Several people have asked how I hurt my foot, and I realize I didn’t make that very clear in these posts. Well, my very first day at the GO Conference in Germany, I found that walking downstairs from the third floor of a no-elevator hostel in Mosbach was a bit too much for me.
I paid attention to the steps, held onto the hand rail, and made it to within a couple of steps from the bottom when I slipped and fell. I had glanced over to see if anyone was at the desk in the lobby, and the next thing I knew I was face down on the tile floor. I had no broken bones, thankfully, but I did have a badly sprained ankle with torn ligaments – a level 3, my local doctor informed me. I could feel my right foot swelling inside my shoe and pretty soon it started really hurting. As I pondered how I’d gotten into such a ridiculous position and how I would get out of it again, I realized no-one was around.
But in just a moment several people came into the lobby. “Are you okay?!” they exclaimed. “No,” I replied, “I think I’ve sprained my ankle.” One person got on the phone and called the resident doctor, another brought me a pillow, and after the doctor arrived and examined my foot, others packed my belongings for a move to a building with an elevator.
Over the next ten days or so, I iced some, rested some, kept the foot wrapped up and elevated as much as possible while attending meetings and eating meals. Sightseeing was mostly restricted to from the front seat of a car.
Eventually I arrived at the Logos Hope, sore foot and all, with lots of help from friendly younger people to carry suitcases and lend an arm as I limped my way along.
Facing the gangplank leading to Deck 5, I wondered – isn’t there any other way to get onto that boat? (My Navy brother says not to call a ship, a boat.) Someone in front, another one in back, grip the handrails tightly, and don’t look anywhere except at the very next step, forget about the twinges from the ankle, just take one “plank” at a time… and that’s how I got back down that gangplank, too, when it was time to fly home.
Both times it was dark and I didn’t get a chance to really look at the outside of the ship. Of course, going up and coming down the steep gangplank, that may have been a good thing for me.
Anyway, look at this view and you’ll get a glimpse of how big the Logos Hope is, and how far up and down it is from the quayside!