First Full Day at Sea

We were still rockin’ and rollin’ this morning.  I did bring those pressure point bracelets and those seemed to take the edge off the queasiness.  I did take a Dramamine when rising as well.  By afternoon the sea calmed down some but during noon announcements the captain said it would get rough again later.  Actually, it is just “moderate” seas, up to four foot swells. 

We had room service breakfast, the coffee was not very strong.  John had eggs, hash browns, bacon and a banana.  He ate it all even though he said the eggs were watery.  After that we dashed out for the Official Meet and Mingle party for the Cruise Critic group.  It was nice enough.  We saw another woman from the 2009 transatlantic cruise we took.  She recognized me and then I did think she looked familiar.  They severed a variety of juices and some nice little finger foods, canapés.  They gave everyone a “free gift” in the form of a lanyard of sorts that has a pen and pad attached and your name tag fit in it as well.  Then they had a drawing for tote bags with a T-shirt.  I won!  I gave the T-shirt away since it said “watch my balls bounce” on the back and had BINGO on the front.  Anyway the tote is nice canvas and zips to I guess I might use that at some point. 

From there we went to lunch in the dining room.  They DO have the full salad bar like we thought and hoped for.  Several kinds of greens, and all the veggie, meat, cheese, etc. choices you can imagine, even nice sized shrimp.  You can order from the menu or just do the salad bar, or BOTH.  We did the salad and will probably do that every day.  After lunch was a CSI type of seminar with a detective teaching that.  I was marginally interesting and lots of people dozed.  After that it was dance class and the waltz today.  Most of our past lessons came back to us once we got started.  I have never been to a ship class that was so crowded!  They said DWTS and other shows in Europe along those lines have piqued interest in dancing.  We got a Sprite Zero after that using one of our 2 for 1 drink coupons, of which we have several in our two coupon books.  As we walked to the dance lesson we passed the pool tables so John stayed there after the dance lesson and cold drink and I went on to “Ancient Jewelry” class.  I made a necklace and still have the supplies to make a matching bracelet and earrings.  They said they will have more classes and I think I will go since they are free and fun.  I sat with two very interesting women.  One was from Canada and traveling alone.  She is a widow and cruises about 3 months of the year.  The other is on her third husband having once been married to a Frenchman.  Several people we have met are on back to back cruises, this was the case for both of these women.  They said the water had not been this rough for their first cruise.  I’m not sure exactly where the cruise went before this but Istanbul was part of it.  The famous Istanbul market was closed when they were there and the woman with the third husband actually stayed the and shopped, then flew back to meet the ship in the next port!  Now that is a serious shopper!

Evening brought dinner, delicious duck for both of us plus John had escargot and I had lobster bisque.  John had chocolate soufflé for dessert that he didn’t care for and I had a delicious SF coconut vanilla cake.  From there we went to the Captains welcome party, there was no captain but champagne was flowing as were other drinks.  We had one glass of champagne and decided we had enough of the party and headed back to our cabin.  As predicted the storm has picked up and we are headed into the wind.  It is very rough.  They have closed off all outside areas because of the wind.  Seems like a splendid night to read!

John did sign up for the internet today so we will go together to a hotspot and post the blog.  It is a lot nicer when you have a hotspot in your cabin!