Sept. 22, 2018 Seward, Alaska

I remember waking up and thinking that we were docked in Seward, Alaska and that Annie had already left the room to go on her whale watching tour boat trip. The window curtains were closed and it’s pitch black in the cabin so I had no idea what time it was. I remembered that I had awakened some time earlier and couldn’t find my pillow. So here I was groping all over feeling for it so I could sleep some more when a hand grabbed mine. It was so funny to realize that it was Annie and she was still in her bed but awake and wondering what I was feeling around for. I thought I said to her “ I’m looking for my pillow” but later she said that I had said “ I’m trying to close the shower curtain” we had a good laugh later as it was especially funny because there’s no shower curtain here on the ship, it’s a shower door and I have a shower door at home as well so don’t know why I would have said that! It was just way too funny.

After Annie left I immediately went back to sleep and it seemed like in no time she was back after having just gone for breakfast. I got up, showered and got ready to debark ship as I had to go to the Seward P.O. to buy a stamp to mail a letter to my husband. It had been established that I wouldn’t be able to email him as I couldn’t remember my 20 year old email password that I’d never ever had to use not even once-but according to the lady guru at the computer desk they need that PW or you can’t email, period. I ended up calling the front desk to ask if they took mail and the answer was no. I asked if they had or sold stamps, envelopes and writing paper and again the answer was no. What kind of hotel is this I thought! I looked out our door to the hallway and our cabin attendant Alex was nearby making up the cabins so I asked him and he said yes, he happened to have 2 envelopes, no paper or stamps though. And here I had assured my husband that I’d be able to email our daughters who in turn would call him and read him my letters. As we’re going to depart Seward at 5p.m. today and be at sea for 6 days before reaching Petropavalovsk, Russia this would be my last chance for awhile so I opened one of the envelopes to use it as the writing paper, addressed the other one and set off to hopefully find the Seward P.O. buy a stamp and mail the letter home. How's that for an old fashioned cruiser?
First i went for breakfast and i sat with a nice lady solo traveller named Phillipa from New Mexico. We got along so well and had so much to talk about that we were in there over an hour. Phillipa and i discussed the pros and cons of Donald Trump and we both agreed that he was ok but should watch his mouth a little more but that he was actually a pretty good guy. I then disembarked and walked through the terminal to get a shuttle bus into town. As it turned out the two ladies who were looking after things there at the bus stop said they could give me a stamp and mail the letter for me! I was so happy about that and while it might have been a good experience to visit Seward i took them up on their offer. As it turned out when they noticed the letter was addressed to Canada they gave me 3 stamps just in case they were needed and refused payment for them! There’s awesome people everywhere sometimes when you least expect it and they said “just pass it on” which i most certainly will do whenever i can. So since it was to be a wait for the next bus and i was already cold and tired from carrying my IPad and my letter was going to get mailed anyhow i decided to just turn around and get back on the ship. I probably will regret it when I hear later that it was an awesome place but what can you do when your gut tells you otherwise.

So now it’s 1:30pm already, I had a little rest and now it’s time to go eat again, lol!
I decided not to eat as an origami class was going to begin in a few minutes so i walked on down to the Fyzz Lounge to participate. I was surprised to see only 3 ladies there so i joined them as we learned how to make a star box. It was quite difficult and all of us had to get the instructor to help us out and in a few minutes he had made us all a sweet little star shaped paper box. Old film trivia was to start next so we all hung around for that. Unfortunately I’m not good with this category and only got 4 correct answers out of 21 questions even though I did answer every question, lol!

One of the ladies mentioned it was tea time and i said I’d love to join her so we went to the Garden Cafe and i had coffee and banana cake while she drank tea and we talked together for half an hour or more. She is from Switzerland and spoke mostly French and Italian and i forget what the word is for those who speak a combination of the two. Or maybe 3 including German too. Her English was excellent and she knew B.C. quite well as her son was born in Vancouver and she had lived there for awhile.
Later i returned to the room and enjoyed the warmth of the sunshine on our balcony for awhile repairing my manicure. Annie came back from the whale watching trip but they didn’t get to see any whales. She was very funny telling me about being seasick, I guess it’s funny once you recover from sea sickness but at the time i’m sure it was awful to be vomiting into a bag and i think she said a lot of people were in the same boat, so to speak, lol!

I took off to Chin Chins for my dinner of a spider roll sushi and also ordered soup and a couple appetizers. Maybe i wasn’t very hungry, as I didn’t enjoy it that much. I sat with another solo lady Sandie from Hamilton, Ontario and we had a nice little visit. I then realized it was time for the solos gathering in Spinnakers so I made my way up there where i met Margaret from Australia once again and we had a nice chat before the group left for dinner. Because i had already eaten i decided to go back to the room because i had forgotten to bring my camera. Before i left the fellow in charge of these gatherings reminded me to join them in the Stardust theatre as he was getting platinum seats for all of the group. But now that I’m back in my cabin i think I’ll skip out as it’s a long way to head back there and i’m not sure if I even want to go. Maybe i’ll go to the Lido and have some ice cream and a cuppa their nice tea. Not sure what else there is to do tonight but we have sailed away from Seward and we will be sailing for 6 straight days now before we dock for a day in Russia.

Well, i did get myself together and headed off to the show in the Stardust where i met Margaret and we were shown to the platinum seats which weren’t actually that great of a viewing spot.  The hypnotist show started and the guy asked for participants from the audience and about 16 people went up including Scott, a friend of my room mate. Very soon several people were hypnotized and the others were told to return to their seats. I guess if you don’t believe in hypnotism you don’t get hypnotized. The remainder did and said some very funny things and another batch was let go back to their seats. Annie’s friend was amongst the remaining 5 on stage. One of the women was asked to count on her fingers and she kept getting 11 fingers or maybe 9 and she was put into such a deep sleep she kicked off her shoes and sprawled right out. It was a lot of fun watching this show.

Later  Margaret and i went to the casino where i was blown away by her method of playing poker. I usually only play poker on a cruise because they never have my fav slot games from home and I’m not usually lucky playing some random game. Anyhow, Margaret is the fastest player i’ve ever seen, she had a style and a way of playing that seemed much more profitable than the way i play. However I don’t think i could be as fast as she was in a million years and i’m not even clear on whether speed gives you an advantage. I guess i’ll just play my own slow way and probably always be a loser. One thing that i will do now though after watching her is to go for the straight if you have 3 cards of one and that’s not usually the way i play and definitely not if there’s a pair included in the hand. I noticed that quite often the 2 missing cards will fill in the straight more times than she'd get 3 of a kind.

They announced a draw was going to take place and all you had to do was get 5 numbers right and you’d win over a million dollars in good ol.’ U.S. money. Well that would be something like over 1.3 million Cnd and because my husband plays Keno and often gets a 5 number win i was thinking how easy that would be. Four correct numbers would pay out a cool thousand and i forget how much for 3 numbers but at least $20. I think. So i go get a ticket and you could choose your numbers or take a quick pick so i chose my own. A few mins later the numbers were drawn and i was surprised to not get even one of them. WTH i thought it would be easy. Later i figured it out; this is way different than Keno and the chance of getting 5 numbers out of 5 drawn was impossible odds. In a Keno game there’s 20 numbers drawn so getting 5 correct isn’t that hard especially in view of the fact that they can tell you what the most recently drawn numbers were because they do have a tendency to repeat and if you watch closely a few games prior to your game you can make sure to include some or at least one or two of the most common numbers drawn to help your odds. So now that i know and understand this i prob won’t be buying into this lotto. However, afterwards when all was said and done they announced another draw was going to be held for the losers. Just sign your ticket and put it in the box. i did and i observed there was just 2 tickets in there, including mine! So guess who got lucky and had her ticket drawn and won a bottle of wine? Yes, i can get lucky when there's only one other ticket entered, lol.