Wanderung 30

[Monika] Our last sea day was also the "Big Egg Drop Day". After many experiments and much agonizing, Bob decided to go back to his original design of a gondola with "Cecil" well cushioned hanging from a thin "muscle-man" type of armless T shirt. That combination had worked well on earlier trials (That is: get up at crack of dawn, run down to ship's atrium, throw egg, parachute, and padding over the railing on Deck 7, and hope nobody is in the atrium on Deck 5 below!), and the huge plastic parachute Bob had made from the plastic wrap he had begged for in Halifax, was just too big and bulky.

All contestants assembled on the atrium floor on deck 5 and received a fresh egg to be placed into their contraption. Again a target was placed on the floor on deck 5, but this time it was a big "X" taped onto a very large plastic tarp that was obviously intended to catch the remains of "failures"! After receiving their raw egg, everyone went up to deck 7. The object was to drop the egg from there and come as close to the "X" as possible with the egg intact. Bob put the fresh raw egg, dubbed "Cecil II", into the gondola and dropped it carefully. It landed quite softly, but about one foot away from the target. Then the staff took out the egg, to check that it was indeed still intact, but then intentionally smashed it to show that someone had not substituted a boiled egg for the fresh one. Really, cheating for the glorious prize of a Princess passport holder???? [Bob: Poor "Cecil II": he had a short life, and a scary one!]/p>

Some of the contraptions were quite elaborate, whereas others where clearly last minute deals. One group had made a complete replica "chicken" out of painted cardboard, complete with the egg compartment inside, and surprisingly that one worked. One last-minute entry was just a backpack someone took off and then put the raw egg inside, wrapped in some clothes. Unfortunately, that one didn't make it and resulted in some messy clothes. But one person actually hit the target pretty exactly with the egg intact, so he was the "winner". But everyone had a lot of fun and thankfully this time ALL the participants received the much-coveted official Princess passport holders rather than just the "winner", so Bob got one too!

[Bob] Monika had started to cough regularly and was feeling less and less perky. Clearly the cold that seemed to have gone away on the trip across the ocean was now returning with a vengeance. I offered to pack Monika's suitcase as she looked really tired, and she accepted, which was a clear indication that she was indeed feeling sick. But we both enjoyed our last meal on board that evening and we went to bed quite early, hoping a good night's rest would help. Unfortunately, the cough got so bad while Monika was lying down that she finally slept sitting upright in the bed for the rest of the night, which was NOT a good night's rest, and made me worry even more.

The next morning we reached New York while it was still quite dark. It took a while to clear us for disembarkation, but that left plenty of time for picture taking.

It was around 11 a.m. by the time we finally cleared customs. We had reservations on the 1 p.m. Vamoose bus from Penn Station back to Virginia, and had booked a transfer bus from our ship to Penn Station. But that bus had to wait for everyone and we did not leave the port area until close to 12 noon. Since there were several of us who wanted to get to Penn Station before 1 PM, our bus driver agreed to drop us off first. But of course, this was New York, so there were several delays like a street closed for a parade, and a bad traffic back-up to get around. We finally did get to the corner where the Vamoose bus was picking us up, but with only 5 minutes to spare! After that the drive home was anticlimactic and we were happy to be home again.

In particular, I was glad to be back where I knew exactly how I could get medical help for Monika if she needed it. In the end, I did take her to our local Emergency Room the next night, where they diagnosed her as having the onset of pneumonia and pumped her full of antibiotics and gave her an inhaler and prescription cough medicine, all of which did help. After a few more rough nights of sleeping upright, she slowly but steadily recovered over the next few weeks until she was as good as new, maybe better! In retrospect, maybe we should not have done the walking in St. John's and in Halifax, but that is "20-20 hindsight", and it is really unclear what all contributed to her getting pneumonia. But as the Bard once said, "All's well that end's well"!