Holiday Planning
August 30, 2013
Lately we have got an urge to visit foreign shores again. It has been years since we last packed our bags, checked the passport and counted the travel cheques. Things have changed though. We have had more birthdays and things aren’t the same as they used to. For a start, I have reached the age where I need to be geographically acquainted to the nearest available toilet at all times. Is there a mobile App for that and does it work in Turkey?
I still remember that they have some strange public facilities/toilets elsewhere and even though the saying urges tourists; “do in Rome like the Romans,” I still have trepidations of unknown public bowel& bladder facilities and habits in foreign places. I believe there are places in some tropical paradises where one is advised to avoid the right hand of strangers. Perhaps it was the left hand? I have forgotten! I remember squatting really low down in gay Paris, keen as mustard for paper, any paper, and in howling desperation used unsigned travel cheques.
There is something very reassuring to the idea of combining both, to visit foreign shores and to always be within a couple of meters or shouting distance of a toilet. The answer, ‘the world cruise’. Can you just imagine the joy of peering over the QE 2 railing watching the African coast glide by, dream of Dr David Livingstone and at the first intestinal rumble be seated on gleaming lavender scented porcelain within seconds? Can you imagine?
Helvi is more circumspect about world cruising and even though she danced with the ship’s captain on a previous trip from Italy to Australia in 1966, ( our honeymoon) she suggested that one could be locked into spending weeks sailing around the world with some dreadfully boring people. Food for thought, she added. Can you imagine sitting around some couple at the dining table who keep going on talking about their superannuation or Camellias? 😉
People might think the same of us, I suggested. Speak for yourself was her quick and needle sharp retort. Have I been boring you, I asked her with my guilt on post-war automatic? Well, sometimes you can be, (never to let an opportunity like that one to get past), she answers with brutish honesty, but with a smile I know so well and love. Anyway, most of those cruises are by old fogeys and probably have intestinal problems like yours, she added.
What makes you think you are the sole owner of QE2 toilets? There is most likely a flurry of elderly people toing and froing to the toilets 24 hours each day and night, probably even queues, she added.
Remember that cruise boat laying idle mid-ocean a few weeks ago? All the generators had died, no power to flush the toilets with passengers laid out on the decks in heat of 40C with nappies and all sorts of other medical emergencies. After a few days they were towed into a harbour and met by ambulances. A nightmare.
Yes, but of the hundreds of thousands on cruises, that was just an exception. Come darling, let me decide on this holiday. There are gyms, libraries, swimming pools and lots of shops on board. We will probably meet new friends, like-minded and fascinating people who like Woody Allan, Kant and Chomsky. We could escape next winter, visit Finland and Venice, Dubrovnik and Messina, New York. That sound nice Gerard, why don’t you get some brochures?
Oh, I have downloaded them already darling. Here are just some.
Tags: Africa, Chomsky, David Livingstone, E.Kant, Italy, Paris, QE2, Rome., Woody Allan
Posted in Gerard Oosterman | Edit
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Hi Gez. Back from Jakarta. Delhi belly almost fixed. Bad news for you about travellers cheques, though. Last three overseas trips I used credit / debit cards. You can also buy and preload debit cards with several different currencies, avoiding later forex charges. But there are lots of rules and conditions about exchange rates and things and I can’t be bothered reading the fine print.
My bank charges a flat fee for foreign exchange ATM withdrawals overseas, so it makes no sense to do it more often with small amount withdrawals. Why take out $100 and pay $7-8 when you can take out $500 or $1,000 worth of Euros etc for the same fee.
Few people these days want to go to the trouble of buying and cashing traveller’s cheques. Unless you’re going well out into the wilds, plastic cards work almost everywhere. And where they don’t work is usually so inexpensive that carrying cash to cover most things is no big risk.
Granted, credit cards aren’t much use in lavatorial applications.
As far as cruises go, I can see the attraction of not having to negotiate lots of airports, railways and heaven forbid, buses and rented cars and hotels and rented apartments, but shipboard life holds no attraction for me. I can laze around home for free reading and watching movies. The food here is simple but good and inexpensive. I can ride my bike and bicycle, swim and kayak whenever I want and enjoy a beverage of the finest quality without leaving my suburb.
Having said that, I do like to experience other climes and cultures up close, but travelling there from Australia is wearying. I mean, Steve Hughes hit the nail on the head when he said that Australia is so far away from Earth – , about three miles from the sun. I think the only way to go is to fly premium economy with a decent airline – or to minimise the pain with a business class lie down and stretch out seat, enjoy French champagne and snooze your way to Europe / Americas. Sure it’s a bit expensive, but it’s a bloody holiday – treating yourself is the whole point.
And nodding to your special lavatorial expectations, sharing a dunny with maybe six or eight other well-healed champagne quaffing fellow travellers is WAAY better than roughing it and queueing up for a crap with 60 or 80 denizens in cattle class 🙂
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Heavens forbid ever being reduced to using a credit card in ‘no paper’ foreign ablution facility. We have an invite to NY and have been scanning apartments in Manhattan, but with autumn approaching and many already let for September-November we might just leave it till next spring. Perhaps another Ubud stay will tie us over till then.
Kayak without leaving inner west? You mean the Cooks river or Drummoyne.
What did you think of Jakarta and did you get an inkling of Aus. LNP plans to buying their boats?
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How about a cruise on the Murray.
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They used to have a restored paddle steamer doing that.
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There are many doing that – new and old. Worth checking it on by doing an online search on cruising the Murray.
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We took a very extensive outback trip some years ago. We went by 4w to Bourke, Bedourie, Hungerford Gate through the Channel Country, ( the flies, the flies!) Alice Springs down to Port Augusta, Coober Pedy, Broken Hill (with a guided tour through Pro-Hart’s studio). We also lived on the mighty Wollondilly river for 14 years and now already 3 years in lovely and very quiet Southern Highlands.
We are now ready for bustling crowds and Neon lights with saxophone concerts and crowds of people on the streets. Jazz music and late nights, bars ,pubs and wild tempestuous tangos.
I am sure the Murray cruise would be very nice as well, perhaps next time?
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Go for the bustling crowds and neon lights, the jazz, the late nights in tango… (I don’t think I got that quite right, but you know! 🙂 )
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It means I have posted 451 articles since Emmjay’s Pigs Arms conception many years ago.
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Mrs A and I are starting to dream Holidays again. NZ in early 2015 is looking promising. Something farther afield after that. The younger finishes school next year so we can start to see the freedom.
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rotfl…
I hope this is not too much information but I have recently abandoned eating pasta, bread, potatoes etc which is taking some planning in itself and have effected a miraculous transformation in my health insofar as the need to be within immediate cooee of a toilet… no coffee is always a sacrifice, but I have adopted that as a restorative as well.
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Yes, I often thought that diets are important. At what price no coffee though? What next, no black pudding.( souvlaki :)? )
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The payola is I am a liberated woman and that is heady…hmm..few mixed metaphors here. I did have a small cafe coffee today. Delicious and my previous habit has been to get the giant mugocino with the extra beans and the coffee crystals. 🙂
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See you in Venice this winter then! My apartment has a good toilet. 🙂
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What about next spring? Put the soup on! 😉
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I’m going from January to mid-March, so the ships will pass in the night, I guess.
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Going where, to Australia? Would be fantastic someone guiding us in Venice.
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No, I live here in the land Down Under!!! It’s Venice that calls me, to escape some of the tropical summer in Queensland. I’d have loved to guide/lose you folks in Venice.
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This is nr 451 post on this blog, Word-press just told me.
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I’ll bight what’s that mean?
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