Some Special Sea Day Sailing to See Nassau

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Since today is Saturday there would be no morning mass! Sharon can go to either Vigil Mass tonight or Sunday mass tomorrow evening before our Pinnacle reservation. I was happy to notice that the cabin steward had replaced the blue body gel in the shower dispensers for the translucent yellow gel that Sharon and I are accustomed to. Sharon had suggested, wouldn’t it be great if we had a dispenser like that in our new home. We took our time getting to the Lido and I decided to get an omelet for my weekend breakfast. I had to wait in a different line to get some potatoes and sausage patties, and it seemed to take forever. Sharon had scrambled eggs. She regrets how they don’t make the French Toast to order as they did on the Nieuw Amsterdam, and has only made the mistake of getting the roof shingles they serve in the Lido on the Zuiderdam once.



We made our way up to the Crow’s Nest to stake out some good seats for Travel Trivia at 8:30 AM, a full half-hour early. I decided to try an iced mocha to wake up my brain for Sudoku and the Travel Trivia we were about to compete in. We had plenty of time to do our Sudoku challenge, and we completed the Easy Puzzle before Vanne and Stewart arrived. Lucia just shook her head at us as we frantically scrawled on our solution sheets; and, Jim just chuckled as he watched us compete against each other. I came in just ahead of Sharon on the Easy puzzle. The Hard won took just a little bit more time; and, I was trying to be careful not to wind up with another “DNF”. Losing to Sharon, especially the Hard Puzzle is bad enough, then to top that with a “DNF” it’s almost embarrassing. The danger of losing to her twice in a row is that she would then have the chance to do it three times in a row, an opportunity she had just once during our European Odyssey… Now that would be very, very bad! But, the gods were smiling on me today and I prevailed, and I noted to Jim that order had been restored to the universe. Sharon finished less than 60 seconds behind me, noting, “Well at least it’s not a ‘DNF’!” no doubt a dig at my showing yesterday. It was time to take on these other Travel Trivia pretenders. “What city is farther north: Moscow or Stockholm?” The room groaned. KK had threatened us with this sort of trivia to avoid any nitpicking whiners that have plagued our games these past couple days… You know who you are, you sit right up front next to KK and her microphone so that you have her ear. Well, see what Travel Trivia has gotten us, a game of latitudes! Actually, KK only interspersed her regular questions with these North-South brain-twisters. Sharon and I wanted “Victoria” for “What is the capitol of British Columbia?” but we were outvoted so we went with “Vancouver”. And we were just in both places this year (but we didn’t play that card). “What city is farthest south: Cairo or Mexico City. We thought it was obvious and went with the right answer in the Western Hemisphere. “What is the capitol of Vietnam?” I urged Hanoi, but Jim suggested Ho Chi Mihn City. Did they change it when I wasn’t looking? They knew I was the go-to person for flags; but, I’d mentioned that I was now trying to learn the capitols as well, so I got outvoted. “What city is farther north: Boston or Paris?” It’s Paris, and we got that right. “What is the straight between Australia and Tasmania?” Sharon and I sailed across it, and when we heard the answer, I knew that I’d heard it before. It’s probably even in our blog from that trip! The Bass Strait. We looked to Jim and Lucia when KK asked “How many countries border Argentina?” I thought about five, maybe six. Jim was firm on five, and Lucia agreed. We got that right, which should help us with the bonus: Name those countries. There were the obvious ones: Brazil, Uruguay and Chile. Then came Bolivia and Paraguay, and we were really confident. But KK said that the fifth country was Peru (and not Paraguay). Vanne suggested that we should go over and look at the globe on the other side of the room; so, I did. And as we suspected, our answer was right. I went and told KK, “You should tell the captain that he needs to get a new globe because the one near the Exploration Lounge doesn’t have Peru and Argentina touching!” She went over to the globe to have a look for herself, spinning the globe to look closer, and was having trouble finding Argentina… (in Africa). I told her, “South America is over here.” She corrected her answer, scores were adjusted, and again, we came in second. The team that came in first beat us by several points, missing just one question themselves. I mentioned to Stewart that this team should be able to do well, they’ve been sitting over by the globe and winning the past two days! “Have they?” he exclaimed.



We did pretty much the same thing for lunch again today. I went up and had the Back Flip at the Dive-In, their very tasty grilled chicken sandwich with fries. I then ordered Sharon’s burger plain with her own fries and brought it back to the cabin along with a bowl of almost totally melted chocolate ice cream. Sharon’s burger only took a few minutes to get ready yesterday. Today it took almost fifteen minutes. About one fourth of the pagers they were using don’t work (possibly they just need batteries). So the order steward was handing people a pager that didn’t work, telling them what there number was and telling them to stand over there and listen for their number. Consequently over a dozen people were milling around the Dive-In window and the congestion made the whole thing degrade into what it used to be, prior to the innovation of The Dive-In… Do you remember those days? We do. And we don’t want to return to them anytime soon!



I put Sharon’s tray on the table outside on the balcony next to her. I was headed up to the 1 PM Team Trivia game and Sharon promised to join me as soon as she could. She had plenty of time and it didn’t look like there was more than one spoonful of chocolate ice cream left in the bow. (It had melted as I waited in the crowd for her burger). I found where Jim and Lucia were sitting, and decided I’d have another iced mocha drink from the Exploration’s Café.



Sharon showed up before Mike arrived, and Vanne went up to get our answer sheet. She’s the official answer recorder for our team, and she holds “The power of the pen” over us… that is, she has the final say on answers. Stewart keeps reminding us all that there are five sides to a banana, and I doubt any of us will forget that anytime soon! Before Mike started he asked, “Do you want the easy trivia questions…” and half the room cheered, “… or do you want the hard trivia questions?” and the other half including our team cheered. The roar was about the same for each, so Mike concluded, “Well, it doesn’t really matter because you’ll get the other group tomorrow!” I might mention, we missed the first four questions, starting with the first question when Mike his us with a phobia I’d never heard of, asking “What is ‘alektorophobia’?” He spelled it for us so there could be no doubt about what he was saying. We thought possibly the fear of public speaking; but, I later checked and that would be glossophobia. This Mike claims is the fear of chickens. I’ve had to add it to my list of over 500 phobias. Sharon and I felt that we probably once both knew what “Mahjong” stood for; but, we couldn’t remember from our time learning the game from our tour guide and escort Arnold in China. It means “sparrows” which vaguely makes sense.? We didn’t know what constellation Antares was part of… it’s Scorpio. Stewart came through like a champ when asked “What is the common surname shared by a British prime minister and an American president?” I had just started to go through the list to consider possibilities, and he wrote down “Wilson”. Mike then suggested that there might be several of us who collect, what a “deltiologist” collects; and, we had to write down what that might be. The questions then seemed to get quite easy (for us). Lucia knew how many fingers Anne Boleyn had on both hands (counting thumbs). Many people said twelve; but, Lucia was one of the few in the room that knew it was eleven. And we got the bonus question: “What Italian leader was afraid of ‘The Evil Eye’?” It was of course Mussolini. We’d gotten 18 out of a possible 23 points. Was this going to be our day to shine in the sun once again? Several recent winners, including the team of “Momma Can’t Spell” bowed out early. They’ve been one of the better teams, and won a couple days ago, and the core of this team played with Sharon and me when we won the first Mega Trivia contest. Alas, we tied for second and the winners only missed one question! So Close! Sharon noted that we may not win often; but, we’re always right up there at the top, and would probably be the overall leader if Mike had set it up that way!



Sharon headed for the casino to try her luck on the machine. I considered playing blackjack, but the Fun-21 table was locked up. I noticed a blackjack tournament and watched it for a spell, but this game really has nothing to do with skill and everything to do with luck. Sharon found me and said she was going back to the cabin to enjoy the balcony. Her machines were being monopolized by other players. Maybe they’ll feed those jackpots for Sharon to get later! I then began watching a game in progress at the video-play Texas Hold’em pit. I later learned that nine (of a possible ten) players had bought in for $30 each. There was a signup sheet where six players had played in the morning session starting at 10:30 AM, and this current session had started at 1:30 PM. Only seven players remained in the game. The casino takes $5 for every occupied seat at the table, and the rest is the pot that they all play for. I watched until the game dwindled down to just two players remaining in the game. They both agreed to split the pot and end the game, saying, otherwise it could go on for hours.



I joined Sharon back in the cabin, and saw that our final wash was back, so I put away some clothes. Our trip really is nearing its end! We headed up to the Queen’s Lounge to watch a presentation by White Magic on learning some magic tricks. He started out by asking if people had any questions for his fiancée, the contortionist. She agreed that, yes, she is taller than the average contortionist. Her profession is something that you must start training for at the age of five or six; but, definitely no later than seven years of age. Asked about how long of a career you can have, doing what she does she explained that her teacher lived until the age of 88 and her body could still do positions that it managed at 21. If done correctly, the body is not injured doing what she does. She is not double-jointed. Joints aren’t pulled out of their sockets. She has considerable upper-body strength to support her body as she does in some of the inverted positions. He body size makes the mouth-hold move that is her trade-mark more difficult than it would be for a smaller person; still, there are just a handful of people in the world that can do what she does. She warms up for 45 minutes before a performance, and on the day of the performance she eats no dinner until after the final show.



The show then centered on magic. We were shown a quite impressive trick that anyone can easily do with a standard deck of Bicycle Playing cards. These are the preferred cards for magic tricks he said because they are a sturdy card and have worldwide brand recognition. The first “bit of magic” was this: The magician takes a deck of cards out of a Bicycle Cards deck, fans the cards for the observer showing only the backs and asks for the observer to pick out one card, but not to show it to him. He then says, “I’m going to turn my back, so you can look at the card and show it to others, and I won’t be able to see it.” When he did this on the show, he turned and was looking at an overhead monitor and you could see the card in the monitor, and everybody laughed… but that was to get the laugh and not needed to do this trick! He turns back around and then has the person slip the card into the deck of cards. The magician then places the deck back into the box. He places the box on the table, taps the box with his hand, opens the box, and reveals that the card selected by the person is in the deck but facing in the opposite direction from all of the other cards! And I assure you, this is a trick anybody can do. It is an allusion, it involves misdirection, and things not always being as they seem. And you could learn this trick in under 5 minutes! He showed a couple other tricks including a simpler variation of his 4-aces trick which it took him 20-years to master. The simple variation he claims you can learn in 5-minutes! And he also demonstrated some “magic” you can do with a Svengali Deck. This is not your standard deck of playing cards and I first encountered them at the Magic Store at Disneyland some fifty years ago. He says you find these on eBay if you would like.



It was time for our final $25,000 Jackpot Bingo game in the Showroom. It was my turn to buy the cards and we stuck to the 3-pack for $25. I handed Sharon her card, and afterwards we checked and none of them had all of her lucky numbers on them. Sigh! That didn’t stop Sharon from standing during the simple Bingo game. Two others called “Bingo” for this game. Andy chose something different for the second game, asking us to call “Bingo” when getting a “Crazy-T”. Sharon got down to where she needed just two calls on each of her three squares. I think I needed four on one square, five on another and six on a third. Again, someone beat us to “Bingo”. The third game was a double-bingo and Sharon got to be the second person standing for this game. Unfortunately, someone beat her to “Bingo”. In the blackout game, I had one square that had four out of the first five numbers called; and, then eight out of the first ten numbers called. Sharon keeps glancing over at me wondering why I’m giggling and bouncing up and down. I had fifteen numbers poked through on my card, plus the Free Space after 26 calls. Andy asked, “Is anyone within ten?” And he was surprised that I raised my hand. I only needed nine number and twenty calls to get them to win $25,000! Ten calls later I’m still in the running, and Sharon is glancing over more often as I’m continuing to poke-and-fold on my center square. Finally after the 44^th call Andy asks again, “Is there anyone in the room within two?” Again, I raise my hand. “Wow!” All I needed was “B-11” and “B-13”! The next call was an “O”. I told Sharon afterwards that I should have just stood up anyway! Twelve calls later Andy still had not called a “B”! Someone else was the first to stand. Then Andy called “B-11” and there was just one of Sharon’s lucky numbers that I needed. The woman next to Sharon also stood up with this number, and Andy noted that there were two more standers. Then, before Andy could call the next number the woman that had just stood next to Sharon exclaimed excitedly, “Bingo”. She failed to punch a number earlier and realized only after checking the board that her last number was already in the “Called Number List”. So she got “my” bingo. Sigh. My suite-mate Miles in college had a pet saying for times such as this, “Close, but no cigar!”



I wasn’t sure that I could eat after that disappointment. We arrived at dinner at 5:15 PM and figured that we’d have no trouble finishing in time for Pub Trivia. I ordered the yellow tomatoes with mozzarella and balsamic drizzle, followed by crab and corn chowder, and followed that with a tasty chilled coconut nutmeg soup. Jim had said how he was looking forward to the guava stuffed chicken this evening, so I selected that, seeing nothing better. What guava and mango there might have been in the stuffing was overpowered by the ricotta and spinach that was clearly apparent. I thought it was very good; but, not what I’d expected. Sharon had the everyday chicken and substituted a baked potato (again). We both enjoyed the Chocolate Delight; although, I was tempted by the Bananas Foster with rum-caramel sauce. We ate at a table with three other people. We’d had dinner earlier on this cruise with the couple, but the other man was travelling alone and had chosen to have all of his meals at this particular table. In this way he’d developed quite the repartee with the dining steward.



I had to hurry to finish my dessert to rush off to the Crow’s Nest at 7 PM for Pub Trivia. I just barely made it; but, Andy was not starting on time. I explained that Sharon would be with us in about five minutes. We did fairly well with the first few questions. Then Andy asked, and Sharon was with us now, “What are the 4 heaviest land animals (living today) with a bonus if listed these in order. We came up with: Elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros and polar bear. Sharon had suggested giraffe. We got three out of a possible five points. Replace the polar bear by giraffe and then swap the hippo and rhino, we’d have had it right for five points! He gave us the “What Italian pasta means ‘little turnip’?” Our teammates didn’t care for my answer of “ravioli” but Sharon assured them that we’d missed this question four times already, and weren’t going to miss it again! We were the only ones who got it right! When Andy asked “What fell on the Sahara Desert on February 18, 1979?” Stewart knew that this was “Snow!” Not many others got that one right! “What is the largest fresh water lake?” Except for the “freshwater” part, we’d had this question during our first cruise from Venice… We’d answered “Lake Superior” then, and the answer was the “Caspian Sea”. So we went with “Caspian Sea” only Andy was looking for “Lake Superior!” Sigh! Then came “What planet has the largest moon (in our solar system)?” I pressed for Jupiter; although, there was some support for Saturn. One other team, I think the nitpickers from Travel Trivia argued that the correct answer was Saturn, and urged him to accept that answer. They pressed Andy for the name of that moon, and Andy made the mistake of saying, “I think that it’s Titan.” There was blood in the water because that’s what they wanted to hear. “Titan is a moon of Saturn,” the triumphantly declared. Nonplussed, Andy replied that he’d check on the name of the moon for tomorrow; but, that he was confident that the correct answer to the question that he’d asked is “Jupiter”. Jupiter has the largest moon, and Jupiter is the right answer, and Jupiter gets the point! His declaration was definitive and not wish-washy as KK had been on her first day running her Travel Trivia. We were sorry to hear that Andy would be leaving the Zuiderdam in January ahead of our cruise in February for my mother’s 85^th birthday. We got three points for the bonus question: “What is the most common cause of accidental death in the home?” We suspected it must be “Falling”. We’d gotten 19 out of 22 points! We’d tied with two other teams (including the nitpickers). The tiebreaker was, “How many steps would you ascend if you climbed to the top platform of the Eiffel Tower?” We guessed 2,500 steps. The other two teams guessed 350 steps and 850 steps. Andy said, “This is going to be close,” and had to revert to his calculator. The actual answer is 1,710 steps. We’d edged them out by just 70 steps! As we were admiring our booty, some genuine HAL Caribbean pins, the nitpickers came over and told us to enjoy our pins that we really hadn’t won because our answer of Jupiter wasn’t right! They were also contesting the Caspian Sea question, and were a bit dismayed I’m sure to learn that we’d also answered Caspian Sea so they couldn’t pick up any ground down that avenue. I did some fact checking later and found that Andy was indeed correct on all scores. As it turns out, the Caspian Sea is a lake, but it has no outlets. It lies about 95 feet below sea level. And the salinity is about 1.3%!((MISSING)or about one-third of sea water). Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake by surface area; while, Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater lake by volume! And that big Jupiter moon in Ganymede (larger than Saturn’s Titan). So nitpickers, get over it. We won fair and square.



We went to the Showroom to see the first show of “Avalon” by the Zuiderdam dancers and singers. The show was lively and enjoyable. I left a little before the end to make sure that we got a place to sit in the Queen’s Lounge for the Cruise Director hosted game “Majority Rules”. Sharon joined me directly, and we acquired two other women to share our booth and be our teammates. I’d ordered Sharon a Sprite, and I had ordered myself two Southern Comfort’s and Coke. Teams answer questions. Then everyone’s answers get tallied and the correct answer is the one with the greatest consensus. The first question was to come up with a common name for a dog. We went with “Max” only because it is the most common name for a dog… not necessarily what people would consider a popular name for a dog. Somebody else did think “Buddy” would be a good name, and some thought “Fido”. The winner was “Rover”. We didn’t get that point. I was outvoted for a popular flavor of ice cream. Mike observed when checking the answers, “I didn’t know there were just two flavors of ice cream.” Too many people thought “Vanilla” (like me) but our team voted for “Chocolate”. Two new players joined our team at this point, and they would have voted for Strawberry and Chocolate… so that was that! This game was a lot of fun. Mike asked “Who was the most talented Beatle?” When reviewing the answers Mike bemused, “I didn’t know that there were just two Beatles!” Mike’s favorite question was “Name a famous person that Andy reminds you of.” We though Adam Sandler. But the winners all thought “Gomer Pyle.” He’ll probably never live that one down. “What person do you think other women would most like to be?” We went with Julia Roberts. Others thought Elizabeth Taylor or Marilyn Monroe. The winner was one that Sharon had suggested “Angelina Jolie”. Mike supposed that was because of Brad Pitt. So when it came time for the corresponding question for men, we just went with Brad Pitt and we finally got a point. We got a total of 6 points by the end of the game, but we didn’t win (or even come in second).

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