Dear Bizi,

thank you so much for sharing your adventures with us... it all sounds deliriously exciting. i really enjoyed reading! i am glad you got to go with your friend Chere since Jeff is not into cruising. Hey, it may be once in a lifetime but you did it - once!

Now you have all the memories to enjoy... and pictures or postcards and the mementos you brought back.

That was surely an action-packed experience too. If there are things you want to remember in specific detail, i encourage you to write for yourself (or for us, or both) some sort of account... like journal entries or something - maybe bits at a time, but don't wait too long. you will be amazed in 5, 10 years the little things that drop out of memory but that will be re-awakened if you read about them... like, OH YEAH...that!

I was shocked at what you said about the pay/hours on the cruiselines... i grew up in the midst of the tourist industry and to my knowledge the pay on the cruiseships was excellent ... perhaps it varies depending on the line... or on the type of position... or perhaps i misunderstood at the time... or things might have changed.

Well, anyway, welcome back!

~ waves ~