Reflections from Barcelona

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To start this final full day on the Nieuw Amsterdam we had breakfast in the Lido. I have gotten off my small breakfast diet as of late, having eggs, and today was no different. We won’t be arriving in Barcelona until later in the afternoon, so this is starting off as a mini-Sea Day. Having gone to Vigil Mass the night before, Sharon too finds herself with no need to hurry up and get ready for the day. To some extent, this has given us both some time to reflect on the past three weeks aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam. For example, allow me to take this opportunity to recall some of the special, some of the unusual, indeed some of the funny and perhaps not so funny moments that we experienced but perhaps didn’t record them in the blog at the time. Only yesterday in small French village I was taking pictures of the closely built buildings separated by the narrow streets. There was a man standing directly in front of anyone trying to take a picture, about thirty feet or so from me, holding up his iPad, and then just standing there as he considered whether he needed to take another picture… and then he continued to stand there taking pictures holding his iPad high above his head. In this manner he pretty much assured that his iPad would be in the foreground of anyone trying to take a picture. I was zooming in above his head so he wasn’t really bothering me; but, then he turned my way. His wife was standing near me, and I heard her say, “Move, he’s trying to take a picture.” She must have been talking to me because her husband was pretty much oblivious to everything. You pretty much know this type of person from the moment you first meet them. They were certainly among the ones bitching about missing 3 ports on this 12 day cruise, which admittedly is a lot; but, as they say “stuff” happens when you’re faced with hurricane force winds in what some have called the storm of the century. Sharon actual heard one air-head complaining that the reason we hadn’t gotten into Livorno was because the captain was a wuss. Looking at the BBC coverage of flooding in Rome and waters that had turned Dubrovnik into another Venice makes you appreciate what the captain was dealing with. Through no fault of their own, but certainly understanding the disappointment some people felt at missing ports, Holland America provided us with a future cruise credit of 20% of the cost of this leg of the cruise to us. I got my gold pin denoting my 4-star status (Just as good as Sharon, I can qualify for free laundry all by myself). Although, the note also said that it could be up to 10 days before this status is reflected online, so I may not have it denoted on my room card when we board the Zuiderdam in three days. As for me, I enjoyed the relaxation that the additional sea days afforded me personally, allowing me to stay fairly current with the blog. I had been worried that the trifecta of Salerno, Rome, and Livorno would hopelessly do me in; but, it now appears that we’ll be reaching Barcelona and still be on point in the blog. We also had a guide on our trip to Verona who was thrilled to share a new term with us that she’d just learned from a tourist last week. We’d all of course heard the term “Selfie” and have had ample opportunities to be inconvenienced by people taking selfies, especially with those extension rods holding them up the block everyone’s view. The new term that she’d learned is “Weefie”… this is where you take a weefie, usually with the extension pole, to take a picture of not just yourself, but at least one other person next to you: a “weefie”! There was one lady who was engaged in a “can you top this” complaint session; although, her tale clearly had the others trumped. She complained that when we were encountering the twenty-foot seas, and the captain had announced over the intercom that he was closing the outside decks, that he had said nothing about closing the balconies. Evidently the balconies can be secured by on flip of the switch on the bridge. This lady had decided to go out on her balcony. She is claiming that she wasn’t going out to smoke; although, she said that earlier in the cruise when we’d hit rough seas, she’d brought the ashtray in from the balcony outside her cabin. The cabin steward had put it back outside where it is supposed to be (There is no smoking inside the cabin, or at least there is not supposed to be). I’m thinking, only a smoker would bother to bring the ashtray inside. A non-smoker never would bother, or care; and, a more militant non-smoker such as Sharon might just chuck the ashtray overboard (or probably in the trash). Anyway, this woman went out on the balcony in a raging storm where the ashtray was, but not to smoke. She says that she heard no warning from the bridge that the balconies were about to be secured. She heard the click, you know the one, and it is the sound of locking your keys in the car. She reached for the door, but it wouldn’t budge. And then she began to get drenched from the spray from the worsening seas. Fortunately, her mother was in the cabin and called 911 for help. An officer from the bridge was there in a flash, but she was drenched from head to foot. And our Team Trivia teammates that attended mass with Sharon instead of play trivia with me are destined to fly from Barcelona to Jordan and onto the Holy Land to join their church group there on pilgrimage. For a week they’ve been trying to get in touch with folks back home to see if there have been any changes or cancellations to their plans, but as we said good-bye to them at Trivia, they were still planning to continue. I’m not so sure Sharon and I would have gone last year if there was the unrest then that there is now.



After breakfast we did our Sudoku up in the Crow’s Nest. I quickly finished the first Easy Puzzle, and pondered what was giving Sharon so much trouble. I was looking at here solution, and it looked nothing like mine. Then I noticed that I was doing puzzle number 36 while she was doing number 37. She’s of the opinion that my victory doesn’t count because she was doing a much, much tougher puzzle. I asked her what her much, much younger sister would have to say about that. She just shot me that Casey smirk. For the Hard puzzle we made sure that we were doing the same puzzle, and it too seemed way too easy to me, needing virtually no annotations. Sharon went down and played the slot machine. There are too that are side by side, The Lemmings and The Party-Poopers. She’s been having trouble finding these machines available. She’s had some entertaining jackpots and has been holding her own on this cruise, sometimes getting down to her last spin and then winning back what she’d played, and then some.



Sharon went to the main deck lobby to help Ruth get her email. I was there also to change some dollars to euros for our upcoming stay in Rome. I’ve found that the rate available from the front desk is better than you can get ashore, and much, much better than you can get in the airport.



We met again in the Showroom to play for the $25,000 jackpot. It was my turn to by the bingo tickets, and Sharon had some trouble finding me when she had finished helping Ruth. It was the biggest gathering yet for bingo. Most of the room was standing including Sharon for the first regular bingo game, before two people shared the $220 bingo (anything over $200 is high for the first game). The then did the Win-A-Cruise-Raffle, and the couple sitting in our row about 10 seats from us won. I got to stand for the 4-Corner game, but someone else won. In the Small-X game I didn’t have a single number until the seventh call, when I had G-58 on all three squares. Someone got bingo on the next call. For the final blackout game Sharon got down to needing just two numbers. Then the person that won the free cruise won the $602 final game. There were some friendly booo’s.



I went up and had my pizza with mushrooms, plum tomatoes and Kalamata olives, and I think I may have come up with a new favorite pizza. The captain came over the intercom and announced that we would be arriving slightly ahead of schedule to ensure that people would have as much time to visit Barcelona as possible. He reported that the port informed him that our berth would not be ready until much later in the day than had been originally scheduled; but, that he’d arranged with the port to find us another berth. This meant that once our berth did become free, he would reposition there, an operation that would take about an hour. During that time, nobody would be getting off or back on the vessel, but in this way no tours would be affected. So hey, if you’re one of those conspiracy theorists out there complaining that the captain is vindictively doing things to you to personally screw up your vacation and to sell more drinks in the Crow’s Nest, chill out… he’s doing a great job!



We had secured our spot for Team Trivia in the front. I went to get a sheet of scrap paper for recording the questions and on the way back I encountered the three people I’d played with the day before, and they asked me to rejoin them. I signaled for Sharon to come on over. They agreed to go with our “We Don’t Need Google” team name. This was the first cruise for the three of them; and, after missing three ports they weren’t sure if cruising was for them. We told them how we enjoyed it, and how unusual this had been; but, missing ports really is better than having your family at home see the cruise ship that you’re on making the 7 PM news back on in another Mediterranean mishap. They weren’t among those complaining about the captain, and it wasn’t just the ports. When they got on the cruise something was making her feel ill, and she wound up being quarantined for one day. Sharon felt she was lucky that she hadn’t been quarantined for three days, which she has seen happen in the past. And then he noted that when we all had been in Rome, he’d come down with the same symptoms; but, she was inclined to think that had more to do with the “Wang-Wang” incident which I’ll get to shortly. The Team Trivia was about to start and there were some first-timers and so he had to go over the rules. Awww! I came up with how old Einstein was when he published his “Special Theory of Relativity”. Then Dave asked Sharon’s favorite question, which she’s never missed, “What is the only continent with no active volcanoes?” Hint: It’s not Antarctica! Their son knew the name of the film where Jack Nicholson types over and over “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” His mother came up with “My Lady” in Italian (Madonna). And our Aussie lady partner (the one going to the Holy Land) arrived just in time for the answer to “What city has a bridge the locals refer to as ‘The Coat hanger’?” It would be Sydney. The only question that we missed was, “In archery, what is the color of the bullseye?” Einstein was 26. And that Jack Nicholson film is “The Shining”. We did pretty good with the bonus questions, missing only who is the only person to play in both a World Series Game and a Superbowl. That would be Dion Sanders. We were tied with one other team. Dave gave them a hard time for having like thirty-seven team members; while, we stuck to the requisite maximum of six! But he chose a tie-breaker question, to which he knew that I knew the answer from the previous cruise! Sharon was about to say that that was a repeat question; but, Dave hushed her up! How many official languages and dialects are spoken in the Sudan? Now I answered that the previous week and won with the answer of 64… the other teams choosing 3, 7 and 11. I knew the answer was over one hundred; but, being so excited at the time I didn’t catch the exact number to write it down for future reference. I suggested that we go with “123” and told my team I believe it is slightly more than that. Dave got the answer from the other team and was about to chastise them for putting down “Over 200”. He called for the bartender to give them the complimentary “Wang-Wang” with seven straws for them all to try. This was fine by me. Our team told us that when Dave asked the, “What 7 liquors make up a Wang-Wang, our team mate went over and ordered a Wang-Wang to see what liquors they made it with. Now for my money, he’s the one that takes these Team Trivia’s way too seriously! He said that drink made him sick for two days… duh! My uncle always said, beware of the grain and the grape! Brandy (grapes) and the other liquors (grains) just don’t mix! I found that out in college when I had a Manhattan during the cocktail hour and wine during the dinner at the special meal celebrating the college-year end of an intensive engineering program. The actual answer was 133, and I am pretty sure Dave was rooting for us. We got our picture taken with him afterwards, and I wound up with the complimentary bottle of Le Puke Champagne (Dave’s words, not mine).



I met Sharon back in the cabin where she was chowing down her Dive-In burger; although, I’m not so sure that chowing down is the right choice of words. Perhaps it would more correctly be said that she was gumming down her burger and thoroughly enjoying the taste of every single morsel. I’d brought her some chocolate ice cream and cookies. Okay, a couple of the cookies were for me. (Chocolate chip for her, Macadamia nut for me).



There was a special 3 PM show featuring a musician that we’d skipped because of the Elton John and Beatles them. Actually, this may have been a big mistake. He have a riveting and incredibly energized performance, performing is very most favorite of all favorite songs: something he emphasized by expanding his arms and finger to show his complete love of the music he was performing. It didn’t take us long to realize that just about everything he played was his most favorite of favorite song! He encouraged audience participation, and WOW… he would have made one incredible “Piano Guy”! He had been requested by Holland America to do this special performance in part to make up for missing so many ports. And he did an incredible job especially with a set on Neil Sedaka.



It is hard to believe that it’s been 24 days and that we must get off of this cruise ship tomorrow. We’ve had an incredible time and we feel immensely fortunate. We went back to the cabin to deal with the ordeal of packing, hoping that we can fit everything back into the suitcases and hoping that it will be under the allowed limits for our flight back to Rome. We’ve chucked the souvenir elephant and turtle that that vendor forced on us for 2 Euros in St. Peters Square. We were able to pack the five pounds of cook books that we won during the “Name that Tune/Musical” competition.



At dinner in the Manhattan Dining Room that night very few people were present. Many people were off on tours, as we’d planned to be. Our tour to see a Flamenco dance and dinner was cancelled for lack of interest. This seemed odd especially since the Flamenco dance only tour was sold out with an extensive waiting list. Those people, and us as well, were encouraged to go instead to a rumba show (also without dinner). I don’t know why the people weren’t encouraged to go to the Flamenco and dinner show! Well, we got that $300 returned to our account! So we went to dinner and found ourselves at a table for six with just one other Japanese gentleman who was currently living in Northern California. He had an incredibly stoic way of looking at this trip that he’d just taken from Venice to Barcelona. He said that he’d come with just modest hopes and expectations: “I wanted to get to see Dubrovnik, I’d wanted to see the ruins of Pompeii, and I wanted to see the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. And I did all three, so I am satisfied!” He also had one final chilling observation of how similar the fate of so many who died at Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted was so similar to what had happened at Hiroshima. Can you spell Awkward? After dinner we finished packing and put our bags out for our departure tomorrow. We’d see them again in the port terminal before boarding our busses to Barcelona Airport. We headed up to say goodbye to Ruth and friends who are staying on for the next 3 cruises. We saw Mule and Guang and they waved good-bye to us as we turned in for the night, thanking us for the tip that we’d left for them earlier that evening.

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