Setting sail and Madeira: Cart!

The Independence at FunchalWe had a typical English send-off of fog and drizzle as we left Southampton on the Independence of the Seas. With a gross tonnage of 160000, not even the remnants of Tropical Storm Danny, with winds in excess of 60 knots -- just shy of hurricane force -- and waves over six metres, could faze it much.


Setting up for another runOur first port of call was the Portuguese island of Madeira, and the beautiful city of Funchal. It wasn't long before the oppressive heat sent us looking for a bus tour, followed by an amazing gondola ride some 560 metres up the Monte. It's from there that you can take the famous 'toboggan ride', which Stephen had been trying to sell us on all day. I'd expected something much sturdier -- and, I dunno... wheeled -- from his description of the 'carts', but Nancy said they actually looked more stable than she'd expected.


"Cart!"It was a moot point as it turned out: the line was too long for us, and so, in our infinite wisdom, we decided to walk down the Monte, along the same path as the carts. We passed a cabbie leaning against her car, takin' in the crazy tourists on that first stretch of the toboggan ride, just as the insanity of what they were doing was starting to take hold, no doubt. We hadn't made it too far down -- alternating between ducking in doorways and running for the next one -- before we realized she'd passed us, and was idling at a clear point up ahead; she'd obviously spotted that fare from a mile away, and we were all the happier for it.

As luck would have it, there was a wine festival going on in Funchal that very day, so we got the cabbie to drop us off near there, and waited for the stalls to open following the siesta. Stephen was so parched that he apparently forgot where he was, and happily paid £1.50 for a Dixie-Cup-size sample of what he thought was juice. Now you need realize just how much Stephen hates alcohol: he may have half a beer if there's nothing else to drink, and that's about it. Well, you should've heard the gasping cries of "Poison!" coming out of him when the fortified wine that was mixed with the tropical juice hit the back of his throat; you'd've sworn he was suffocating. Tea 'n' I, on the other hand, loved it, and picked up a bottle of both the dry and sweet Madeira wines (a form of port).



We ended the day on a great note: the previous evening, Tea, Nancy and I had attended a charity auction on the ship, and Tea won the opportunity to blow the ship's horn as we left Madeira the following day. We surprised Stephen with it in the morning, and he'd been looking forward to it all day. It was a fantastic experience -- much more than simply pressing a button a few times -- as we had a long conversation with the captain -- "Three cups of water will raise that ship," he said, as we talked about a previous cruise of the Panama Canal -- on the biggest bridge in the world, and got to see how they get this floating hotel out of such a small port.

Vacation: Day 5: Southampton: shopping Mecca

At Waterloo train stationOur trip to Southampton was fairly uneventful; the original train was cancelled, but we managed to find an identical car – really like a semi-private cabin, with two sets of bench seats and tables between for our many computers (tough life, eh?) – on a replacement train that was immediately called up. An hour and a half later, we were standing in the oddity that is Southampton.



Outside London, Southampton has some of the biggest shopping areas I've seen in the UK; the Ikea – which was a block from both the train station and our hotel, as luck would have it – is a four-storey temple to the gods of consumption that includes a full restaurant. And then there's the malls. Again, as luck would have it, our luggage was stuffed to the brim for the cruise, so we skipped the shopping and spent some time taking in what the Old Town had to offer. For example, I gather the wall that we walked along dates back to medieval times. But what's truly odd is that the town really seems to exist for the tourists. I kept thinking that the population couldn't possibly support it all. I could be wrong, but that was the first impression that hit me square in the face. (According to Wikipedia, while its High Street – the common name of commercial districts across the country – is one of the largest, Southampton is ranked 13th in the country for shopping. The population is around 230000 people.)

A story about the hotel: we're all hanging out in Nancy and Stephen's room immediately after checking in, and at some point I decide to head to our bathroom. So I'm going through my ritual of flicking switches to find their associated lights when I come to this thin red cord just inside the bathroom door. Now keep in mind that the light switch for the bathroom of the suite we stayed in during our house-hunting trip was just such a pull-cord, in just such a place; it wasn't red, mind you, but red isn't always bad, right? Wrong. I pull it, and barely have time to compose the thought, “Huh, doesn't seem to do a thing,” before the phone is ringing. I immediately run out and grab it, and the first thing that hits me is that there's some god-awful alarm ringing in the background as the caller shouts, “Sir! Sir! You triggered the disabled alarm!”

Honest to God, my first thought was, “Shouldn't that be impossible?” Luckily my mouth simply replied with, “How do I turn it off?” At which point I was directed to a button beside the bed. Turns out our room was equipped for disabled persons, which includes a pull-cord that hangs to the bathroom floor in case you fall out of the tub or some such. Still a poor choice of words, if you ask me.

One final item of note: we decided to go to a movie at the cinema just down the road that evening; the boys saw Inglourious Basterds and the girls saw The Proposal. Both movies were excellent; in particular, I thought Basterds was some Tarantino's best work in years. On the theatre itself, we paid a bit extra for premium seating – assigned seats, as usual – only to discover that they were exactly what we've come to expect of a theatre in Canada.

Up next: bon voyage!