Adriatic Sea Day Adventure

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That first night Sharon ventured down to the piano bar to check out the music; while, I finished up the blog for the day. I failed to mention something that the woman travelling alone had said at dinner, when asked how she was enjoying the cruise so far. She had started in Barcelona and this was her second leg, something that is apparently quite common; although, I have no recollection of others doing the same thing on our honeymoon. I would say about half of the people we’ve met so far are doing just that, taking advantage of the “Legacy Cruising”. Well, it raised all of our eyebrows when she said that she was having just a dreadful time. Her arthritis had flared up, a new condition that now nearly crippled her hands, and she said for the most part it was all she could do just to stay on the ship. The real topper was a few days back while rounding the heel of Italy into the Adriatic Sea a violent rolling of the ship had thrown her completely out of bed. It was later when I’d pieced together more information about what they’re calling “the incident” that I realized that she’d taken to bed rather early, before the first show, and many people were in the Manhattan Dining Room having dinner at the time the ship and maneuvered a turn in stormy seas into gale force crosswind that had cause the ship to suddenly list 14 degrees. One diner had had his beer as well as several glasses of wine upended in his lap, and as luck would have it, it was formal night and he was dressed to the nines in his tuxedo. There were several injuries and considerable broken glassware. I mention this because we would hear more during this day about “The Incident”. Sharon said the Piano Man also mentioned it the first night. He said he’d since found out that the ship can actually handle listing to 45 degrees but he didn’t really want to be aboard to test that theory.



We slept soundly and awoke around 4 AM, having set our clocks ahead one hour. I made my way to the gym at 6 AM; but, it remained battened down for the night. Perhaps someone forgot about the time change. We had breakfast in the dining room, and one of those we dined with asked if we’d heard about “The Incident” on the previous cruise. I had a small bowl of Swiss muesli and also a larger bowl of Scottish stone-ground oatmeal with bananas. Sharon had some scrambled eggs white toast, and her dentures seem to be still working quite well; although, they still are taking her some time to get used to them. One of those we dined with remarked that it was a good idea to order a la carte as we had; rather than choosing one of the suggested multicourse meals. She had started with a fruit plate, then had an American breakfast and was finishing with a bowl of oatmeal (albeit not the Scottish stone-ground oatmeal I was having).



After breakfast we made our way to the Explorer’s Lounge for our daily Sudoku Challenge. On this ship this lounge shares what is the left side of the Crow’s Nest on the smaller ships that I’ve been on before. Sharon beamed that she had needed only a couple of annotations on the extremely small puzzles; until, I pointed out that I hadn’t used any (and I still beat her). The second puzzle was a bit more difficult compounded by the miniature size of the cells, and here some annotation was necessary (for us). I completed the puzzle and Sharon resigned (for today). Sharon headed to a Beginning Greek lesson and said later that she thought it was harder than Chinese. I went back to the room to prepare for the Team Trivia Challenge scheduled for 1 PM in the Crow’s Nest. I’ve compiled a list of about 400 previous challenge questions, and am adding to them all the time. I decided to turn on the TV and decided to watch “Back to the Future”. Sharon came back about the time Marty McFly’s Grandmother thought that his name was Calvin Klein (the significance will soon be clear); but, she lay down and dozed off, so maybe she’s not quite adjusted to the time. We’d planned to go listen to the presentation on upcoming ports at 11 PM, but Sharon slept right on past that. She awoke in time for lunch at noon, and the movie was now over. We both had lamb in the Lido, and I had a helping of macaroni and cheese with spinach, which was surprisingly tasty. Sharon had some mashed potatoes while I had some of the roasted potato pieces. We came back to the cabin after lunch to put on our Trivia Shirts. Mine says “I Don’t Need Google: My Wife Knows Everything!”, and Sharon has a pink shirt with a similar sentiment about me. We get lots of smiles and thumbs up! A British Couple, Jeffrey and Audrey invited us to join them. The questions had a definite British aspect to them; although, the Cruise Director Dave does not sound British. We knew what the J.K. Rowling’s books refer to completely non-magical folk (Muggles). Our teammates were struggling to come up with the word (which they knew); but, Sharon assured them that I would get this one right (Thank-you for the support Sharon). Then they wanted to know in what year did Princess Di die. I wrote down 1987, then realized my mistake and changed it to 1997. Perhaps my mis-step caused them to lose confidence in me and Audrey was calculating the year based on the age that Harry was when Di died and how old he was now and they were convince that the year must be 1989 or 1991. Sharon disagreed with every one and said that the 20^th anniversary of her death had just happened, which would put it at 1995. I stated that I knew for a fact that the date had to be between 1995 and 2000, remembering when I heard about her death and where I was when I heard about it, and that could only have been between those years. They were not impressed. So I relented and we went with 1995. (See, I supported Sharon) Needless to say the answer was 1997. They knew who 007’s boss’s secretary was: Miss Moneypenny. Then came the piano question and we all looked at Sharon. A previous question from last cruise was how many keys are on a piano (88). Today’s question was how many black keys are there. The answer had to be within three. Sharon finally deduced that the answer was 37 (which was close enough to get credit for the actual answer of 36). Another question was who authored the phrase “Double, double, Toil and Trouble…” I realized it must be Shakespeare, and they agreed that it could be. Dave said that we would have four bonus questions: The first three are worth two points each and the final question is a five point question. One of the bonus questions was who first broke the 4-minute mile in running (The British runner Roger Bannister). The final bonus was, one point for each of five countries: Geographically by area, what are the five largest countries? If you are struggling with this, Australia is number 6 on the list! Besides the Di fiasco, the only other question that we missed was the first bonus question: In what 1988 film starring Michael Keeton, does he have the opportunity to read from the Book of the Dead? All we could come up with was “Batman” but we weren’t feeling too confident about that answer (for good reason, although the actual answer does begin with the letter “B”).



We stopped by the casino and Sharon didn’t stay long. I won the first hand (for a change). I then lost the next 8 hands in a row, and it wasn’t very pretty. When I got a blackjack and was paid $6 for my $5 bet I questioned this; but, evidently at this $5 table blackjacks don’t pay 3:2 which I find really irritating. I played on, won a couple of doubled down bets, and as soon as I found myself ahead I quite the game up $15. With a 6:5 payout for blackjack, the player will always lose (in the long run). I headed over to the Queens Lounge and found Sharon there, coming down from the Lido with an ice cream mustache still on her lips (I’m just kidding, but there could have been). We watched the Cha Cha for a bit.



We went to the Vigil Mass and listened to Father Shout. He likes to hear people sing. I must have been a big disappointment.



We got dressed for formal night, and we got our picture taken before dinner with Sharon’s new smile. I enjoyed the escargot and the artichoke and carrot cream soup. Sharon had the beef tenderloin with a baked potato and I had the ricotta stuffed shells (and these were really great). We both had a chocolate soufflé with chocolate syrup, and these were great as well. We had just enough time to get to the 8:00 PM Show where HAL’s singers and dancers put on their “On Tour” production, featuring contemporary songs and dancing; although, no tunes that I really recognized. The singers are quite talented.



I came back to the cabin after the performance to write this blog, while Sharon ventured to the Piano Bar. Sharon said the brought in extra chairs for his popular venue at the piano bar featuring Jeremy.



If you have come up with that list of countries, you might consider Russia, Canada, USA, China and Brazil! And while you’re at it “Beetlejuice” would also be a pretty good guess.

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