Celebrity Solstice

Yesterday, we checked out of the delightful Hotel Debrett in which we had stayed during our two nights in Auckland. After killing a bit of time over coffee at a nearby shop, we walked with our luggage down to the Princes Wharf to begin the boarding process for our cruise. The Celebrity Solstice was waiting for us. She came into service in November, 2008 and can handle up to 2,850 guests. Her tonnage is 122,000, length is 1,041 feet, beam is 121 feet, and she draughts 27 feet of water. I always marvel that such little draught compared to so much structure above the water line still allows these ships to stay upright. There must be lots of ballast down below.

The boarding process always takes awhile with waits in lines, but the anticipation of boarding makes that go well, and we always manage to strike up conversations with other passengers. We finally got to our cabin on the 10th deck, which is just below the portion of the ship that you see protruding outwards near the top. We are directly above the lifeboats.

Just after boarding, we had enjoyed a nice lunch in the ship's buffet area and visited with a number of additional guests. Our luggage was delivered to us just prior to the mandatory lifeboat drill, which occurs once before leaving port.

Here is a view of our cabin, which has a nice bed, seating area, TV and desk, and a veranda, where the pictures above were taken.

These lifeboats will serve to get us to shore at ports where docking is not possible.

Dinner last night was at a table for six, and the other two couples were both from England. We had an enjoyable meal and lots of fun exchanges. People always seem to enjoy conversation on these cruises, comparing notes about other trips and sharing backgrounds. As I write this, we are just now docked at Tauranga, our first port of call. I have been up since 5:30AM watching us approach the harbor as well as the docking process. Today we are off for a shore excursion to one of the areas where the Hobbit films were made.

Auckland

Auckland greeted us with a lovely 72º day, which we spent visiting the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Auckland Art Gallery. We took the city bus from downtown Auckland out to a large city park called Auckland Domain. The weather really has been delightful today.

The museum does have an exhibit dedicated to the New Zealand men and women who served in various wars, but most of it is devoted to the natural sciences and cultural aspects of the country.

We elected to begin with an optional performance by a Maori troupe of native songs and dances and demonstrations of selected customs and practices.

Some fighting methods were shown with descriptions of selected weapons, and I took a couple videos  of the performances, including the one below.

Afterwards, we had a chance to take photographs with members of the troupe.

This is actually my second trip to New Zealand. Ten years ago or so, I traveled here with a large contingent of government, business, and university leaders to explore possible economic relationships between New Zealand and Iowa. That trip was led by then Governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack (now serving as Obama's Secretary of Agriculture in Washington).

When we arrived for that trip, we were formally greeted by Maori representatives who taught us the proper way for groups to greet each other. These greetings seem counter-intuitive, since they involve sticking out one's tongue and assuming what seem like aggressive stances. Here are many of us attempting those practices after some instruction. You can see that like the others, I had much to learn.

But back to today's visit to the museum! The exhibits of Maori artifacts were quite impressive. I was reminded of the time we spent last year in Arizona with Dick and Rina visiting the Heard Native American museum. Here are a few examples of things we saw today, including a carved house; an amazingly long, decorated, multi-person canoe; and statues showing proper methods for showing one's tongue.

Another exhibit of a different sort was part of an annual show called World of Wearable Art. So to show my sister and our friend Donna, both respected artists, that Kathie and I can immerse ourselves in cultural opportunities, here are some pieces from that exhibit.

This one was all wood!

This one was all plastic!

At some point during the opening of this event, there is a major show where all of these pieces are actually worn by models and presented. We saw some video clips in one part of the exhibit from this year's show.

This year's show included a number of extraordinary bras! I thought these two were especially nice, though not all were made of metal.

Did I mention that the weather was terrific? (We left 12" of pretty new snow behind in Iowa.) The park was filled with attractive gardens and many awesome, old trees.

A winter garden or what we would think of as an enclosed botanical garden is also in the park.

I didn't take many pictures in the Auckland Art Gallery, but for the sake of some of my grandchildren, especially Henry and Anders, I did get this picture of one hands-on exhibit of architectural structures made by children and others, all from white Lego bricks. This young fellow was fully immersed in the exhibit.

What a nice beginning to our trip. Did I mention that the weather here is delightful? 72º and gorgeous views!

The 51 Day Adventure Begins

Greetings from New Zealand! We left Iowa on February 4th at 9:30AM and about 32 hours later, we arrived in Auckland. Something like 22 hours of those 32 were spent inside of airplanes (metal tubes hurtling through space––my very favorite thing). The longest flight was about 16 hours from Dallas to Sydney, and I must tell you we are extremely happy that we paid the extra $89 per seat for the Premium Economy class tickets. This gave us much roomier seating and legroom and a little extra in-flight service. This was a Qantas flight on an Airbus 380-800, which has two levels of seating. From Sydney to Auckland, we also had a 380-800 with Emirates Airlines, a Qantas partner. I got a picture of it after we deplaned. Saw a couple movies, finished two books, and started a third en route. I don't sleep very well on planes, but all-in-all, the trip was OK.

Here is the west coast of Auckland coming into view this afternoon. I traveled to New Zealand in 2004 for business, so some of this already feels familiar, but this time I get to be more of a tourist. Kathie is here for her first visit––a lovely green country.

I loved following flight progress on these legs. The Emirates flight even had options to view cameras mounted on the plane's tail or nose or looking straight down from the belly. Mostly, I like following the altitude, distances, outside temperatures and times to destination. This isn't a great picture, but you get the idea.

Last time I was here, The Lord of the Rings had just been filmed, and all the Air New Zealand planes and the Auckland airport were decked out with scenes and characters from the movies. This time, I saw one plane decorated with The Hobbit images. Fun!

We will relax now and catch up on sleep. Tomorrow, we plan to visit a museum on the Maori culture and other aspects of the country. Then on Sunday, we board a cruise ship for a 17-day trip around New Zealand and on to southern Australia. Eventually, we will also visit central Australia and see our good Australian friends, Margaret and Murray, for three weeks in Queensland. Stay tuned!

Spooning With Tighe

I know I've posted pictures like this before, but sometimes that aggravating dog can be pretty funny.

E's Art

(Rob often calls Eleanor "E.") We learned this morning that Eleanor was recently honored to have one of her pieces of artwork chosen for display as a part of the Candace Carmichael Elementary Art Exhibit. Display of the chosen pieces occurred at the Seamans Center on the UI campus over the past week, and a special reception for the artists, family members and others was scheduled for today. Kathie and I enjoyed attending the event. Rob helped me out by hoisting Eleanor up so that I could get a photograph of her with her work.

The weather was quite nice today (42º), so being out on the adjacent patio was very comfortable. Penny had grabbed a bag of some of the popcorn on offer to attendees.

Here is a closeup shot of Eleanor's piece. I asked her if there had been a specific assignment, maybe subject matter or media, but she said no, she had just elected to make this pretty aquatic scene.

A Weekend in Minneapolis

We just returned from a delightful weekend in Minneapolis. After arriving, we joined Will, Sandy, and Anders for some great food at Burger Jones, which strives to be one of the best burger places in the Twin Cities. They definitely have some fun and tasty offerings.

On Saturday morning, Anders greeted us in his lively striped pajamas with some of his favorite stuffed critters on hand. Will made breakfast, and then Anders instructed me in the finer points of Lego helicopter construction.

For Christmas, we had gotten him a Lego-compatible set with transparent parts to make the helicopter. It included some special pieces that enclose LEDs, so when assembled and plugged to a battery pack, the copter lights up in an array of colors and with options for blinking and flashing. He was kind enough to work with it for the first time when his old grandpappy could watch.

Kelso was always on guard for the mailman and for food opportunities. I recall that he swiped part of a loaf of bread while we were out one afternoon, and he took a dog cookie off the table when he could no longer resist knowing it was there.

Later in the day, Kathie, Anders and I let Will win a game of Sorry. Then Kathie and I headed to Ron and Paula's home to attend Ron's 70th birthday party. Paula had put on quite a spread of goodies to eat and drink. She had ruled out gifts unless they were something with 70 items. So, Ron got lots of interesting things, including 70 chocolates, 70 kernels of corn, etc. Kathie and I made a DVD for him entitled "70 Photos of Ron." Here are my good brother-in-law and me--two guys who have turned 70 recently. We're still hanging in there!

There was cake and singing.

Sarah might have told a story or two on her father.

Sunday morning, all of us met at Hell's Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis for brunch. Now that's an interesting place! There was live music, and the food options were varied and all good. The decor is something else too.

In the afternoon, Anders had a cross-country skiing lesson. Will and Sandy take turns doing some of the coaching. We went along to watch.

You have to love Minneapolis and Minnesotans in the winter. They really know how to enjoy the fun that snow and ice provide. Some of them were riding big tubes down a hill. This is what things looked like when we arrived. By the time we left, there were four or more times this many people cruising down the snowy slope.

Dozens of young folks were preparing for their skiing classes.

Here is Will working with Anders. The boy is getting better and better. You may recall that he did the Barnebirkie children's event during the American Birkebeiner event in Hayward last year. He's signed up to do it again this year. I understand Maia may do it this year too.