Why Do People Feel FREE to State Political views to Strangers on Vacation?

22 January 2014

1:30 pm. We are somewhere between Roatan, Honduras and Houston. This is one of two full sea days before we arrive Saturday morning back at Bayport.

Yesterday we got the tour of Roatan, which is a nice island about 30 miles off deadly Honduras. But on Roatan it was laid back and comfortable.  A “sea” of people got off the boat and disappeared for the day. We spent about 4 hours driving to the east side of the island and watched some traditional people do their music and dance. 

Probably the best photo I got was right before the event started when I caught on the women performers resting her head in her hands. She looked very bored. Lol. I took a few shots of the tourists, who also looked quite bored during the performance. We are a jaded bunch.

We did see a couple shipwrecks and the water was beautiful as well as the beach at Pirate’s Bay. They don’t have much for beaches and the island is protected by a reef that surrounds it – the water is a light blue versus the darker blue deeper waters.

We have had the pleasure of meeting different people when we “table share” during meals – most of them from cold places like Canada, Kansas, Utah, New York, etc. But Wednesday night we ended up in the dining area sharing a table with two other couples. For the first time we were seated with people from Texas. Why is it some people feel free to bring up politics during a vacation cruise?

That’s happened a couple times and it wasn’t me. It went downhill when the giant guy across the table from me starting going off about climate change being “normal” – and how he had taught science at Texas A&M.  Then he said he found out how some A&M students in animal husbandry got to eat the cows or the turkeys or whatever animal they worked on. Apparently he felt like they got a better deal than he. He did look like he had eaten a whale.

The final straw fortunately came as we finished dessert. Laura asked him how he felt about the new Pope Francis. The guy said “I think he is evil.” He went on about how he thought it was the “end times” because of a pope bringing the religions together.  What? Religions getting along are a bad thing? I couldn’t keep quiet at that point and said “I LIKE him” and by the way, I ran for Congress and went to Mosques, Synagogues, churches etc. and “heard the same sermon in each—be good, pray, don’t sin.” 

He puffed up and said “No you didn’t.”  I could have--should have--cut him off at the knees but instead we called it a night.  Like Hyatt’s book says, “If it’s a troll, ignore them; they feed on conflict.”  I had no desire to debate a dead brain. But I was still so pissed that it took a couple hours to calm down. Another phony “Christian.”  It’s funny, the same conservatives are holding back us as well as places like Saudi Arabia (no women drivers) and ISIS/Taliban (no girls’ school or music, no pigeon raising!).

Needless to say the odds of having to share time with them again is remote since on a ship of 2,000 you get a different couple every time!  Lol.

January 23, 2015

10:30. Woke up to RAIN. But it is still smooth sailing. Home tomorrow. Spent yesterday cataloging videos from the past year to upload later. Most of them were video journals during the US Senate campaign. I didn’t have time to write a journal so I taped some on the road. More on that later.

I am about to run out of Ship Internet minutes at 40 cents. Then it jumps to 75 cents a minute!

So what has been YOUR favorite place in the world to see far from home?