Bob:

Since we had both lost our ShipShape T-shirts earned on the voyage across to Spain (Wanderung 14), we decided to seriously bend our efforts to earning enough to get at least two replacement T-shirts by the end of the voyage. Aided by the 1 hour time shift, we managed to get up and have breakfast and still get to the morning stretching class at 7:30 a.m. Then I worked on my journal while Monika did some Aquacises in the solarium pool, and we both did the Walk-A-Mile at 9:30.

We tangled with the Tango at our dance class from 10:30 to 11:15, during which the oddest thing happened. At the end of the session our instructors put out a set of "Dance Etiquette" handouts and a set of ShipShape dollars and asked us to take one of each. There was a mad rush for the handouts, of course, but some woman grabbed the ShipShape dollars and disappeared, leaving the rest of us in the lurch. I saw her grab the bunch but I assumed she was going to take charge of handing them out and therefore stood back while she then disappeared in the crowd in the back of the room. But I was astonished that someone who could obviously afford an expensive ocean cruise would take the trouble to steal 200 ShipShape dollars that can only be exchanged for T-shirts, towels, keychains, and other trinkets. Goodness gracious.

But it reminded me of a table conversation we had during Wanderung 14 on the "Brilliance of the Seas" when we were crossing from Miami to Barcelona, Spain, where Dave described people cheating at a mini-golf tournament to win similar types of trinkets. That was equally puzzling at the time, but I had written it off as an anomaly. It becomes sadly clear to me that some folks who obviously have a comfortable life are nevertheless cheating and stealing despite a ridiculous return on investment for the crime. Or, possibly, they don't even see it as a crime? In any case, after the dance class we had lunch, and then learned yet another line dance at 1:30 followed by another Walk-A-Mile at 3:00.

I was tired enough to take a nap in the afternoon, but that gave me enough energy to stay up another hour past the evening entertainment, which was a fascinating performance by a husband and wife team from the Cirque de Soleil. They both had the athletic build of professional gymnasts. He had muscles on top of muscles, not that I was envious or anything, and she was built like a brick outhouse. They had put together a routine that no doubt borrowed elements from their Cirque de Soleil experiences because it was consistently aesthetically pleasing. Besides being pretty, of course, many parts of the routines called for sheer athleticism, and it was the combination of aesthetics and athleticism that made their show impressive. They introduced their 4-year old son at the end of the performance and did a simple trick with him. He was cute as a button so the audience responded quite enthusiastically to the little guy as well as the entire performance. The folks at our table agreed with this positive assessment, with Dawn in particular saying that it was the only performance so far that she would have actually liked to have seen twice.

I managed to stay up another hour and check out the karaoke session in the Safari Room where we had also had many of our dance classes. The performances ranged from quite good to dreadfully out of tune, but the only person to get perfect 10 ratings from all 3 judges was a young, nubile girl in a revealing dress who sang, "Coal Miner's Daughter" with a British accent. Everyone else came in second best, and that meant that I would have at least 3 strikes against me if I decided to try my hand at karaoke, being neither young, nor nubile, nor wearing a revealing dress. Surprisingly, the Safari Room was packed despite the amateur performances; I had not realized how popular karaoke would be. And then I crashed for the night.

Monika: