Wanderung 26

Bob:

Falling into a bit of a routine, we had a big, high-protein breakfast at the Horizon Café buffet up on the Lido deck, and then tried to walk it off by taking laps around the Promenade deck. That's a bit like sowing wild oats on Saturday night and then going to church Sunday morning to pray for crop failure! But if one does not have the willpower (won'tpower ?) to avoid eating the heavy meals, the least one can do, I guess, is to try to keep as active as possible to counteract it.

We walked 3 miles or 9 laps at a speed of a mile every 15 minutes into the rising sun. That is a quick pace for us, but the Promenade deck was completely level and the ship was not rolling or pitching very much at all, so it was easy walking. In fact the only thing one has to watch for other than the open sea was the other folks--both passing and being passed required some degree of situational awareness, especially in the narrower parts of the deck.

We finished in pleanty of time to stop off at our cabin and grab stuff to take along to the port lecture on Akaroa, our next stop after Port Chalmers/Dunedin. I was not aware that earthquakes and after shocks have continued to plage the general area even after the "Big One" last year. Christchurch, down the road a few miles from Akaroa, was so badly damaged that the central blocks of the downtown business district were apparently closed off to pedestrians as well as cars, trucks, and other traffic. We were very glad we had seen that beautiful city when it had been intact during Wanderung 22, and decided it would be too depressing to tour it again in the current badly damaged state.

Instead, we opted to spend time out on the Otago Peninsula on which Akaroa is located. Once again the lecturer showed maps, and I busily used Monika's camera to take quick copy-shots so that I could look at them later and plan our day in more detail. Certainly a leisurely walk through the small town (population 560) from the lighthouse at one end along the shoreline over to the far side looked like fun. Our lecturer also mentioned trips out into the harbor or out to various attractions on the peninsula that we also had to carefully consider.

We also signed up for the complimentary Internet time that we qualified for by virtue of having cruised a few times on Princess ships. The free connection time ended up being about 20 minutes per day, which we thought would be enough if we really hustled on the computer. We sent our customary "we made it so far" email to our friends and relatives, and then just noodled around in Facebook a bit to see if anything important was happening in our network of friends.

After checking our copy of the "Princess Patter", the daily news bulletin for the ships' activities, we saw that the Sea Princess would have a pick-up passenger choir that started rehearsals at 11:30 a.m. in the aft lounge. We decided if it was the same set of songs we had already sung in a previous ship’s choir (Wanderung 25), we would skip it, but as it turned out it was a completely new and quite interesting set of tunes.

We thought the young woman running the choir, Rose Winters, was very effective and she even did a bit of warm-up for the vocal chords prior to singing. We know from our lessons with Laurie that warming up is a very good thing, but not all choir directors have their singers do that basic task. It was also just good to sing again because for some reason I had just been too tired or preoccupied to do so during the three weeks we were touring Australia.

I joined the Tenors and Monika became an Alto! Apparently Rose had arranged some of the songs in multi-part harmony and having the assigned voices would make it possible to do those harmonies later. After choir practice we had a quick lunch and then Monika hustled off to the champagne art auction while I took a nap. As it was the first "formal night" on ship, I dug out my suitcoat and selected a tie, giving thanks all the while that male formal dress is so simple. In my case, the same black suit and pants plus a couple of white shirts is my formal wear, and I just change off the ties to keep it from looking like exactly the same outfit each time.

We had a nice dinner with Judy, Ian, Roya, and Alex, who were all also in formal wear and looked quite nice, I thought. After dinner was the captain's champagne hour in the atrium with the Champagne Water Fall. We watched the pyramid of champagne glasses being constructed and I can tell you for a fact that they are not glued together in any way and are just held in place by gravity. Monika evenventured to pour some of the champagne into the pyramid of glasses when it was completed! After that the captain introduced his senior staff.

Since the evening entertainment in the Princess Theater was a singer, we took our chances and attended. He turned out to be a trained operatic tenor although his program emphasized musical theater and some popular tunes, along with the obligatory corny jokes when he was resting his vocal cords between numbers. I had practiced many of the same songs, and I was impressed that he had adapted the tempo, delivery tone, and very occasionally the lyrics and notes for more impact. That was quite effective, so I would have to give kudos to whoever did his arrangements and to him for the delivery. And so to bed.