Back on Dry Land

That's right, folks, I'm back in Vancouver and currently posting from a friend's computer. I'll be back home sometime tomorrow, and at some point, I'll be sure and write you up a laboriously detailed account of how the entire vacation went.

For the moment, I'll just say that I very much enjoyed the whole cruise ship experience. If you haven't been on one, believe me, people who have are not lying about the food thing. I swear, I must have gained twenty pounds on this trip. It seemed like I was eating constantly; I'd finish breakfast, and fifteen minutes later it was time for lunch. And it was all terrific, too. You could get very spoiled very quickly living like that. It's not just the food, either... I won't say the service was always 100% impeccable -- goodness knows, my mother complained enough the day we only got one clean washcloth in our stateroom -- but I did get the rather bizarre feeling that these people honestly did believe that their job was to cater to your every whim and anticipate your needs before you had them. And, you know... I liked it.

The scenery was gorgeous, too. The sight of islands slipping slowly past the ship in the deep blue after-midnight twilight is one I'm going to take with me for a very long time.

It was also nice to see several of my relatives (two aunts, an uncle-by-marriage, and my mother) again, though perhaps the circumstances were not the best. My stepfather should have been on this cruise in my place, had he not died in March, and I know it was very hard on my mother to be there without him. I know she had a few bad moments; I only hope the good moments managed to make up for it.

For myself, I was hugely reluctant to leave at the end of the cruise. Ah, if only I could have stowed away somewhere and done the round-trip voyage again! Oh, well... I supposed they'd be missing me at work next week if I'd done that, anyway...