What now?

 65 degrees, partially cloudy--a lovely spring day in the Ozarks

"To travel is to take a journey into yourself." ~ Danny Kaye

We've been back from Norway for a while now, and if you've been following my blog at all, you know I always like to have a sparkly thing glittering on our horizon--a new adventure to anticipate and plan for. So the DH and I have been kicking around ideas for what our next extended voyage should be like and when. The when is 2025. (We have a total eclipse of the sun coming to our town in April of 2024, otherwise, we'd have tried to go next year!) 

And until our next adventure, the view from our back isn't too shabby...

We stumbled into our 2018 Princess World cruise when the fare took a serious nosedive about 7 months before embarkation. Where was it going? It didn't matter because we hadn't been to most of the places a world cruise typically visits. We agonized over our next big trip, first booking on Cunard, then Princess, and finally landing on Viking for 2022, (I suspect our longsuffering travel agent, Teresa Skeim of Cruise Specialists was ready to tear her hair out by the time we booked the Viking voyage, but she very kindly helped us with all our bookings and refunds and rebookings without complaint. Bless the woman.) 

So as we started thinking about a new adventure, we looked at Oceania's Grand Voyages for 2025. Before Christmas, we booked part of their 2025 WC, leaving Miami and ending in Singapore. The itinerary was chockful of new-to-us countries and ports, including the Amazon and South Africa! We got so excited because the only repeat ports for us were Montevideo, Cochin and Singapore! 

77 days on the Insignia! Awesome itinerary & small ship casual elegance!

And then I started thinking about the Yellow Fever vaccine that was required for this trip. I'd thought I could squeak by with a waiver from my doctor because, due to some meds I take for my lung condition that suppress my immune system, I can't take a live-virus vaccine. And it could work for me to do that, but the more I read about the actual disease--bear in mind, I am a mosquito magnet--the less I felt like rolling the dice. Then there's the super long flight home from Singapore...

So we called our TA and cancelled. Oceania was quick to refund our deposit, but our insurance through AIG was not refundable. We could, however, transfer the coverage to another trip, so we were committed to making another big decision.

While we were on the Viking Venus, we toyed with the idea of doing their Australia, Asia, Alaska 78 day Grand Voyage on the Orion. We were offered a nice discount for booking while we were on our trip to the Northern Lights, and we know we love the Viking experience. 

Lots of new-to-us countries and ports! 

While we were considering whether to make this booking, we realized it had the same problem  as the Oceania trip--the long international flight. We could probably do it, but I need to use my portable oxygen concentrator when I fly. Even though I've always been able to plug my POC into an airplane outlet for long flights, I'm still required to carry enough batteries with me to cover one and a half times the amount of time the entire trip takes, including time on the ground. So if the flight to Sydney takes 25 hours, I need to have 37.5 hours of battery life to cover it. That's a lot of batteries! 

And I hate to think about it, but there have been times when either Herkimer (my big POC that rolls around like a carry-on) or Percival (my purse-sized POC) have sputtered out an error message and given up their battery operated ghost. It would be a catastrophe if, somewhere over the Pacific, I lost one of them. Without the support of supplemental O2 at a plane's cruising altitude, my O2 sats drop to below 80 in about a minute. 

Not good. 

So we did some research, talked about what we really wanted in our next big adventure, and decided to go full out for another World Cruise instead of a shorter Grand Voyage. Here is our list of must-haves:

• Full Circumnavigation--Even though we've been blessed to take 2 world cruises, we've never sailed all the way around this beautiful blue marble. We'd like to have a Phileas Fogg experience of crossing every longitude line and returning to where we first embarked. 
• Under 120 days--Our Viking WC stretched the limits of our willingness to be away from family and friends. I hate to give up our land life for any longer than that.  
• Westward travel--When you sail westward, you lose a day crossing the International Dateline, but you are rewarded with multiple 25 hour days to get it back. Traveling east means 23 hour days and if it is tiring for us to lose sleep, just imagine how hard it is for the crew! 
• Embarkation & Debarkation from a US port--No international flights. 
• Emphasis on enrichment, art classes, passenger choir, a bent toward classical music on board, and if there's a spa with heated stone loungers, we'd be in heaven. We love sea days, and are perfectly capable of entertaining ourselves, but it's always good to have full slate of activities on offer. 
• A relaxed itinerary with enough sea days to rest between ports. Especially when you hit the Med, you're likely to have port, port, port. We'd rather be able to thoroughly enjoy the ports we visit and take longer excursions, knowing we'll have time to recuperate before the next one. 
• Traditional cruising--This means we want a set dining time and table so we can have the same wait staff each night. For choice, we'd like a 6 place table so we can make some new friends. We'd also enjoy some Formal Nights. Life's too short not to be able to see the DH in his tux more often!
• Self service launderette--Even if we have free ship's laundry, there are still some things I like to wash for myself. 
• Must meet our budget--I hate debt more than just about anything. As much as I love the romance, the excitement, the wonder of an extended voyage, I want it all paid for before we step on the ship. 

So that's our list. How about you? What are your "must have's" for an extended adventure? 

Munch Moments & The Way Home

 

“I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.” ~ Edvard Munch

I'd be remiss if I didn't spend a little time sharing about the Scandinavian-centric art on board Viking vessels. From the ABBA show in the main theatre, to musicians around the ship featuring Grieg and Sibelius in their repertoire, to the onboard mini-Viking museum and reproduction of the Bayeux tapestry in the stairwells, to Mamsen's yummy waffles and other Norwegian treats, the Venus is a floating celebration of Scandinavian culture and contributions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Munch Moments each evening when, to delicate piano and sometimes violin accompaniment, some of the most important works of Edvard Munch, Norway's most famous artist, are displayed in giant pixilated form on the big screen in the Living Room. 

The Sick Child

Born in 1863, much of Munch's early life was dominated by the deaths by tuberculosis of his mother and sister Sophie, and his father's heavy-handed belief that God was vengeful and given to fits of divine punishment. As a result, a deep sense of melancholy emanates from his canvases. His work is a departure from Impressionism because he strove to paint his emotions and infused his art with the turmoil he carried within him. The Sick Child is considered a break-through canvas in the new school of art known as Expressionism. 

Love & Pain, sometimes known as The Vampire (though not by Munch himself!)

Perhaps it was inevitable that Munch would rebel against his father's strictures and adopt a bohemian lifestyle which saw sex as a tool that brought liberty from social norms. He never married. 

But the Love & Pain canvas above, as well as the other five that treated the same subject--Munch often produced multiple copies of his work, tinkering with them a bit in each iteration--indicates that he knew that love was interlaced with pain. The male figure seems fraught with anguish and if the kiss on his neck was meant to comfort, it doesn't seem to be working.   

Then there is Munch's most iconic work--The Scream. I found it a disturbing, yet profound insight into the nature of reality. There is a sense that this world, as unnecessarily beautiful as it is, is not quite what it was intended to be. There is death. There is loss. There are the undeniable laws of thermal dynamics that decree decay for all things.  

And Munch is not the only one to notice this undercurrent of despair. The apostle Paul wrote to the Romans: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." Paul heard nature's scream too. And beyond the scream, there is a longing, a straining toward what was lost in Eden, that peace, that innocence, that perfect balance and relationship with ourselves, each other and with God.   

Does everyone sense this tension in the created world? Or is it muted by the flurry of our lives, always distracting ourselves, resisting the urge to really look at the people and things around us? This reminds me of a bit from Thornton Wilder's Our Town. Emily has just relived one of her birthdays and found that no one was really noticing each other, no one was recognizing that they would lose each other someday, everything was going so fast and even the mundane was all so incredibly precious. Overcome with emotion, she declared, "O Life! You're too wonderful for anyone to realize you!"

Then she asked:

  

EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"

 STAGE MANAGER: "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some.” 

Saints and poets... I don't fit either category, but I do want to realize life. I want to examine things with an eye to their true substance. I long for wholeness in all the worlds--physical, social and spiritual. I don't want to miss my life because I'm too busy focusing on the urgent instead of the important. 

 

So as we flew homeward, I resolved to spend more time with the people I love. To appreciate the many blessings I've been given. To spend more time in silence and prayer. And to remember that one day Nature's scream will be stilled when God makes all things new.  

Our flight from London to Chicago was smooth and comfortable. Our premium economy seats on Delta on the international flight were like first class domestic seats. It would have been nice to have the lay flat seats in Business, but I couldn't justify the difference in price. Our captain was retiring and we were on his last flight. As we pulled up to the jetway, the ground crew at O'Hare had prepared a water cannon salute for him on both sides of the plane! 

Even though we weren't able to make all our scheduled ports, I highly recommend Viking's Search for the Northern Lights cruise. And as an added bonus, Viking sent us a voucher worth 15% of our fare to use on another Viking voyage! 

Now we're planning our next big adventure. I'll be sharing more about that soon!