Our time on board of the Queen Mary 2 was NOT distracted by phone, internet, searching and googling all the time. In fact, we had lots of time to talk, to play Rommé, to draw, read, sleep, etc. attached are a few of my pages from my journal…..

I’ve never been on a cruise before. I’ve done island hopping in Greece a few times or taken ferries and such, but never have I been on a cruise ship. The idea of being on a floating device in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of people never appealed to me. But here I am, in the middle of the Atlantic, with a bunch of people. A bunch means ~2000. It is day 2 of floating around and I kind of like it. There are quite a few expected and some surprising „Firsts”: being in a room without a window is one of the expected ones, being afraid of claustrophobia included, but it’s fine. We don’t spend much time inside the room anyway – too much to do! And that’s the other surprise: there is sooo much to do! Lectures about the universe, about Salvador Dali, WWII veterans, watercolor and dance classes, games, etc. We get a print-out every day, with a 4 page selection of „not ever getting bored“.

And then there is the food! I’ve never eaten food that good (I’m talking about that steak last night) that just melted in my mouth! But the “First” was, that the waiter came before serving the steak, with a wooden box filled with 10 different steak knives and I could choose one of them for my meat. For my steak they should have offered a spoon or something, a steak knife, freshly sharpened, was not necessary at all…

Another “First” is that I am treated like the queen of England. Not that they think I’m 100 years old, they just serve me like I would be the queen. Even at the buffet I cannot touch anything, I just point to what I want and they dish it all up very nicely. And they bring it to your table, they move it when you move to another table and there is always refills and seconds and plenty of everything. Masses of everything! And masses of waiters and servers and housemaids and everybody is just super nice!

Another “First“ is the daily newspaper we get to the room. Getting a newspaper is not that unusual, but we get an American version and a German version, which is not just the same but translated , it contains the news that are relevant and more interesting for Germans (or Americans). For example in the German newspaper is the main report about a train accident near Garmisch, where several wagons derailed and killed 5 people and injured many others. In the American newspaper the main report is about how many people were killed in several shootings that happened the last 3 days.

Another surprise is that I cannot feel the ship moving. It is a big boat, actually it is not a boat, but a ship, but I can’t feel a thing – yet. It is predicted that we will feel the outskirts of a tropical storm / hurricane that’s heading towards Florida and the Caribbean. So far, only the sky changed color from bright blue to grey, the water still behaves very nicely…..

And another „First“ is that there is a medical department and the people there are very nice! I had the pleasure to be one of their first patients yesterday and I was so pleased that I will go back again tomorrow and maybe a few more times; who knows?! I brought a little gift from California, a spider bite of some kind. By the time we were in New York it got infected and as soon as we entered the ship, it spread around my wrist and got nasty. But as I said before, the doctor and both nurses were very attentive, they took good care of this, cleaned and bandaged me up, gave me Penicillin for a week, ibuprofen and some other painkillers. Oh well…..

And another „First“ is that I’m going to be 58 years old tomorrow for the first time in my life!

It is expensive here! Everything! A little cup with yoghurt and a spoonful of granola: $7.50. A salad for 2 people: $28 (and I could have eaten that easily by myself). 2 drinks at a bar: $50 (they were very good). I guess that’s why so many things end up on the street. We checked for a clinic to do a Covid test for the upcoming ship and found one across the street from the hotel: $400. Per person! So we tried to safe $800, continued to ask around and found this: a Covid test station in a tent on the street. Cost: $0 (with insurance)

And if you’re looking for a dispensary: good luck! New York does not allow the sale of marihuana products inside buildings, so they transformed food trucks into dispensaries:

What else happens out there? Walking around for 4 days and I have seen 2 homeless people. Only 2! And what else? It is loud here, the background noise is just always there, everywhere! And it is warm and humid (and I love warm!), it is sometimes stinky (and I don’t like stinky).

But all in all, we have a great time here, exploring unusual, wonderful things and eating good food!

And today in the afternoon we’re heading out to Brooklyn to find our ship! 🗽🚢🌎

BTW, both our Covid tests came back negative!

Jackie Onassis helped save this building from the wreaking ball!!

Before we head out for new adventures today, I’ll have a few words / photos about our hotel room here in NYC at the EVAN HOTEL 221 E 44th St. It is a good size room = it is huge for a NYC hotel room. I used to come here twice a year to exhibit at the big wholesale shows at the Javitz convention center. The rooms I used to book were always just slightly bigger than the bed; and now this:

And another detail I wanted to show today: our fool proof, not-to-be-lost subway map! It moves along quite nicely, it looks pretty and: it talks 🥳

Oh man, what a full and fulfilling day! We started off with a lecture in “how not to use the subway” by taking the train „away“ from the museum instead of „towards“ the museum. Then we switched over to the other side, we got into the correct numbered train, but little did we pay attention to the fact that there is a difference between EXPRESS train and LOCAL train. So we drove by the museum and ended just a little more than 30 blocks away from our goal. So we switched over again, this time taking the correct numbered AND the LOCAL train. Yeah!

At the Museum of Natural History we watched a few interesting movies, enjoyed the diverse exhibits and afterwards wandered around the Central Park, where they just set up for a marathon or something. There was an impressive amount of Porta potties, kind of like one Porta potty for each runner I guess!?!

As hoped and expected, NYC is a foodie city and we lucked out last night: we were too tired to go far for dinner, so a quick hop across the street had to do. We ended up at Alcala, a Spanish restaurant, where we had wild boar prosciutto and a delicious chicken dish with mushrooms and assorted vegetables. A glass of white sangria (E) and Tempranillo (T) gave us the last bit of what we needed for a good nights sleep!

We did leave afterall! It was difficult getting out of bed after only 2 hours of sleep, but the rest was easy: flight from SLO to LA, flight from LA to NY. And here we’ll get a few days big city excitement, yellow taxis, honking, pedestrians, smelly escalators, rain (!), and a comforting glass of white wine upon arrival at our hotel. At JFK we accidentally bought an “air train” ticket vs a “metro” ticket – confusing 😵‍💫, or am I wrong???