Sunday, September 20th, 2009: At Sea: Getting to know the Norwegian Jewel

I paid for my intemperance by feeling curiously tired and groggy due to lack of sleep the next morning. It was almost like having a hangover, which is really pathetic as I had just been drinking tea. If there's anything I can't stand, it's a man who can't hold his tea! After breakfast we walked on deck, as is our wont. The promenade deck was beautifully painted with different patterns all along. But I was already dragging after just a mile or so, which just isn't my normal pattern at all. So finally I gave up and returned to our cabin for a nice long nap (over 2 hours!) while Monika set out to explore the ship and attend the lecture on shore excursions.

Rousing myself for lunch, we met Lois and Phyllis in the GardenCafe dining buffet area. Discussing our options, we all agreed to attend a talk at 2:00 p.m. that was supposed to be about the Shetland Islands. In actuality, the talk consisted of maybe 5 minutes and 5 slides on the Shetland Islands sandwiched into an hour-long summary of the history of the British Empire, which was interesting but not what we came for.

Then I went down for yet another nap, after which I started to feel vaguely normal (or at least as normal as I ever get!). We all dressed up and shifted our dining over to the Tsar's Dining Room, a somewhat more fancy restaurant that required a bit more formal attire than the Azure Dining Room. Phyllis complained about having to drink her iced tea from the crystal water goblets and not having any straws to drink it with. I noticed that the quality of the service was very good and the maitre d' cruised vigilantly around the dining area, even stopping by our table to ask us how we liked everything. He looked like a man who ran a tight ship, so to speak, and the staff certainly performed well.