October 1st, 2008: At Sea between Newfoundland and New York
Monika:
The weather had finally cleared, so we decided to do a three mile walk (8 laps) on the promenade deck before going to the first lecture at nine. The sun had just risen and there was hardly any breeze, so it was even pleasant walking around the bow of the ship where we usually have to hang on for dear life. We had read that this is the home of the remaining 400 or so right whales, so we kept a sharp eye out for whales. We were rewarded with a sighting of a pod of dolphins cavorting in the waves. They were too quick for pictures, but 2 laps later I spotted a spout. We kept looking and there were three or four whales that we were passing on the portside. I could not tell what kind of whales, but we did see them early enough that we could get our cameras out and get a picture of the spout. What fun!
Bob: We joined Hutch at 9:00 a.m. for information about our stop in New York, but I ended up very confused. Apparently we needed to walk to a bus stop, take the bus to the nearest subway station, and then use the subway network to get around town. The lack of details about how to use the subway system made it seem both mysterious and rather daunting, but Hutch's descriptions of the ethnic neighborhoods in Manhattan such as Little Italy and Chinatown made me want to go. But he also warned about walking in Brooklyn, so that made us consider taking a taxi to the subway station. that would, of course, dramatically increase the hassle factor and expense of such an expedition, so we were left not knowing quite what to do. We also ended up very confused about exactly what the disembarkation procedure was going to be like. In particular, we had no idea approximately when we could reasonably expect to be able to get off the ship, and that in turn left us totally at sea about how much time we were going to have on land.
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Monika:
The port lecture on New York went into details on what was worth seeing, but again he first talked and talked and then showed slides. A lot of them had directions, but they all started with "take a taxi to the Smith and 9th street station, and then the subway". It all went so quick that I had a hard time remembering which subway went where.: We were also told that we had to go through immigration before being able to get off the ship. We met later with Susi and Rick our tablemates to decide whether we should try to go together into town. They have a daughter that lives and works in New York and were trying to meet with her. Since we really did not quite know what we wanted to do, we decided that we better each strike out on our own.
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Bob: After lunch we attended yet another performance by Marlene and Chet, this one focused on the work of Lerner and Lowe. That odd couple gave us the fabulous musicals of "Brigadoon", "Camelot", "Paint Your Wagon", "Gigi", and "My Fair Lady", so there were an lot of good songs to cover. Fortunately, Marlene did not mind, and in fact encouraged, us all to sing along. I enjoyed doing that, in fact, but I was often frustrated by not recalling the lyrics even when I knew the melody line.
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Monika: The broadway lecture in the afternoon was on Lerner and Loewe of "Camelot" and "My Fair Lady" fame. Again there was so much music we knew that it was a lot of fun.
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| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Baltic Cruise | Map of Transatlantic Cruise | Epilog |
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