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www.celtic-connection.com
JUNE 2009
CRUISING THE SEVEN SEAS
KISSIN' Annie, a spry 80-year-old New York widow, inherited her husband's fortune that he made manufacturing wire coat hangers.
The couple spent many pleasant years cruising together, eventually selling their New York home in order to spend their remaining years moving from one cruise ship to another.
After her husband's death Annie continued on as a permanent passenger on cruise ships, mostly Holland America.
She always booked two staterooms - one for sleeping and the other for her extensive wardrobe of beaded dresses and fancy tops.
Kissin' Annie loved to eat and loved to dance and was a legendary figure. She became infamous for greeting each man with a kiss on the cheek before inviting him to dance.
She danced every afternoon and every evening, usually exhausting the six dance hosts who were employed to entertain the single ladies on board.
fn the home port of Fort Lauderdale she'd disembark for a few days to restock her wardrobe before setting sail a few days later on another world cruise.
But Kissin' Annie was not that extraordinary since cruise ships do attract women of distinction, many with multifarious backgrounds.
On one recent cruise, f was transported to another world by four charming dinner companions who included the widow of an Oppenheimer atomic scientist, the sister of an astronaut, the mother of a leading U.S. heartsurgeon, and the widow of a prominent Chinese diplomat.
She related how, as a young bride, she had spilled a bowl of soup over Madame Chiang Kai-Shek's dinner dress at a formal Shanghai diplomatic affair.
Each of them had a lifetime of experience in worlds f'd never know and were indicative of the unique lives of many passengers on a cruise ship.
Cruise ships are renowned for attracting vacationing widows, divorcees and single women who enjoy the company of lady friends and making new friends while seeing the world.
A cruise ship is one of the safest places in the world, especially for a woman concerned about security and traveling alone. But cruise ships are also a mini-United Nations, a cornucopia of humanity, a melting pot of race and colour with a diversity of creeds.
The Holland America line, for example, has Dutch officers, a crew of charming fndonesians and smiling Filipinos, and passengers from around the world.
Today's cruise ships offer a variety of activities including bridge, arts and crafts, computer classes, a library, first-run movies, enrichment lectures (I've been a lecturer for the past 15 years), and prominent performers and cabaret acts who entertain every night.
And without the legal restrictions of land-based facilities, cruise ships routinely operate casinos.
TRAVEL DIARY
By DAVE ABBOTT
A highly trained medical staff is aboard and yes, a dishy doctor is usually in attendance.
Most importantly, your hotel room comes along with you, and even provides the transportation. Once you unpack you don't have to worry about your clothes again until you disembark.
And in a tradition dating back millennia, the captain sets the tone on board the vessel and the ship's company in turn take their cue from him.
Some captains avoid interacting with passengers but most realize it's part of the job. The highlight for many passengers is dinner at the captain's table.
Lastly, a cruise ship romance is always a possibility. A ship at sea with seamless horizons seems filled with hopes and dreams. A chance meeting can prove intoxicating, and certainly a young officer in tropical whites does set many a heart aflutter.
There is something magical about strolling the deck under a tropical star-studded full moon night sky. It can change the heart. Many is the one, the epitome of common sense ashore, who becomes smitten. Love and romance happen on cruise ships.
There are many things to do on a cruise. Fancy dinners and dressing up, meeting new friends, visiting exotic locations, and doing shore excursions.
It's important to have fun, so when you come back you feel you got the most out of your time and money. Remember, cruising is an absolutely delightful way to spend your vacation!
Incidentally, Kissin' Annie died last year after an evening of non-stop dancing. She was 92!
Dave Abbott is a Vancouver broadcaster and travel writer. www.irishlaughter.com
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KISSIN' ANNIE, the spry 80-year-old New York widow who danced every afternoon with the onboard dance hosts who were employed to entertain the passengers.
Some advice when booking a cruise
This is an excellent time to take a cruise. Tell the cruise agent exactly what you're looking for and be aware you can visit five different agencies and receive five different quotes for the same cruise. Look for deals in off weeks. A fa re may be $2,000 one week and $800 the following week.
Look closely at cabin credits as they are just like cash. Some agents may offer onboard credits instead of a lower price. Contact the agency to find out the amount of the credits. Be sure to do this - it can pay off in big savings for you!
If you have already booked directly with a cruise line you can still do better. Cruise lines are happy to transfer your booking to a travel agent with no cost or penalty. If you find a better deal, simply call the cruise line and ask them to transfer your booking to the cruise agent of choice. This can save you hundreds on your trip.
The best time to go on a cruise is whenever kids are in school. Holidays, spring break, and summer vacation are the most expensive times of the year. Non-vacation times are much better, often as much as 50 percent to 60 percent off of peak rates.
Best website for cruise vacations: www.vacationstogo.com Personal favourite cruise line: www.hollandamericaline.com
Gogos' Goal: A Million Pennies
N North Vancouver, a group of grandmothers count and wrap piles and piles of pennies. These women aim to collect and count a million of them. That's right, a million pennies!
You might wonder why they would set themselves a task so labour-intensive. Might it not be easier to try collecting, say, five dollar bills? Or 20 dollar bills? They would certainly be easier to count.
But, when you think about it, the idea of collecting lots and lots of pennies seems so easy. Which of us does not have stashes of pennies, perhaps cans or jars of pennies, cleared from our purses and pockets over months, years, and decades?
As for counting a million pennies, well, that seems a trivial task compared to the one facing the people these grandmothers are helping. For they are just one group of more than 220 similar groups across Canada, all working to help grandmothers in Africa struggling to raise some of the millions of children orphaned by AIDS.
Working through the Stephen Lewis Foundation, the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign has already raised more than six million to support their African counterparts who, in addition to dealing with the heartbreak of losing their children to AIDS, must spend their declining years caring for small children, many of whom are also afflicted with this deadly disease.
As many a woman will attest, nothing is more precious than her grandchildren, and having them visit is one of life's greatestjoys. But, as most will readily agree, it is also something of a relief to hand them back to their parents at the end of the visit so that they can collapse, exhausted, into their armchairs.
No such relief is available to the grandmothers of these little AIDS orphans, whose lives are distinctly lacking in joy and who are raising, on average, three children each.
The ladies counting a million pennies in North Vancouver, the Lions Gate Gogos (gogo is the Zulu word for grandmother), understand all too well the heartbreak and inescapable fate of the brave women in countries all across Africa, and are committed to their cause, working long hours, doing all they can to lighten their load just a little.
They collect scrap gold, run car trunk sales and book swaps, and use all sorts of social gatherings as opportunities to collect money for the AIDS grandmothers of Africa.
No doubt you remember Bob Geldof's magnificent Band Aid dream and the millions raised by the musicians who took part in that concert and others that followed. And you probably also remember the sorry stories that followed, stories about food being hijacked on its way to famine victims by men with guns who sold it to fill their own pockets.
CATHY ROBINSON of the Lions Gate Gogos counting pennies.
And we've heard about charities that collect large amounts of money, pay their employees nice salaries, and trickle a little of their takings through to the people on whose behalf they are allegedly collecting money. And perhaps we justify our lack of generosity to charities by reminding ourselves of these stories.
But if you're contributing to the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign, you can do so with the reassurance that at least 90 percent of all money they raise goes directly to help Africa's gallant but burdened grandmothers.
Thanks to my stepdaughter, I am now grandmother to a beautiful, healthy, happy little boy who recently celebrated his first birthday. And thanks to an understanding and cooperative employer, I can work a three-day week so that I can take care of him when his mother is at work.
We're the lucky ones: we have choices. We have daycare. We have a social structure to support us. We have a great healthcare system, paid maternal leave, and willing and healthy family members to lend a hand.
The AIDS grandmothers of Africa have nothing other than the kindness of strangers far away, strangers like Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bono, and Stephen Lewis and his foundation. Strangers like the grandmothers of Canada, getting together in small groups and working tirelessly to raise a couple of hundred dollars there, a few thousand there.
The Lions Gate Gogos are ambitious: a million pennies, after all, amounts to 010,000, a significant sum of money that can do a significant amount of good where it truly counts. Please do help them to realize their dream.
To contact the Lions Gate Gogos, e-mail them at lionsgategogos @gmail.com or write to them c/o Seymour Art Gallery, 4360 Gallant Avenue, North Vancouver, BC V7G 1L2. One last thing, the Gogos are happy to arrange pick up of your pennies if you wish to call (604) 924-9220.