Blog Jan 17,2010

It’s difficult to believe that a whole week has gone by since we had the Gala dinner dance at the Four Season’s Hotel, and now there is little more than another week before Marlyse will be leaving! Each of us has had a full schedule, and often only meet at mealtime. We like our table mates, and are usually the last table to leave the dining room at night, because we are so busy chatting. It is a table for 6, and one of the ladies is a repeat from our table of last year ( and we had already decided last year to try to be at the same table again, this year) and the other is someone new, who has travelled a great deal, and is quite lively. She looks to be about 60, and in actual fact, she’s 71 and has a daughter who is 50!
One of the men is an Ambassador Host (those are the fellows who are here to dance with the ladies) and the other fellow is retired from the airline industry, and has been everywhere and knows everybody. Every evening is good for laughs and conversation. Tomorrow night, all of us are going to the Silk Room (Japanese) for dinner, preceded by a cocktail ½ hour of champagne and hors-d’oeuvres, here in our stateroom, and served by our butler!

Marlyse starts the day at 07:30 with a strenuous 20 minute walk on deck, followed by 45 minutes of Yoga (which we both do, at 08:00) Thereafter, we each go our own way, usually, Today, we both went to “Rap with the Rabbi”, and then I went for bridge lessons at 10 and 11. Marly went to beginners bridge, and then to paddle ball or some other sport, and then looked in on “Trivial Pursuits”. After lunch, I took time to relax in the sunshine, before going to Spanish class and Marlyse played more paddle ball or some such, and then lopped off 15 minutes from each of her next classes, since they were all scheduled such that she would not have had time for them, otherwise. Therefore, she left her golf lesson early in order to go to her art lesson, and then left that for something in the gym, finally going back to the art class when only the teacher was still around, essentially getting a private lesson. Now, she flew in and out of the stateroom, because she has an appointment for a massage, and in less than two hours, we are invited for pre-dinner cocktails and dancing to honor other members of the Crystal Society, and it is a formal affair, so we have to dress up and have our picture taken for the souvenir booklet.

On Friday, Marlyse went on a rain forest cycling expedition in St. Lucia, and I remained here, trying to get caught up with laundry, and the computer (which has continued to be a problem ever since we got on the ship. Seems that the Outlook program I have has suddenly become defective, and so sometimes the send and receive doesn’t work: The only remedy would be to install a new program, or to turn the computer off each time and reboot it when I want to use Outlook. Today, Philippe tried to Skype me, but that wasn’t very successful, either. Apparently, we are limited in the time of day, that we can use Skype.

On Saturday, I took an Island jeep safari adventure in Barbados, and Marlyse joined the Rabbi and a few others for a private visit to the oldest synagogue still in existence in the “new world”. Apparently, it precedes the Spanish/Portuguese in New York and also the one in Newport, all of which are from the 16th century.

Tomorrow, we stop at Devil’s Island (French Guiana) for a few hours, but the landscape is such that I won’t attempt the hike up through the jungle. Marlyse will go without me.