ACT Blog

My 50th Wedding Anniversary By: Joe Ball, Publisher

Personal Thoughts…An Open Diary

My 50th Wedding Anniversary

By: Joe Ball

I survived a lose-lose situation recently.

To mark my 50th wedding anniversary, my wife, Sandy and I booked a 12-day Greece-Egypt-Turkey cruise.

Changing airplanes at the Frankford Germany Airport, I tripped and fell.

I landed on my knees and hands.

I knew there was slight damage to my knees, as there was a trickle of blood. That wasn’t so bad. Ignoring the fall, we made it to the Athens flight, and to the ship, Norwegian Cruise Lines “Jade”.

Having started our day at 3 am, and traveling about 20 hours, the first night aboard ship sleep came immediately.

The first morning I awoke with pain.

The pain was in my shoulder. It branched into my lower neck and down my right arm.

It was more than pain. It was Pain…PAIN!

My shoulder felt that it was on fire. And the fire was interspersed with what seemed to be jolts of hot metal shoved into my shoulder.

It was pain on pain.

Screaming pain.

I thought I was going to faint, or go into shock trauma.

I was the first on-board patient at the ships medical center.

The doctor gave me non-aspirin pain relievers. They didn’t work..

I was back to see him the next day, hardly able to walk from the continuing, searing pain..

He told me he could relieve the pain with an anti-inflammatory shot, but it was a “reward-risk” situation.

The reward would be possible relief.

The risk would be, because I take a blood thinner daily, that I could develop a gastric ulcer.

He said, “We’re in the middle of the Mediterranean, you could get a gastric ulcer- -and bleed to death.”

I selected the pain.

I had it for 12 days.

Probably one of the worst two week periods of my life.

When the cruise was over, and I arrived home at 5 PM, I was in the Emergency Room at Bryn Mawr Hospital by 6 PM.

An x-ray and MRI showed no bone damage. The problem was acute tendonitis.

The next day I saw a Orthopedic Surgeon. He confirmed the problem, gave me a cortisone shot- -and a lot of sympathy.

It worked, sort of. It takes about 90 minutes of “grin and bare it,” before the discomfort is over.

I still have pain upon awakening.

But there’s a good side:

My wife enjoyed the trip.

Some Observations and Opinions re: the aforementioned Anniversary Cruise of Misery

Quick Thought: For our next anniversary I am planning a trip that will include good restaurants, historic sight seeing, and shopping. It will be to — Bryn Mawr.

The NCL ship, “Jade” was the largest cruise ship I have ever seen. I believe it accommodates almost 3,000 passengers, with a crew of over 1,200. The ship was completely sold out.

If you are a people person, and I am, one of the greatest pleasures aboard ship is meeting people from all over the world.

Those aboard the “Jade” were from all over the world.

Even though my time out of our cabin (the NCL called it a penthouse suite), was limited, I did make it to meals. It was there that I was able to meet and speak with a wide variety of travelers.

I recall the following…

…A Chinese couple from Canada. What was interesting was that they were married in China, he immigrated to Canada- -and did not see his wife for ten years. Ten years!

…A retired detective from Los Angeles. I asked him, “How come you guys didn’t get OJ?” His answer was that the first mistake was having the trial in the county where the case was eventually heard… (I won’t go any further.)

…A honeymoon couple from Venezuela. He owns his own IT company. To put it simply, he didn’t have any nice words about Venezuela’s president…

…The suite next to us was occupied by a Nuclear Engineer. He explained to me the difference between Plutonium and Uranium. (But don’t ask me any questions.)

…The occupants of the cabin adjoining ours was a mystery couple. He was an American, about 45; She a very pretty Asian girl, of about 22. We rarely saw them outside the cabin.

…Two Mexican ladies, who where traveling without their husbands. One of them was a marketing professor at a Mexican university. (I wonder what the husbands were doing alone (?) at home.)

…From Australia a mother-in-law whose daughter-in-law traveling with her was a nurse. She showed me arm exercises to relieve my shoulder pain, but, unfortunately, they didn’t work.

…Three single girls from Florida, of Cuban ancestry. One was a lawyer, the others involved in a school system.

…A couple from Utah. They looked the part of outdoors people.

I was able to converse with all of the above, but always there was a babble of foreign languages around me. English was in the minority. A lot of Greek, a variety of Asian languages, a lot of German, Spanish, Italian, Russian and other Eastern European,  also Arabic.

Because of my shoulder-pain condition, Sandy and I basically stayed away from the waiter type variety of restaurants available. I just couldn’t sit for a long time.

Almost all of our meals where at the self serve huge buffet. I called it the “cafeteria”.

That’s not to put down the quantity, variety, and servings of the cafeteria. Frankly, I think the menu items in the fancy restaurants came from the same kitchen as the cafeteria, but were just presented in a more arty fashion.

What was nice was the informality throughout the entire trip. Almost everyone dressed down.

The NCL called it “freestyle cruising”.

Incidentally, the word “free” can’t be taken literally. Example: For every drink, hard or soft, bottled water included, the prices were high- -and there was always a 15% service charge on top.

Frankly, I resented the additional 15%, especially on my bottled water. I thought it was “nickel and dimeing.”

I remembered that early in my ad agency career I had a client on a fee basis. He never complained about the fee, or the work. But he did complain about small costs, such as postage. I quickly learned not to “nickel and dime”.

Another small bother was learning that on the land tours, under the auspices of the ship, were stops at stores selected by NCL. And, that NCL received “promotional” value from those stores. I suspect that meant a modest cut of purchases.

Credit to NCL in that they did report that arrangement in their daily news letter.

Most impressive was actually being at the Pyramids, and the Sphinx in Egypt. Never, as a American of Jewish heritage did I ever think I would be in Alexandria and Cairo, Egypt.

Quick remembrance: A ship officer did tell Sandy and I that when in Egypt:

“Do not identify yourself as an American. If anyone asks tell them that you are Canadian.”

Also impressive was a huge mosque in Istanbul. Yes, we donned our shoes and witnessed prayers.

It was also interesting in both Egypt and Turkey to hear the broadcast calls to prayer.

Istanbul is a city large beyond description. Believe it has 10 million inhabitants. Yet the streets are absolutely clean. Impressive.

Alexandria and Cairo, also densely populated, are quite different.

Cairo which has a population of 15 million, has many structures that are “under construction”, but where construction has halted. It creates a negative feeling.

We were told they have a tax situation were there is no real estate tax on a building that is not completely finished.

So, people live and work on a first and second floor, do not finish upward construction- – and pay no taxes.

Makes sense.