Blogging From The High Seas!

Am currently on the 3rd Annual Catholic Answers Cruise aboard the m.s. Maasdam, somewhere in Canadian waters.

Internet usages is incredibly expensive, so will keep it short. Here are a few notes:

1) The cruise is going great! It’s wonderful to meet and talk with the attendees, both those who have been on our prior cruises and those who are new. I personally hosted a “breakout session” with a small group of attendees tonight, allowing us the chance to meet and interact in a more casual, intimate manner than is allowed by a talk. Went swimmingly (no pun intended). They all had great questions.

2) When I got to Montreal I discovered that many of the people who work in the tourist industry there do not speak (or do not admit to speaking) English, which was kind of surprising. I mean, I thought those who regularly deal with English-speaking tourists would be able/willing to speak in English, but nope.

I’ve never studied French (not yet, anyway), but found out that I’d picked up enough by osmosis to be able to use a taxi and even get a receipt at the end of the ride. Woo-hoo!

3) The Indonesian crew aboard the Maasdam has been delighted with my efforts at speaking their language. The chief steward of the dining room came up to my table last night and said “I understand that you speak Indonesian” after I’d spoken it to a waiter and a busboy, so it was getting around. Have been having the room stewards greet me in the halls in Indonesian and strike up little conversations with me, which exceed my ability, but then that is to be expected. Native speakers can always to that to you, but they’ve been getting a kick out of talking to me anyway.

4) Have started picking up a few words in Tagalog (the main Filipino language) from the Filipino staff onboard. Can’t really hold any kind of conversation with them in their tongue, but am at the “How’s it going/good/thank you/see ‘ya!” stage, which they enjoy. Next am going to try to get them to teach me how to order Diet Sprite in Tagalog.

5) Was in Quebeck (sp?) City today. Went to Mass at the local basilica, which was amazing. An incredibly beautiful church. Mass was in French, so only picked up a few words here and there, but the architecture alone was a spiritual lesson in what churches should look like.

One thing kind of surprised me: The pews were kind of small and had a wooden divider down the middle of each pew. I think this may be a relic of when men and women sat apart in church. Such pews would allow families to sit together while still honoring the old gender-separation-in-church custom.

6) After Mass went to a local store and saw a magazine that intrigued me. It was called L’Espress, and the cover was a silhouette of American soldiers in Iraq. The (huge) headline was what intrigued me. I thought I could tell what it said, but asked a clerk to translate for me just to be sure. She indicated that it said “United States: The Force and the Fear.” She went on to explain that it was a paradox that many see in the U.S.–huge military force but also a disproportionate level of fear.

She was very nice, but started to feel uncomfortable when she realized I might be an American (rather than an Anglophone Canadian, I suppose). I would have thought that the cowboy hat, the boots, and the duster I was wearing would have been dead giveaways, but she seemed not to realize this at first. She then asked if I was an American person, and I told her I was. She apologetically said that it must be hard for me to say that, at which I looked rather surprised. Realizing she had dug a bit of a hole, she then dug it deeper by going on to explain that they hear such harsh things said against America (i.e., this would be why I might be reluctant to admit that I’m an American).

Of course I could have said that I’m not in the least ashamed to admit I’m an American, that I’m proud of the fact, but this would have only made her feel worse. She was very nice and was trying to find a way out of a situation where she thought she might have inadvertently insulted me, so I just smiled and said, “Well, people everywhere have tensions. That’s why they’re people.” This seemed to relieve her. Taking a philosophical approach to situations is such a good way to relieve interpersonal tensions.

7) On the way back to the ship kept running into groups of Japanese tourists. They were from a neighboring HUGE ship called The Jewel of the Seas that was docked alongside the Maasdam. The latter is itself big, but the Jewel of the Seas was big enough to create its own jump point, if you know what I mean. I’d heard conflicting things about whether this ship belonged to a Japanese line or not, so I decided to ask.

I said “Good morning, sir/ma’am” (sir and ma’am tend to be the same word in Japanese) to a gentleman, and a woman turned around and–assuming I was Quebecois–said “Good day” to me in French, so I reciprocated. Got a chuckle out of that.

Then I went to a tour guide and asked her in Japanese if she spoke English. She did, and explained that the Jewel of the Seas is not a Japanese ship, though it does have many Japanese tourists.

8) I occasionally get requests from folks to let me know when I’m going to be passing through their areas in case it might be possible to stop and say hello. Normally my schedule is too tight for that, but the next few days I’m going to have some time in port where it might be possible, so here’s my upcoming schedule:

* Tuesday: Prince Edward Island
* Wednesday: Sydney, Nova Scotia
* Thursday: Halifax, Nova Scotia
* Friday: Bar Harbor, Maine

If you’re nearby and would like to say hello (language of your choice; I’d love to learn), e-mail me.

Well, gotta run. Have a dinner meeting with some attendees I’ve got to get to.

See y’all!