Wanderung 19

Meandering the Mediterranean

Cruising the Eastern Mediterranean

April - May 2009

Monday, April 27th, 2009: At Sea

Bob:

Re-energized by a good night's sleep and a decent breakfast, we walked a few laps on the promenade deck while watching the coast of Greece glide by. I then turned to the task of updating the journal, spending the entire morning from 9-12 on it, but we moved our operations to the library so that we could continue to gaze out the picture windows and watch the rather spectacular mountain ranges plunge into the sea.

After breaking lunch, we attended two ballroom dance classes that were scheduled, surprisingly enough, back-to-back in the Top Hat Lounge just above the main theater in the bow of the ship. The first class, given by our cruise director Bill, was on rumba and meringue, while the second class, given by two of the ship's dancers was on cha-cha. I learned that I still cannot swivel my hips for the rumba, which was depressing, but on a positive note I picked up a turn-away from partner move for the cha-cha that looked really nice.

I hit the fatigue wall again later that afternoon and took a nap while Monika did a complementary wine tasting. By evening I had revived enough to do some dancing at the Captain's official reception where, true to form, the ship's band played dance music while the Captain was having his picture taken with various passengers. The dance music ended when the Captain introduced all the officers of the crew, of course, but we had several nice foxtrots and a Lindy before that happened. We also each had a nice glass of champagne just before dinner, which was pleasant.

That evening the other four folks from our table for six finally showed up. That, I suppose, was the good news but the bad news was that during most of the meal they wanted to speak only to each other and then only in Russian. Curiously they all came from Chicago where one couple had been living for 30 years and another couple for 15 years, so I do not think they were really unable to carry on a conversation in English but rather that they preferred not to. It came across as rude behavior, but it was also consistent with my previous experience of Russian emigres in the U.S. so maybe it is some Russian cultural thing that I am simply not aware of. Nevertheless, it was a relief when the dessert course came and they simply bolted from the table; that let us relax with a decaf coffee and a low-fat cheesecake (me) and a souffle (Monika).

The evening show was one of the big performances for the ship's song and dance group, which turned out to be 4 singers and 8 dancers all together. It was well done although it relied on medleys rather than performing a single number completely, which is not my real preference. We did get to see our dance class instructors perform. They turned out to be the lead dancers of the troupe and were in fact very, very good.

Copyright 2009 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Transatlantic Cruise Map of Northern Italian Bus Trip Map of Eastern Mediterranean Cruise Epilog

April 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
May 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24/31 25 26 27 28 29 30

Return to the Wanderungs Homepage.
Sign the Guestbook or Read the Guestbook.
Comments about this site? Email the Webmaster.
Contact Bob and Monika at bob_monika@hotmail.com.