Today is our 4th day at sea and the weather has been beautiful until now. The captain told us that we are the only ship doing the crossing right now that took a southern route. All the others took the great circle route through the Azores and have been in bad weather. Our seas have been calm and the temperature has been in the high 70's. Today may be a little different. We're feeling a little rocking this morning and it looks overcast. We'll see when it starts to get light.
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| Sunrise |
Yesterday we both got up while it was still dark and went to breakfast early. That gave us a chance to be back on our balcony to watch the sunrise. It was beautiful. Since this cruise began in a time zone 6 hours later than the Eastern time zone, we have been setting the clocks back an hour almost every day since we starting the Atlantic crossing. The captain likes to do the time change at 3PM so everyone is awake and knows what time it is. That means we are experiencing 25 hour days. Ray & I are doing our best to adjust, staying up until our usual bed time according to the clock of the day. Hopefully, we will be in sync with Eastern time when we get back. Of course, we will have one more time change to Eastern Standard time on the drive home.
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| One of many wonderful desserts |
I forgot to mention something unusual that happened at dinner Halloween night. The captain and the hotel manager walked through the dining room and stopped at every table to say hello to all the passengers who were there. We have never seen a captain do that before. He is a really friendly guy, with a baby face and a great smile. He posed for photos with people who asked and commented on the costumes people were wearing for Halloween. It was a very nice effort on his part.
The captain also makes an announcement every day sometime between noon and 12:30, giving us the weather and our position in the ocean, just like the captains on every other ship we have been on. The difference is that, before he speaks, he plays part of a song of his choosing. Yesterday it was the Beatles "Good Day Sunshine". It's a nice touch and it gives everyone a chance to realize what's coming and pay attention.
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| Fruit Carvings |
We were both awake at 6AM again this morning, but no sunrise. It was overcast and rainy until about 9AM, but the skies turned blue after that. It's still just a little rocky though. The past 2 days we were able to walk a couple of laps around the sports deck to get a little exercise after breakfast, but it was too wet this morning. Tomorrow should be better.
Yesterday there wasn't too much going on that either of us were interested in. I went to Bingo in the morning, we went to Johnny Rockets for lunch, and I sat in on a basic Italian lesson in the afternoon. The lesson was very basic - she didn't teach anything I didn't already know so I will skip lesson 2 today. I'll probably go to Bingo again this morning. They have Bingo twice a day, but once is enough for me.
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| 5th Formal night |
Other than the art one the other day, the enrichment lectures have not been anything we are interested in. The ones yesterday were on pirates, and we think it was the same guy and the same lecture we heard on another ship on a Caribbean cruise. The afternoon lectures have been on handwriting analysis and we haven't been interested in that. We both done a lot of reading instead. I've finished the 3 paperbacks I brought and am now reading Kindle books. Ray has finished several books on his iPad.
Today's morning lecture was "Why Do They Speak Spanish in Spain?" and this was pretty good. Ray & I both attended this. The speaker (Dr Turner, a retired geography professor from Hawaii) talked about how culture, and in particular, languages, change and evolve with conquests, exploration, and subsequent isolation.
After this morning's talk I went to Bingo and Ray headed back to the room. We reconnected for lunch and will be going to the afternoon lecture called "Odd Balls and One-Of-A-Kind Ships" in a little while. Tonight we are going to the other specialty restaurant- Chops. We are looking forward to a nice steak dinner. I don't think we'll be going to too many more shows in the theater. The seats are really uncomfortable and both of us have trouble with leg cramps after sitting for more than a half hour.
Around noon today we passed the center point of our voyage across the Atlantic. Of course that means Internet access is sketchy, so I'll probably wait until tomorrow before I try to post this.
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