{"id":454,"date":"2018-12-21T23:23:28","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T23:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/?p=454"},"modified":"2018-12-22T04:42:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T04:42:56","slug":"how-didgeridoo-you-spell-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/2018\/12\/21\/how-didgeridoo-you-spell-it\/","title":{"rendered":"How didgeridoo you spell it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have vodka. I just don&#8217;t want to drink any today. Which is a shame as it means I&#8217;ll have to carry it around with me instead, after disembarking tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>I collected the vodka just after failing to attend the kitchen tour. To get on that you need to fill in a small medical survey, the answers to which made the tour leader panic and tell me to go to the medics on Deck A. I just skipped the tour instead. I don&#8217;t really want to turn the ship&#8217;s main kitchens into a medical quarantine zone.<\/p>\n<p>So my day started simply. Coffee, skipped tour, collected vodka. Considered more coffee.<\/p>\n<p>Moris was back, and still seems confused that I don&#8217;t need him to tidy the room or make my bed. I suggested to him that by waiting until tomorrow he can have the room to himself but he seemed to want to return in the evening.<\/p>\n<p>Pizza from the lido for lunch then coffee with me to America&#8217;s Test Kitchen, where they finally had some proper chocolate. The whole ethos of the ship&#8217;s approach to chocolate became distressingly clear as the lady teaching people how to make a French chocolate pudding declared that there&#8217;s no difference between 35% and 70% chocolate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No difference.&#8221; Some chef she is.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/photos.stua.rts.co.tt\/Phone-Pics\/i-6wsqsDz\/A\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/Phone-Pics\/i-6wsqsDz\/0\/4efb6925\/L\/20181221_133400-L.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/a><br \/>\nAfter that a Q&amp;A with the ship&#8217;s singers and dancers, and a chance to pop backstage. One question was &#8216;your career highlight&#8217; and as a group they should be feeling very depressed that between them their three highlights where &#8216;failed audition for thing on tv&#8217;, &#8216;failed audition for broadway show&#8217; and &#8216;failed audition for rock star backing act&#8217;. I almost feel sorry for them all.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/photos.stua.rts.co.tt\/Phone-Pics\/i-mdzmXSR\/A\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/Phone-Pics\/i-mdzmXSR\/0\/326a3e4d\/L\/20181221_133550-L.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/a><br \/>\nDinner in the Lido, so that I could avoid the excessive noise of the chefs in the restaurant being congratulated for doing their job. Beef brisket with mash, simple but tasted good.<\/p>\n<p>The evening&#8217;s entertainment was a mostly naked man from near Brisbane. He hit two bits of wood together, performed a slow dance, sang in an undulating voice. When he stood up and talked to us in an ordinary Australian accent it was a mix of telling us the songs and dances and homilies more suited to children. For a greying man with a paunch wearing a sliver of cloth and paint he did manage to retain a high level of dignity, keeping it even in his dances, somehow including the one mimicking a kangaroo.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/photos.stua.rts.co.tt\/Phone-Pics\/i-d3gTR49\/A\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/Phone-Pics\/i-d3gTR49\/0\/49cdf852\/L\/20181221_180855-L.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/a><br \/>\nA later show had a blend of two previous nights, the magician from yesterday with less impressive tricks but still entertaining, then a violinist that I hadn&#8217;t seen. He had that smugness that some violinists exhibit, a level of solo artist narcissism that made me leave early.<\/p>\n<p>In the Lido staff were.. I&#8217;m not sure.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/photos.stua.rts.co.tt\/Phone-Pics\/i-CSgh5Hd\/A\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/Phone-Pics\/i-CSgh5Hd\/0\/3a3973d7\/L\/20181221_193627-L.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m also not sure that my phone camera&#8217;s lens should be creating such extensive flare effects.<\/p>\n<p>Back in my cabin I packed, my suitcase&#8217;s weight and fullness explained by three two litre bottles of water I&#8217;d been carrying now for three weeks and a bottle of vodka. The other bottle I left in my dance bag, I&#8217;d carry that off the ship myself. After leaving my suitcase in the corridor I got paranoid about the glass bottle in it breaking, cutting the jacket I&#8217;d wrapped it in, ruining my clean clothes and dress shoes. It&#8217;s a risk I&#8217;ll have to take, too late to change now.<\/p>\n<p>The important items all go in the camera bag anyway. Camera, tablet, kindle. I can replace clothing more easily.<\/p>\n<p>Despite that I did get up half an hour later to use the loo, opened the cabin door, found my suitcase still there. Opening it up I found the vodka better protected than I&#8217;d decided it needed to be: clearly I&#8217;m subconsciously getting my priorities entirely correct.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re wondering why I didn&#8217;t just drink it it&#8217;s because I&#8217;ve found that alcohol kills my ability to recover from virus type illnesses and a small amount of dizziness aside I&#8217;ve been much better today than the past week, and don&#8217;t really want to relapse.<\/p>\n<p>Only 5km walked today, and a sensibly early night. I only got out of bed at 9am but I&#8217;m due to disembark at 8.30 in the morning so need to be up, dressed and full of cruise ship coffee by then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have vodka. I just don&#8217;t want to drink any today. Which is a shame as it means I&#8217;ll have to carry it around with me instead, after disembarking tomorrow. I collected the vodka just after failing to attend the kitchen tour. To get on that you need to fill in a small medical survey, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eighty-eight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":456,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions\/456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}