Wanderung 26

Bob:

Mundane things also can soak up the "spare" time on sea days. As a case in point, we were starting to accumulate a lot of dirty clothes so Monika decided to do a load of laundry. She decided to start right when the Laundromat on our deck opened at 7:00 a.m., and I helped carry clothes and figure out how to operate the machines. We had breakfast during the wash cycle and then walked on the deck for a few miles during the drying cycle, so all in all we used the time fairly effectively. We had started so early that no one else was around, but we later heard strange, almost unbelievable tales of contention among the passengers for the washers and dryers when the Laundromats were busier.

At 10:00 we attended a class on photography that had apparently resulted from my suggestion to the entertainment staff. The session was OK in the sense of presented quite a bit of information to the amateur photographers in the audience (about 200 souls). I knew almost all of it, but it was still a useful review for me. But the main problem was that although they had "good" and "bad" examples of each principle, it was not really brought down to the level that the people in the audience needed. I would have separated the audience according to the classes of camera that they owned. Then with these smaller groups in a "walk-around friendly" venue like the Rigoletto dining room, I would have had the staff help each individual use his or her camera when exploring each feature. Also, some of their information was technically incorrect; they stated that depth of field depends on shutter speed as well as aperture and that is simply not true, it depends on aperture only. In the end, I was left wondering if I could have done the presentation better.

The Pop Choir from 11:30-12:30 gave me another opportunity to struggle with both my tenor voice and with the harmonies that Rose had arranged for the music, so that was fun. Going to lunch around 1:00 p.m. turned out to be peak demand time up in the Horizon Cafe, so it was quite crowded. Unexpectedly, some people got up to leave just as we passed their table, and so we took over their nice window seats and had a very pleasant meal. After that I conked out while Monika updated her journal.

But I regained consciousness in time for us to attend the afternoon ballroom dance class on the Foxtrot, where we learned a new 1/4 turn rock step, a promenade step with an underarm turn, and a "grapevine" step that involved changing hip directions in a very sinuous and ultimately quite pretty way. And I didn't crash into too many people, so I would count that under my "success" column in the ongoing challenge of "Bob learning to dance". And then, suddenly, it was time for showers and dinner!! After dinner we had "casual" photos taken against a pure white backdrop, and then it was off to bed to close out the evening (Obviously I am not a night owl!).