Darwin, Australia
February 19, Darwin under attack! The Japanese attacked the Australian homeland for the first time on February 19, 1942. It is the Australian version of Pearl Harbor. Propaganda was very important during WWII. Probably important in any hostile action. Americans, most of them anyway, have never heard of the February 19th attack on Darwin.
Americans were absorbed with Pearl Harbor. Darwin was thousands of miles from the US Mainland and thousands from even Pearl Harbor. Besides it was important to sell our day in infamy. More people died in Hawaii on December 7th. More bombs were dropped on Darwin. More ships were lost in Darwin Harbor.
There is so much history we are missing out on. Of course you are right, you can’t learn everything about everything that happened historically. However, in order to understand people, you have to equally understand that just because it was important to you and your country, doesn’t mean other people even know about it. If you want to understand someone’s position on something, you have to stand in their shoes.
We opted out of going to on the Regent excursion of Darwin. It was really only going to two places. The Darwin Military Museum and the Botanical Gardens. We aren’t great plant lovers. We appreciate the artistry of gardeners and their creations. So far, however, all botanical gardens basically look the same.
The excursion also only allowed about thirty minutes in the museum, and we wanted more of that and less flora and fauna. We instead took an Uber out to the museum. It was incredibly interesting and took us about two hours to see a near fraction of it. Afterwards we took an Uber back to the ship shuttle drop off point in town.
The just up the hill from the pier where the Mariner was berthed. But it is Sunday. Not only are a lot of things closed on Sunday, but it was 89 degrees with probably as much humidity. We walked through the open-air mall. Basically, it is a pedestrian street with a number of stores, some big and some small, and about 50% of the closed.
We walked a few blocks beyond the mall to a Woolworth’s store. There we a few things we wanted, like stain remover for the wash. Then we walked back to the shuttle stop. Took the shuttle to the back to the ship. We got back to the ship by 14:30 or so.
We were completely tuckered out. We took a quick snack at the pool grill and then went back to the room, showered and passed out. At 18:00 we went to the All Star Variety Show in the constellation theater. They are all talented artists and can do things we never could. Dinner upstairs in La Veranda afterwards. Then we went to the evening show Cameo Rascale. Hey, we’re at sea from the next two days, we could stay up late.
Buonanotte e Ciao, Enrico & Maria
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