Happy Halloween at Sea

Shows supplement

After dinner Dave read and napped, and I read, napped, and practiced Dah-Din Beats. I woke Dave up around quarter of 10 and we headed to the late show. Tonight was Dale Kristien, who was the female lead in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway for 5 years. The people next to us really enjoyed her. I did not. She had a good voice, I guess, but I found it grating, especially when she went up high with all the vibrato. We sat through it and did polite clapping. Normally I would have been out of there, but we had very good seats in the balcony for the Indonesian crew show.

The Indonesians outnumber all the other nationalities in the crew, so their show always has more people. Also this time I found their show to be way more fun, with less emphasis on precision and more on smiling. A couple of highlights were one female dancer dancing a welcome dance from Bali, which was interesting because it had nothing that a Westerner would recognize as beat or melody. I loved the salmon dancers doing the thousand hand dance, a rhythmic movement and clapping thing done kneeling that is always done with great enthusiasm. This group seemed to have less trouble staying with the beat, and also used their bodies to make a wave effect that was very cool.  Then there was a play about the evil giant, the monkey king, and the good prince and princess that was legend mixed with topical humor, completely confusing and delightful, and finally the bamboo orchestra (anklong? I hate having limited internet). It turned out we should have sat down on the main floor, because they pulled about 30 or 40 passengers up on stage with an anklong (or whatever), which you shake to make music. All of them had numbers, and Yuhda pointed at the numbers who were supposed to shake and they played a song. Then all the passengers sat down and the crew sang one more song. Yuhda had a solo. He’s the man!

31 October

Since we were up late and didn’t get any extra hours, my alarm went off this morning for the first (or maybe second) time in the whole cruise this morning. I wanted to run through Dah-din beats a couple of times before class, but also for the first time they had actual loud music going in the gym. I stuck my earbuds in and ran through it twice, then went over to my mat. Nothing terribly new or interesting to report, although I am very sore about the arms and shoulders from yesterday’s boot camp class with Adriaan. The weather has turned bad; it is supposed to remain overcast with occasional squalls for pretty much the rest of the trip. The seas have smoothed out as well, which is too bad.

I had breakfast with two older couples who didn’t know each other but somehow reminded me of each other in their speech patterns. Like this morning’s classes, they were pleasant enough but not terribly memorable. By the time I got back to the cabin Dave had left for the talk on extreme weather systems, which was a little boring. How do you make a talk like that boring?

Kieron had done his whole speech by the time I got to the night club. When I got there and plugged in my phone the sound quality was just terrible – almost nothing but bass, and very distorted at even low levels. There was a mom with two young kids playing in there, since it’s usually deserted and a good place to make noise without bothering people. The older one, Ben, was about 5 or 6 and did not like the distorted bass at all. He was somewhat mollified when I let him talk through the mike. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I went to see if anyone was in the Queen’s lounge. I was lucky to find culinary host Ashley and a sound guy there, and he was able to fix me up.

Class went well – it was slightly smaller than yesterday. I had several people new people come from the stretch and abs classes. One was an older woman who I thought sure would enjoy it, but she and her friend didn’t make it through the whole class. In the middle of Touched by God (what is it about that song?) Kieron interrupted not just once (to announce an upcoming crew-only drill) but then to actually start the drill. When they are doing these drills they have to say everything twice, so it takes forever. And as I mentioned yesterday it takes over the sound system, so even though we had nothing to do with this crew-only drill, we had to listen to all the announcements. Eventually he stopped talking and we got back to dancing. I felt a little like I was phoning it in, but it was fine. I always ask both before and after if anyone has any questions, and one of the Connies (there are 3 or 4) yelled out “Yes! When is your next cruise?” which made me feel pretty good.

I’ve pretty much given up on floor play, so I went up to the gym afterwards to stretch out, then down to the cabin to put on dry clothes – it gets pretty hot and sweaty in the disco. Dave came in a little before noon while I was writing, and we left for lunch at noon:10, only to discover that the dining room – both floors -  is closed today for the first of two mariner lunches for the 1,600 repeat cruisers on board. Ours is tomorrow. Then we thought we’d go to the Pinnacle for lunch, but they were also closed to set up for their special Le Cirque dinner tonight. So we ended up on the Lido, where we can never find a table or anything that we really want to eat. We finished up lunch and then went back to the cabin for naps – Dave got up early this morning to do his workout as well, and we were both up late because of the crew show.

When I woke up at 2 it had become partly sunny and our cabin was filled with sunshine. What a nice way to wake up! I read for a while and decided to leave the playlist as is for the next class. Dave headed off for his navigation talk, and I went up to the gym to see what Adriaan could do with day 3. It turned out what he could do was, if you’ll pardon the expression, kick my butt. I made it through the body of the set by taking slightly longer breaks, but when we got to the abs he did both the side planks with leg raises and superman rolls. At one point I looked at him and said “we’re done, right?” and he just laughed and said “that was only two. Ready?” But I did make it through almost all of it and as he’s 30 I can still say no man under 30 has defeated me. I think one thing about him is that he does the moves faster than I am used to, and that is what gets me and makes me sore. So that’s something to take home.

I was completely beat at the end, which is pretty unusual for me. I think the lack of sleep because of staying up late for the crew show has something to do with it. I went down to the cabin and got into my bathing suit, which was a bit of a trick because it’s a little tight and I was sweaty. But I did get it on and spent a very nice half hour or so relaxing and stretching in the pool. There’s just a little sloshing, but it’s still nice.  Eventually it was time to get out and register to march in the Halloween costume parade, which I have no idea what it is and should have registered Dave as well, because his Chef costume has gotten a lot of positive feedback. I dressed as a cheetah, complete with ears, tail, gloves, and my blue leopard niawear. Then it turned out that nobody else dressed up for dinner, so we felt a little out of place, but Yudha and Anthony were delighted with how we looked. Dinner was great fun, and there were so many yummy things on the menu several of us doubled up. In case you’re wondering what Jim had for dessert, it was the crisp.

After dinner there was a gap because they’d moved the show times around to accommodate the Halloween ball, so we napped and read. The show was a reprise of the concert pianist and the magician, and I’d hoped they would interact, but they just split the show in half. The pianist was enjoyable again, and the magician was more interesting and fun than the first time, so it was good.

By the time we got to the Queen’s lounge it was packed, so we hung out in the back until it was time for the costume parade. I paraded; Dave didn’t. There were many clever costumes – my favorites were a man dressed as Picasso, with his wife whose face was painted to look like a Picasso painting, and two men each holding a red letter ‘C’ who stood next to each other and then walked away from each other. I guess it would have been better if they’d shared a C and each walked off with part of it, but it was well done anyway. Kieron sang with the HALcats for a while, and then Paige sang. It was good music and I wanted to want to dance but the body is exhausted. We get another hour tonight so it’s bedtime for me.

Tonight’s towel animal: we think it’s a ghost.

Safety Demo Day

Since we got another hour last night I had a good night’s sleep and was still up at 6 without the alarm clock. I got up to the gym about 6:30 and did some looking and moving to  music (I had my earbuds) to see what changes I wanted to make to the routine. Jesse was teaching again – I haven’t been able to figure out the rotation, if there is one. He too is playing around a little with his routines, so there were some different things. I still can’t figure out why he puts upward dog in the stretch routine. We did a lot of abs in extended boat pose, including one with legs extended and out wide, which are good for me.

I had a very nice breakfast with John and Sue from outside of Cleveland. I’d forgotten until I talked to Dave after breakfast that we met them at the first technical stop on the Alhambra bus tour, and that we called him the potter because he had the same crazy hair as the potter in the Priorat. He runs a business, and she works with him,  doing energy storage components – everything from tiny capacitors up to full grid storage. We nerded out together, but also talked about museums and amusement parks and other things. They met at Los Alamos, among other interesting stories. John ordered a very strange breakfast – a ham and veggie omelet with no eggs and a scoop of rice. It was hard to get across the waiter, but when it came it seemed to be what he wanted.

Back to the cabin for a short practice with the new songs, and off to class. Yesterday the mike stopped working, so today I got a new one that I don’t like nearly as well. Also today Kieron decided to do his what’s going on talk at 10:10, instead of 9:50, so it hit right in the middle of Touched by God. I was able to recover almost perfectly afterwards, which impressed me no end. There were over 20 people in the class, and I moved around to stand in front of the DJ booth which turned out to be a very good thing, because it has a plexiglass shield around it and I could actually see the class reflected in it. We had a good time as usual, and at the end several people came up and told me how much they were enjoying the class and asking how to find it in their own towns. I had another person come and tell me that she had hurt her knee but it was feeling better after an hour of class than it had in weeks. And one lady told me how she had hurt her knee and missed a few classes (oh-oh), but it turned out she’d done one of the crazy workouts in the gym. Her friend started scolding her: “I told you not to go do that, I told you to do this workout.” It made us laugh. Also the seas are much calmer today, which in general I don’t like but makes dancing much less hazardous. I’ve now taught more Nia classes on the ship than on land, and to way more people, and I am loving it. It will be sad to not be teaching class every day when we get home.

After class I joined Dave in the Queen’s Lounge for Kieron’s cooking demo. He made an Asian inspired duck breast. He and Daniel, the chef, had a good banter going and he’s very funny on his own. Unfortunately Ashley the culinary host was there as well, and she is not so fun. Today is Kieron’s 24^th anniversary of his first day at sea. There was time after the demo to go up to the room and change, and then we had lunch with 5 other people and made cruise small talk. We had Yudha as our server again, which is always fun, but the food came a little slowly and we were a couple of minutes late for the safety equipment demo. The first hint that the demo would be fun was that there was a giant life raft upside down in the pool. The second officer, Marco Arnout, who does the 3:00 navigation talks, was also in charge of this demo, which was mostly about what happens if we have to abandon ship. He went over all the communications devices, and then had 3 cadets get into their immersion suits and life jackets. They’re supposed to be able to do it in 2 minutes, but the problem is once your hands go in the gloves of the suit you have a thumb, a forefinger, and a mitten. It’s bulky as well, so it’s very difficult to get the life jacket straps tied. One cadet pretended to tie them and then stood at attention, but no one was fooled. The other people in the demo got the three cadets all tied up, and then they got in the pool and demonstrated several swimming techniques, as well as how to flip the lifeboat upright and get in. One of the cadets didn’t have an immersion suit, so they said he had hypothermia and demonstrated the thermal protection suit, which was particularly fun when the 2^nd officer made a second cadet get in. There was a lot of muttering and some threats of retaliation. Then they beached the raft on the deck of the pool and let people go in it. We didn’t go, because it was time to go back to the room for our highly anticipated afternoon naps.

I napped, Dave read on the verandah. Then he headed off for the navigation talk and I went up to the gym for Day 2 with Adriaan. For the clean and press he was using one 8 lb weight and I had two. I told him to try to keep up. He also did a modified version of the half man makers where he only did the dumbbell raise part, but in both cases he was going much faster than I usually do so it was a challenge. We ended up with extra time for abs, and he did some side planks that were brutal – bottom leg bent, upper leg extended, then raise and lower the upper leg. I’ll be bringing that one home for sure. After cool down (Jesse brought us cold towels, which felt realllly good) I went down to the cabin to work on re-learning Dah-Din Beats for the Nia class. Dave stopped by briefly on his way between the navigation talk by 2^nd officer Marco (global meteorology) and his mile walk around the ship. He learned about the doldrums and the horse latitudes, and the roaring 40s. Eventually it was time to dress for dinner.

The beginning of dinner is always a little slow, partly because Keith and Jim have to talk about poker, and partly because the four of us who drink wine haven’t had any yet. But eventually things always get fun, and of course there is always making fun of Jim’s dessert – they have a fruit crisp every night, and he orders it every night. Tonight many of us ordered the queen of puddings, which was supposed to be a lemon custard but was too thick and not lemony enough. We had to discuss it for a very long time.

Tonight is the Indonesian crew show, and Yudha will be conducting the bamboo orchestra, and his assistant will be wearing one of the king costumes (I can’t remember the assistant’s name, or whether he is the good king or the evil king). So we are going to go to the late seating of the show and then to the crew show. I will write about it in tomorrow’s blog.

Tonight’s towel animal: giant penguin. Usually we move the towel animal from the bed to the table, but this guy needs to sit on the couch.

Rock and Roll!

We are here

I slept in until almost 7, and didn’t feel like fighting for a space in the stretch or abs classes, so I just lounged around reading until the dining room opened for breakfast at 8. My tablemates were fine, although very into nutritionism. I’ve been having the granola, strawberry and yogurt breakfast parfait (2 of them), but today I switched back to oatmeal. The rougher seas seem to have slowed the kitchen down a little – dinner last night seemed slower than usual, and breakfast and lunch today did as well.

After breakfast I ran through Nourah a couple of times and then went off to teach class. I was feeling a little low energy so things didn’t flow as well as they did yesterday, but I had my core of stalwarts and another 5 new people, so we still had a good size class. I have a bunch of people who can’t get down on the floor – or, more likely, couldn’t get up from the floor - and also part of the floor is cold tile that’s not much fun to be on, so that is limiting my floor play. The most fun thing is that we are still in 12-15 foot swells, so the ship rocks from side to side and rolls fore and aft – this is especially fun when you’re doing the second song of Feeling, Touched by God, which has some front and back and side to side moves that are challenging to do on a moving dance floor. Our focus today was stability and mobility – stability has a whole new meaning when the floor’s not stable.

Because we can’t get down on the floor I like to go up to the gym and stretch after class. The gym is very high and far forward and is a fun place to be. Then I went back to the room and read until lunchtime. We had tablemates who were hard to make conversation with, so lunch seemed to go on longer than it actually did. Lunchtime is when the Captain does the weather and seas report, and this weather is supposed to go on for another 24-36 hours, which works for me. He also explained that the ship is designed to be able to flex slightly in these kind of seas – a couple of inches total from bow to stern – and that this would cause creaking noises that were nothing to be worried about. He said he was sorry about the noise and asked us to bear with it. Once again I found myself wishing I could be an invisible observer at the front desk listening to what people choose to complain about.

After lunch I went to napkin folding, where I sat at a table with three other women, one of who had been at breakfast the morning of Punta Delgado with crazy vodka smuggling lady, whose name is Arlene. We did fairly standard folds so I was able to show off, always a good thing. Then we turned in our napkins and I went back to the cabin. The ship started to do a major fore-and-aft roll at that point, throwing spray up from the bow and generally being totally awesome. Dave left for his lecture and I did a little writing. Then I found a blanket and wrapped myself up and took a nap on our verandah, waking periodically when we hit a particularly big swell. The blanket was covered with salt spray at the end of my nap.

My alarm went off at 2:45 and I headed upstairs to the gym to do the actual BodySculpt BootCamp (I don’t know why you have to put all those caps in the middle of the words.  It probably makes a better workout) that is the basis for the BodyFit that I teach at home. Nobody has been doing it this trip, so Jesse was surprised when I showed up, and then some other poor guy heard us talking and decided he’d do it too. Because here’s what: the principle of muscle specificity says, not surprisingly, that your muscles are best at doing what they are used to doing. That’s why competitive swimmers do the bulk of their training in the water, and why baseball players practice hitting, not shooting baskets. So when I come on the ship swinging 8 lb weights, whoever ends up in class with me feels like they’re not in good shape, and I have to explain that this is what my muscles are trained to do. It was a good workout, even if Jesse insisted on adding a fifth exercise to each set. We did a couple nice abs moves, one in spinal twist position with a weight held perpendicular to the body that my BodyFit class will get to love as much as I did.

After class I changed into my bathing suit and headed to the pool. Imagine the best wave pool you’ve ever been in and then put it on a cruise ship. At first it was just me and a family with two kids, but eventually more and more adults came in. It was so funny because they’d get in with this serious “I need to do a few laps” mindset (which is pointless in this tiny pool) and then the waves would start slinging them all over the pool and they’d start smiling and laughing. It was totally excellent and it’s my plan to be in the pool until either the waves die down, they close the pool, or my chlorine allergy kicks in. Until then if you need me between 4 and 5 pm I’ll be in the midships Lido pool – although I may try the aft one tomorrow. Because while the whole ship is rolling from front to back, the ends of the ship have a larger amplitude  - think about it.

Meanwhile Dave had another lecture day – Mars in the morning, the rise of Julius Ceaser and navigational mapping (two separate lectures) in the afternoon. This is part of why we love cruising – we can do the things that appeal to us and still spend time together. In the navigational lecture he learned the difference between sailing a rhumb line and a great circle course. You have internet – look it up. We’re taking the rhumb line.

After pool time and lecture time we got cleaned up for dinner, which was at the Pinnacle Grill again. Jeff and Pam have never cruised on Holland before and wanted to try the Pinnacle, but didn’t want to miss dinner with 304, so they suggested that we all go together. Which we did, and it was a blast. For one thing they just brought us all the side dishes (except spinach, which they’ve run out of) so we got to try everything. For another thing, we’re an oddly matched group that works well, so it’s just fun to hang out. I did feel sorry for the couple of other small tables that were around the outside of our room, because we were a little loud and not really conducive to a romantic meal. We’re all pretty talkative except Keith, who will go entire meals without saying anything. Except you know he’s listening, because every so often he chips in with a one-line zinger that makes everybody lose it. It’s a great group.

Normally Pam and Jeff and Paula and Jim head to trivia at 7:30, but they didn’t today, so we missed the early seating for the show. We went back to the room and stepped out onto our verandah, which was completely soaked with spray that the ship has been throwing as it crashes through the waves. There was a beautiful moon just off the front of the ship. Dave took a short nap, and then we headed up to the show, which was comedian Rick Starr (maybe he’s related to my new cousin?). He was very funny in a low key, I’d really like to hang out with this guy kind of way. One thing I really liked is he only made one joke about the cruise, because honestly there are just a limited number of jokes you can make and we’ve heard them all. And so far nobody has made the airplane seatbelt joke, so we’re doing well.

The moon was still out when the show got over, so we popped up to the secret way to 9-forward but by then it had gone behind a cloud. The extra hour of exercise that I get sloshing around in the pool has me pretty tired out. Fortunately we get another hour tonight. Which we’ve had about enough of, thank you very much.

Tonight’s towel animal: bunny – a big one.

Making Waves

I'm too tired to upload new photos tonight, so you get this one from London.

Filipino Crew Show Supplement

I woke Dave around 10:40 and we headed to the Vista lounge, where Devlin the magician was still floating the table around. We wanted to get there early to be sure to get good seats, but it turned out that because the show was so late there was plenty of room, but still a good turnout. They did the three standard dances – the castanet dance, the candle dance, and the dance with bamboo sticks. Two guys came out and sang two songs, and one of them was our wine steward Anthony – he has a wonderful voice and the moves like Jagger. They also sang a couple of traditional songs in a larger group. My favorite, though, was 4 guys in tank tops doing a muscle beach song. I will bring it up in the Nia class since we have a muscle beach song too. I’m always delighted by the crew shows, which are amateur performances in the very best way. The audience was good, too.

28 October

I woke up at 6 and decided to get up anyway. I was at the gym by 6:35 and there were already mats down – by 6:45 all the mats were gone and people were still coming in. Jesse did a good job with both classes and seemed more engaged than usual. I spent some time thinking about replacing Soul Trippin’ with a song from a different routine just to add some variety for myself – I’ve danced nothing but Feeling for the past month. When I presented the idea of replacing a song or two to the class they were enthusiastic – but I get ahead of myself.

I headed off to breakfast and sat with Ms. Chris, who plays poker with our tablemate Jim, and two folks from Vancouver BC whose names I’ve forgotten, which is too bad. They are on their first cruise, and aren’t sure how they feel about it, because they’re the kind of people who like to rent an apartment and spend a month or so getting to know a place, which is a different but equally interesting way to travel. Funnily enough on this trip they had spent a month in Cluny, which is very close to where we were in Macon. They had relatives there, and had even played Petanque! They’d also been doing some hiking in Cinqueterre in Italy, which was recently named a UNESCO world heritage site and so has become very touristy. We had a very fun time chatting, although they asked me about Nia and I’m afraid I may have talked a bit much. But Chris came to class, so that was maybe a good thing.

I had a cup and a half of regular coffee with breakfast, which is maybe half a cup too much, so I was completely wired when it came time to teach at my new 10:00 time. There were very many people there – over 20, both repeaters and new folks. People were dancing in the hallways. And we finally reached critical mass of people who kind of know what they’re doing, so there was lots of hooting and hollering. I had the most fun yet, and people came up afterwards and said things like “great class” and “how come I didn’t know about this earlier” which made me very happy. The nightclub where we are isn’t a great venue, but it’s what we have and I’m loving it. My class was from 10-11, so by the end of it the Queen’s lounge next door was filled with people there for the culinary demo, including Dave. We did the ending where you make increasingly loud noises as you clear the space, and Dave said he could hear us. It was a total blast.

Meanwhile Dave had been attending HAL university. He started at 9 by attending a lecture on the inner planets of the solar system, which had some very interesting photos from the NASA planetary missions. He stayed put for your location guide Brett’s lecture on the Punic wars, which he said was fascinating and informative. Did you know that many historians believe that if Hannibal and his elephants had continued on to attack Rome, we might be using Carthagian numerals instead of Roman ones? After those two lectures he had to rush over to the Queen’s lounge to learn how to make two yummy dishes from the Cannaletto, the Italian restaurant on board.

Meanwhile I had gone up to the gym to do a little more stretching, and then I went back down to the cabin for a much-needed shower. As I was getting dressed Dave came back from the culinary demo. He said the demo was good, but Ashley the culinary host continues to be a disaster – when the chef asked how to tell if pasta was al dente, she said “throw it at the wall,” and he gave her a look and said, “I’d like to see what your house looks like.” The correct answer is you taste it. Also she said that to tell if an artichoke is ripe you make an indentation in the outer leaves, and if moisture comes out it’s not ripe. 1. Who ever heard of ripe artichokes? And 2. Who wants one with no moisture in its outer leaves?

So we headed off to the Pinnacle Grill for lunch. The food there is better than the food in the dining room  - for one thing, they have a way lower customer-to-staff ratio. The thing is it doesn’t blow our socks off. But after talking with people who have cruised on many different cruise lines, we’ve come to the conclusion that the problem is not with the quality of the Pinnacle – the problem is that we’re completely spoiled by the Portland restaurant scene. Similarly, there’s a cellarmaster’s dinner there tonight, with special wine pairings (and a special surcharge), but we’ve finally realized that neither the wine nor the food will be as good as we can get at home for about the same price, and we’d miss dinner with table 304 which would add insult to injury.

During lunch Captain von Danselaar came on with the daily report about position & weather and so on. They keep promising 15 foot swells and not delivering. He says we should get them tonight and if we don’t I am going to the front desk to complain. There’s a fairly nasty weather system to the north, so we are taking a two – heading trip, first mainly south, then mainly west, to avoid it. But there could be another one brewing South, so there’s a chance of high seas. It was cloudy in the morning, but started to clear up while we were eating, and by the time we got to the cabin after lunch it was very blue and very much time for sitting on the veranda until the next thing - 72 degrees, light breeze, a little more humid than I prefer but well within tolerance limits. I also want to take a moment here to mention the ventilation in our cabin, which is very quiet. On the two other ships of this class that we’ve been on, it’s been quite noisy – a constant loud hum – but it’s very quiet on this one. Dave says it may not be working quite right, but it is keeping our cabin a good temperature and I like that it’s quiet.

At 2 Dave headed off to another talk, this time about navigation, and at 3 he went to another that was given by the ship’s 2^nd and 3^rd officers which was much better and covered a very wide range of topics, such as the responsibilities of the various officers, the Exxon Valdez, and the problems caused by whales without running lights. I spent a while remembering Nourah from Canta, which I’m putting in to the Nia routine tomorrow. Next up I went to dancing with the stars part II, the tango, which was just as impenetrable as it was on our last cruise, so after about 15 minutes I gave up and got in the pool, because we are sloshing – yes, the promised seas and winds have arrived and the mid-ships pool is the place to be, as far as I’m concerned. I spent a little over an hour playing in the waves, and then went and showered so we could see the sunset.

They have closed off the main door to 9-forward, the deck in front of the gym, but on this ship (unlike the Oosterdam and Westerdam) there is a secret door on the other side of the deck, so we went out there to watch the sunset. I had to do some major hanging on to my skirt because it is windy out there. It makes us laugh because in London at the exhibit where we saw the Harrison clocks they had a great display on the wall describing what happens at various levels of the beaufort scale on land and at sea. Force 8, gale, is just described as Aaaaaaaagh! And that’s what we’re in right now – with the ship doing 18 knots and the wind blowing hard in the other direction, our apparent wind velocity is hovering around 50, with nice swells to go along. You might recall that our cabin is quite far forward and also up on deck 8, which means we get a lot more motion than you would in a lower cabin mid-ships. Wahoooo! Is what we say about that.

Wrapping up the night, Jim and Paula had dinner in the Cannaletto restaurant, so our table was a tad off balance but we had fun as usual. The show was a concert pianist who turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable to listen to, except that I kept falling asleep. Kieron made the joke that even though we’re in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, we’re never more than 7 miles away from shore – straight down. Although we’re following the mid-Atlantic ridge, so the ocean depth really isn’t that deep right here. Anyway, the pianist was very good, and he finished with a rendition of Pirates of the Caribbean with the HALcats that worked very well even in the wrong ocean. We went to the Queen’s lounge for a set with the BB King all-stars, but they’re loud and we’re tired, so we’re turning in early. No extra hours tonight.

Tonight’s towel animal – we have no idea. It’s a very compact, single towel animal, but we don’t know what it is.

The Great Crossing Begins

Our last sight of land for 6 days

As usual I woke up before my alarm and headed up to the gym. It was Adriaan this morning, which is always nice – he has a little more variety and enthusiasm. Dave came up while we were doing abs and worked out as well. After class I asked Adriaan if it would disturb his spin class if I kept working out it the corner of the class area, and he mournfully told me that probably no-one would come to class anyway, and no-one did, so I had a nice time (well, ok, not really) working through day 4, chatting on and off with Adriaan about his day off. He’d gone for a run, and lost track of time, and suddenly realized he was 50 minutes from the ship and needed to hustle to get back. So he was a little sore. He’s also a second degree black belt in some form of martial arts. I got confirmation from Christine that Nia is moving to 10, so I can do the boot camp starting tomorrow.

I went to breakfast in the dining room, but they put me at a table by myself so I figured I might as well go up to the Lido; I can get the same breakfast there but it’s quicker. After breakfast we put on our rain jackets and took the tender over to Horta. It was raining lightly when we left, and more heavily when we arrived. We had our picture taken with pirates, which was the whole point of getting off the ship, walked out of the terminal onto the black-and-white patterned street, and the went back into the terminal and back onto the tender and back to the ship, where we read in our room for a while and I had a giant nap.

We had lunch with a very nice couple from Quebec who started out by apologizing for their English, which was very, very good. I never know quite how to respond when people apologize for not having perfect English, because they always have way more of it than I have of their language, and I think it’s brave and impressive that they even try, much less do that well. They are veteran cruisers and say that Holland America (all the old pros just call it Holland) has the best food, staff, and dining room presentation of any of the cruise lines, but that the Cunard ships are nicer. The problem is once you’ve given your loyalty to one line, it’s very hard to give up the perks to go on another. Our waiter was our own Yuda, which was very comfortable, especially since I wanted to order one of the main dishes as an appetizer and another as a main.

When we’d gone to shore there were free wifi signs everywhere, so after lunch I took Arnold and headed back there to try to get the Macon photos uploaded to facebook. Unfortunately both Arnold and my phone refused to connect, so I came back to the ship. It was fun choosing the pictures for the Macon album out of the almost 350 that we have – kind of like reliving the wonderful adventure. There’s another island very near this one that is a volcano, and but it didn’t clear up enough to see the top before we headed out. At 4 we went to the culinary demo. Chef Daniel is very earnest, but I found your culinary host Ashley somewhat lacking. After the culinary demo we watched the last tender come in and get hoisted up, which was fun, and then headed back to the room until dinner. We waved goodbye to land as we pulled away from Horta – next time we see land will be in Ft Lauderdale, about 2,500 miles from here. Our heading is 247 degrees, and my guess is that heading will land us right in Ft Lauderdale – a straight line, accounting for the curve of the earth and the various ocean currents.

Dinner was fun as usual, although there was a sad part. One of our tablemates, Pam, is quite overweight. She explained the first night that her thyroid is bad and that she has some sort of metabolic disorder, and we all nodded. Tonight she started talking about it again, saying how her parents had even offered to send her to a special clinic in Switzerland because “they’re ashamed of having a fat daughter who isn’t beautiful”. She repeated it several times – “I’m not beautiful.” I don’t think she was saying it just so we’d all disagree – she seemed to really believe it, and it breaks my heart and infuriates me at the same time – because she is beautiful. She needs Nia! How dumb is it that she’s judging herself so harshly?

Anyway, after dinner we went to the show Devlin the Matador of Magic – which was a pretty average magic show. (Unlike last night’s BB King show, which everybody is still talking about how good it was) One thing is they did the changing your outfit in a small space trick, which I don’t think I’d ever seen before this cruise but which has been a staple of at least 2 and possibly 3 of the acts. Also he did a floating table trick which looked totally fake, but I still couldn’t figure out how he did it.

After that we went for a brief walk around deck 11, and then Dave went back to the room for a nap while I went to the crows nest to watch your party host Saul do name that tune. He has a real knack for making things as unexciting as possible, but I do love his Scottish accent. Tonight is the Filipino crew show at 11, but for some reason they’re showing a movie in the Queen’s lounge rather than having music, so I’m  not sure quite what we’re going to do until then. I’m going to go ahead and post the blog before the show, although we do get another hour tonight.

Tonight’s towel animal: teddy bear, another new one for us. Unfortunately the seas are a little rougher than they’ve been and his head keeps rolling off.

Plants & Fish in the Azores

Once again I was up before my alarm, but this time I headed up to the gym to stake out my spot for class. We pulled in to the port before class started, so I was able to connect and check my mail and facebook. The classes were fine and still very crowded – Jesse has his routine that he goes through pretty much without changes After class I went over and asked him if he took requests for some other favorite stretches and ab exercises, and he seemed excited to have some new suggestions.

I stopped in at the room to get changed, then headed down for breakfast by myself. I ended up at a table with a nice-seeming couple from Toronto, and a very sad woman from Florida. When I got there most of her breakfast had already arrived – 2 tomato juice, 2 pots of tea, and 2 dishes of fresh fruit. She was waiting for waffles, and meanwhile was complaining to the waiter about something when I sat down in a tone of voice that made me think “uh-oh”, and in fact she did turn out to be a downer of a table mate, except she was so weird she was entertaining. For one thing, she was very concerned that she had 15 euros that were going to go to waste, since she didn’t shop but also didn’t want to lose money by exchanging them back to dollars. I told the story of our confiscated wine (which we got back last night, by the way) and she said that she always buys two bottles of vodka (because they look like water) and puts them in water bottles to bring on board, so she can make her drinks whenever she wants. She used to bring rum in Listerine bottles (because it looks like Listerine) and two liters of coke, but the vodka is easier and more flexible. The shore excursions are boring and too expensive, and on and on. I wanted to ask her why she came on the cruises if they were so terrible, but it didn’t seem quite the right thing to ask. Then she and the other folks at the table got into a discussion of various towns in Florida. Her friend had lived in one of them before he was killed. It was all like that. I eventually excused myself so we could get going.

After breakfast we headed in to town. A few words about Ponta Delgada, on the island of San Miguel in the Azores – it’s absolutely gorgeous. Most of the buildings are no more than 3 stories high. The streets and sidewalks are cobblestone, and the sidewalks especially often have patterns made from small basalt (black) or limestone (light colored) stones. One place down by the dock had beach decorations – shells and sailboats and fish. Sad breakfast lady had also told about a botanical garden at the top of town, so we headed there and it was worth listening to her complain through breakfast to find this place. It had all sorts of local and exotic trees, including 2 (that we saw, there are supposed to be 3) gigantic trees labeled as both rubber trees and Australian fig trees, giant stands of bamboo, a banana grove, and even a cherimoya tree. It was supposed to be cloudy and cool, and did get that way later in the day, but the morning was warm and sunny, and the gardens were nearly empty for most of the time we were there. It’s a very special place, not marked, for some reason, on the HAL map.

What was marked on the HAL map were two widely separated restaurants supposedly having authentic Azorean food. We walked a bit to the furthest one, but when we got there it wasn’t open on Sunday. It was in a slightly less nice part of town, although that’s where the nautical sidewalks were. We walked back past the harbor and some uncompleted buildings, looking for the second place. By now we were hungry and having our usual lunch panic – we won’t find any place, we’ll find someplace and we won’t be able to order, we’ll find someplace and order but the food will be terrible. We’d pretty much decided to give up and go back to the ship when we saw the fish market restaurant. We went over to check it out and another couple from the ship who encouraged us to go in, saying that “everyone says it’s the best”. So we went in, and it took forever to get our order taken and another forever for our food to come. But when it came it was very good. Dave had grilled limpets, which look like the limpets from back home but are much larger and tasty, albeit very rubbery. I had a very flavourful fish soup. Dave’s main was a plate of 5 or so grilled sardines; mine was 8 or so battered, deep fried smaller fish (like large anchovies?). Both dishes were whole fish with heads and all, so we had to debone them and remove the heads and tails ourselves. After Macon this was not a big deal, and the food was delicious. We headed back to the Noordam in much better spirits. I went up to the room while Dave stayed out to take pictures of me waving from our cabin. Then he came up and cleaned the glass on our verandah for future sitting. By now it had clouded up and become quite cool – perfect weather for a nap. Which we did.

I woke up at 4:30, which was longer than I meant to sleep as I’d planned to go to the afternoon craft – pom pom luggage tags. Oh well. Dave had read for a while before he, too, succumbed to the Lure of the Nap, but he was asleep when I woke up. Eventually the Captain and Kieron came on to give their little speeches. The good news is we’re headed into some worse weather, so we’ll have rougher seas. That is also the bad news, because our last port, Horta, is a tender port (that is to say, we take the ship’s lifeboats, which are called tenders when it’s not an emergency, to shuttle back and forth because the harbor is too shallow for the massive Noordam), and we may not be able to stop there if the weather is too bad.

Anyway, we wandered around the ship watching us leave port. I stopped in at the Explorations café for a chai tea latte, which was both too hot and too sweet, but it was nice to have something warm to drink as it was downright chilly. Then it was time to shower and get ready for dinner. We were all a little out of it at the beginning of dinner, but by the end we’d hit our usual stride and had a good time. We opened the Beaujolais, and it was not as good as we remembered it, which was odd – we’re pretty good at remembering.

Jeff, Pam, Jim, and Paula rushed off to do trivia, and Dave and I rushed off to the meet-and-greet with the Captain and hotel manager. It was nice to say hello to him but I should have learned to say it in Dutch. I also got a chance to invite our cruise director, Kieron, to Nia, and met events coordinator Christine who has been making sure that we have towels, water, and someone to turn on the sound system and lights. She says we can move to 10 am which is good news, but I should probably remind her tomorrow.

Then we went down to the Vista Lounge for the show, which was the BB King All-Star Band that we’ve been rocking out to in the Queen’s Lounge. They did a fabulous show of blues standards done straight up. It takes a lot of guts to do that, but they have the voices and musicianship to pull it off. I would say it was easily the best show we’ve seen on the cruise so far, and it was nice to have them in a larger venue so they didn’t blast out our eardrums. As we were leaving we ran into Connie, a woman who has been to both my Nia classes. She was also at the Pinnacle last night. Anyway, she wanted to know if we’d have class if we ended up not being able to go in to Horta. I’m so excited that people seem to be liking the class!

After the show we went for a walk around the promenade deck, waving at the people in the late sitting dinner. Then we hung out with Paige and the HALcats in the ocean lounge. They are good, and I enjoy listening to them, but it’s not music we can dance to. Actually it was only the musicians until the last song of the set, when Paige came out to sing “Girl from Ipanema”, which was good because we hadn’t heard it yet this cruise and I do like it. Mike from the Piano Bar is in the Queen’s lunge tonight, and he’s not our favorite – which we needed to be careful not to say at lunch, because he was sitting right behind me, along with a woman with a British accent and very audible voice who was expounding on how loud American women are when we sat down, but I digress. When the HALcats took a break we headed up to our room, where we’re going to try not to fall asleep until 11 so Dave might be able to go watch a game of the World Series in the sports bar. We don’t get any extra hours tonight which we’re very glad about, because our internal clocks need a night or two to reset.

Tonight’s towel animal – The dinosaur formerly known as brontosaurus.

We don't snag any officers

After further discussion, Dave and I want to clarify that except for the guy who couldn’t sing, last night’s show can’t be blamed on the singers and dancers, who were doing the best they could with a bad situation.

We got another hour last night, and since we’d gone to bed early and slept very well we were both awake by 6:15. The internet was working again, so I posted the blog and headed up for stretch and abs. I didn’t get there until about 6:50, and there was barely any room. It’s interesting to me that neither instructor is very good, but the class keeps getting bigger and bigger. Today it was Jesse, and he did a lot of boat pose things, one of which – extending the legs & then lifting & lowering them – I couldn’t finish. He also held low plank for 2:15, and I gave up at 2:00, which was frustrating. As I was going to wipe off my mat Dave came by & said he was going to work out, so I stayed up and did day 3 of BodyFit. But then he wasn’t going to sit down breakfast, so I went by myself. I ended up at a really fun table, but I hadn’t set my watch back so I suddenly felt very rushed and had to leave early.

I got up to the spa and was waiting in the relaxation room when Kieren our cruise director came on to do the morning activity announcement, which started out with “Shortly at 10:00…” I figured out what had happened and went down to the cabin and got my kindle, then sat out on the promenade with Dave and read while he did some Sudoku. It’s hazy and cloudy today, and a little humid, but a very pleasant temperature for sitting out on the deck. Even though yesterday was a full sea day we both had many activities and felt as though we were rushing about – today was much more relaxed.

Eventually it was time for my massage, a 75 minute one with heated bamboo sticks that she rolled all over. Usually when I get a massage it’s 75% getting the knots out of my back and shoulders, but in this one she had time to massage my head and face, which I really, really liked. I especially liked the part where she did circles around my eyes in time with the music – it would have been awful if she’d been off the beat.

I took a shower up there and then came down to get Dave and we went to lunch. We sat at a table with one other couple, Maryanne and her husband, whose name we both forgot. He was wearing a Mariners t-shirt, and it turned out they are from Vancouver, WA and know Mike & Shari Totman, whose daughters Annika and Bethany babysat for Josh and Tim. People always tell about small world stories, but this was my first one. We had a very pleasant and leisurely lunch, and then went back to our cabin to do some more verandah sitting and wave listening. The only negative is that the ventilation system isn’t working in our bathroom, which we’re hoping will get fixed soon.

I headed down to the lounge at 2:40, and Elizabeth was already there. I was worried that nobody would come because the Dancing with the Stars lesson/competition was going on right next door in the Queen’s lounge, and a few people did walk through looking for it, but I was very pleased to have 5 or 6 people come back from yesterday, and 5 or 6 more people come for the first time. I was a better teacher today then yesterday, too – in addition to better cueing of moves and levels, I was much more relaxed and just having more fun. The class was louder in response, too, which made it more fun for me. After the class a woman came up to me and told me that she had a bad back, but that it felt better after class yesterday than it had for the whole cruise. Through movement we find health! There’s no Nia for the next two days, but I am looking forward to teaching again on our next sea day.

Meanwhile Dave finished the second in his 7 book series while accomplishing another of his cruise goals, drinking a beer in the Ocean bar lounge area. When I got back to the room in my post-class high Dave was putting on his shoes to go do a walk on the promenade deck, so I changed out of my red fairy pants and into more normal workout gear and we went for a mile and a half or so. The ocean is amazingly calm, barely any waves at all, with long, gentle swells that feel like the ship is going up and down some low, gentle hills. My personal preference is for rougher seas, but this is nice too. We’re supposed to get some rain squalls overnight, and the clouds were very interesting. Dave discovered an interesting thing which is that if you’re on the other side of the ship from the sun, you can’t tell from looking at the ocean whether it is behind a cloud or not. We paused at the back of the ship to look at the wake (very small; we’re only going about 14 knots) and there was a beautiful rainbow.

When we got back our laundry had arrived. It’s very nice to have them do the laundry. Two odd things were that they did an elaborate fold on the underwear, and they starched Dave’s pajamas so much that I’m afraid he might cut himself on the sleeve creases in the night. We did some more reading and writing on the verandah, and also watching squalls move across the ocean. I went in and had a wonderful bath with Jacuzzi (although it was no Roger de Lluria), and then we got dressed for dinner. It’s format night, but neither of us has 3 formal night outfits so we sort of dressed down a little. We tried going to the show – Epic Moves – but it was too stupid, so we went down to listen to the Adagio Strings in the explorers lounge. They are good- they play some contemporary stuff as well as the standards – and it was packed, with people standing in the walkway leaning on the wall that separates the lounge from the corridor. We had an 8:00 reservation in the Pinnacle Grill, the high-end dining room, so we didn’t get to see our tablemates.

The Pinnacle Grill is interesting – it has a similar menu to a Morton’s steak house or Ruth’s Chris. It’s also interesting because on the Alaska cruises it’s very difficult to get in, but on both this cruise and our long Hawai’I cruise you could pretty much walk in any time. Dinner was very good, especially the mushrooms and my lamb chops. I ordered the chocolate soufflé for dessert, and when the waiter said it would take 10-15 minutes I ordered the cheesecake to eat in the meantime. Suffice it to say we both ate too much. While we were waiting for our food two of my Nia ladies caught sight of us and had to wave enthusiastically.

The music was all messed up tonight, so we headed up to the crows nest to listen to solo guitarist John, who is nice to listen to. At 10:30 we headed down to the officer’s ball, one of the strangest things I’ve been to on a ship. It seemed like all the officers and cadets (except, one assumes, the ones running the ship) are required to attend, and Kieren the cruise director walked around encouraging passengers to “snag an officer”. Some of the dances are special mystery dancers, where one of the officers has an envelope, and if you snag that officer you get a prize. Kieren sang the first two songs, and he’s quite good, but the whole snag-an-officer thing was just strange. I snagged Dave and we happily sat in one of the back booths enjoying ourselves. One of the photographers came by and took our picture – she knows us because I always ask her where the moose is. We don’t know if this is a regular Holland America event or if it’s something they were just trying out, but if they are I’m here to tell them it’s a bad idea. We wondered if the officers spend the first half of the cruise dreading it, and the second half being glad it’s over. It’s almost all slow dancing. Several officers were wearing kilts, which was good. Did I mention it was really strange?

We get another hour tonight, but so do most of you – it’s the end of summer time.

Tonight’s towel animal: elephant, our favorite.

Forget about the punches and dance

Our first full day at sea. We get a total of 7 hours back on this cruise – 6 for the standard time difference between the east coast and Spain, and 1 for daylight savings time. We got our first one last night and enjoyed it very much. I have now figured out how to change the time on my phone, since there’s no cell service out here, an accomplishment I’m rather proud of. I didn’t sleep very well, but during the times I was awake I just lay in bed enjoying the rocking with a sort of contented humming in my head.

As usual I woke up before the alarm and headed up to the gym for stretch and abs. We learned a fun new ab exercise called dead bug. You lie on your back with your arms and legs straight up in the air. First you lower and raise your left leg, then your right arm, then your right leg, then your left arm. Then you put it all together so you are raising opposite arm/leg combinations. Adriaan told us to practice in our cabins, because it was mostly flailing.

We went to breakfast and ended up with one very good tablemate and one mediocre one. They ordered pancakes and omelettes, which meant their food didn’t come for a very long time. Dave left to go to the culinary demo on making bread in cool shapes, but I hung out with them until almost 10. Then we went to the sidewalk sale on the lido deck and I found an excellent cheetah print scarf. When we got back to the cabin I realized that I have my blue leopard niawear, which has also a brown cheetah pattern mixed in, so I am so ready for Halloween.

Dave headed off to read on the promenade deck, and I went to take my purchases down to the cabin. On my way past the spa they were giving out complimentary neck & shoulder massages, so I got one, and it felt so good I made an appointment for a full body one tomorrow. Yes, I know that’s why they do it, but it was inevitable anyway. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the boat was gently rolling, so it was time for me to pull out the bathing suit I got in Dublin and have some pool time. As usual the pool is a little too chilly, which is nice in some ways because it means no-one stays in it for long. Except me – I stayed in for about 45 minutes. Last time I saw Dr Cute, my ear doctor, he told me to make a mixture of equal parts rubbing alcohol and vinegar and put it in my ears after swimming to keep from getting ear infections, so I brought some on the ship and we’ll see if it works.

After swimming there was time for a shower while Dave filled out the paperwork that lets us put our bags outside our door on the last night of the cruise and not see them again until baggage claim in Portland, hooray! It’s only available on certain airlines and only for flights after 11:30 – we are so pleased that our flight is at 11:33. For lunch we had nice tablemates from Germany and the Cayman Islands. One of our tablemates, Liz, had bought some t-shirts on her way up to the Rock yesterday and a monkey stole them! Fortunately it decided fairly quickly that it wasn’t food & dropped the bag.

After lunch we had peaceful reading and writing time on our verandah. Dave was planning on going to the mixology class, but went outside and got completely sucked in by the sun and waves. The person in the next verandah was playing Carmina Burana which made for a very enjoyable time, until it ended and she started playing country music, which was much less enjoyable. As the ship cuts through the water the waves break against the side, so it sounds like being on the beach, only louder. We relaxed and relaxed until eventually it was time for me to head to the Northern Lights for Nia and Dave to go to the “international beer tasting”. Dave’s excursion first. I put the name in quotes because the beers were Miller Lite and Blue Moon, both made in the USA, Molsen, made in Canada, eh?, and Grolsch. So yeah, international, but really? Dave had a good table mate though, Howard, and at the end Howard politely told Ashley the culinary host that he and Dave were underwhelmed. She admitted that the tastings were sponsored by those manufacturers and that she’d get in trouble if she didn’t use those beers. There may be a better tasting later in the cruise.

My turn, my turn! I got to the nightclub at about 2:45 and at 2:50 people started to come in. I had about 15-20 people! I taught! I did great! My biggest successes were completely simplifying the choreography on the fly and remembering to keep demonstrating the levels. My big challenge for tomorrow is to chat less and cue more. I had fun and it looked like some people in the class did too. The room was completely full – it was spectacular and amazing! I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow. I am trying to quiet the negative voices in my head that are saying nobody will come back, of course, especially since we’re in the same time slot as Dancing with the Stars at Sea. After class I went up to the gym and worked through day 2 of BodyFit – continuing to build back up.

I had time for a shower, and Dave had time for a walk around the promenade deck to get his blood moving, and then it was time to eat again already. Paula was sick today, and Keith had a cough, but the rest of the table was in fine form. Anthony our wine steward came by to thank us for always ordering wine, and we told him the sad story of our confiscated Beaujolais. He said he would see what he could do, but I am feeling more hopeful about it than when the guy at the front desk said the same thing. We have a  two new wise sayings. One is from the Priorat, where our guide Ania was worried that while her children had gotten to do many unique things, they had missed out on many other things. I told her “you always miss out on something”, which I got to repeat to Pam today when she was lamenting that Alton Brown will be in Texas while they are here. My other one is that a cruise is a great place to try new foods, because it doesn’t cost anything and you can always order something else if it comes and you don’t like it. So tonight I tried the veal kidney appetizer. I do not need to do that again.

After dinner we went for another stroll around the promenade, and then to the lounge for one of the worst 3 shows we’ve ever seen on a cruise ship (Adrienne Doseau on Carnival and the ventriloquist with the dummy named Matilda on our Hawai’i cruise are the other two who share the title). It was called legends of rock and roll, and in addition to the stupid costumes, lousy choreography and poor song choices it suffered from two other unrecoverable flaws: one of the male singers was absolutely terrible, and none of the singing and dancing was even half as good as at cousin Nate’s wedding. OK, the guy who covered Elton John’s ‘Don’t let the sun’ did a good job, but then the bad singer tried ‘Saturday Night’s (all right for fighting)’, and his horrible singing was compounded by the roller derby headgear and boxing gloves everyone put on. And I didn’t recognize the song that had the four dancers wearing sheets like Halloween ghosts, I kid you not, but it was a hugely bad idea. Also we were both really tired and the show about put us to sleep. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a -3.

Dave forgot to take his camera around today, and I only took 1 picture beside the towel animal. Maybe there will be more photos of the giant empty ocean tomorrow, although probably not given the slowness of the internet.

We decided to make an early night of it, even though we get another hour added tonight. When we got back to the room the towel animal was seated dog, which we have never even seen before. Good job Yohan and Rahmadi!

Rock me, baby

Another early morning, stretch and abs with Jesse. He’s pretty much just going through the motions, but he had some good exercises – one where you’re on your side, up on one elbow, leaning back. You do a set of both leg raises, then rasie and lower just the bottom leg, then hold – it’s a good one to remember. Then off to the Lido for breakfast, down to the cabin to change, and off to the Vista Lounge to wait for our tour to be called. Dave had made a discovery that both of had a complete misconception about where Gibralter was in relationship to the rest of Spain and to the African continent, but we were excited to go anyway.

We ended up in a small bus with 22 other people and our guide Charlie, who started out very quiet but slowly built up to being informative and funny. He repeated almost everything twice, so you didn’t need to be paying strict attention. Everything was spectacular and amazing in his descriptions, and in fact he was not far off. We started by driving to the border with Spain. To get there you have to go across the runway of the Gibralter airport – they close the road to traffic and pedestrians when a flight is arriving or departing; otherwise you just go right across. On the runway itself, not over or under it. That may have been Dave’s favorite thing on the whole cruise. Then we continued to tour around town, going through a couple of very narrow tunnels. There’s a fairly big city here. It’s only 50 or so years old and is built on land built up from the sea. The rest of the rock is surrounded by a big wall.

We got stuffed into the cable car like sardines and rode it up to the top (there are actually 3 peaks, and this one is the lowest. The middle one had antennas on top and doesn’t seem to be accessible. You can walk to the top of the highest one, but we didn’t have time on this tour). We hung out up there for a while. Unfortunately it’s was cloudy, so we couldn’t see Africa, but it’s still very cool up there, both literally and figuratively. Then we headed down to St Michael’s cave, avoiding taxis and enjoying monkeys (Macaque – everyone called them Barbary apes, but according to Bettina our Hungarian tour guide, they are actually tailless monkeys).  The monkeys are quite tame and actually something of a nuisance; there is monkey poop everywhere and they’ve learned to hitch rides on the side mirrors of the taxis and steal anything that looks like food, or looks like it might contain food, from tourists. We got lots of monkey pictures.

The caves are in fact spectacular and amazing; they’re huge limestone caves with the classic stalagmite/tite thing going on. There was one that had fallen over, and they had cut and polished the end and side of it – absolutely gorgeous. When you first come in there’s sort of a natural amphitheater, which they’ve turned into a concert hall holding about 500 people. For reasons nobody understands, the lights change color and brightness in a seemingly random pattern of reds, greens, purple, blue and so on. This was just irritating on the eyes, as well as making the footing more uncertain as the color and intensity of the light changed. Weird. There are 3 levels of the cave, getting more challenging and less developed as you go lower. The lowest level is too technical, but it sounds like the middle one would have been fun. This tour didn’t go there though. We got back in the van (Bettina, our guide for the walking part of the tour, kept having to yell Group 13! Group 13!) and drove to our next stop, but there was a pause after we arrived there because an airplane was leaving the airport and we all wanted to watch it go.

Eventually it left, and we moved on to go into the famous siege and WWII tunnels. The siege tunnels were built at the end of the 18^th century to defeat the French and Spanish who had clubbed together to try to get Gibralter back from the British. They would use a chisel to make a hole in the rock, and then use dynamite to break it open. They dug out the roads that way too, and it left really cool blast marks in the limestone. The WWII tunnels were built to plan secret missions into North Africa, and there are about 35 miles of them – pretty impressive given the rock itself is only about a mile wide and 3 miles long. To go with the odd lighting in St Michael’s Cave, they had stirring martial music playing in these tunnels, and several dioramas. The music, while less hazardous, was just as annoying as the lighting. Also one of the side chambers had a door on it that looked like a cell door and a motion sensor so that a British soldier would say “Halt! Who goes there!” every time someone walked by. If you went over and peered through the barred window in the door, you saw the soldier in front, and behind him there were two cloaked figures sharing a bottle of wine at a low table. There was, oddly, no signage at all to tell you what you were looking at.

By now Dave and I were pretty tired of being on the tour, so when we were told we could head back out of the tunnels  we did. We did stop at Princess Caroline’s battery (1904), where we were able to get good photos of the ship and Dave was able to make a bad joke about wanting a battery named after him, maybe a AA. We got back on the van and that was pretty much the whole tour, except for Bettina singing the national anthem of Gibralter in the van. You could be dropped off in town or go right back to the ship. We chose the latter because we were starving, so we got back and went up to the Lido restaurant to take care of that. I found the bread pudding, which would be a problem if we were going to be eating lunch in the Lido often, but I’m hoping this will be our last time as I think the food’s not that good and I like to sit and chat and be waited on. Final word on Gibralter – no tour is necessary. Take a cable car to the top, walk up to the highest peak, go to the middle cave, and maybe check out the siege tunnels. Diane and Keith said they found very good fish and chips as well.

After lunch we went our separate ways for a while, which is one of our favorite things about cruising. Dave went up to the gym to work out, then off to the culinary demo, and then outside to watch the ship that had been refueling us move away. Meanwhile I wrote for a while (what, you think this writes itself?), and then went looking for a place to do my one last practice run for Feeling. The Loft was locked, the nightclub had music, the gym had music, so I ended up doing it in our cabin, which is just barely big enough. But then I thought, if I can talk and dance and pay attention to not running into the furniture, then just talking and dancing should be easy! So that was good. Then I also went up to the gym to do part of the BodyFit workout. The good news is that the theraband version kept me in good enough shape. Afterwards it was rushing back to the cabin and showering and stuffing all our laundry in a bag and heading off to dinner. We pulled out of port just about the time we sat down to dinner – it never cleared up enough for us to see Africa, so we’re going to have to come back. By midway through dinner you could feel the difference in the ship between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic – we have that nice slow roll that we love so much.

Our table continues to delight; tonight Pam brought up her idea about us all going to the Pinnacle (fancy dining room) together to Paula and Jim, and they were just as excited as the rest of us were last night. So she’s going to get us a reservation. Everybody at the table has done a lot of cruising, and we’re guessing everybody has been at a bad table, so we are all on our best behavior in a good way – focusing on the positives and telling funny stories. Jim had the best story tonight, because a monkey jumped on his shoulder on its way from point a to point b. They move incredibly fast, and they do bite, so everybody is a little nervous.

I don't know why this is sideways

After dinner we picked up a couple necessary items in the shop, and then went to the show, which was an Olympic gymnast – Lance Ringnald – doing a routine with juggling, piano playing, and the silks that you hang from. It was surprisingly enjoyable. Afterwards we wanted to go for a walk on the promenade, so we went back to the room to get some warmer gear (it’s over 70, but there’s a stiff breeze) and the daily program was on the bed and guess what? My Nia class is in the program!!! It made me hop and squeak. A lot. Periodically I had to hop and squeak while we were out walking on the promenade. In heels.

When we’d done the full circuit we went in to pick up the last two songs of the BB King band, and they were both dance-inducing, so I took my hopping and squeaking out onto the dance floor. Afterwards two people came up to compliment my dancing, and one even said I had a great sense of rhythm. Just imagine, three years ago I couldn’t find the 1 in a barrel, and now I have a great sense of rhythm. We stayed through the second set, and then it was time to go back to the room – the BB King band is awesome, and as they get over their jet lag and more comfortable with each other they get more awesome, but they are just too loud for our poor ears.

I’m on the program!

Tonight’s towel animal: lobster

More Moors!

 Once again I woke up before my alarm and headed up to the gym, but only for stretch class, once again with Adriaan, because we needed to be in the Vista lounge at 8:20 for our tour. So we headed down there after a quick breakfast in the Lido, and then off to our tour. Spain is in the same time zone as the rest of western Europe, but it’s much further west, so the sun rises very late – it was just coming over the horizon as we headed out to our bus at 8:30.

We don’t normally do the big bus tours, but I have wanted to visit the Alhambra since high school, and this may have been my only chance. Reading the reviews for this tour the biggest complaint was that the tour guides weren’t good, but we got very lucky with Sergio, who was born in Barcelona (so sometimes he called it the Thouth of Thpain) but has lived here a very long time. He was funny and knowledgeable and easy to understand, except when he forgot what day it was and started to speak German (Germans were yesterday). The Alhambra is an hour and 45 minutes from where we docked by bus, with a 15 minute “technical stop” about halfway to use the aseos. We spent about two hours touring the grounds, towers, and palaces. The Alhambra was the last Moorish outpost in Spain, and the architecture is primarily Moorish, except where it isn’t. So there are amazing carvings and tiles and decorations covering practically every inch of the buildings – many of the walkways even are made of different color stones laid out in patterns. Another thing about it is that there are fountains and running water everywhere, so you always have the sound of water in your ears. As Dave pointed out, in the desert (and make no mistake, this part of Spain is a desert), watery is a true sign of wealth. We went “slowly but surely,” as Sergio told us, because “accidents are not allowed.”

The Alhambra is a very crowded place – apparently they average about 7,000 visitors a day. Our tickets would get us in the main entrance between 11:30 and 11:59, but after that they’d be useless. So Sergio had to do a lot of shepherding the 30 people in our group, but he always had something to talk about while we re-bunched, so it wasn’t a problem. We also had what he called “whisperers” – he had a microphone and a broadcasting unit, and we had earphones and receivers, so as long as you didn’t get too far from him you had his voice right in your ear (or ears, in my case, since I had brought my own headset). It’s a very cool thing and I think that every tour should have them. At the end when we took them off I felt very lost!

Next stop was a restaurant with a reasonably good lunch buffet and people wearing authentic garb playing all your Spanish favorites. I can’t tell you what era or country their vaguely middle-ages looking clothes were from, but I can tell you that it looked very odd when we saw one of them drive off on his motorbike, helmet, velvet, hose & all. We had about half an hour after lunch to visit the couple of tourist shops. We did not buy the very nice dope smoking kit, but I did get a t-shirt. Then we found a shady place and sat and read until the bus came. The Alhambra is at about 2,800 feet above sea level and so it was much cooler than where we’ve been, but even up there it was hot in the sun.

I mostly slept on the ride home; Dave read on his kindle. We got back to the ship a little after 5, so I had time for a quick shower before dinner. Everybody was there tonight, even though the ship doesn’t leave port until 10:30 so the dining room was partly empty. We had our usual good time. Tonight’s surprising revelation is that before he married Pam, Jeff spent a year supporting himself playing blackjack. Paula tried the oxtail but found it too fatty. Dinner overall was just good – the least interesting meal we’ve had on the ship so far. I’m hoping it was because they figured many people would be eating ashore.

There’s no show tonight, so after dinner we took a walk around the promenade deck (it’s a beautiful night!) and went down to the ocean bar to listen to Paige and the HalCats, which on other cruises has been one of our favorite things to do before dinner. But we have been rushing about like crazy people and haven’t had time. Then it was time to go listen to the BB King band, who were swinging even better, but neither of us could keep our eyes open. We decided to make it an early night and go hang out on our balcony. We are excited that tomorrow is our last shore day before two sea days and the Azores – this cruising is exhausting!

Tonight’s towel animal: squid

We get high, but we don't like it

I forgot to say that another reason yesterday was so much better than the day before was that the wine steward started calling Dave “Sir David”, which is his official title.

I woke up before my alarm and headed up to the gym. Today was the other instructor, who has a little more personality in the stretch class but not enough for me to remember his name. Instead of abs they did something called total body conditioning, which was kind of like bodyfit at double speed – you start with 20 squats, then 20 squats plus 10 lunges with dumbbell curls on each side, the those two plus squats with overhead presses 10 each arm, and keep adding on – 20 mason twists, 10 pushups, 20 prone arm & leg raises. All at very fast speeds; we were done with the whole thing plus short warmup and cooldown in about 20 minutes. I kept up fine, and the woman behind me did too. As we went to put away our dumbbells she commented that she’d enjoyed the workout very much and it was her 80^th birthday. Guess I have to keep going.

I came back to the room and Dave was still asleep, so I went down to the dining room for breakfast. I see I never mentioned that our room is on the 8^th floor, so unless you’re going to the crows nest, the gym, the spa, or the lido deck it’s always down. Which is nice until you have to come back up, since we try to take the stairs unless I’m wearing heels. I sat with two very nice couples at breakfast. When I got back to the room Dave was back from getting breakfast at the Lido, so we prepared to head in to Cartagena.

The ship is docked pretty far from town but there’s a free shuttle into the touristy part, which has lots of museums. We started at the Roman Theatre, an excavated amphitheater from Roman times.  It’s big. Next stop was supposed to be the Augusteum, but when we got to the place we thought it should be there was nothing there. Across the street, though, was the Casa Fortunata, which was very well done – basically it’s an excavated Roman house, but the descriptions were interesting and just the right length so that you felt that you learned something without getting bored.

Then we went up to the castle, which you get to by going up a very tall elevator and then walking across an (enclosed but) very narrow bridge 10,000 feet in the air. Well, it probably wasn’t that high, but it freaked both of us out. The signage in the castle wasn’t very good, both in that you couldn’t figure out which way to go and that it didn’t tell you much about the castle. Also somewhere below the castle was supposed to be a civil war museum, which we paid for but never found.

By now it was very hot in the sun and we were hungry, so we went back to a street I’d seen earlier and had lunch. The restaurant turned out to be not very good, although my Andalusian gazpacho was very good, if not traditional for this region. We also both had possibly the weirdest food we’ve had on the trip  - huevos rellenos, or stuffed eggs. If you google it you will get recipes for deviled eggs, but what we got were hard boiled eggs (and I do mean hard boiled), cut in half, with a mound of tuna salad (complete with pickles) on top. Also the desserts deserve a mention – Dave had flan that was clearly made from a mix but was almost impossible to stop eating, and I had a bright white mousse that was very white.

We wandered through a few shops, and then headed back to the ship and took naps – me on the bed, and Dave on the couch where he could look out the verandah door as he fell asleep. The nap was very rejuvenating. When we woke up it was almost 4, so he headed up to the culinary center for the paella demonstration, and I took my phone & speaker to the nightclub and practiced teaching. Several people came through while I was teaching and must have thought I was crazy, because of course I was talking out loud to my imaginary class the whole time.

I got back to the table and showered for dinner, and we had another fun night with our tablemates. Pam and Jeff had been at the next table over at breakfast, and then we saw them at lunch in Cartagena, so that was funny. Jim used to work for Colgate-Palmolive, and encouraged us all to use Colgate Total. Keith told a story (because Diane made him) about going to the Big Lots and buying 100 expired (but just barely) sample sized tubes of toothpaste (Colgate, fortunately) for $4. And so on.

After dinner we went to the show, which was called Classical Graffiti and was a string quartet (2 violins, violas, cello). I’m not a big fan of stringed instruments generally, but these were the Canadian Brass of string players – not just very good, but also dancing and singing and getting the audience going as well. The cello player, Heidi, was also the one who did most of the talking. She had something sticking out of the neck of the cello that went behind her neck and somehow made the cello hang there while she danced around – it was quite a performance.

Then we went back to the Queen’s lounge for more of the BB King All-Star Blues Band, definitely our favorite place to be. We did lots of chair dancing and even standing dancing for one song. We do wonder if they were a band before they came on the ship, because they seemed a lot more comfortable with each other tonight than last night. We stayed for two sets and a very good time was had by all.

After that Dave went to do his nightly ship walkabout and I did my nightly visit to the nightclub. Unfortunately Saul, the DJ, is terrible – all he seems to know how to do it bring things to a screeching halt. So I danced for a couple of songs and then headed up to 9-forward for a brief view of things (including the Royal Caribbean ship that’s on the same schedule we are, at least so far) and then came back to the cabin. We have our first actual shore excursion tomorrow, a very long bus ride, so I figure I’ll catch up on my sleep then.

Tonight’s towel animal – dragonfly. We forgot to get a picture before we moved it, so the picture is a little cockeyed.