Hello world cruise…goodbye voice..
I had hoped that when something similar to this happened last year it was a onetime thing; but the GWV requires a lot of talking at the beginning, and even my voice –with all its power and all its training – cannot handle near full use nearly 10 hours a day, for three days straight.
Went to sleep yesterday evening sounding only a tiny bit like Lauren Bacall, and now? Let’s just say I’m drinking a lot of hot tea and honey!
And as I am doing so, we are lazily chugging our way through the Panama Canal. Unfortunately I am – as all too usual – busy with internet queries and book reshelving and I all too often forget to look out the window, but when I do I am reminded just how incredible this place is. It’s still hard to believe that it’s all man-made.
It’s even harder to believe that I’ve been through here more times than I can count.
I mean, that’s just not something I thought would ever happen; when you’re a kid looking at pictures in magazines, or even an adult staring at photographs on a university slide screen, you don’t actually ever think you’ll get to all these places. Most of us think we might cross one or two off the list if we’re very lucky and very stringent with the inevitably iron-lung-caged bank book…but even then we know it’s probably a pipe dream…
Except for those of us who are so very very lucky….
Yes, I have a cold, yes I’m still adjusting to the hours and my voice is currently sounding a bit like I’ve swallowed sand but really…I’m still so one of the lucky ones.