Cruise Day 2: First Day At Sea

I woke up at 9 today when Umma ran in to tell us to look out the window to see some strait thing. It was pretty cool, but apparently the more interesting part of the strait was on the other side of the ship. It took a while to get Mia to wake up and get ready and then we had to wait for James to get ready. We didn’t get up to eat breakfast until the breakfast in the Windjammer café was almost done. We did managed to grab some breakfast, but also noticed that they were setting up lunch so waited around for that to finish. Yes, we essentially had breakfast and lunch back to back. Good times.

After eating like pigs, we went up to the library/card room for some Machiavelli. It was first Mia, Oppa, Chabba, James, and me playing the game, but Andrew and Gianni came up to meet us. Umma and Mia went downstairs because Mia was not feeling well, so the second half of the games were played by Oppa, Chabba, Andrew, and me.

There was Bingo at four that I thought Halmony wanted to go to. Our last Machiavelli game ended a little before four, so I ran downstairs to try to get Halmony and everyone to go. Umma and Mia were sleeping and Halmony did not feel like going, so Halmony and I ended up just going to the Casino instead. Halmony gave me $20 to play with. I lost almost all of it at some point and then won all of it back. I almost instantly lost all of it again. Oh, I love the slot machines.

I went downstairs after losing my money to see if anyone wanted to go walk around the track with me. Only Chabba wanted to go, so we went up and ended up walking two and a half miles before going back downstairs to meet everyone in the library for cards at five.

Once in the library, I got massacred by Nonno in two rounds of Scopa. Actually, our scores were decently close in the first round (12-9), but I did a lot worse the second time around. So sad. At least I didn’t lose 13-0 like James did. That’s just embarrassing.

Anyway, most of us hung out up there in the library for a little while after that. We were just sitting around talking, so it was a lot of fun. Well, except for the fact that I’ve recently noticed a number of bumps all over my body and have determined that I got bitten by bed bugs in one of the places that we stayed at. We think it might have been Venice because the only one who did not get bumps like this was Gianni, who was sleeping on a bunk bed. I just have to not scratch this mess until it goes away, which is kind of annoying and hard to do. My Korean bug medicine is very helpful in eliminating the itch, though.

Everyone went back down around 7:15 ish. Once I got downstairs, I got dressed and went up to the gym to do a quick cardio workout before I undid everything plus some at dinner. I did the treadmill for 25 minutes, but also promptly realized why treadmills on boats are not a good idea. I was very dizzy once I stopped running and that lasted until we sat down for dinner. I might just have to stick to the ellipticals for the rest of this trip.

After my workout, I went back downstairs to take a shower and get ready. Since tonight was that meet the captain night, it was the uber formal dress night. We didn’t go to the meet the captain thing, obviously, otherwise I would not have gone to the gym. That’s okay. It’s kind of silly and crowded, IMO.

Getting ready was a fun experience. We had to literally cut Mia out of her dress because the zipper got stuck in it. It was kind of sad because it was a very nice dress, but it was fun to watch the whole ordeal happen and Mia was happy because she got to wear skinny jeans to dinner.

Dinner tonight was also very nice. James and Gianni switched tables and James seemed kind of unhappy to be separated from Andrew and Gianni for the hour and a half we were eating. The food itself was good. I had shrimp cocktail, lobster bisque, and potato curry. Good times. I haven’t had Indian food in quite a while (with the exception of the Indian food that I had for lunch), so I was happy. I also had cheesecake for dessert. Mmm…

We left a little before 10:30 because we wanted to do this pub trivia thing that was supposed to start at 10:30. We get to the place that they had it a little after the time, only to find out that they were almost done with the trivia challenge. They probably started at 10 or something, which was kind of really lame. Whatever, this gave us an opportunity to go downstairs and change into clothes that can be worn by regular people.

After that, we dragged Chabba, Andrew, and James to go see the night’s entertainment. The show was this tenor trio called Tenors Unlimited. James left almost immediately. Andrew was miserable. Absolutely miserable. They also serenaded random people in the audience and there was a look of terror in his eyes the entire time because we were in the second row and he was likely afraid of being serenaded by random men. All in all, the show was a lot of fun. Not the strongest voices, but they put on a very fun show. Umma wanted a CD after the show had ended, so we stood in line for that. The demographic was very, very stereotypically made up of middle age to older women who were swooning over the singers. One of them summed it up quite well while they were taking a picture. He said something to the effect of “Oh, it’s like we’re at a Celine Dion concert.”

Umma then dragged us to the 70s-themed disco party, where cruise staff dressed up the Village People and danced around. It was kind of terrifying, but Umma was very happy. At some point they also tried to teach us the hustle and we were going to leave, but I guess Umma and Mia found the guy dressed in a kilt that Mia had been excited about all evening. They stuck around to get a picture with him, which I imagine was a very awkward experience.

We went downstairs and tried to find Halmony in the Casino. Were unsuccessful but we played $20 together at the slots. Umma and Mia lost everything, but I won $15, so I almost made everything back. We’re probably going to lose it again tomorrow, but oh well. I didn’t lose it tonight, which is what is important J.

On the way back to the room, Umma realized that she was missing her room key, so we had to go to the Purser’s Desk to see if someone had possibly returned it (they had). Then we went downstairs and watched the tail end of Enchanted in both German and French.

Tomorrow we are going to our first port of call, Mykonos. We wanted to go on a tour of an island that has ruins that literally closes at 3, but it was sold out. All of the tour books that we’ve read with the exception of some website that Chabba found site this place as a haven for gay tourists in Greece, but an absolutely miserable and expensive experience in the summer. There are also a lot of nude beaches. We are also going to be in this port of call for most of the day. This should be interesting. I’m sure it will be fun though. Anyway, that’s it for today.