Tuesday at Sea

During the last two nights we were able to put our clocks back an hour so we are now just 14 hours ahead of EST. Even still, we slept in since Mom is still battling this infection. We had a very light breakfast before going to the lecture on Aboriginal art and the following workshop. Today’s project was making snakes out of modeling clay. Snakes are important in their culture, as they’re believed to have carved out the rivers and mountains. We also made little “mimi” figures, which are supposed to bring positive energy. I think I personally prefer the painting project, but this was fun too. Mom even made it down to play with a little clay. It was during class that we heard about the earthquake in Christchurch. I think it gave all of us goose bumps since we were only there a few days ago. The news has been coming in all afternoon and the area that we visited was directly impacted and many of the things we saw have been severely damaged or destroyed. I look at my pictures, especially of the cathedral, and realize that it will not look like that again. We’ve all been very saddened by the news as we received such a warm welcome by the people there. This earthquake caused so much more damage than the one last September because the epicenter was so close to Cathedral Square and it was very shallow. We are so thankful it didn’t hit while we were there.

We opted to go to the dining room for lunch, only the second time this entire trip. It takes much longer since you are served course by course. I had been struggling with the internet all day long and had not been able to post from Monday. I was quickly getting frustrated. I had to give up since we wanted to go and listen to a lecture on our next two stops, Kangaroo Island and Adelaide. Let’s hope the weather warms up! It has been so cold this past week, and of course neither of us packed for this. The other exciting part of the afternoon was doing some much needed laundry. We need to get to 100 days on Silversea so we get complimentary laundry! Tonight was formal, so we went down to listen to Eric before dinner and had a drink with Bill and Martha who we met last week. They ended up joining us for dinner down in the restaurant. We really enjoyed their company. There was a show after dinner, but we opted to listen to music and chat with Andrew and Monica our trivia buddies. Tonight we fall back just ½ hour. I really can’t figure this one out!