As I have mentioned, the people in the marina are definitely an international community. Mostly Europeans, but some Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and of course Turks, and other nationalities.
I think I mentioned that at lunch on the trip to Antalya about 10 days ago, I discovered that I was the only person at the table that it never been to Singapore.
On Thursday we are having American Thanksgiving. Ably coordinated by a bunch of Americans that are trying to get many of the characteristic aspects of American Thanksgiving Incorporated in the venue of one of the little restaurants near the marina. Everyone is welcome to attend, and most of us enjoy attending a party, whatever the excuse. We will happily celebrate the invention of the paperclip, or the invention of the traffic light.
We are each bringing dishes to share. Concentrating on traditional American Thanksgiving foods. However, I bet there will be some very pleasant surprises.
And I just received an email that we are all invited to the meeting room at 1700 hrs., the next four Sundays, for traditional “Glühwein / gløgg”. To the best of my knowledge the word, “Glühwein” is pronounced something like glue-vine, and is a type of spiced wine, serve hot. It is nothing like any glue that I am familiar with.
Many people in the marina get all excited about watching Formula One races, or rugby matches, etc. The group meeting room has a large screen TV, with 5.1 sound. I find it a little bit startling to occasionally have the sound come from behind me while watching a video. And the restaurant where we will be going for American Thanksgiving also is famous for getting popular sports activities on their big-screen TV.
The group meeting room, called the Porthole, gets a lot of use. Many organized activities take place there. Often they are back to back. So, one finds us, setting up tables and chairs for a computer class, when the yoga class is done, or after the watercolor class. And on Monday nights we have been having movies on the big screen TV. There are Turkish lessons, Zumba, German night, from the writing left on the whiteboard, it looks like there was a French night.
Some of the industrious computer geeks have arranged to have the communal calendar posted online, so that we will be a little more likely to know what is going to happen. Especially when things are added to the scheduling.
This marina has a very versatile public meeting space that is one of the several nice and relatively unusual features here. There is also a large sail washing area. Imagine a medium-sized swimming pool, that is about 8 inches deep, with a smooth and easily cleaned concrete bottom. I think I’ve mentioned the laundry room with several large stainless steel sinks. The clubhouse has a communal refrigerator that is used for cooling beer etc. on days that that is going to be served. Boaters may use it to store something that won’t fit in their own refrigerator, if they have refrigeration, which is almost guaranteed now days.
And yesterday, two wonderful eager beavers, turned a large packing crate that recently arrived with a replacement engine for one of the boats here, into a really nice large workbench and a smaller workstation. They also used remaining lumber to modify a large triangular table that had been a cockpit table on a large catamaran here. But, had been made redundant, by the owners deciding the preferred a smaller one.
I think I’ve mentioned that there is a weekly quiz night, and pub night, and games night, and a group has bridge games in the afternoon, and so on.
And in case you’re wondering why I keep saying American Thanksgiving, the Canadians celebrate their Canadian Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October, and many agrarian cultures celebrate a very similar festival of the harvest.
I hope everyone has a very happy ‘whatever you are doing’ and not just those celebrating American Thanksgiving. There will also be Christmas and New Year’s celebrations here in the marina, although the population is getting smaller as many people are going away for the holidays.
In case you wonder why I often capitalize the word marina, it is not I that does it. It is my computer program. I suppose it seems to think that it could be a person’s name and better to be safe than sorry. I try to keep correcting it, but I realize that I often don’t notice.
That’s the least of my worries. Like the song says. Don’t worry. Be happy,
Dave
Alegria1976's Blog 