Talofa from Samoa!

Hi everyone!  Hope you all had a great weekend and Valentine’s Day!  Here on the ship, we crossed the International Date line between 2/12/15 and 2/14/15 so we missed the 13th.  Just never happened for us.  Isn’t that weird?   


So, this week we had two stops, Pago Pago, American Samoa and Apia, Samoa.  One of the first questions I had was what’s the difference between American Samoa and “regular” Samoa?  I found out that while American Samoa is still a US territory, what used to be called Western Samoa, after being fought over by Britain, Germany, and New Zealand, finally gained independence and are their own country and are now just called Samoa.  

View of Pago Pago from the ship 

First stop this week was Pago Pago.  Pulling up in the ship, the views were spectacular!  It is mostly lush green mountains.  Instead of going on a tour, I opted to explore on my own.  It was brutally hot, over 90 degrees with full humidity so within about 1/2 hour I was melting away.  I got some great photos on the way to the only hotel in town, Sadie Thompson’s hotel, named after the lady who was the subject of the 1920’s movie “Sadie Thompson” which apparently was a fairly scandalous story!  I got there about 10:30am and the restaurant opened at 11am, so I stood under the air conditioner for a full half hour trying to cool down.  Once I did sit down to eat, I had a fish sandwich made from a “wahoo” fish.  I didn’t know there was such a fish, but once I saw it on the menu, I had to try it!  It was delicious!  I stayed in the restaurant for about an hour and a half trying to get the guts to go back outside.  

Pago Pago, American Samoa

Finally I made the walk back to the ship, getting some more great photos in the process and a bit of heatstroke.  By the time I was about a block away I was seriously dizzy and walking funny.  I made it back, downed a ton of water, took a shower, and decompressed for about an hour.  Later, I was talking to one of the Indian staff (India being renowned for its heat) and he said his skin was burning from the heat.  I’m glad I wasn’t the only one!  

Me posing with one of the demonstrators at the cultural center

The next day was Apia, Samoa.  This time I had signed up for a tour that promised a cultural experience and a tour of an organic plantation.  We piled in the bus and they took us to the tourist center where they had re-created a traditional village for tourists to experience.  It was actually really well done!  We saw presentations on how to husk and open coconuts, prepare the traditional cooking fire, a kava ceremony, weaving, and tattooing.  They actually had a guy getting tattooed that apparently didn’t mind being on show.  It’s a fascinating process; the designs are pounded into the skin with a hammer, no machines.  Most of the tattoos I saw covered a good 25%-50% of the body, so I can’t even begin to imagine how long that would take!  After the tours, we got a chance to taste the food they had prepared for us.  We had fish, breadfruit, and taro leaves steamed in coconut milk on a taro leaf for a plate and a coconut with a straw in it for a drink.  It was one of the most amazing, inspiring meals I have ever eaten!  Just the whole experience of watching them prepare the food and feeling the history of it made it taste that much better!  

My incredibly tasty lunch! I just sat on the ground and ate it with my hands.

After that, we piled back in the bus and they took us to an “organic plantation” which was actually the home of the descendants of Aggie Grey, the woman who was the inspiration for James Michener’s “Bloody Mary” in the book and later the musical “South Pacific.”  So that was an unexpected surprise!  They took us all around their gardens and gave us fresh bananas, papayas, pineapple, oranges, and coconut to eat and an unbelievably refreshing lime juice to drink.  Fruit like that, just pulled from the plant on a tropical island is like nothing I have ever tasted before!  Incredible.  It was a couple of days of amazing food experiences from the fish burger to the Samoan feast to the fruit.  

At the organic plantation

We’re back on the ship for another day before we head to Suva, Fiji.  I got some great videos on the Samoan demonstrations, I hope you check them out!  The guy doing the demonstrations was hilarious!  You can find them on my YouTube channel and my Facebook page.  I also post to Instagram regularly (@suzernathy).  Until next time, take care and have a great week!  

Sunset from the ship leaving Pago Pago

P.S. The YouTube channel I have linked to is my martial arts page, not my personal page.  I don't have enough wifi on the ship to transfer the videos over.  If you are reading this later, and I have transferred them, here is my personal page.  

Hawaii

Photo of me in my fancy new shirt!  

Aloha from Hawaii!  Ok, so technically I’m not there anymore but I did visit Honolulu and La Haina.  Honolulu holds special significance for me because that is where my grandparents met.  I think it’s such a great love story.  In 1941, my grandpa was in the Army stationed at Pearl Harbor.  My grandmother had a job in some sort of fabrics, she never described it in very much detail.  For some reason I still don’t understand, her employer would send her to Hawaii to purchase (I assume) fabric and bring it back to California where she lived.  While she was there, the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, leaving her stranded in Honolulu with two children back home who I’m sure were scared to death their mother was dead and I doubt she had any way of contacting them, at least at first.  (She was a single mom)  My grandpa was stationed on the beach that morning, so he survived the attack.  Somehow they ended up meeting and (details are sketchy on this because I was a child and they never really talked about it) getting married to get back to the mainland.  According to the story, once they got back, they decided to go ahead and stay married.  I always thought that was funny, but in those days in their situation, it worked out favorably for both of them.  There is a lot I don’t know to the story but I think the essence of it, that my grandparents met as a direct result of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, is pretty romantic.  A wartime love story.  

So after all that you’d think I’d visit Pearl Harbor.  I did not.  Mostly because the only available tour was really long and included a bunch of other stuff I’m not all that interested in.  Plus I had some errands to run and I needed some free wifi to get some work done so I went to the very un-romantic shopping mall.  I got everything accomplished I wanted to, then popped over to Waikiki beach for about 1/2 hour.  I got a shaved ice, which made me feel more like a tourist, then caught the shuttle back to the ship.  

Day 2 in La Haina, Maui was much more touristy.  I went on a submarine dive.  That was really cool!  We all got in a little boat which took us to the submarine, which was still submerged.  After a few minutes it popped up out of the water!  We navigated the very shaky ramp (the waters were choppy so it was moving quite a bit) to the submarine then climbed a ladder to get down inside.  Once inside, each person had one seat with their own porthole.  We went past a couple of reefs with an array of fish, then we got to the best part.  The company had their own sunken ship which functions as an artificial reef.  There were lot of fish there, and we even got to see a couple of sharks!  The tour was definitely well worth the money and the wait (over two hours from the ship to the submarine).  I also got to see my first whale: just the tail as it went back down in the water but it was still thrilling to see one in person.  I am looking forward to seeing more whales!  Close call of the day: some guy overestimated his maneuverability and first, fell into me and this little kid and scared the daylights out of the kid.  Then he turned around and smacked me in the face with his hand and knocked my glasses off and they almost fell overboard!  I’m sure glad they didn’t!  I have a spare but I’d like to keep it that way: spare.  I don’t want to lose my glasses! 

Back in port, I looked at the shops but they were all selling the same Hawaiian print dresses and shirts which are pretty but they don’t really fit my wardrobe with where I’m going.  I have to be really careful about buying souvenirs because it all has to fit in my bag.  I finally did find a cute clothing boutique and bought a great top that has an Indian print and some flowers.  I had some fish tacos and mac’n’cheese, a nice break from all the British food I’ve been eating.  No complaints, it’s just nice for a change.  So now we have five days at sea before we get to American Samoa.  

These days at sea are interesting.  The days are long, without the usual distractions of home.  So it becomes a game of filling up the time.  The first couple of days I spent a good while wandering around not knowing what to do.  But as time passed, I figured out where things are and when the various services are open, and began to form sort of a routine.  On the last sea day before Honolulu, I had the good fortune to meet the ship’s ballroom dance instructors, Brenda and Jeffrey.  They are a fascinating and talented duo, and I got to dance with both of them.  They invited me to their advanced ballroom class, so I am looking forward to that.  It also fills out my afternoon.  So I have line dancing in the morning, ballroom in the afternoon, then either a ballroom dance or a show in the evening to keep me entertained.  And of course the longer I’m on the ship, the more friends I make.  So it is getting easier.  

Me with Brenda and Jeffrey

Check out video of the submarine and the dive with these links!

At Sea!

Picture: Me boarding the Amtrak to San Francisco

Hi everyone!  I am writing to you from on board the Arcadia!  We are at sea right now, heading towards Hawaii.  Our first stop will be Honolulu.  But we have three more sea days before we get there.

This ship is in a British line of ships that does a lot of stops in Australia, so the mix of passengers is mostly British and Aussie.  That means all day every day I get to hear those wonderful accents.  I’m already starting to think in a British accent; by the time I disembark I’m sure I will be speaking it, at least a little!  

It’s only our first day at sea but already I feel like I’ve been here a lifetime.  When we’re at sea there’s not much clock watching. For me, schedule girl, this is taking some getting used to.  I only turn wifi on ten minutes in the morning and ten at night, so most of the day I’m unplugged.  The first day I still found myself picking up my phone and looking at it very often.  Then I realized, there’s nothing to look at!  It’s wonderful, I can feel my body start to relax as it realizes there’s nothing to rush for!  

Sitting here, looking out at the sea, I am awestruck at this massive body of water that we are on.  I never really think about the sea but it is so incredibly powerful and vast.  I imagine all the animals swimming underneath us; the whales, dolphins, jellyfish, sharks, and it blows my mind to imagine all that life and energy right underneath this huge ship which by the way also blows my mind.  What an incredible feat of engineering to coordinate energy, water, food, pipes, navigation, and all the cruise programs together.  I can’t even begin to imagine the logistics involved.  And yet from my perspective it is executed beautifully.  I know that is the result of very hard work from all the crew members I see running around all the time.  

This is the first leg of a long and exciting journey for me.  Next time I should have an update on Hawaii.  I’ve never been there, so I am very excited to see it!  Have a beautiful week!