SAIL AWAY

December 3, 2016

Well, here we are in Stateroom 8036.  Climbing the stairs, turning down the hall to our room, I saw only stateroom numbers on the outside wall which meant a window or balcony.  Be still my beating heart.  Then I passed a little corridor that cut off to the right and Bonnie broke the spell – not her fault – when she said, “It’s down here.”  A nice inside passenger cabin, rather large, including a desk and chair, a couch, two closets, and 14 various shelves and drawers.  And hangers galore.   Compared to our last cruise, we have a big room.  Enough places to put all of our stuff.  And we’ve learned, packing as lightly as we did, we’ve brought too much.  There is a guest laundromat on board.  Oh well.

As I communicated earlier, it was only a short walk, and not too difficult pushing and dragging various pieces of luggage to where we immediately boarded a shuttle.  Once inside we were taken to the front of the line – literally the first folks checked in – and were in our stateroom before you could spell Tyconderoga.  If you can spell Tyconderoga (an old Three Stooges line).  There was one of the which of which there is no whicher who was quite put out that we went before her.  Bless her heart.

There was a form letter waiting for me, telling me that my first talk is tomorrow when we are in port, but it is a form letter from another cruise, and I won’t have a talk for two more days.  Tomorrow it is Naples and Pompeii.

We are sharing a table with two other couples.  Carol and Sam from Florida.  Charlie and Clarice from California – love the alliteration.  An enjoyable evening and a very good supper.

We went to the welcome aboard show – in the same lounge where I will do my talks.  The cruise director is a man with whom we’ve sailed before, and so far we are unable to remember what ship.  Sammie, the lady with whom we sailed through the Panama Canal, went on vacation today, so we missed our third opportunity to sail with her (our first Atlantic Crossing back in 2008 or 2010? was with her).

And now to check email, post this, play a few hands of cards and off to beddy bye.

TTFN