Silja, part II

This is the third year of my blog. It's mind boggling how time just goes by, like that. That's all I'm going to say on the subject though, because lots more people have had more to say about the passage of time, in far more eloquent words and phrases than I'll ever be capable of coming up with, so there's that.

These are some more pictures of Silja. I see that the last time I wrote about my travels I'd just arrived in the ME, more or less. Different times, and I was a different person back then, wasn't I?

I'm not exaggerating when I say that this day, and this particular part of my trip, was one of the happiest I've ever been in my life. For almost as long as I can remember, I've always felt displaced somehow, and could never really settle down to one place at a time. Ironic, then, that it was here of all places - a middle-class semi-luxury cruiser - that I'd feel truly at home, that this was a place I could make my abode for a while before moving on, once more.

I found my cabin - oh, yes! and threw my sole piece of luggage onto the comforter on the bed, and then flopped myself down and closed my eyes, and drank in the sensation of being alone and my own mistress. I lay there for about three minutes, then sat up and checked if there was any wifi here. Nope. I washed my hands, scrolled through my photos a bit, then took my diary and decided to head out and explore the ship. The first place I went to - always my first port of call whenever I'm on a ship, excuse the pun - was the sun deck.

It was already getting a bit chilly when I went up, and I shivered a bit and went back and put on a sweater before coming back up. Most of the passengers, I noticed, were either middle-aged Scandinavian couples, or couples in their thirties with their young children. None of them, I noticed, were like me - a solitary Asian girl in their mid twenties. I remember getting some curious stares, but no matter. It comes with the territory, of travelling alone.

After I'd had enough of the increasingly chilly sun deck, and watched the port pull away from the ship (or vice versa), I went downstairs to look at the promenade, which I've described in some detail in an earlier entry. I did a lot of looking, imagined to myself what these luscious liquors might taste like, then went to a cubby-hole place with a wide sill, sat myself down and stretched out my legs, and did some diary-writing. Standard fare as always, but it is odd how I remember that experience so damn fondly. I sat there and wrote, and thought, and wrote some more, then I put my pen down and watched the waters ripple by as the sun sank farther into the west and the skies grew darker, until I didn't have enough light to write properly.

I went back downstairs to the promenade and wandered amongst the duty free restaurants and debated whether I should spend 15 euros on Swedish meatballs or not, but eventually decided against it. I walked to the far end, where there was a bar, and noticed to my delight that White Russians were going for 5 euros, which I ordered without any further ado. I found myself a table and sat myself down, and got out my diary once again, because it's become my go-to activity, especially on cruisers.

One of the most notable things I remember feeling that night is that I realised halfway through my White Russian that the alcohol was making me too happy, so I stopped drinking it.

I turned in fairly early that night, but not before taking a nice long piping hot shower. I kept the door open so that I could hear the music I was blasting out, and thought that if there was a heaven, then this was what it looked, and felt like: cold weather and cold air, a cabin to myself and no one else around, and a good hot shower.