2004-01-13
Rain, rain, go away...

3:28 p.m.

This morning we had two lectures from Dr. Daniel Glover who works at NASA Glenn. Kelly pointed out that we had Danny Glover as our lecturer. I didn't even notice that. The lectures were pretty interesting, talking about communications with Galileo and Cassini and using DSN. He even brought up the movie The Dish which is about the satellite dish in Parkes, Australia. I know, a movie about a satellite dish? Has to be the most boring thing ever. But it's not, actually quite funny, and I recommend it. Sam Neil stars, and it has the guy who plays Puddy (or however you spell his name), Elaine's boyfriend on Seinfeld.

Last night, Brooke and I made dinner for Nick, Krista, her parents, Chris and Nicole, Mark, and Ruey. I showed Brooke how to make manicotti. It was a little touch and go because they didn't have real ricotta in the store, and we ended up buying what came closest, after poking the package and shaking it and trying to figure out if it would work. So, instead of a combination of ricotta, mozzerella, and parmesan cheeses, it was fake ricotta (the cheese was called something like Bousson or whatever), enmenthal, and parmesan. Brooke was skeptical when I started making crepes, especially when I forgot to oil the non-teflon-coated pan and the first one stuck. And I was definitely skeptical about the final result, but they turned out very well, so I was happy.

Okay, a bit more about the cruise. So, the second day was a sea day, and then the third day was Panama. We got up somewhat early to watch the ship go through the locks on the Atlantic end. It was pretty interesting to watch them do that. The Island Princess is made to the exact specifications allowed for a ship to pass through the Canal, so there definitely is not much room to play with!

I didn't know anything about the Canal, and I learned a lot about how it works and history and everything. (Fun info page replete with animation, pictures, etc.) For example, it's not just one straight canal. There's two sets of locks, one set each on the Atlantic and Pacific sides with Gatun Lake in the middle, which is about 70 feet or so higher than the oceans. The entire system runs on gravity, with no pumps or anything. The Canal works because so much rain falls in Panama, and it's the natural rainwater that is used to raise the level in the locks. When it's lowered, the water's dumped out into the oceans. Furthermore, it's not East-West as you'd think, but rather, North-South. France started to build it around 1880, but then they lost something like 22,000 people in just under 20 years, so they sold the rights to the US and we took over and it opened in 1914.

So, there's your history lesson for the day.

The ship only went through the Atlantic side and then moored in Gatun Lake. We took a little ferry to Panama, then hopped on a bus, drove about 30 minutes west, and then we climbed on another, smaller, boat that took us through the other set of locks to the Pacific side. It was amazing! I really enjoyed it. My sisters and brother didn't go on the Ocean-to-Ocean tour (that's what our excursion was called, and it was rather expensive) but went with Jack on a rainforest bus tour. One v. amusing thing was that for lunch, we were given Subway sandiches (as in from the Subway restaurant).

We met back up with the ship around 4, back on the Atlantic side of the locks. We shopped around for a bit, and then headed back onboard.

That's all for now; more later. See? I'm being good.

So yeah, now the dollar's up to 1.27658 to the Euro. That bites.

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