Sunday, June 7, 2015
We did go to the Backstage Pass show last night with the new
cast. It was basically the same show as with the previous cast but obviously
modified because of the ballroom couple instead of the strongman/contortionist
couple. I think this version flowed more naturally. There also seemed to be one
more male dancer, but I did not see a profile of one on the sheet in Currents.
Maybe it was the male ballroom dancer. Anyway, the cast was very talented
again. We enjoyed the show again. Last night the theater was standing room only
and there were people that stood in the back for the entire show. We had not
seen that before. Again, it may be the substantially younger demographic on
this segment. As we were leaving at the end, we heard Julie announce that Ms.
Jean Ann Ryan herself was sitting up front in the audience and asked her to
either stand or come up. We were out in the hall by then so did not see her.
But, it certainly explains the seamless choreography update between the first
cast’s show and this one. Well done.
Today is the first of only 2 sea days on this cruise.
Everyone seems to have slept in. Nowhere that I went on the ship this morning
seemed crowded and that has been a first. They had blintzes for breakfast this
morning, so that made a nice Sunday start for me. Also, we overheard a woman at
another table come back and tell her husband, well they’re out of blueberries
and have no replacements on the delivery schedule. Yeah! I went up and got a
yogurt parfait with high hopes but then picked out 5 blueberries which is about
average. She may have been misinformed. There was a needlepoint at 9:30am in
Horizons and fewer than a dozen women came and sat and chatted and worked. It
was nice. A big change from the previous segment. This afternoon was Berlin: Monuments
and Memories by Dr. Cecilia J. Bergoffen. Clay felt he learned a lot and is
looking forward to Berlin now. It seems iffy. It is a long way from the port
and Alla has already notified us of a bridge closure that will make the drive
time longer and sightseeing time shorter. We are sticking with it as our
feeling is a taste of Berlin is better than nothing.
Clay went to the digital photography talk in the Artist’s
Loft and said it was a waste of time. He said there was not enough space and
late arrivals kept stopping it. There was a cooking demonstration in the
theater at 11:15am. We both went but when they handed us the recipes as we
entered we realized that we had already seen this demo of Italian food so we
left again.
Lunch in Terrace today was Mexican Buffet, so I got 2 good
meals in a row. I take back what I said about no crowds. I have been unable to
log into a website for days as it keeps timing out. Clay had difficulty
uploading photos with the same problem and found that the higher the deck, the
more bars he had in signal strength. So he took the computer and me up to 14 to
see what we could do. We had 5 bars but nowhere to sit. There are bridge
instructors onboard this segment so it seems they have moved into Jacques
instead of owning the card room. That means for the first time that there is a
jigsaw puzzle onboard. Unfortunately, it is a small room with 4 tables and 4
chairs each and too crowded for me! It was filled, there is no empty desk space
in the computer lab. Baristas was filled. The library was filled with people
sleeping! Huh? It is not a ferry where folks could save money by not booking a
cabin. Between noon and 1:30pm all the cabins should have been serviced and
available, so I can’t understand the number of people sleeping in the library.
I have been in there a lot and I never saw that before. Were they in there
sleeping since morning? Did they go in after breakfast waiting for their cabin
to be available and they fell asleep and haven’t woken up yet? Why didn’t the
Captain’s and Julie’s loudspeaker announcements wake them? We finally sat outdoors,
but no luck still.
We have had 8.2-8.5 foot waves all day according to the TV.
The ship is only making about 12-13 knots and really rocking and swaying. I
don’t understand it. I will take a nap now. I went down to meet Clay in the
theater for a 2pm lecture about Berlin, but the doors were locked with a
rehearsal in progress sign at 1:45pm. I didn’t really feel up to it anyway. So,
nap time. Clay went and like the lecturer better than the last woman.
I had a good, long nap. Clay came back and laid down and
napped part of the time I was asleep too. He woke me up at 5:45pm because of the
Captain’s cocktail party. I had already decided I wasn’t doing that again. Too
crowded for me! We had cheese and wine in the room. Later we took the computer
back up to the card room to try again and fail to get done what I was trying.
But, we did do some work on the jigsaw puzzle before and after dinner. We went
to Terrace. Clay had decided this morning that he wanted a steak today. He was
hoping to get a good NY strip steak today. The first and last one he had
onboard was at Terrace the night he started gagging and vomiting because it was
so gristly that he couldn’t swallow it. There was a big crowd at the grill when
we got there, but he took his place in line and waited it out. He got everything
just as he liked it and at least one half of the steak was tender and edible.
The good news is that he started eating on that half so he was happy. They had
stir-fried beef at the wok tonight so I would have had it, but I didn’t want to
disrupt the grill line on Clay’s behalf as well as the workers, so I had 2
slices of pizza tonight. I should report that the grill workers have apologized
to both Clay and me about the other night when he ordered 3 times without ever
being served. They know what went wrong and we do and all hope it won’t happen
again. I think everyone feels equally bad. Hopefully, we can all stop feeling
bad about it and carry on. It was one missed meal. It is ok.
Tonight the show is Craig Owen, violin virtuoso. We’ll skip
it. So, we have noticed that the sun is setting later and rising earlier. The
Currents has moved the times of sunset and sunrise by an hour in each direction
each of the last 2 days! Even worse, the sun has actually been later and earlier
than they have posted!
We expect to pick up a pilot outside Oslo at 4am tomorrow and
be on time at 8am. We have no plans. When we come back to Oslo later this month
to start our month of Norway touring, we have a day tour and didn’t want to
spoil it for ourselves! So unless we find something special to do tomorrow, we’ll
just wander with some photocopied walking tours from guidebooks.
