I Washed My Balls Today

They had gotten a little grimy, and there were some marks showing the results of being banged around day after day.

Now they look and feel fantastic!

Road Scholar

Most of us do some vacation traveling. For me, it's been a mixed bag -- some driving, some flying, some cruises. Some on my own, some guided tours. All of them have their pluses and minuses.

Road Scholar conducted a tour of New Zealand and Australia that fit my needs and wants very well. They just have their shit together. Our tour was well-planned and well-executed.

Road Scholar offers tours in just about every country, and a bunch of different tours in the U.S. I'm going to assume their feces is consolidated on all their tours. Some of the Road Scholars with us in NZ and Aus were on their Xth Road Scholar tour, where X was as high as 38.

The amount of planning, preparation, coordination, experience, eloquence, and just plain energy required of the Group Leaders, Site Coordinators -- they have to make sure guest lecturers, hotels, restaurants, sights, airlines, and the humans in their charge are all on the same page -- is extraordinary.

They never make you feel like they are cutting corners, only taking you to cheap hotel, restaurants, attractions, etc. You really get the good stuff.

My hat is off to Road Scholar.

Anybody want to see the "best of" photos we came back with? Warning: some of these photos were taken of fellow travelers, and will be of little interest to others.

Here is the link:  https://jerrysdownunderphotos.shutterfly.com/

I'm attaching a map to show where we went. The numbers inside the circles indicate how many nights we were to spend in that place. The penciled-in numbers are time zone changes.

A Sad Day

Today is Veterans Day.

I recently saw a list of restaurants that offer free meals to veterans on November 11. It reminded me of that day several years ago when I took advantage of the offer at Appleby's or Ruby Tuesday or some such place. Went by myself. Got a free meal. Didn't enjoy it. Won't do it again.

Today I will eat what I want where I want. I'm lucky to be able to do that.

There are a lot of veterans who aren't so fortunate. When I allow myself to think about them, and that is by no means every day, I am very sad.

War. What is it good for?

The last straw was Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance.

Having seen a large number of memorials to Wars X, Y, Z, P, Q, and TT, and having seen row upon row of white crosses on grassy fields, and having seen innumerable sculpted bronze and stone images of known and unknown warriors, and having seen eternal flames, and having seen incomprehensibly long lists of those lost in the fray, and having read the gory accounts of senseless carnage in the name of king or country or some god or another, and having listened to the Irish song The Green Fields of France, and having seen too many photos of fresh-faced exuberant young men flooding some recruiting office or another, and having seen too many flag-draped coffins, and having listened to the sad last note of Taps too many times, and having met too many badly-damaged vets, and having seen too many video clips of kids climbing out of rubble where a house used to be, and having seen and smelled and lived it, I am sick of the whole war thing.

LEST WE FORGET

Those words are carved in stone at the aforementioned Shrine.

Forget? I wish! 

Fat freakin' chance. New wars and the reminders of old ones just keep coming, and both make me want to puke.

What Mary Had

This country has a lot of appeal, and I could move here except for a couple of things. Well, one main thing: they don't allow outsiders to take up permanent residence unless (a) the outsider has skills they need and has no medical issues their healthcare system will be called on to address, or (2) the outsider forks over more money than I will ever have.

It is a gorgeous country. When we leave here for Australia tomorrow, it will be a sad farewell. The likelihood of passing this way again is small. 

Lamb is a plentiful food here, so I tasted it for the third time in my life. Guess what? I dislike it just as much as the first and second times. The likelihood of me trying it a fourth time equals the likelihood of another trip to New Zealand.

The Senate

Imagine, if you will, the United States Senate voting to abolish itself. Very difficult to picture that, I know.

Some 50 or so years ago the New Zealand "upper house" of Parliament, realizing that they were adding no value to the democratic process, did just that. After the vote, the members gathered to sing Auld Lang Syne and then went home. That was it. With no constitution saying there had to be two houses in Parliament, those guys were able to do what they thought was right, and the citizens have saved some money ever since. 

Problems

Yeah, everyone has 'em.

Right now, I have two. First, I am unable to attach a photo to this Post. A photo that is already on this iPad. I want to demonstrate that I really am in New Zealand, not just holed up in the Motel 6 down in Arnold. 

Second, my pseudophilosophical wit seems to be on the fritz. I called the repairman, but the first available appointment is three months from next Tuesday -- I simply can't wait that long.

I'll just relate a story our Road Scholar group was told by one of our Site Coordinator, a mate named Albert Sword, who educated us a bit on New Zealand history.

It seems that many of the European sailors who first landed here in the 1600s were badly malnourished and suffered from very serious constipation. The settlers asked the indigenous Maori people if they had any enema facilities, as they were afraid some of their men would die. The Maori chief said they never had that problem because they chewed on the fronds of a certain kind of fern. The fronds were offered, the men chewed on them and got immediate relief. The ship's captain wrote in his log, "With fronds like this, who needs enemas?"