Friday, February 7^th, 2020

At Sea

Laundry Day

Yes, it was time to hit the launderette. Thanks to Ruth placing my washing in the washing machine soon after the launderette opened, everything went very smoothly. But, yay, I do have some laundry room gossip to share.

Now of course this may be an apocryphal story, aren’t most of them?

When a washing machine finished, a man started to place the contents of the machine in one of the dryers so he could use the washing machine himself. The lady who owned those clothes entered the room, and seeing him manhandling her belongings, yelled at him and slapped him in the face.

That evening at a cocktail party the man pointed out the woman to his wife, who promptly went over and slapped the woman in the face. Both couples were removed from the ship in Dubai.

I am often asked what the reasons are that waitlisted cabins become available. I suppose I can add launderette rage to my list.

I didn’t make it to any of the morning talks – Ruth did and enjoyed them all. We had lunch in Café Carinthia, which has become my favorite lunch venue. I can usually get by with one of the small plates on offer, but today I needed two. They were both very good – a small fish platter and chicken and tomato flatbread. The jazz trio were playing, and we sat back and listened to them until I realized that I was late for choir practice.

This was our last practice before the big event tomorrow. Apparently at the last performance there had been some pushing and shoving by the sopranos so he asked that we all play nicely together. I had heard about this earlier today in the launderette, so it must be true.

After practice it was definitely outdoor time. Ruth has discovered a great sun bathing spot at the back of deck 7. I had poo pooed this to begin with – I thought that we would be smoked out, run over by the Promenade deck runners, and there would be no shade. I was wrong on all three accounts. There was shade, no smoke, and the runners gave us a wide berth. While there was significant wind on the upper decks, we were very sheltered, and it was very convenient for the deck 8 pool. Deck 8 itself was very crowded, and there was that incessant soothing background music that I dislike, not so much in the background. Deck 7 is a much better option, and there are roving waiters from who one can purchase pina coladas.

The deck 8 pool was surprisingly cold, but I it was refreshing. I managed to swim a few laps, but clearly got in the way of a German lady who was swimming very serious laps. Time to sunbathe again.

The show tonight was at 7:00 instead of 10:30. A very talented Japanese juggler entertained us, and performed what I thought was a very impressive card trick. I managed to stay awake throughout the whole show, I rarely achieve that at the 10:30 shows.

We were all more talkative than usual at dinner, and it was really most enjoyable. It just goes to show, sometimes when you first meet your dinner companions you think, oh no, this is going to be a painful few weeks – and then suddenly everything comes together, and you have such a good time that you are the last folks to leave the dining room. That happened to us tonight.