Page 281 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL MAGAZINE FALL 2023 DISCOVERING TURKEY

BY SHARON WHITLEY LARSEN
“W e've all survived! We survived a
few years of the pandemic!”
The theater audience on the
cruise ship Norwegian Jewel in late April ex-
citedly cheered and applauded dynamic enter-
tainer Stephanie Pope. Yes, it was definitely
good to be cruising again! In fact, this was my
husband Carl's and my sixth cruise since Oc-
tober 2021. We have taken some 30 cruises
over the past 25 years—and had joined five
other couples—longtime friends—on this
eight-night cruise from San Diego to Vancou-
ver, with port calls in Santa Barbara; Astoria,
Oregon; Seattle; and Ketchikan, Alaska.
Karen and Kenzo Takizawa from Tokyo
were on their first cruise. Karen (a friend
since 4th grade, who has lived in Japan
since 1973) and her husband Kenzo had
originally booked an Alaskan cruise in May
2020. And you know what happened with
those plans. So when Karen emailed me in
February that they would be visiting Califor-
nia in April, I told her about the Norwegian
Jewel cruise we had just booked.

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