed a sign on the wall of the taxi rank which said that the customer has the right to exclusive use of the taxi, which I thought was odd when I read it. Good thing I did, because I was able to quote it to him when he tried to overfill ours! He said he would charge us an extra dollar for our refusal. Dad said that’s fine, there just won’t be a tip! Apparently, it’s common practice in White Plains, cos everyone is just so friendly (read: taxi drivers are so greedy). Balderdash.

When we arrived, our cousins, David and Ellen, greeted us. Cousin Mary was delighted to see us but wasn’t very “with it” – she kept forgetting how we were related to her. She knew who I was, though, which was odd, as she hasn’t seen me in 20 years! I found it particularly hard when, every now and then, she apologised for not being on par – she knew she wasn’t 100%. We had a delicious lunch of cold meats and salads and homemade blueberry cake (handmade by David), and left at 3, because Mary was getting tired. David drove us back to the ship and dropped us next door so that we could go around the aircraft carrier Intrepid, next to which we are moored. Mum wanted to go over Concorde, but they close that earlier than advertised, so we missed that. Added to which, it costs twice as much as the Intrepid alone, so we won’t be doing it any time soon.

FYI: They are hoping to get one of the Space Shuttles (the one currently in the Smithsonian in Washington who are getting one of the last to be ‘retired’ instead). Apparently they are expecting it to take four to five YEARS to get it to New York (first they have to raise the money to buy it, then transport it, then build a home for it). By all means, plan to visit it, but you have plenty of time to save up…

Back to the ship and then out to dinner. We went to the Redeye Grill, recommended by our cousin, Suz. Superb. We were seated a bit close to the fresh shellfish on ice, so they moved us to a different table, where it wasn’t so cold! We had a large steak on the bone and a filet mignon, both with fries and salad, and divided them between the three of us. There is a sharing charge of twelve dollars fifty, but our waiter didn’t charge us. We then had a sort of strawberry pavlova type dessert, with chocolate straws and chocolate sauce – one between the three of us. When the bill came, we found there were no drinks on it at all! We didn’t complain… A man at the table next to us had a birthday, and it sounded like one of the waiters has operatic training, because the singing of “Happy Birthday” over the sparkler in his dessert was rather impressive! Overall, it was a wonderful meal, thoroughly delicious. Not cheap, but not extortionate. Highly recommended. Get there early or book ahead. There are about six steps to climb to get to the restaurant.

We arrived early – about 40 minutes, although, as we had a medical emergency during the night, we were aiming to arrive much earlier. Welcome to Charleston. It is 9am and it is 31 degrees in the shade and is set to go up during the day. Yikes.

The walk into the terminal involved descending two storeys via a three-slope zigzag airbridge. This is tricky downwards – upwards will be nigh on possible, so we’ll have to get a chair to get mum back up it later.

So we went ashore and walked into the town centre, which was one block away. The heat from the sun was merciless. It pounded down on us and there was very little shade to be found. And the humidity was insane.

We browsed the old market, which is a covered market, thank goodness, which dates back to the earliest days of Charleston, and I bought a few bits and pieces. Then we went to find the restaurant that had been recommended in Tripadvisor. Big mistake. Huge.

Toast is the number one rated restaurant in Charleston (out of 500) on Tripadvisor with glowing reviews. Well, here’s mine. Brace yourself, it is, indeed, glowing.

If you must go to Toast, book ahead. Otherwise you will be made to WAIT while those that have booked go past you. After far too long, 15 to 20 minutes, you will be offered a table only when you threaten to walk out, and then they will try to park you by the loos. Oh no you don’t!

The menu is varied and interesting, but don’t believe a word of it. Just because their specialist dish, the Rutledge Reuben, is stated to contain beef on rye with sauerkraut and 1000 island dressing, don’t assume a thing. Reubens often contain cheese, but this is their own version of it, so it’ll be a bit different and contain what it states, right? Wrong. What will arrive will be beef AND CHEESE on rye. Here’s the menu. Do you see any mention of cheese?

No, neither do I. So while I ate my chicken strips, mum and dad had to WAIT EVEN LONGER for fresh ones to be made with the contents as specified. By the time they got their food, I’d finished. In fact, I paid the bill and went to the loo to pass the time while they ate. The food was nice enough, by the way, but it nowhere near deserves its status as number one in Charleston. Not even close. My drink didn’t even include a refill!

And the loos are appalling. Although clean and properly provisioned (paper, soap, hand towels) there is only one and the lock doesn’t work. Mum walked in while I was on the loo! I had locked it, I swear I had, but if someone as feeble as my mum purports to be can force their way in, it’s not much of a lock.

I think the main problem I had with the place was the attitude. Sort of patronising but laid back and a bit too carefree for working in a busy restaurant. I get that this is the South, but we only have seven hours to see this entire town and wasting over an hour and a half of it waiting for you to get your act together is simply not on. We even told them we were in a hurry, we even told them why, but they couldn’t have cared less, and one of them is particularly good at dumb insolence crossed with patronising, purveyed in such a way that you can’t tell for sure whether she is taking the mick or not, so you can’t complain.

And then they swindled me on the t-shirt, which I shall be sending back.

One of the marginally more competent waitresses recommended the horse-drawn carriage tour, as the guides are professionally trained, so we walked back to where they were and booked onto one. Then we… go on guess. Yes, we WAITED. Over half an hour. Seriously, all you do in Charleston is WAIT.

Turned out our horse was overheated, despite the fact that every stall had a fan and every fan pointed at a horse, not the humans – they even hosed him down a couple of times, but to no avail – so they had to change them over. We ended up with the best behaved one, Earl, which was nice. This is Earl.

Our guide, Daryn (female), was very good and we were shown around some of the oldest houses in Charleston and she told us about the history of the place, including the civil war (obviously – the first shot was fired here), a massive earthquake, including liquification (where the earth ripples – sounds horrible) and the great fire that burned down over 500 buildings, one year into the civil war.

Talking of which, the tour guides all wear full Confederate uniforms, although without the jackets (well, it is over 90 in the shade…). In fact, Daryn told us that if the temperature rises above 96 degrees, the entire town shuts down, and if the horses’ individual body temperatures go above 103, they get the rest of the day off. All in all, a very interesting hour-long tour, although whether it was value for money at TWENTY-ONE dollars a head, I’m not sure. Although, bearing in mind that if you booked it through the ship, it cost exactly double that, we didn’t do too badly.

When we got back, I bought an apple-flavoured sorbet called a Charleston Ice (yummy!) and we caught two cycle cabs to Waterfront Park, where we sat and had a drink and listened to the children shriek as they ran through the fountain (which was, interestingly, chlorinated). Then we walked back to the ship. We thought we could hop on the free trolley bus, but it turns out the stop marked on the map doesn’t exist. Ahem.

So, in summary, Charleston is pleasant enough, but take a brolly and a fan – the heat and humidity are murder – and don’t go to Charleston if you’re in a hurry. Ever. For anything. You will queue for everything you see and do and they are in no hurry at all. Normally, I’m a big fan of the take it easy attitude, no hurry, whatever, I am on holiday, after all, but when I’m trying to see an entire town in one day, a modicum of haste would be appreciated, particularly once I’ve TOLD you I’m in a hurry. Eat Charleston Ice. Do NOT eat at Toast. That is all.

Herewith the restaurant review as it will be submitted to Tripadvisor. Enjoy.

PATRONISED, INSULTED, MISLED, WRONG ORDER, TERRIFIED AND THEN SWINDLED. IN THAT ORDER. DO NOT EAT HERE. EVER.
Worst decision of my entire life, to eat at Toast. There was one couple to be seated before us. We waited over 20 minutes while they seated everyone else who came in. They gave my mum a seat and then patronised her when she complained about the interminable wait. FINALLY they seated us. We ordered two of their “Rutledge Reubens” and some chicken. Then we WAITED. For AGES. When the Reubens came, they had cheese in. There was no mention of cheese on the menu. If you put cheese on your reubens, PUT CHEESE ON THE MENU. It is a SIN for Jewish people to eat cheese and meat together and my mother felt quite sick. So then we WAITED while they made fresh ones. Which took EVEN LONGER than the first ones. By which time, I had finished my food and drink, which was not refilled. I went to the toilet – there is only one – and either the lock doesn’t work or my mother is strong enough to break the door down, because she was able to walk in on me. For some reason, I decided I would by a t-shirt. When I got home, not only did it STINK, but it was NOT “the same as the ones the servers were wearing” but had some slogan and a really ugly picture on it which I would not be seen dead wearing and which will be returned in the mail as soon as I get home. Don’t eat at Toast. EVER. It was the worst service in the worst restaurant I have ever been in, and the food, when it finally arrived, was adequate at best. Shame on you, Tripadvisor contributors, you let us down, and shame on Toast for the worst meal of our lives. Never again.

P&O have done it again. The shuttle bus, we were told, would take us to Merritt Square Mall. It did, but it went via the beach, Walmart and SOME of the shuttle buses also went to another mall called The Cove. Yet another selfish, thoughtless farce from the P&O Arcadia Excursions Desk. Damn every hair on your heads. Some people will NEVER pass this way again, this is their only chance to see the place. Tell us the truth about what we can see and how we can get there. Is that really so much to ask? Disgusting.

Welcome to Port Canaveral. A shop stop. You may recall that I was supposed to be going Astronaut Training here, but that was cancelled too, so that’s it. All there is out here is NASA, nature reserves and shops. There is a lot of water here, a large proportion of which is protected wetlands. The land is linked to other bits of land by narrow causeways with impeccably smooth roads.

P&O parked us a long way out. Granted, it wasn’t entirely their fault this time. This just happened to be where they put the cruise ships, although of the various berths available, it did feel like we had the one that was furthest out of all.

So I went to the mall and mum and dad went out on a nature cruise. We were supposed to meet at the mall later, using texts to communicate. However, their phones couldn’t pick up a signal, so none of my messages went through. I was expecting them around 1pm. I found them at quarter past two, by which time my mind was racing and I was about to return to the ship to search the Medical Centre for them.

In the meantime, I used the free wifi and ate some lovely Chinese food in the food court. But by the time we’d done some shopping, it was time to get the shuttle back to the ship (the last shuttle was, again, at 4pm, despite the fact that we didn’t sail til nearly six). No beach, no Walmart, no time for anything. That’s it. That’s Port Canaveral. If you come here, go to NASA. Otherwise, don’t come. I will leave you with a photo of a dubiously-named motel we passed.

Shaken awake at ten to six in the morning. Literally. My cabin is vibrating. The bed is vibrating. I’ve never heard a noise like it. It sounds like the ship is about to explode. Luckily, the pitch of the noise is constant. If it was rising, I’d be dressed and ready for lifeboats by now (it’s now quarter past six). The noise stopped at about ten past and then I had to wait for the Night Supervisor to come and tell me he had no idea what caused it but would try and find out. At least he heard it, himself, this time, so we can skip the “hallucinating passenger” section of proceedings, which accompanies every single complaint. I’m also not the only person who contacted Reception, which helps. Apparently a whole two other cabins rang up and said they too were being shaken apart. Usually, they say “it’s just you and only you and maybe it’s a problem with your cabin, we’ll send someone round”, when it quite clearly is the whole blooming ship (the church bells, for example).

It is astonishing just how vacuous and insolent the girl on Reception managed to sound when I rang her about it, and at precisely the same time. She really couldn’t have cared less if the sky was falling in. I was just another annoying passenger ringing her and making her life difficult. If I was in a more petulant mood (and at 6am, I must confess, I am fairly petulant already), I’d say the first time I rang her, she hung up on me, but as I’m feeling momentarily charitable, I’ll say she was just rushing to answer another call. I can’t help but wonder if, if the six short blasts and one long blast sounded on the ships whistles and alarms*, she’d be just as vacuous and insolent to people who called her about that, too.

Of course, it wouldn’t matter so much, if I hadn’t just had one of the worst night’s sleep of my entire life. Of all the days, I really needed to sleep through til eight, this was the one. Typical. Better try and get my head back down. Got to be “immigrated” at nine. Are you interested in how pretty Port Everglades looks in the darkness of early dawn, as seen from the webcam on the telly (turned on to make sure the world wasn’t ending)? No, didn’t think so. Me neither.

D-Day, so to speak.

Couldn’t get back to sleep, surprisingly. On the plus side, this meant that when dad rang and said “20 minutes”, I was almost already ready. Met parents for immigration. Again. First we waited with our tour group in the Palladium. Then we trooped ashore to be immigrated. It took less than fifteen minutes. Why the people of Los Angeles couldn’t do it like that, I have no idea. Miserable, selfish, vindictive morons. Then we had to kill three quarters of an hour waiting in a seating area, although, on the plus side we waited on some of the most comfortable seats I’ve ever sat on in any waiting area anywhere in the world. They were sort of leather[ette?] benches with metal armrests. Lovely.

We then boarded the coach (which had the most enormous amount of legroom for each seat) and our guide, Larry, and driver, Wendel, started our trip around Fort Lauderdale. By going the wrong way. Marvellous. We spent the best part of the first half hour going the wrong way before we had to turn around and go all the way back again. Ridiculous. Larry explained that Wendel, although a very good driver, had never driven to the boat we were headed to, and, he, Larry, was navigating [badly]. Fine, but could Wendel not have, oh, I don’t know, LOOKED IT UP before taking responsibility for getting thirty people there?! Wacky thought, I know, but I’m conventional like that. I would never dream of driving someone to somewhere I had never been before, without at least looking at a map. Good grief.

Larry was unusual for American, in that he understood the difference between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and never used the term “Brit”. He even knew about Gibraltar, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man! However, sadly, beyond that, he had only two topics: his hatred of graffiti and his own life story. He told us all about the fines for graffiti in Fort Lauderdale and how proud he was that Florida was so strict. Every time you get caught tagging, the fine goes up and even if you are on benefits, you are expected to both pay the fine and do 100 hours community work painting over other people’s graffiti. Once is interesting, twice is repetitive, five or six times is just plain annoying. Yes, Fort Lauderdale is clean, but it is far from graffiti-free – I saw some myself. All Larry said was, “Yes, but you have to LOOK for it”. Oh, well, that’s alright then.

Other than that, he talked about himself. I can tell you that he used to be in the army and was stationed in Germany. When he left the army, he stayed in Germany and ran a discotheque and a fast food stall to cater to the other American GIs. He is bilingual in German and even drove us past the best German restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. No, really. He holidayed in Florida nine years in a row, which is how he fell in love with the place. He left Germany in 1992 after reunification robbed him of his clientele. Once he and his German girlfriend went to the Shetland Islands for their holiday and he got to shake hands with Prince Charles (who didn’t have an ounce of fat on him, apparently, and Diana was much more beautiful than her pictures). That’s about it. He is now 71 and drives buses when he is not wittering away at the passengers. No age discrimination here. As long as you’re healthy, it’s easy to find work. Apparently, it’s just done on a first come, first served basis. According to Larry, anyway. All of the above added no little irony for the fact that his surname is Grosskopf. Bighead. I kid you not. Read his ID badge.

The only other things he talked about in the several hours he dragged us around Fort Lauderdale were people losing their homes and small businesses due to foreclosures (cheerful stuff) and how there are no safety checks on cars in the US – everyone can maintain their own vehicle and no one checks them (comforting stuff). And everyone needs a car because there is no public transportation in the United States. I nearly piped up that San Francisco has nine different sorts of public transportation, but I couldn’t face dealing with the response, so I let it go. It was easier. Apparently even people on welfare need a car in Florida, just to go and collect their cheques, because there is no public transportation. Sweetie, this is not something to be proud of. [Neither were the occasional spit spots of gratuitous generalisation racist comments that dropped into the rhetoric every now and then, although the ones about Germans hogging sunloungers did raise a smile.] Seriously, after a few hours of Larry, I now understand why the right to bear arms is so important in the United States. Although if I did, Larry would definitely be an ex-Larry by now. Dear heaven, he was boring. In fact, he was so repetitive that when he told us about the canal and road that both run from Key West to Canada, which he did, SEVERAL times, people started reciting bits for him, word for word. After a while, I would happily have done him in, myself. Puzzlingly, he was very insistent that there is absolutely no public transport in Florida whatsoever. If you’re wondering why I’ve repeated this, remember that, although he is a [rubbish] part-time tour guide, his day job is that he is a BUS DRIVER, himself…

Mercifully, we then went on a boat with a fake paddle wheel and a really loud engine, but at least it was well away from the mindless Larry and the incompetent Wendel. We sailed around the man-made canals and man-made port of Fort Lauderdale, while the guide told us who owned which house and how much they were worth. Not exactly inspiring stuff. Barely interesting, frankly. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant enough little jaunt, and the three of us each had a kosher hotdog and some homemade lemonade to pass the time, before we had to go back to the bus and the interminable Larry.

To be fair to both Larry and the boat bloke, briefly, there is nothing to say about Fort Lauderdale. It’s a man-made port in a man-made bay with 350 miles of man-made canals. The rest is beaches and shops. There is absolutely nothing else. Fort Lauderdale may be a great place to spend Spring Break flashing too much skin and drinking too much alcohol, but that’s it. It’s a beach resort. There is nothing else. No history, no culture, no industry, no public art, no notable architecture, no theatre or art galleries. We didn’t even see a cinema and, with all the detours, we saw a fairly large proportion of the place. Furthermore, Larry seemed oddly proud of the fact that there is no “centre”, no Downtown, per se. Just shops and shops and clinics and shops. Larry assures us that if you drive down the road past a McDonalds, for example, in 3 miles there will be another. Likewise with malls. He describes the weather as ‘6 months heaven, 6 months hell’, but what he didn’t say is that the place is utterly soulless. I’m not sure its even possible to like Fort Lauderdale. What is there to like?

Note to anyone from P&O reading this: don’t go to Fort Lauderdale. It may be very easy to park in the largest and best organised cruise port in the world, but it’s a rubbish place for passengers.

Note to passengers arriving in Fort Lauderdale: when you get off, go to Miami. I know it’s an hour each way, but, trust me on this.

Second note to passengers: if you can’t face food first thing in the morning before going ashore, each peanuts, not crisps. They contain protein and will fill you up for longer. You can’t take food ashore with you in the US.

Wendel, under instruction from Larry, took us to a shopping centre we’d been to before called The Galleria (P&O are nothing if not creatures of habit), where we could do some shopping and then catch a free shuttle bus back to the ship. [For those of you with good memories, and we are going back a few years here, it was the one with all the loos at one end] Larry was under the impression that the tour was a full half hour longer than we thought, and NO ONE wanted the extra half hour, so we legged it off the bus with as much alacrity as we could muster.

Once in the mall, we just shopped. Nothing exciting, except a few prices that, even with the sale reductions, caused a little hyperventilation among the parents. The loos were dismaying, particularly by the standards we have come to expect from the United States, and had those automatic flushes that go off while you’re still sitting down. There was an attendant present, but she was doing as near to nothing as makes no difference. She was standing around, but moved so little, it was only the movement of the eyes that reassured me I shouldn’t call for help.

But the cafe on the top floor of Nieman Marcus was wonderful – I think it was called the Mermaid Cafe. Good coffee (when it was hot), superb apple pie and delightful service. We were even offered a free “popover” to try, by our server, William, which turned out to be, oddly enough, a fairly large Yorkshire pudding served with strawberry butter. No, don’t ask me. You now know as much as I do. Dad ate it. I have photographic proof. Virtually all of it, so it can’t have been too bad.

Word to the wise: if you wish to shop at Nieman Marcus (and you shouldn’t because they are REALLY expensive), you will need to be aware that they have an exclusive deal with American Express and do not accept any other credit cards whatsoever. In order to purchase something with a different credit card, you have to go up to the top level and purchase a Nieman Marcus gift card in the total amount of your purchases, including tax. This you then take back downstairs to pay for your purchases. You couldn’t make this stuff up, no one would believe you. Go to Macy’s instead. Not only is it cheaper, it is nowhere near as difficult to pay for things.

We went into Dillards to see if they had Dad’s aftershave. First, we were ignored and then helped by a woman who didn’t know the products. Then we were served by a woman who had absolutely no clue whatsoever about anything at all, not even how to scan a barcode to ascertain the price. Then another man came over to offer to help, but when we asked for his help, he walked away. Eventually, we gave up. They didn’t have it on display, so they probably didn’t have it all. And if they did, tough. They need to hire better staff.

In total, in the mall, I bought two pairs of denim shorts and three tops, so nothing mega. Around 3.45pm we made a mad dash back through the mall to the shuttle bus and to the ship. Dad is annoyed that we are leaving so early – 5.30 BOB for 6 – (last shuttle left at 4.15pm) as we have so little distance to travel before Port Canaveral tomorrow. He’s right. There was absolutely no reason we couldn’t have stayed another hour or two, which would have given us time to explore more widely and maybe even visit Miami itself, which is an hour each way from the port. But, oh no, not with this Captain. Not a chance.

In retrospect, Larry did tell me one fact that I (a) found interesting and (b) didn’t know already, that being that Florida and Great Britain are about the same length. So now you know. That’s it. That’s what I learned today.

In the evening, the shift supervisor came to explain to me about the noise and vibration. He said it was a problem with the fire extinguisher system in the engine room beneath my cabin, and he couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. What nonsense. Dad pointed out it was probably the air bridge pushing against the side of the ship, which, frankly, makes much more sense, including the timing. Fire extinguishers? Seriously? It’s as if they don’t care how ridiculous they sound, as long as they are saying SOMETHING, anything by way of an excuse. If you have nothing valuable to say, say nothing.

My ankles are swollen for some reason. The end.

* The ship’s emergency signal. It means muster stations, bring medication and a coat, we’re probably leaving the ship.

N.B. This is a “middle of the night can’t sleep waffle”. You have been warned.

The English language is one of the most expressive languages on Earth. The other day, I had the following conversation with someone. ‘How is your shoulder?’ ‘Better, but not better, thanks for asking’. Two meanings within just one word, both easily understood and distinguished. What a marvellously nuanced language.

And yet we say that we “make a friend”. Really? “Make”? From scratch? The act of creation? Producing something where there was little or nothing before? Surely we don’t really “make” a friend? We can acquire a friend, attract one, develop one, find one, borrow one, even, but do we really make it from nothing? Do you have a single friend you have truly bonded with with whom you had absolutely no prior link whatsoever?

If I look at my address book, in no particular order (before people start getting huffy (!)), I can sort my friends into groups as follows. Our connections are based upon:

Lived next door to/ opposite; (Nora, Kris and Rich and Sel, Julie);
Worked at the same radio station as (Fiona, Monique);
Worked at the same office as (Abbi, Kam, Richard, Tony, Jackie, Eve);
Worked at the same library as (Irene);
Was in the same class/school as (Ros, James, April, David);
Follow the same comedian as (Ian and Paula, Gio, Emma, Judy, Clare, Sam);
Travelled on the same ship as (Simon and Guy, Hayley and John, Charles and Louise, Enid and Ann, etc.);
Once sat in the computer room next to (Matt);
Once sat on the train opposite (Jolene);
Frequented the same cafe as (Jerome);
Learned from (Janet and Pete);
Met through mutual friends/ acquaintances (Jon, Simon, Angie, Bethan, Oli, Ed, Anna, Alexander, Denise);
Researched families from the same town as (Mayer);
Relatives of friends who became friends in their own right (Tia, Mo, June, Neil, Mike and Kate, Jen, Roger and Jean, David and Jean, Alice, Holly, Karl, Stephen, Vicki, Elliot, Zen, Connor, Laura, Nick);
Relatives who became friends (Tali, Ellen, Eryl and Rob, Fran, Stewart and Julie, Judi and Jerry);

However tenuous the link – Jolene and I met on the train going home on the day both of us lost our jobs – there is a link. It’s not random. It’s not created from scratch. It’s not “made”. It’s not born out of nothingness. There was something there, however infinitesimally small, to start with.

Granted, friendships need work (some more than others!), but the above fifty-odd entries constitute the entire contents of my current address book. If you’re not listed, I don’t have your address! Send it to me at once! Tut.

I have just finished reading Connected by Nicolas A. Christakis, MD, PhD and James H. Fowler, PhD, about the mathematics and the logic of social networks. Not Facebook or MySpace per se, but the networks we form in our everyday lives. The premise being, perhaps unsurprisingly, that we are all connected.

Whilst I have already personally proven to you that six degrees of separation is a genuine thing – we are all connected to virtually everyone on the face of the Earth in around six jumps – (for those feeling blank, please go back to the Archive and search January 2010) I can find surprisingly few connections between my friends as listed above. My Facebook friends are even more disparate, including staff at hotels I have lived in (how alarming that that is a plural), cruise ship staff and ex-staff and various other, more tenuous connections still, such as other Emma Freemans, other M.E. and diabetes sufferers and one or two even vaguer links I’m not sure I can even recall.

The seemingly unconnected nature of the above list of friends is very good from the six degrees of separation point of view, particularly as they cross several oceans (if only I had an address for Lou in Bali!), but it strikes me that very few of my friends know each other. Is that odd? Is that normal? Christakis and Fowler don’t seem to think so, and it has me slightly worried. If anything happened to me, how would all these people, who don’t know each other from Adam, pass the news round? Particularly since not one of them knows my Facebook password to change my status for me in my absence, and anyway, they don’t all use Facebook!

So what draws us to a person? What makes a chance link into a friendship? Just because I sat next to Matt in the computer cluster one day in the early 1990s, there was no reason for us to start talking to each other. In the five years that I studied full-time at Leeds, I must have sat next to several hundred people in half a dozen different computer rooms, and I don’t still follow their blogs eleven years later. In fact, I never even went to the cinema with any one of them, but Matt.

For what it’s worth, what we talked about on the day we met was how slow the University’s internet connection was (1T!), while we watched my Netscape satellite rotate seemingly endlessly around the planet (for those of you who don’t understand that clause, I’m sorry, you’re just too young) and how to get a Unix address (Matt telling me) in order to get a faster connection (like his) and more storage. I needed more storage to receive emails from Dena (who isn’t listed because I don’t have her new address, but she comes under the relatives list), who needed to send large files across from Ethiopia, where she lived at the time. In the end, I got the account (boy, was it a complicated process!) but she never sent me any files in the end and I never once logged into the account. So my opportunity to learn Linux was lost, but I gained Matt as a friend. I even remember where I was when he told me he was in love with Vicki, who in turn became a good friend (I even sang at their wedding), although his blog is currently our only link. In my defence, do you know how hard it is to get to Driffield?! Look it up. They live in the middle of bleeding nowhere!

But Matt and Vicki have never, to my knowledge, met Dena, or anyone else listed above. Although I think there is a mutual friend connection with someone on Facebook, if I recall. Leeds University wasn’t THAT big.

So that’s just one example. I could list them all, but you’d get bored long before I got tired of talking/ typing. But in my first year, there were nine people who shared my flat with me – only Julie stuck. In my last year, there were another nine – only Nora remains. And my best friend from my school days, Petra, doesn’t appear at all.

I had drinks and chat with Joan and Colin tonight. We met on the dog sledding trip and hit it off immediately. We have virtually nothing in common – they’re grandparents with thin bodies, great tans and a naughty sense of humour and I’m… not. Except for the sense of humour part. And that’s our link. We make each other laugh. We have a great time together, night after night. We never run out of things to say or talk about and we almost never disagree about anything, because we have a similar way of looking at the world.

This also what binds the biggest group listed above: Ian and Paula, Gio, Emma, Judy, Clare and Sam, who along with Dave and Alan, whose addresses I do not have, form the remnants of the Gorum. We all met through a mutual love of the humour of Dave Gorman. That’s it. That’s what connects us. Some live in South Wales or near it, some live in the South East of England, Gio and Sam both live somewhere in the middle, but what connects us is humour. We laugh at the same stuff and see the world in a similar way. And we are all passionate about misuse and abuse of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I’ve even listed their kids, because we all get on so well (and they are four of the most devastatingly intelligent and articulate young adults you will ever meet – quite intimidating at times, frankly).

Is that it? Is that what connects me to all of the people above? Do they make me laugh? Do I make them laugh? Do we laugh at the same stuff in the same way? Probably not all of them and probably not always. But it is certainly a powerful link if you do laugh at the same things and see things similarly. And yet it is by no means essential. There are people in that list who don’t get my sense of humour AT ALL, but they are still good friends.

Interestingly, or maybe not, interesting to me at least, there is no one there who was in my class at school, there is no one there from my five years as a Girl Guide, there is no one there from either of my music colleges. Neither is there anyone left from my second degree; although I thought I had made at least two lasting friendships, neither survived the physical separation of real life. There is not a soul from the longest job I ever held, neither is there anyone from my place of worship. And none of my current neighbours appear either. In fact, I’m not even sure I know their names. And there’s only six flats in my block in the first place, so it’s not like it’s a lot of names to learn or bonds to form. In fact, I’ve only met two of them and that was only because there was a power cut.

What decides whether a friendship survives or not? Is it just about effort? When I lost touch with those two friendships from Birkbeck, was it my fault for not staying in touch more? Or theirs? Or did we simply not have enough in common to keep us going when real life got in the way? My mum is still making arrangements to meet up with people she met fifty years ago. Will any of my friendships last that long? Will Joan and Colin fall similarly by the wayside once I get home? Will Ann and Enid? I certainly hope not, but I’ve been wrong before. It is much harder to keep in touch with people who don’t use email or Facebook, but it shouldn’t be impossible, should it? Have we/I become so lazy with all our modern communications that we/I can’t/won’t/don’t pick up the phone any more or write a letter?

Well, I’ve typed four pages of text, and killed a couple of the wee small hours, but I’m none the wiser as to what makes a friendship, let alone a lasting one. I still have more questions than answers. If you have any opinions or ideas that might help me, please do let me know!

Forgot we lost an hour at lunchtime. Didn’t put my watch on an hour. Missed my massage. Not my finest day ever.

Did finish reading The Finkler Question. Interesting book. Very enjoyable. But an unsatisfying ending. But then, how could it end? It’s written in the here and now and the Israel/Palestinian nonsense rumbles on. There is no answer. At least, not as yet, and, I fear, probably not in my lifetime, frankly. So the question probably has to remain unanswered. Unsatisfying, just the same. Asking Anglo-Jewry some hard questions, without even suggesting possible answers is brave, but ultimately dismaying for the reader hoping for insight and answers. Not sure it warranted the Booker Prize, though, if I’m being brutally honest. It’s good, but I’m not sure it’s THAT good.

Didn’t sleep well. Too hot and too excited. I felt like the kids on the old Disneyland Paris advert. “I’m too exCITed”. Today at 10 we went ashore in Cozumel.

Although it was chucking it down with rain, it was so warm it didn’t matter. I walked down the long concrete pier, which, last time we were here, was so windy, we thought we’d be blown into the sea. They now have rickshaws to run you to the shore, which is a lovely touch and is free – well, “tips only” anyway – which makes life much more pleasant.

Boy, has Cozumel changed in the six years since we were last year. They must have been building almost continuously. There is a brand new, two-storey open air shopping centre (opened three and a half years ago) that you are, surprise, surprise, funnelled through to get to the taxis and excursion buses (which are also taxis).

We caught a cab south through a part of town that didn’t even exist last time we were here, past another cruise terminal with two Carnival cruise ships tied up, that also wasn’t here last time, and on to Chankanaab National Park.

This is where Dolphin Discovery is. We had pre-booked on the internet and arranged a Dolphin Encounter at 1pm. We were given yellow wristbands to show we had already paid our entrance fee to the Park (included in the fee for the Dolphin Encounter) and then pootled around the facilities and the shop before getting changed at half eleven.

We then gathered for a briefing talk, and got a green wristband to identify which group we were in. We were then shown the hand signals to use and warned about fingernails and wedding rings, as well as where NOT to touch a dolphin(!). Then we walked down to the water and down the metal stairs into the water. We stood on a metal grille platform about three feet wide. It ran the length of the pen, which was about fifteen feet square. Luckily the wooden pier above our heads had wire fencing attached to it. If we hadn’t had that to hold on to, we’d have been washed away (or at least across the pen!), because it was a little windy and the water was surprisingly rough. We were in the Atlantic, after all, strictly speaking. The rain stopped, but the sun was weakened by a generally overcast sky. It poked through now and then (enough to burn my shoulders, again) and, thankfully enough to make the water quite warm (far more important!).

Then we took it turns to pet, stroke, kiss and otherwise play with Amaya, while her baby played/trained on the other side of the pool (they stay together for the first eighteen months)(they live to an average age of 50, more than twice their life expectancy in the wild)(Amaya is 22) and a photographer took photos of each of us. Amaya’s skin was very smooth and she clearly loved being stroked. When one of the women said “I can’t” [let go of the wire fence], Amaya shook her head. We don’t say can’t. She did jumps and sang to us and thoroughly enjoyed being told to splash us and make us scream. Her trainer, Carlos, and she had a really good relationship and the whole thing was thoroughly amazing. We were in the water much longer than we expected, probably as long as an hour and a half. My fingers were certainly very pruney by the end.

20:45 Code Alpha in the Lower Meridien Restaurant. Oh dear. That’s not good. And then, less than 6 minutes later, the same Code Alpha again. Presumably the doctors didn’t respond to the first one. That’s a bit worrying… Granted it’s completely the other end of the ship to the medical centre, but still. Even I could get there quicker than that.

After the encounter, we got changed and then had a late lunch (3pm!) in the restaurant. Mum and dad had guacamole and tortilla chips and I had a chicken burger. All delicious. Absolutely lovely. Not cheap, mind you. The whole meal was 35 dollars for those meals plus two diet cokes and a rather weak lemonade. That’s about 24 pounds, or eight quid a head before tip. Not extortionate, but not cheap either. This is the difference between mainland Mexico and Cozumel. Cozumel is an island. EVERYTHING is imported. And, thus, everything costs more than it would on the mainland. Cozumel ain’t cheap. But, as the most popular cruise port in the world, they can afford to push their luck a little.

Then we collected our photo disc and caught a taxi back to the mall opposite the port. We pootled briefly, before mum and dad called it quits and headed back to the ship. I shopped a little longer and got chased down the street twice. Once by a man who didn’t grasp that I had absolutely no intention of paying anything like 68 dollars for a cotton sundress, and once by a jeweller who had found a seahorse charm for me. Unfortunately, it was the ugliest seahorse you’ve ever seen, so I didn’t buy it after all. Several of the shops were handing out free silver charms today – you could have a heart or an elephant, for some reason. I ended up with both, along with some unset jewels, which I will have to mount into something at some point in the future.

By the time I had showered the sand out of my toes, it was time for dinner, and, so, here we are. My sunburn itches and the muscles in my legs are aching something rotten, probably from the effort of staying still in the waves for so long. I’m going to bed.

NB. Photos of Amaya will have to wait til i get home, I’m afraid. Sorry.