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!