SAILING THE HIGH SEAS

Sunday, April 22^nd, 2018                      DAY AT SEA

Having set the clock ahead last night we woke shortly after 7 am when the alarm rang.   We were over at the room for Mass at 7:30 am…expecting a crowd.  Mary arrived just before 8 am and by 8:15 we realized that there was a problem.      Sure enough….we didn’t change time last night and we were an hour early for Mass.    Walked up to the Lido for a cup of coffee and then back to church.  Soon Father Mike arrived and the others came slowly in and soon the room was over flowing with Catholics including Jim who’d joined us because it was Sunday morning!  There were about ten standing for the entire mass.  Mary did both of the readings and Father Mike mentioned a box for donations…. But no one carries cash on the ship so hopefully the box will also be there tomorrow.  Because of the heavy waves, Father Mike had us all remain seated for the entire mass except at communion time.  After Mass we walked back to the breakfast room and enjoyed the rest of our breakfast and the morning newspaper. 

At 10:00 am Mary and Jim went to enjoy the talk on Mars; I made the last half of it after attending another Computer Class on Window’s Edge.  I’m really getting excited about trying out the Microsoft Edge Browser which I’ve had ever since I loaded Window’s 10, but I’ve not used it and stayed with Foxfire and google.  My good friend Terry in Florida who helped me load windows 10 into my computer encourage me to try the Edge Browser, but I’ve stayed with Firefox.  Now I know I can move all of my bookmarks over to Edge, and it’s faster, I’m going to bite the bullet and give it a try three years later.  All of the computer classes on the ship are about Windows 10 as Microsoft sponsors the class and provides the ship with a room full of beautiful computers.   But, they are not connected to the internet.   The instructor raves about the speed and features of Edge.  So I’m going to attend as many of the classes as I can and hopefully when I get to our B&B in Amsterdam I’ll be able to make it work as I’ll have the internet there.  

So far I’ve not done my walk today…maybe later this afternoon.    Jim and I went in for lunch at the Lido and found Al and Nancy.  We were correct; they’d gone to the 5 pm mass on Saturday and then had a private dinner in one of the “restaurants” on the ship; complements of the ship because of the problems with the window in their room that could not be repaired.   They also received a bottle of wine.  Sometimes it pays to complain!

  But they said they missed all of us and are looking forward to seeing us at dinner tonight.  I’ve been sitting outside of the door of the computer classroom to catch up and Karen walked up to talk.  She has yet to meet Mary and they were at the same lunch today; a special one for single passengers so they can get to know each other.  So I gave Karen a picture of Mary and took one of her so they will know who they are looking for.  She is coming up to our restaurant this evening so they can meet before we go in to dinner.  She is at the 7:15 seating with three other single women. 

 

Spent some time in the room after doing a mile on deck three.  I didn’t do any elliptical work today; my total steps was 7,793 representing 3.41 miles.  Karen came to visit before dinner so my job is done on that issue.  We arranged to meet in the Lido for lunch tomorrow, Monday, and maybe teach her some of the card game “Hand and Foot”.  Dinner was our regular eight, Al and Nancy brought one of the two bottles of champagne that their tour company had given to them.  Shared with the table and no corkage fee was assessed because of the source of the bottle. 

After dinner, six of us went to the Oceans Bar and enjoyed some dancing.  Myra and Steve joined us there for the first time.

We were in the cabin by 8:45 pm with time for reading my book and watching some of the movie on the television.  Each day there is a rather newly released movie in the theatre and the following day it is shown over and over on the television in the room.  You can also request from a list of movies on DVD’s and play them in your room whenever you like. 

Monday, April 23^rd, 2018       ANOTHER DAY AT SEA!

We changed our clocks last night and after Mass we ate breakfast in the Lido joining Myra and Steve.  Myra and I stayed and had a great conversation.  She has been and still is a Realtor licensed in the State of Texas since in the 1960’s.  Generally only represents herself now but has made an excellent living in the market.  Likes to deal in stocks today but still has some rentals.  Keeps her license active.  I should live to do as well when I’m 87 years young.

This morning we heard the news that Princess Kate had a new baby boy early this morning.  He is fifth in line to the throne.   Three days later they announced his name as Prince William Arthur Philip, known as Prince Louis of Cambridge.

The water was turned off for repairs from 2 am to 4 am…. We’d missed the paper telling us but we were okay during the night.  Father Mike said he had horrible brown water spewing out of his faucets when he first turned them on.  I guess we were lucky; only Jim realized it was off during the night.  The ship is always working on maintenance as it never takes a day off let alone a week for repairs. 

I did my two miles on the deck and twenty minutes on the elliptical machine so ended the day with 12,831 steps or 5.5 miles.  

After dinner, Shirley, Mary and I enjoyed the Variety Show.  It was split between E. Sarah Carter, a British violinist who was extremely good and did a variety of entertaining tunes.  Her violin had a microphone for sound so that you could easily hear her over the instruments.   The second half was the Las Vegas Impersonator from before named Robbie Howard and was excellent.  Jim enjoyed going to listen to the classical violinist in one of the lounges; her show was called the Adagio. 

As we were leaving the theater, Shirley fell; no she was not using her walker, and scraped her arm but otherwise seemed okay except for the profuse bleeding.  We got her back to her room but in the middle of the night she went to the desk and they got her some more bandages to help stop the bleeding.  Since they only gave her the requested items and she ministered to herself it was only about $35.00; much less than the quoted $92. That I’d received earlier.