Thursday April 17th 2008
Noon position: 35 degrees 51'North, 50 degrees 16' West (Course 75 degrees, Speed 18.9 knots)
Bob: Oversleeping a bit, we missed the morning stretch class but did finish breakfast in time for the morning Walk-A-Mile, so we were still on course to accumulate enough Vitality tokens to get the RCI rucksacks we each wanted (12 tokens each). Then I fiddled around trying to take panoramic pictures of the pool deck from the Cosmopolitan lounge until it was time for a presentation on "Pirates" by our resident lecturer. He had a nice set of slides, but once again he held us spellbound by just walking around the audience and talking for the first half hour or so, and then commenced the slide show. Holding our interest with nothing but his storytelling was, in my view, the mark of a really good teacher. I had read about the history of piracy in the Caribbean, so that part was familiar to me, but the world-wide scope of piracy over the last few centuries was a bit surprising. He also mentioned an average longevity of just a few months for a typical pirate in the "golden age" of piracy in the 1600s. Although given the dangers of the trade that lifespan sounded plausible, I was still curious how someone had managed to estimate such a thing given the scanty records I would expect from the individual entrepreneurs. The Dutch pirates, however, were much more businesslike and possibly they kept records good enough to make such estimates. After the presentation I worked on stitching together the panoramic shots I had taken, a very tedious process that was only interrupted by the call of the luncheon buffet. The free software that had come with an old Olympus camera was slow, tricky to use, and had an unfortunate tendency to fail completely and unexpected in such a fashion that I had to reboot the computer to clear out all the error flags. The end result, however, when it worked correctly was very nice panoramic shots of our departure from Bermuda, the Windjammer dinning area, the Promenade, and other scenes that required extremely broad viewing angles. I was glad when that was finished and we could take off for an afternoon tea given to repeat RCI cruisers (which was probably most of the ship!). We had some nice conversation with the folks at our table while we nibbled on scones, tarts, and other finger-food and drank tea, coffee, or mixed drinks. We also attended an afternoon dance class (finally!), which turned out to be Salsa. That was new for both of us but we had good teachers and learned enough basic steps and turns to go out and have fun for the slower numbers, at least. |
Monika: We had read late in bed, so we did not get up in time for the morning stretch. But after breakfast we did manage to do the Walk-A-Mile. The weather had cleared up, but it was cool. So Bob walked rather fast, since he was wearing just a T-shirt. I was wearing my fleece, but after 2 laps, I chucked it to finish the rest rather more comfortably. The destination lecture this morning was on the pirates. It was a rather interesting historical powerpoint presentation on all the different pirates that haunted the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic. At 1:00 I went to an art lecture (30,000 years of art in 30 minutes). It was really quite interesting, and I just wished the guy would learn to spell "Duerer" with an 'U" Umlaut. But it is nice to find Duerer acknowledged in an American lecture on art. The lithograph that everyone received at the end was a rather nice piece, that even Bob liked. I am becoming quite enamored of going to theses things, having a good time and getting some lithograph at the end, that either we or kids might enjoy. From 3-4 was a "tea" for the guests that had reached the exalted state of "Platinum" members (5 cruises, but 14 day cruises count 2 points). It was a proper tea, with sandwiches, cakes, tea, and lucky for me, also drinks. This time I had some mixed drink with gin - after all, I can have champagne at art auctions! After the tea we went to salsa lessons. It was so crowded, that they practiced twice with two different women's group, once with the men, and then with the couples. It was nice to learn what the basic salsa steps are, so next time, I can get Bob on the dance floor for a salsa. |
Bob: Since another dance lesson was offered at 7:45 that evening and our dinner reservation in the Portifino restaurant was for 8:45, we decided to dress up around 7:00 in our best clothes, get our pictures taken, attend the dance class, have dinner with George, Don, Jeff, and Helen, and then go dancing afterwards. It was a good plan and it worked up to the point where we met with the others in the Portifino restaurant. As was our typical pattern, we started chatting away and somehow the time just flew by as we worked our way through an excellent four course meal. The food was so good, in fact, that I apparently lost all control and ate far more than my usual small evening meal. Sigh. We lingered over coffee and a very nice assortment of desserts until about midnight and were the last folks out of the restaurant, which always makes me feel guilty because I figure that I'm also keeping the restaurant staff up later than necessary. But it was another wonderful evening with our tablemates, after which George and Don were off to the casino, while Monika and I just staggered back to the cabin and fell into bed. |
Monika: After resting a bit, we changed into "formal". We wanted a formal portrait for our collection. After posing several different ways, we headed up on deck. Tonight we were not eating in the dining room but had late reservations for the Portofino. This gave us a chance to go out on deck for sunset pictures. Usually we are at dinner during sunset. Sunset was not quite as spectacular as I had hoped for, but still we hope we got some nice pictures. After the sun had gone down, we headed for the ice rink/studio B for dance lessons. They had covered the ice with a nice floor. There was lots of room to practice the rumba and east coast swing. It was good to brush up on the basics of the rumba, since we were a little weak on it. This evening George had made arrangements to have dinner in the Portefino Italian specialty restaurant with our table mates, Don and George, and Jeff and Helen. We had reservations for 8:45, rather late for us, but what the hey. We sat there till almost 12. Just as it was on the Brilliance, the dinner was superb. We had antipasta, pasta, entree, and desert. Everything was special and beautifully arranged, well worth the extra money. And, of course, the conversation was again animated and fun. It did remind me of the fun we had with Brigitte, Rick, and Dave on our cruise last spring. We really have lucked out on tablemates. We read a little in bed, since we really were too full to go to sleep immediately. But finally sleep overcame us. |
| Prolog | Map of Trip | Epilog |
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