Friday, November 9th - At Sea.
Noon Position: At Sea, North 29 degrees, 29', West 65 degrees, 12'
Bob: We returned to the morning sequence of stretching, aquatic exercises, and Walk-A-Mile. Since Monika's blister was better, we even tried a "West Coast Swing" dance class, but I found the footwork plus the differential counts of 4 and 6 at different points in the sequence to be entirely too confusing. We had better luck with a Quickstep class led by the Cruise Director Bobby and his wife Becky, and another line dancing class. Having gotten the basic idea of line dancing (weird sequence of moves ending in a quarter turn, all of which is repeated as you face each new direction), I found it easy to learn new ones. The moves were so silly that you just couldn't take the whole thing seriously, and since we were dancing essentially independently, I had no dance partner that I could injure so I didn't have to worry about that either. |
Monika: The solarium pool was back open, so we both put on our swimsuits for aquadynamics. We found the answer to whether it was a heated pool, since the water had been really warm earlier. But NO it was not. Since they had drained the pool completely the day before and then refilled it, the water was relatively cold. I found it quite refreshing and soon was moving around in the water to keep warm. Bob took his time, but the waves kept coming higher and higher until he at last was also in the water. Brandon led the aquadynamics this morning and he made us swim and really gave us a good work out. A last Spanish class gave us some practice in what we had learned the previous 2 classes. I do wish they had had the classes every day. Dance class was the west coast swing and after 10 minutes we were so confused, that we decided to leave. When we reached the Centrum, we heard a lot of laughter and checked what was going on: On one side the pastry chef was putting together a Schwarzwaelder Kirschtorte and across from him, our cruise director Bobby and a woman from the audience tried to follow his instructions. We noticed that the people in the first row from the amateur team had a sheet spread over them. And that seemed quite necessary, since the team of Bobby and the guest seemed to get cream filling all over. At one time the Chef tossed a cake decorating bag filled with cream over to Bobby, and half of the cream landed on the floor. At the end we had to judge which cake was the best, not that there was much of a contest. But everyone got a nice round of applause. Of course, our cameras rested nicely in our stateroom. So we raced down, to get at least a picture of the end of this cake making contest. In the afternoon, a cleaned-up Bobby and Becky taught the quickstep, a close relative to the foxtrot. Again, they did an excellent job of teaching, and the floor was not all that crowded, so we did have a good time with it and with the line dancing afterwards. |
Bob: I napped before dinner and Monika napped afterwards, but we both were up at 10:45 for a final "open mike" session of karaoke. After checking that I could in fact sing a cappella loudly enough to fill the Safari Room, I decided to sing "Don Quixote" from the musical "Man of La Mancha" since I definitely could remember all the words (and the melody line) for that. So after participating in a quiz trivia game, I was the first one to sing that evening. I wanted to go first because singing a capella and without amplification I would probably sound rather different than the typical country-and-western honky tonk or Tin Pan Alley songs of the 40s and 50s that made up the majority of the karaoke performances. The audience applauded politely although that clearly was not what they had expected, but I felt that honor was now satisfied so I could once again sleep easily. |
Monika: Tonight was Karaoke open mike. So Bob thought he give it another try and sing Don Quixote a capella. He laid down for a nap, while I tried my luck one more time at a slot machine. This time it ate my money fairly soon. So I retired to our cabin, to emerge for a glorious sunset. We were sailing straight west into the setting sun. Wonderful. Since the open mike was not until 10:30, I decided to lay down after dinner. The entertainment did not sound that great. We went to the Safari Club a little early and our tablemates were there waiting for us. First there was a quizz show were Bob was one of the contestant. First he did quite well, but then the others caught up. But it was a lot of fun. For the singing Bob was first out the gate and gave quite a good rendition of Don Quixote. He did not use the mike, but was quite audible everywhere. He did get a good round of applause. The other singers did Frank Sinatra or Country and Western, so the styles were quite different, and since they all used the mike, their voice were enhanced by technology. |
Monika: For once we were awake for the Grand Buffet picture taking and took full advantage. The ice sculptures, carved fruit, yummie looking canapees and fancy decorated cakes were really wonderful to behold and a lot of fun to take pictures of. They even had large statues made out of colored butter. Wow. |
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