(Editor’s note: Carla Bastos is on an 18-month world cruise aboard the Villa Vie Odyssey. This post on Alaska is one of a continuing series of updates.)
When I left the United States to become an expat in Italy nearly four years ago, I never looked back. In fact, it felt like it had been a long time coming given the crazy political climate, Covid, and so much more, retirement couldn’t come soon enough. So, when I decided last year to embark on a round-the-world cruise on Villa Vie Odyssey, I always knew I would be returning to my new home country after the adventure ended.
While I booked a total of eighteen months onboard, our delayed initial departure meant I would only be sailing for fourteen. But I’m still visiting 50 countries, and spending several days in most of them. (A full 3.5 year circumnavigation includes more than 140 countries, and many of our residents are here for life, meaning they’ll travel the world endlessly.)
Even nations I’ve seen before are brand new to me from this unique perspective. From exploring the Kasbah in Casablanca to visiting the Cristo Redentor statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro, I’ve been in awe pretty much nonstop.
And then came the United States.
Working hard not to engage
It was hard to imagine how going back would feel. While we were docked in Mexico back in May I’d left the ship for a week to attend my granddaughter’s graduation in Phoenix. But, surrounded by family, I had intentionally avoided everything else, particularly the news. Even in my cabin aboard the Odyssey, I don’t allow myself to consume too much of it in the interest of preserving my sanity.
Our North America segment would include Catalina, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Victoria, Vancouver and several stops each in Alaska and Hawaii. Even before our arrival I had come to an uncomfortable conclusion. While I once thought of life here as a microcosm of the world, I’d recently realized it was actually a microcosm of the U.S., with our majority American population.
This was the country I’d worked and planned so painstakingly to leave, and here I was back in the middle of it – and about to actually set foot on its soil.
A couple of old friends came aboard for the day in San Diego, after having lunch at the Del Coronado, something I hadn’t done in 30 years. A great day but, again, my focus was on my friends and I was careful not to engage in current events conversations. I was delighted to stumble across a Trader Joe’s near the port in Seattle, where I stocked up on their unique fare.
Figuring nothing was new at the Space Needle since my last visit years ago, I had no interest in joining the multitudes of tourists heading that way. But it was fun to see the vendors tossing giant fish at Pike Place Market again.
‘Alaska is the breath of fresh air I desperately needed’
We happened to be in Canada on 1 July, Canada Day. The parade would have been great were it not for some of my American shipmates dressed in red, white and blue and waving American flags, and insisting the Canadians would be “honored.” (Really??) I was reminded of the shame I felt at the behavior of some American tourists in Italy.
By this time I was exhausted. It was too much work to not see what was going on around me. The chatter, the tension, the angst. The eye-popping prices in supermarkets. The elephant in the room that can only be fear of what the future holds.
I didn’t want to be here. But then came Alaska.
Many of us had only visited our 49th state for a day here and a day there on a one-week vacation cruise. But the Odyssey spent a total of three weeks in eight different Alaskan ports. This was magical. While I couldn’t wait to leave the mainland, and Hawaii was old news, Alaska was the breath of fresh air I desperately needed.
After cruising the Inside Passage, we arrived in Ketchikan, Alaska’s first incorporated city. Visiting the Totem Heritage Center and learning “the rest of the story” of the state’s indigenous history and the meaning of each tribe’s totem pole, was an eye-opening discovery.
Exploring Skagway, Juneau and other cities offered amazing wildlife – bald eagles everywhere, the occasional salmon-hunting bear, otters and more. We gorged ourselves on fresh salmon and crab, and the eighteen hours of daylight were an added bonus. Not to mention dodging the 7.3 earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Alaska on 16 July.
Accentuate the positive
Alaska’s fjords and glaciers offered vistas of unimaginable beauty and, once again, a learning experience. Sailing through Prince William Sound en route to Anchorage, we passsed College Fjord. Many of the fjord’s dozens of glaciers are named after universities (Harvard, Yale, Wellesley, and more). I was reminded of views of Norway on a Scandinavian cruise years ago, but this may have been even more breathtaking.
As the Odyssey prepares for our 11-day crossing to Japan, I’m thankful for a fresh final view of the U.S., a good memory to take back to Italy in the fall. (Yes, I know it’s only a visual, and it doesn’t change the U.S.’s current chaotic condition. But still …. )
The moral of the story? Accentuate the positive, and please, take nothing for granted.
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See more from Carla here in Dispatches’s archives.
Carla Bastos is a former journalist and newspaper editor, and an American expat in Italy for several years.
