Buzzing Around The World With Fellette & Doug

Funchal, Madeira...

Funchal, sounds Chinese doesn't it. It means fennel in Portuguese! Also Madeira means wood, not wine. End of today's lesson.

We docked around seven, another beautiful blue sky day. After a leisurely breakfast on the deck your intrepid four walked off and took the complimentary shuttle to the city across the bay, about 1 1/2 miles away.

We had no real mission today, we are in a sort of winding down mode, both Jim and Doug are recovering from colds. The girls are just about shopped out.

Spring is here, the flowers and trees are blooming and blossoming,






the vegetation is similar to Hawaii, with palms and bird of paradise and protea at the flower markets and street vendors. There were three cruise ships in today,

all about our size. The streets were busy with strollers and shoppers. Funchal is a pretty little city, neat for strolling, or sitting. We visited the covered market that is always bustling and a delight to see. Gail said the other day, "Is there a fruit and vegetable market left in the world that we haven't visited in the last three months?"

Jim and I love them particularly if there is a fish and meat market as well.

The girls tolerated us as we wandered around to see the fishermen chopping up tuna and other fish just caught hours earlier. Most of the people in the market were tourists and the men do put a bit of a macho show on for us and love to have their photos taken, especially with big knifes in their hands.

Time for a coffee or hot chocolate. This is a far cry from our adventures a couple of months ago where every moment there was something exciting and/or dangerous at each turn we took. We have been back in civilisation for some time now, no snakes, day time malarial mosquitoes, icebergs, pirate threats, or touch-feely waiters and cab drivers to make our days a spine-tingling drama. Sorry folks, I write it the way it is.

Lunch, off the menu with no surprises when paying, was on the waterfront, fish for three of us

and beef for one. A bottle of Portuguese wine to top it off and a walk to the ship. Jim and Gail went back into town to get rid of their last Euros, Fellette and I had to get ready for a special dinner tonight.

Some few weeks ago Fellette booked us for a Jewish Seder Dinner. Their celebration of Passover, it is a ritualistic dinner to remind them of the tough times their ancestors had during their Exodus from Egypt. The Rabbi had invited interested Christians to attend when he attended one of the Bible Study classes F. goes to. In a weak moment I said I would go! Need less to say I was somewhat apprehensive as we walked in on time to find the dining room fully seated with just about every Jew on the ship! We were seated at a table for four.

The Rabbi who has a very raspy voice but a good sense of humour went through the ritual.

English, Yiddish, response reading, singing, in Yiddish, etc. 14 pages of English and Yiddish in a booklet reading from back to front. [I thought the printer put the book together wrong so I started to read from the back], when I put my little black hat on it all, made sense. Needless to say I was outside my comfort level.

On our table was a plate with the following, a baked egg in the shell, a burned lamb bone, a piece of horse radish, a sprig of parsley and a small cup of chopped apples. My deodorant had completely worn off by this time. The ship was pulling out of our last port and honked its magnificent horn three times, that is one thing I wanted to get on my video as the wind up to my video. I had sacrificed that for a piece of bone and a baked egg for four, Doug was not happy.

As the Rabbi worked his way through the pages, I became more relaxed and actually began to enjoy and understand the meaning of the dinner. I also began to understand a bit, but just a bit, about the Jewish People. We also had a very enjoyable dinner table conversation with our table mates, who turned out to be from Toronto. She is of Iraqi descent, Jewish, he is of Indian descent, non Jewish. A great dinner, I can get the horn honk some other time, but that dinner experience is probably a once in a lifetime experience. We did eventually get served a lovely dinner, gefeletefichs, hot pink horseradish, chicken soup with mozzaball, salad with boiled egg , and 1/2 a roast chicken.

As I write this after the dinner, the ship is heading due west with a full tank of gas I hope, we have seven full days at sea on the same heading, with nothing in the way except other ships, good bye birds. The next birds we see will be from The New World!



This is from Fellette.....

This was our last port of call and the knitters and crotcheters had to hand in the last of the Gifts of Love, this is what women on the ship have been knitting and crocheting the last three months making goodies for underprivileged kids. Today was a special day for the children of an orphanage in Funchal. Some were brought on board, treated to hamburgers and hot-dogs by Eddy the bbq cook, any ice cream they would like in the Lido and a tour of the ship with Syncha of the Cruise staff who is from Brazil and speaks fluent Portuguese.

The culmination of their visit took place in the Queens Lounge


where about 20 tables had been loaded down with all the projects completed (lap quilts, sweaters, stuffed toys, toques, scarves, and 1 bunting bag) by our busy hands over the last 100 days. Some less, crafty people had bought soccer balls, colouring books, etc., or had donated some appropriate 'pillow gifts' we had received from the ship (things like stuffed giraffes, games, hip zips, mittens, caps and snow jackets). The priest in charge of the parish there, thanked us all and spoke for the nun who runs the orphanage. They were obviously touched by the huge load of things they would be taking away and the monies raised ($3000 US) by an art auction put on by the water-colours class, and a White Elephant sale. A good feeling. This photo


shows some of Fellette's handiwork.

posted by Doug and Fellette @ 11:49 PM