Failing At Doing Nothing
Cruising...hmpf. Not so sure about this. The infrastructure of it is flawless, but it's like being inside a television show. An Australian television show. An extremely mainstream idea of The Good Life is socially constructed around us, nothing is intellectually taxing, the staff resemble the cast of a Bollywood movie, and shipboard magazine yesterday was emblazoned with the headline "The Fine Art Of Doing Nothing." If I ever do this again, I'm bringing along as many of my fellow freaks as I possibly can.
That said, I'm enjoying spending copious amounts of time with my roommate/friend Jan, I've got a new friend named Kikka from Melbourne, and today I've enjoyed rambling around Port Vila, Vanuatu. It's...a second-and-a-half world country? With the half due to its copious cellphone company sponsorship, probably. Went to some trouble to go to the Michoutouchkine & Pilioko Foundation Art Gallery, which was a vivid dream in the forest, and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, where they spoiled me during an hour when I was the only visitor. In the marketplace, a vendor chased us down to say, "You're from New Zealand - the All Blacks won last night!" The ni-Vanuatu are very happy that the French, their former colonial occupiers, didn't win.
I'm at the Yacht Club's internet cafe. The bulletin board just outside, with its flyers about boats and small businesses for sale, is the stuff idle dreams are made of. In half an hour, I get to go see if I can get a friend's birthday present, a mask from the island of Efate, back through Customs...
That said, I'm enjoying spending copious amounts of time with my roommate/friend Jan, I've got a new friend named Kikka from Melbourne, and today I've enjoyed rambling around Port Vila, Vanuatu. It's...a second-and-a-half world country? With the half due to its copious cellphone company sponsorship, probably. Went to some trouble to go to the Michoutouchkine & Pilioko Foundation Art Gallery, which was a vivid dream in the forest, and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, where they spoiled me during an hour when I was the only visitor. In the marketplace, a vendor chased us down to say, "You're from New Zealand - the All Blacks won last night!" The ni-Vanuatu are very happy that the French, their former colonial occupiers, didn't win.
I'm at the Yacht Club's internet cafe. The bulletin board just outside, with its flyers about boats and small businesses for sale, is the stuff idle dreams are made of. In half an hour, I get to go see if I can get a friend's birthday present, a mask from the island of Efate, back through Customs...