Juneau - Monday
Juneau is a very attractive town tucked into the mountains, reminiscent of Nelson, BC, in that it gives off the aura of being an artsy community. But not if you stay on 'T Shirt Row' as one local called it. He congratulated us for walking up and down the stairs and hills exploring the 'real' part of town. With so much climbing, we got really hot - bright sunshine and about 20 degrees celsius.An early arrival at 5:30 am and would you believe the tourist shops opened up at 6:30 am? There are dozens and dozens of them - all the same jewelry stores from St. Thomas. It's so depressing! Vast convoys of tour buses swallowed up the hordes for dog-sledding (do they use powdered snow?), helicopter glacier tours (seen enuff of those), whale watching and salmon barbecues (at 9 am, who wants barbecue?).
Our ship's lone status was now officially over - at 10:30am, HAL's Oosterdam pulled in and at noon RCCL's Splendor of the Seas joined the pack; the Diamond Princess, sister to the Sapphire, stood ready in the bay to take our space when we vacated, which we did about 1 pm - thank goodness. Get me outa here!
So it was an afternoon of wall to wall sun-bathing bodies. According to the Cornish cruise director, Brits hate to go home from holidays without a tan, so if the sun shines, the're sprawled like chicken carcasses out there. Haven't they heard of the carcinogenic dangers? anyway, at the age of most of them, the browning is not an attractive thing; moreso just a darkening of their already snake-like skin. It's quite unbelievable how hot it was on deck and amazing hw we got one beautiful day after another. Vladivostok could use a dose of such conditions.
We were invited to a cocktail party in the suite of a couple that J&R had met on Swan-Hellenic's Minerva and they joined us for dinner after in the Santa Fe. F started feeling a bit poorly after dinner and excused himself to cocoon in our cabin. Probably the gin and tonics combined with a healthy dose of wine. I saw the evening show by myself - a comedian who put me into my usual snooze, not though any fault of his though.
I sat on our balcony for a while before bed watching the night sky filled with the twinkling stars and was thrilled to witness several shooting stars or comets or whatever they're called.
We set our clocks one hour forward for the final time.
posted by O'Leary @ 11:59 PM
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