I Love Sydney! Goodbye to the Islands.

We're delighted to once again welcome Karen Albright Lin to Chiseled in Rock for her final installment of Teaching through the Islands!

Karen consults and edits for published and yet-to-be published writers of fiction, nonfiction, and book proposals. She writes in a number of genres and conducts writing workshops in various venues, including on cruise ships.

If you missed her previous blogs regarding Teaching through the Islands, you might enjoy reading them before this installment, as she first shared her preparations in anticipation of teaching classes while on board her latest cruise, discussed some of the downsides to teaching on a cruise, introduced us to new tablemates and the private beach on Moorea, how she was bit in Bora Bora, and then she described her first class while teaching en route to Fiji.  Most recently she shared: Second Lecture enRoute to Fiji: A Great Storyto Tell, Fiji but the Wrong Port!(I won’t mention it, but I will), On the Way to New Caledonia, and Don't Judge an Island by its Dogs.

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Karen Albright Lin:

We’d started in Tahiti and had cruised through Polynesia and Melanesia.  I’d taught 6 classes in three different venues, one per sea day: Writing Your Life, Have a Great Story to Tell?, Writing Short Stories and Flash, Writing Nonfiction, Screenwriting, and What Ghostwriters Do.  The cruise was coming to a close.  We were ready to face the chaos and unknowns of getting off the ship.  As a “guest entertainer,” I’d taught on Celebrity Cruise lines twice (through the Baltic ending in Southampton and down the east coast of Central America ending in Ft. Lauderdale) and I was always treated like a passenger when leaving. 

For this Princess cruise, ending in Australia, Wen was considered a passenger and I was considered crew.  He was scheduled to debark early morning and I after all the passengers had left.  That wouldn’t make much sense for us.  So we asked to leave later together.

Despite our debarkation time, too early for comfort, Wen and I emerged from our crew cave to stand on the moonlit deck as we glided into Sydney Harbour past its famed Opera House. 

Sadly it wasn’t lit.  We were told it was to save on energy.  This seemed a shame considering its shelled-elegance is probably the one building most associated with Australia.  I’m glad N.Y. stills lights up the statue of liberty. 

After watching the sun rise, we waited for the chance to trade in my crew badge for my passport.  Wen and I toured the underbelly world of the ship.  Cold metal floors, unadorned walls, institutional.  An anthill of activity between kitchens and hospital (where I know at least one passenger died), maintenance, safety office and crew admin, it was a different world.  Colder yet less stuffy and less put-on.  A 1,000-strong otherworld.  A place where crew members got paid, we heard, according to the going wages in their own home countries.  These “basement” inhabitants had their own ATMs, their own Internet kiosks, their own less-fancy buffet line.

When the activities office opened, I checked out, received my passport, then we walked off the ship.   I was surprised that nobody asked to see my Maritime Visa or any of my employee paperwork.  They’d made such a big deal of my work status before I left home. 

Because I’d put all our x-rayed luggage in the crew cart the night before, labeled as mine, they had been taken off the ship first and sat along the wall, quick to pick up.  We stepped out of the security building and to the taxi line ready to explore Sydney. 

Sydney, where there was no cover charge to choose a dance room of Pop or R&B in an upscale outdoor bar. 

Where Asians were abundant and stylishly dressed people sat in parks reading.  Where they were good-day-mate-polite, and made passion fruit ice cream.

Where goods were expensive, “no worries” meant you’re welcome, “the lot” meant all of it, and “pissing” is what we call rain.  The aborigines were short, beaming beautiful, and sported delightful tightly curled hair. 

Australia, where kangaroo meat is tough and stringy but emu is tender and tasty.  Sydney with the purposeful energy of N.Y. City but the relaxed and friendly nature of San Francisco.  It wasn’t overcrowded, yet it was teaming with activity: free history and modern museums,

a botanical garden in which tagged ibises foraged under multi-rooted fig trees,

the governor’s palatial residence, 

and the old town flanked by the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the world’s largest steel arch bridge.  I’m not a big city girl, but I could live in Sydney. 

It wasn’t quite the end of our trip; we still had Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef to discover.  But the “work” part of my trip, teaching on the Sea Princess, was now molding itself in my memory, my bucket list one strand of the world shorter. 

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Karen, thank you so much for sharing what you learned and experienced while teaching through the islands!  You can learn more about Karen on her website.

Don’t Judge an Island by its Dogs

We're delighted to again welcome Karen Albright Lin to Chiseled in Rock!

Karen consults and edits for published and yet-to-be published writers of fiction, nonfiction, and book proposals. She writes in a number of genres and conducts writing workshops in various venues, including on cruise ships.

If you missed her previous blogs regarding Teaching through the Islands, you might enjoy reading them before this installment, as she first shared her preparations in anticipation of teaching classes while on board her latest cruise, discussed some of the downsides to teaching on a cruise, introduced us to new tablemates and the private beach on Moorea, how she was bit in Bora Bora, and then she described her first class while teaching en route to Fiji.  Most recently she shared: Second Lecture enRoute to Fiji: A Great Storyto Tell, Fiji but the Wrong Port! (I won’t mention it, but I will), and On the Way to New Caledonia.

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Karen Albright Lin:

Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora had roaming feral mutts, each seemingly related to the other with a hodgepodge of genes, eaters of sidewalk scraps, more like dingoes than dogs, survivors.

American Samoa (like New Caledonia) had purebred, leashed jewels, pride dogs, naïve and smiling.  They suggested wealth, but there were two distinct classes on this island.  Simpler-life, brown-skinned locals preferred to keep the tourists far from their special spots—like a waterfall they alluded to but didn’t put on the map.  We shared with locals and tourists a rickety, wood-lined bus up the coast to a map recommendation, Tisa’s Barefoot Bar.  

  

At the edge of the untouched rainforest that covers 90% of the islands, Tisa’s was an outdoor Jimmy Buffet cocoon of weathered wood situated on a rocky cove, a perfect spot for Wen to snorkel while I sat on the overlook deck.  I kept an eye on his snorkel, wrote, watched people, and had a Tisa-invented cocktail.

Tisa was a cross between Diana Ross and Whitney Houston, quite stunning, fluent English.  I paid $11.00 American cash for a small dose of pineapple rum in a mystery mix with no coconut involved. 

Tisa and I chatted.  She was a character worth ten pages of notes.  She had run for mayor unsuccessfully, loved L.A. and was sole proprietor of the bar.  She believed she had a story worth writing, but hadn’t picked up a pen.  I ordered the local beer, in a large bottle and hops-bitter at the end.  My writer-self numbed while I drank, checking and rechecking Wen as he snorkeled farther from our spot.  When I couldn’t see him, my writer imagination went wild with worry.  Wen’s from an island.  But I was born and raised in the Midwest and find the ocean mysterious and somewhat dangerous.  Funny I should end up teaching on cruises.

One of the generic mutts rubbed against a bar patron, nobody’s fool.  Snacks dropped.  I watched it all, felt it all, through writer’s eyes.  Over this trip I filled a spiral notebook.  I also kept maps and the daily reports on where we were and what was offered on the ship.

I closed my eyes against the warm sun and thought back to the American Samoan lecture we attended.  Jill, the destination speaker, was author of children’s and middle grade books about Australian history.  We speakers get discounted access to the internet, and Jill admitted to us that she’d gone online the night before to collect her information and put together her presentation about American Samoa.

Her talk was entitled WHERE BOYS WILL BE GIRLS.  Her lecture paid excessive attention to the fact that transgender or transvestite men are well-accepted in American Samoan Society.  They dance in dresses alongside women.  They are great wives because they are also strong. 

The amount of time Jill spent on this subject told me she either thought it would grab the crowd and keep it in her clutches, that it was the most interesting thing she discovered in her research, or that she was shocked by or obsessed with it.  A lesson to me as a speaker – be aware of how you distribute your time on specific areas of your topic.  Too much on one point can either bore your attendees or make them wonder about your preoccupation.  As when writing fiction, trust your audience.  Assume they get it the first time, don’t over explain.

Attention back on my beer and bill: Tisa tried to charge me a second time for the first cocktail as if I’d be unable to figure it out after that huge beer.  I pointed out her mistake.  It was on her face, trick exposed.  She tucked tail between legs.  Her deception left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, bitterer than the local hops.  Wen surfaced and paid a 5$ fee for snorkeling—a fee not disclosed up front.

 

But it was made worth it by the blue starfish Wen had pulled out long enough to photograph.  We caught another cobbled-together bus back to port, leaving a remarkable tree sculpture, the various dog breeds, and bitter hops behind us.  

 

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Thank you, Karen!  Please join us on September 24, 2014 for "I Love Sydney! Goodbye to the Islands," her final installment in this series.

On the Way to New Caledonia – Teaching Through the Islands

We're delighted to again welcome Karen Albright Lin to Chiseled in Rock!

Karen consults and edits for published and yet-to-be published writers of fiction, nonfiction, and book proposals. She writes in a number of genres and conducts writing workshops in various venues, including on cruise ships.

If you missed her previous blogs regarding Teaching through the Islands, you might enjoy reading them before this installment, as she first shared her preparations in anticipation of teaching classes while on board her latest cruise, discussed some of the downsides to teaching on a cruise, introduced us to new tablemates and the private beach on Moorea, how she was bit in Bora Bora, and then she described her first class while teaching en route to Fiji.  Most recently she shared: Second Lecture en Route to Fiji:A Great Story to Tell, and Fiji but the Wrong Port! (I won’t mention it, but I will.)

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Karen Albright Lin:

For the fourth lecture, I had the pleasure of teaching my student groupies in the Wheelhouse Bar.  I was getting to know some of them by name.  It was only 1:15 in the afternoon and nobody ordered from the bar.  Maybe they wanted to stay sober enough to handle their pens.  Quite a few attendees took notes.  Still, I suspect most were there out of curiosity this time rather than following up on a personal writing plan.  I was teaching about screenwriting and the business.

 My Power Point for this one is particularly fun since I use dramatic movie posters.

Before I left on the cruise, I got the nod to do this from an attorney.  Always be sure you have the rights to use an image or information taken directly from someone else.  I took my attorney correspondence along with me, just in case.

There wasn’t another lecture in the Wheelhouse after mine so I stayed behind for 20 minutes answering questions, and passing out handouts and my business cards.  After I changed out of my jacket and into shorts, Wen and I enjoyed the most beautiful sushi buffet we’d ever seen. 

Wen tried again to play the Western style mahjong and found it very odd – new tiles and a different way of winning and scoring.  He still managed to win twice.  That night’s comedian was a flop; he specialized in fart jokes and playing the harmonica.  It didn’t strike a chord with the crowd.  The ocean continued to rock and roll until we made our way to Noumea, New Caledonia, which brags the second longest barrier reef in the world.

Captains stay out of all decisions about cruise entertainment.  But Captain Perra, from Italy, must have known I was part of the crew for this leg of the trip; he offered a cordial “hi” and a smile when he poked out of his hidey hole across from our crew cabin or when we bumped into him in the crew hall.

From the port we boarded shuttle busses from the gangway heading away from the dock.  New Caledonia is clean and felt a lot like Nice or Cannes.  French signs on the stores reminded me that my French grows rustier over the years. 

Someone suggested we go to duck island marine reserve for snorkeling.  So we took a $15 round trip glass bottom boat out.  It was cold and windy.  I stayed on the beach only steps from an object lesson—a rag-sculpted man with trash on a leash.  

Wen snorkeled and spotted some large grouper despite the murky water.  My mouth watered.  I love grouper!  Locals fished down the beach a few hundred yards.  We weren’t equipped.  And we doubted we’d be allowed to take fish to shore to eat.

Back on board, dinner was smart casual followed by cruise entertainers bringing the British invasion to life in the big theater. 

The nightly delivery of the Princess Patter suggested cruise guests fill out a survey about their time on the ship.  I’d been told by my cruise broker that I’m not allowed to fill one out.  I suppose they worry I’d stuff the box with votes for the writer as numero uno entertainer!  J    In fact, according to my broker, not hearing anything about my “performance” means all went well.  While on board, I rely on the activities director and attendees to let me know how things have gone.  The AV helper had one piece of advice: when there’s an entertainer following me, give him an extra 10 minutes to set up for the next person.  So my lectures were cut down to 45 minutes.  He was then a happy sailor.

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Thank you again, Karen!

Please join us on September 10th for the next installment in this series: Don't Judge an Island by its Dogs.

Fiji but the Wrong Port! (I won’t mention it, but I will.)

We're delighted to again welcome Karen Albright Lin to Chiseled in Rock!

Karen consults and edits for published and yet-to-be published writers of fiction, nonfiction, and book proposals. She writes in a number of genres and conducts writing workshops in various venues, including on cruise ships.

If you missed her previous blogs regarding Teaching through the Islands, you might enjoy reading them before this installment, as she first shared her preparations in anticipation of teaching classes while on board her latest cruise, discussed some of the downsides to teaching on a cruise, introduced us to new tablemates and the private beach on Moorea, how she was bit in Bora Bora, and then she described her first class while teaching en route to Fiji. On July 30th she shared: Second Lecture en Route to Fiji: A Great Story to Tell.

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Karen Albright Lin:

As we headed toward Fiji, I taught Have an Idea for a Nonfiction Book? to a good crowd in a new venue, the Wheelhouse Bar.

I worried, initially, that people would have to wrench their necks to view the PowerPoint, but they were able to settle in and adjust to the nook style room configuration. 

Everyone is an expert at something and the audience agreed.  Participation went up.  People enjoyed sharing their knowledge of history, hands-on expertise, even modern interpretation of Biblical allegory.  I came back to the room satisfied with yet another class that went smoothly in every way.  It was time to strip off my business attire (jacket over laced camisole) and get into my swimsuit to hit the Jacuzzi and have a cocktail with Wen.

I don’t want to seem like a complainer, but damn it, I’m going to bitch and whine about Fiji.  (Like that rhetorical device?  It’s called an APOPHASIS.  See below.)   

We arrived at King’s Wharf, Suva (the capital of Figi), only to discover that we were on the wrong side of the island, super disappointing since it meant we were nowhere near any good snorkeling.  Fiji is supposedly one of the world’s best diving and snorkeling spots.  We’ll never know.  We had to hire a car to go quite a distance from the port just to get to a yucky beach at a resort where we were trapped and had to buy anything we wanted to eat and drink from the overpriced hotel bar.  

We left our backpack near the boardwalk entrance to the beach so we could walk along the shore hand-in-hand in the rain (growl) and make the best of it.  We returned to find our money had been stolen from it!  Not wanting to sound bitter or judgmental or anything, but can’t people be civilized or at least decent?  (APOSHASIS)  Not that we should blame ourselves for someone else’s crime, but we sure needed to take a few smart pills next time we’d hit a beach!  (another APOPHASIS!) 

It was towel-blanket cold.

Luckily we had a little change in another pocket so we were able to drown our sorrows in a shared local beer.   

Heading back, we told our driver/guide what happened, and she said, “Someone will feel bad this afternoon.”  The idea of Karma is alive and well on the islands.

We had agreed to pay for the privately hired car upon arriving back at the ship and … well, we didn’t have the money.  So I stayed on shore as collateral while Wen went on board to fetch more money from our safe.  Meanwhile, I cooled under a canopy, chatting with walnut-dark local women.  One of them, possibly weighing 400 pounds, was oiling down a tourist’s feet.  Warning: here comes another APOPHASIS.   Not trying to be gross or anything, but those feet were the worst kind of athlete’s feet and the recipient was enjoying the rubdown way too much. 

Under the tent we talked about dollars.  American was the best deal for them since the Aussie dollars aren’t quite as strong.  The Fiji dollar is worth even less at .636.  

The vendors and guides were happy to take U.S. dollars from Wen once he returned with the ransom to buy me back.

Our Fiji experience was not what we’d hoped for, but as Wen says, “We can check it off our list.”  

Apophasis - The mention of something you claim you won’t mention--or pretending to deny what it really affirms. (an example from my all-time favorite TV series: "I don't want to say anything bad about another doctor, especially one who's a useless drunk."- Dr. Gregory House in "Acceptance," House, 2005) 

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Thank you, Karen!

I hope you'll join us on August 20th for the next installment: On the Way to New Caledonia!

Second Lecture en Route to Fiji: A Great Story to Tell

We're delighted to again welcome Karen Albright Lin to Chiseled in Rock!

Karen consults and edits for published and yet-to-be published writers of fiction, nonfiction, and book proposals. She writes in a number of genres and conducts writing workshops in various venues, including on cruise ships.

If you missed her five previous blogs regarding Teaching through the Islands, you might enjoy reading them before this installment, as she first shared her preparations in anticipation of teaching classes while on board her latest cruise, discussed some of the downsides to teaching on a cruise, introduced us to new tablemates and the private beach on Moorea, how she was bit in Bora Bora, and then she described her first class while teaching en route to Fiji.

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Karen Albright Lin:

Each time I return from teaching at sea I have new stories to tell.  My cruise through the islands was no exception.  From Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora and on toward Fiji I collected dubious rumors, true tales and character sketches.  These on-board experiences mirrored my second lecture, Have a Great Story to Tell?

In most genres, readers seek, above all, to follow characters.  

        

And we populate our books with complicated people like those we meet in real life.  While waiting for my husband to finish up with the mahjong group, I learned one new friend was painfully OCD.  She admitted her fitted sheets don’t look fitted after folding and that her morning ritual takes hours--most of it unpacking and packing her makeup bag just so.  To further complicate her world, she had to cope with the aftermath of being a jury member in a case that included over one hundred counts of child molestation.  She held back the tears at our lunch as she felt driven to wash her hands.

She would make a great protagonist.  I empathized with her.  She was noble, flawed, and had goals.  It would be painful yet enlightening to be in her skin for the length of a book.   

There were many faceless antagonists on board.  A cough was going around.  We met several people battling the pain of cancer and the burden of pulling along oxygen tanks.  The weather wasn’t cooperating.  Yet it was the human antagonists who made stories relatable: the woman who stole and wore another woman’s dress, the DJ who refused to play anything newer than 1970s because he wanted to clear the place of people who might stay past 11:00 pm so he could call it a night, and the man who made fun of an entertainer who wore an outfit that was super-snug over her large body rather than commenting about her lovely voice. 

Great storytelling creates danger, tension, reversals, and key plot points.   

Because the ship was rockin’and rollin’ in a big way, nauseating some, entertaining others, a rumor went around that one of the stabilizers had gone out.  One of our entertainers fell off her acrobatic prop and onto the hard stage, ending the show early.  Another entertainer’s jokes flopped.  All of it short story material, right?

The wide variety of characters on the ship broke most stereotypes about Aussies.  They weren’t all alligator wrestlers or Nicole Kidman beautiful.  Nor did they survive on Fosters Beer or live on vegemite and barbeque.  They didn’t have to dodge kangaroos in the cities.  They each had a unique voice that made me care about his or her adventures.  Singers sold their CDs outside the big theater.  One performer was a shrinking type, seemed pitiful, embarrassed about his career coming down to this, calling himself “washed up.”  Another, head-held-high, promoted himself as a singer, horse whisperer, and ukulele expert.  Hey, why not?

We writers, even as late as AFTER we’ve written our entire stories, discover our theme.  

My theme for this trip could well have been that travel is a nuisance: showering in a cubby hole, frowning over stormy weather, scrambling to find restrooms when ashore, driving on a different side of the street, and learning how many ways people try to part me from my money. 

But I prefer my theme be: travel brings out my passionate side, the part of me that loves to dance in a Jacuzzi, eat blood sausage, schmooze with cruise staff, and meet writers who are in the midst of living and writing stories I’m eager to read or see on the big screen.  

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Thank you, Karen, for sharing your travels and for teaching us what it's really like to teach on-board a cruise ship!  Join us on August 13th for the next in the series: Fiji but the Wrong Port! (I won’t mention it, but I will.)

  

Teaching En Route to Fiji – Sea Princess

We're delighted to again welcome Karen Albright Lin to Chiseled in Rock!

Karen consults and edits for published and yet-to-be published writers of fiction, nonfiction, and book proposals. She writes in a number of genres and conducts writing workshops in various venues, including on cruise ships.

If you missed her four previous blogs regarding Teaching through the Islands, you might enjoy reading them before this installment, as she first shared her preparations in anticipation of teaching classes while on board her latest cruise, discussed some of the downsides to teaching on a cruise, introduced us to new tablemates and the private beach on Moorea, and then explained how she was bit in Bora Bora!

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Karen Albright Lin:

With Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora in our wake, we sailed toward Fiji.

The May 4^th Daily Patter let passengers know it was a dress-formal evening.  We’d be at sea two days heading west northwesterly through the South Pacific.  I would teach on both days.  The tease for my first class read:

1:30 pm Enrichment Lecture: Writing Your Life – Tricks and Techniques for Writing About Your Life.  With guest speaker and author Karen Lin.  Vista Lounge.  Deck 7 Aft.

I slept in then had a nice brunch before heading to the most comfy venue on the ship, the three hundred plus-seat Vista Lounge.  The first lecture on any trip is always the most nerve wracking, not knowing how the audio visual setup will work or how many people will show up.  It turned out there was an ego-stroking large screen, an efficient AV expert, and an enthusiastic crowd.  I never got an official count, but I’d estimate somewhere around 75-100 attendees, most of them ages 50+. 

I like to start with Writing Your Life because older crowds are motivated to leave a legacy.  The subject draws them in.

Teaching on three cruises in the past year, I've found the first attendees stick around for subsequent lectures.  The goal is to see the crowd grow.  So when I signed on with Princess, my offering 2-6 expanded the appeal to broader topics about writing and publishing. 

The audience was attentive and friendly.  Aussies interacted with me more than Europeans did on the Baltic Cruise.  I was mobbed after the class with questions, requests for my business card, and interest in picking up my handout.  After I got the Reader’s Digest version of a sound-man’s experience with many known musicians and his desire to write about it, I advised him as we left the theater to clear it for the next event—something about treating age spots offered by a spa employee.

Wen and I usually travel with mostly wrinkle-free clothing.  But this night being formal night, we frowned over crumpled items.  No irons were allowed in the state rooms, but use of one in the laundry room was free.  If we’d needed to wash anything, it would have cost two Australian dollars for one load.  

A gut-splitting woman from Melbourne told me there were fights over the laundry room.   One lady’s dress disappeared from the dryer only to show up on another woman later.  The thief said, “Prove it’s yours!”  The victim said, “I made the dress.”  There was no tag; it was hand sewn and one of a kind; it was hard to deny what had happened.  Imagine stealing a dress from a dryer then wearing it when the chances of being seen by the owner had to be pretty high!  It could have been stand-up material for the comedian who would later board. 

Cruises are great places to collect grist for the writing mill.  

The next day, also a sea day, I would teach Have a Great Story to Tell?  The Inside Scoop. 

My 50 minutes would be up against a poolside singing duo, a champagne art auction, and a bean bag toss.  I hoped to have another good turnout, that many of the same smiles would shine, that there would be even more participation and interaction.  On toward Fiji.

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Thank you, Karen!

I hope you'll join us on July 30th for the next installment in Karen's series on Teaching through the Islands: Have a Great Story to Tell?  The Inside Scoop.

Private Beach and New Tablemates: Moorea

We're delighted to again welcome Karen Albright Lin to Chiseled in Rock!

Karen consults and edits for published and yet-to-be published writers of fiction, nonfiction, and book proposals. She writes in a number of genres and conducts writing workshops in various venues, including on cruise ships.

If you missed her blogs last week and the week before, you might enjoy reading them before this installment, as she first shared her preparations in anticipation of teaching classes while on board her latest cruise, and then discussed some of the downsides to teaching on a cruise.

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Karen Albright Lin:

We’d boarded the Sea Princess in Tahiti, Wen as a passenger, me as an enrichment speaker. I was scheduled to teach 6 writing courses, one for each sea day. That first day, we dealt with a few snafus getting my credential badge, but we got the OK to leave the ship the next day in Moorea. Behold the remarkable jagged mountains! Michener’s legendary Bali Ha’i, Bloody Mary of the South Pacific, certainly had bragging rights.

Told that the entire coast of the island could be driven in an hour, we rented a scooter, buzzed along pocked roads, pulling to the side for trucks whizzing by. Rain threatened but only spit. We drove past blowholes then up to a lookout spot,

stopped at an outdoor cultural center,

and we pulled over at a little roadside stand to eat a dozen of the first YELLOW passion fruit I’d ever seen.

The island, it turned out, takes over 3 ½ hours to circle. When we got to the only “public beach” it was closed off and labeled “private beach.” We later learned it closes to the public when cruise ships come in because the hotel guests don’t appreciate the crowds pouring in. Huge disappointment.

I’ve taught on three cruises in the last year and found each time that the local lifestyle changes dramatically on the days the ships come in. In the islands, I understand their lives are slow and laid back until the days they have a flood of people to whom they can market their wears (from China-made trinkets to black pearls) and their services (from foot massages to private tours).

That evening was Dress Casual, tough ribeye, so-so asparagus salad, and disappointing cherries jubilee. Food was lackluster. The best part of every meal were the 4 tablemates we would share dinners with the rest of the cruise. Entertaining would be an understatement. Both couples (like 99% of the passengers) were from Australia, both (like 99% of the passengers) were older than us but energetic, intellectually dynamic, and young at heart.

Couple number one would be failures on The Dating Game.

I’d like to think Roger and Emily’s discord was attributable to having already spent 15 days on the ship in tight quarters before Wen and I boarded. The two of them interrupted and criticized each other, lectured me on my right-handed fork work and general lack of the queen’s etiquette, and endlessly reminded us of their “affluence.” Literally using that word! It was enough to disturb digestion, if we weren’t busy laughing about it.

Mike and Denise from Cairns were quite different, her a warm and charming woman, always beautifully put together “even when she goes to the grocery store,” complete with a coordinated silk flower in her hair. Mike was a marriage counselor with remarkable bushy and expressive eyebrows, an affectionate man who happened to have an interest in a celebrity whose memoir I contracted to ghostwrite a while ago. Synchronicity only began there with this couple. Mike had done some writing and, as I teased, became one of my lecture groupies. Denise and he offered to take us to their favorite restaurant in Cairns where we would go after the cruise. At the tail end of our trip, half a month later, we happened to be eating in a little Thai hole-in-the-wall in Cairns and in walk Dennis and Mike. We’ve stayed in touch since. There’s a reason these things happen, and it might have something to do with writing and the singer we both have an interest in. The future will tell.

Aside from the company, the dinners never met my expectations, but the Aussies loved most nights’ meals. Only after I later tried Australian cuisine did I understand why they raved over the ship’s food. On a budget, ethnic foods seem to be the only way to go in Australia. I’m a cook and food writer, so I may be a tough one to please. But seriously… meat pies and fish and chips can only be eaten so many times. But that’s for another post.


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Thank you, Karen!

We hope you'll drop by Chiseled in Rock on July 9, 2014 for the next installment in this series, Bit in Bora Bora-Teaching through the Islands!