Dining with Mormons part two and the benefits of being on pause

Ah, the pleasures of living on the ocean. There’s nowhere to go and nothing that is required of you. That temporary stasis that was so disorienting on our way over to Europe now feels like a tonic. It’s an endless ocean of peace. Today we attended a lecture about the Titanic (pretty bold, Cunard, pretty bold) whilst traveling the ocean in which it met its demise. It was highly attended. And later, we spent a good amount of time in the library. It’s really my favorite place on the ship. At lunchtime, we retreated to our cabin and watched an episode of Poirot (downloaded before the voyage of course) and had room service lunch. It’s all really so nice.

Again tonight we had dinner with the Mormons. It was a formal night, mandatory dressing up, and the theme was black and white. I wore my black suit with a white shirt and bowtie. I was worried that our tablemates would be put off by my attire but they were complimentary. I asked questions about the Mormon religion and actually learned a lot. Did you know that Momons are in to genealogy because they believe that all people must be baptized before going to heaven and they are able to “baptize by proxy” any relatives that were not given the chance to do so? Mormons believe that families are eternally linked, on earth and in heaven, so they want to keep the family unit intact through this proxy baptism practice. Pretty interesting. We also talked about missions. Young Momorns can choose to participate in a mission or not, but if they do they have no say in where they are sent. The couple with 11 children talked about how some of their kids were sent to places such as Japan or Italy, while others were sent to Baltimore or Phoenix. That’s gotta be hard for the kids with less interesting destinations. This same couple is going on a mission themselves, beginning in August. They are going to Cambodia to help with a healthcare clinic (one of them is a doctor). Mom and I asked many questions about their religion and I’m wondering if we should be transparent about our lives and invite them to ask questions. I wonder how they’d react? Perhaps if we build trust we’ll be able to discuss the challenges of existing in a world with such different beliefs in a constructive way. Maybe…

To end the evening, we attended the Cunard fantabulous showcase show. It was filled with a bunch of singing and dancing and chorus lines, and surprisingly, many songs from the movie The Greatest Showman. It was more enjoyable than I anticipated it would be and reminded me of George, who loves the Showman. To bed, with clocks set back again (we are changing time overnight like normal people this trip instead of the weird practice of skipping noon that we endured on the way over). This excess of hours is a pretty nice perk. 

Dining with Mormons and getting our sea legs back

Hello from the Atlantic, where the air is fresh, the sky is limitless,and the internet sucks. No pictures for the week will be the result. So. Onboarding this round went smoother than our last try in New York. This time we labeled Mom as disabled and it got us a wheelchair and a trip to the front of the line. Despite this, it was still a challenge. Cunard makes everything extra hard. One more line. One more piece of paper, one more surprise to-do. But we made it. And it feels just fine being back on the boat (ship - sorry Mom).

When we set up our cruise preferences about a year ago, Mom and I chose dining at a table for six. It can be fun to meet other folks and trade stories. On the way over to the UK, we had a gay couple, currently living in London but also from Minneapolis! And they were also building a home in Mom’s neck of the woods. Also, there was a nice couple from Boston. The gentleman was in his 90s and had worked in the lithium industry, As a result I know 100 times more about lithium than I did before our voyage. We were excited to find out who would be joining us for dinner coming home and shortly after we sat down, we had our answer. Two couples from Salt Lake City, traveling together, joined us. We quickly discovered that they were Morman. One has 11 children and the other 7. That’s a lot of kids. We had pleasant conversation, but there was a tension. We will live on the surface of polite company for the week and not venture anywhere close to our real selves. Except I plan to wear a tuxedo to the black and white ball tomorrow. I wonder what they’ll think of that? Maybe they are allies. Who knows.

We were tired from our day of moving and reacclimating to the ship, so dinner and a quick trip for decaf coffee was all we managed. I feel strangely at home, back in our twin beds, looking out at the sea. It’s gonna be a struggle to tly on the next trip. Travel by sea is so much more enjoyable.

Reclining across the English Channel and tipping in three currencies

We left the resort in St. Malo early. There were several hotel room freebies to bring with us but we are at the end of the trip and luggage space is at a premium. I did, however, take my brand new blue and white swim cap! Free swim cap. Now that's a perk. After some confusion about where and how to drop off our dear rental car (turns out you need a code to get into the lot and a French man, unaffiliated with the car rental place, but allegedly affiliated with the port terminal, gave me the secret code on a post-it note), we hung out at the terminal, eating possibly our last pain au chocolats of the trip. 

After rolling two suitcases uphill for three hours (or 5 minutes - seemed like forever), we settled into our room for the ferry voyage to Portsmouth, UK. Anticipating end-of-trip fatigue, Mom had booked us a bedroom for the 8 hour voyage, and boy did we take advantage of that. I lay prone for almost all of the voyage, sleeping some, watching downloaded episodes of Poirot, and enjoying all the luxuries that Brittany Ferries had to offer (we had our own bathroom!). Most passengers on the ferry brought their cars with them, so embarking we really didn't see many people, since we were walk-ons and they were drive-ons. And then when we ventured out for lunch, the place was pretty quiet, despite the fact that there was allegedly an entire menu of entertainment available. We missed it all, preferring our little room and our comfy boat beds. Oh also - I was also excited to see that Queen Elizabeth was on the ship when we boarded. She was looking rather thin. 

Disembarking was yuck due to three flights of rolling downhill with suitcases attached to my arms, but we survived. Then, it was customs time. Problem though. There were no customs agents. The place was locked, lights out, no one home. It took some time to get sorted and situated and stamped, but finally we were on our way. Our original plan was to take a taxi to the train station, take the train from Portsmouth to Southampton, and take a taxi to our hotel. But then we realized that that would be awful and stressful, especially because we had Zoom appointments to have supervised Covid tests at 9:36 (very specific). Last minute, we ordered a private transfer from the mouth of the port to the hampton of the south. This last minute change resulted in another tipping emergency. I had a total of 5 Pounds left and 3 Euros. Mom also had Dollars. The Pounds really weren’t enough for a private transfer tip. What to do? Mom and I spent a good part of the voyage ruminating about this tipping dilema, in an attempt to avoid panic tipping. Solution? I just broke the news to our driver, asking if he wanted the Pounds, Euros, or Dollars, or all of the above. He said, "a tip is a tip!," so I gave him all three. The tipping trifecta. The ultimate tipping triumph. A tip for the ages. Savvy tipping by Ali. Tips R Us. A tip to remember. 

Finally at our last hotel of the trip, called the Jury's Inn, we prepared to swab our nasal passages to prove we were free of the plague. It was a frenzied few minutes on the phone with a call center nurse, but we were certified Covid free and ready for transport. During the Covid prep we also discovered a very damp section of floor in our room right by the bathroom. A cheerful chap came up to the room and felt around on the floor. He postulated that the wet was a result of carpet cleaning earlier in the day due to a spill. Big spill, I guess. And a damp spill. We elected to ignore our damp room in lieu of moving to another one since we'd been throwing Covid testing supplies all over the place and had our jammies on. So tonight we sleep in the company of mystery dampness and we are too tired to care. 

Tomorrow, we are back on the QM2, where the food is plentiful and the internet is...not. It may result in an interruption of regularly scheduled programming.

No M.T.S.T. Mitchell for us! and uh oh, we're getting fancy again

We drove away from Rouen mid-morning after meeting our hosts at the Airbnb. They have renovated 6 of 9 apartments in the old 17th century mansion where we were staying and they shared a bit of history with us. We loved staying in that historical monument of a house. I'll miss that place and Rouen itself. I could live here (well, maybe I'd need to learn how to pronounce it properly). What a beauty.

Our destination was Mont St. Michel (which Google kept pronouncing as M.T.S.T. Mitchell, much to our amusement). Oh - also from Google - yesterday I was heading to see the famous town clock in Rouen, which is called Gros Horloge, and Google kept saying "gross whore". Jeez Google.  Anyway, when approaching M.T.S.T., it was clear we'd made a big mistake. I'd visited back in 2017 and had an unbelievable time, so much so that I wanted Mom to see it. Here's the blog entry from that trip. This experience was completely the opposite. What a mess. The place is now overrun with tourists (which, admittedly, we totally are) and arriving around the lunch hour should have been thought out better. We wound up in an intractable traffic jam and decided to flee. It took 20 minutes to do so because of the snarl. And while waiting for the great untangling, Mom took a few photos - a couple of the Mont in the distance, some of the crowd and one of me, so happy to be at the wheel. As we drove away, we had to maneuver through terrible, tiny roads with fast-driving French folks taking up more lane than an American can handle. Very stressful.

So imagine our relief when we arrived at tonight's destination, the Grand Thermous Hotel (that's not exactly it, but it's close enough and I prefer it). It's a spa/resort kind of thing and it is also the only room we could find in the town of St. Malo on a Friday evening. Oooh la la! We had our car whisked away by the valet, our bags carried to our room, and dinner rolled in on a table (but weirdly there's a step up in our room, so I had to help the guy maneuver the table up into the room and later back out again. I didn't get a tip). We watched some French TV for a while. The top story on the news was the shooting in Texas. They had several segments on it before moving on to Ukraine. Then there was this show that resembled America’s Funniest Home Videos, only it was the French version. Mimes accidentally talking. Berets falling off the heads of artists. 

Now we are watching, much more sensibly, Poirot, on my laptop and enjoying a curious seagull (I think? Jen - see photo), who landed right at our open window up here on the 4th floor. Tomorrow? We are on a ferry, headed back to the UK. Au revoir, France, it’s been molto bene! (I know, wrong language, but I don’t French well. 😉)

In Rouen without a Baedeker

Yesterday was a long, beautiful, troubled, astounding, tiring and wonder-filled day, so this morning, we took a break. It was needed for travel red tape. I spent a few hours trying to figure out how to take a Covid test before embarking on the QM2 on Sunday, when we'll be on a ferry boat all day Saturday. Solution? A test delivered to our hotel and then a virtual appointment for test witnessing in the late evening. The preparation for packing also happened and other odds and ends attended to. In no time at all, it was mid-afternoon.

Mom wasn't feeling up to an adventure and wanted to get more packing done, so I headed out alone to find the Ceramics Museum. It was easy to find, practically just around the corner. But alas, it was unexpectedly closed so no ceramics for me. Instead, I took myself on a meandering tour of the old town, no plan, no idea where I was and no Baedeker (if you're a Room with a View aficionado like me, you may remember that line from poor cousin Charlotte's adventure in Florence). Here's what I saw (documented in pictures below): 

• A weird building that looked like a long hat
• A tiny museum in which I was able so see the inside of one of these wood-clad medieval houses but had no clue what the actual museum was for
• Very fancy houses
• A church that was half new-build and half ancient-build, all smooshed together
• A very cool clock
• A huge cathedral that was, despite being under renovation, awe-inspiring
• A French Lush store for George
• Drunk people
• An old-timey festival with a blacksmith and a court jester
• A tour tram making its way through all the sights there were to see
• Our very own front door

This was the perfect way to wrap up or stay in Rouen (which neither of us can pronounce, no matter how much we've practiced. It sounds like THIS) and we are ready for tomorrow's trip to Mont Saint Michel and then a quick stop at a fancy hotel in Saint Malo. See you then!