I'll give you a piece of my mind: Oct. 8, 2019 Meeting interesting people

Tuesday, Oct 8, 2019 Meeting interesting people

I slept peacefully all night and woke up feeling refreshed which is rare for me cuz i usually wake up tired and headachy and miserable even after sleeping 8 or 10 hours. My cabin is very very quiet and i haven’t heard or seen my neighbours on either side. Maybe there’s no one there, i dunno, the ship was supposedly sold out so surely there’s someone in there. Before i left home i researched the cabins onboard by reading past passengers reviews. Most were positive so i just checked out the negative ones and while my cabin wasn’t mentioned a nearby one was and it didn’t sound good. They spoke of a grinding, hammering type of noise and while i heard nothing maybe the walls are sound proofed enough to hide it. Or maybe it’s a haunted room like the one on the Queen Mary which is a hotel now and we were docked beside her in LA. Apparently a ghost of a child will pull off your covers in the middle of the night and/or be seen standing at the foot of the bed. I know some of the passengers onboard Splendor with me had experienced things like no hot water on Mary and they spent a night or two on the ship before boarding this ship. Whatever all i know is when i awaken in the mornings it’s so quiet i always think no ones up yet. Then when i get to the Lido there’s millions of people there or on their way to a dining room or whatever.

I breakfasted like a spoiled child today because i have no one to comment on it or to look all wide eyed and astonished at my choices. I ate several cakes, cinnamon buns, FroYo and lemonade. I met a lovely Chinese lady named Vivian who’s table i had sat at before and we had a nice visit and as we walked out we met her hubby coming in and so we had a little chat. Very nice man, he told me how to get to the place where i was going to attend an arts and crafts thing which was very valuable info because while i’ve walked by the room many times i hadn’t ever noticed it because there’s so many interesting things around and near it. The project for today was a door hanger, made with one of those plastic grid things. Everything was supplied along with instructions. Red, white and blue yarn, scissors and the needle and the threader thingy. There were quite a few people there, men too. I got the border finished on mine when time was up and will finish it in my room eventually and hang it on my door.

Soon it was lunchtime and i got some salads and iced tea and was looking for a table when i spotted my friend Annie with some of her friends so i went to see if i could join them. It was a table for 4 and Wendy was just leaving to get to a function so i was able to join them. I need to remember the names of Irene and Shasta so i can put one of my postcards in their mailboxes because i have lots of leftovers.

I walked around a while and ended up playing a bit in the casino but it was so tight and i didn’t even really like the machine i had chosen so got out of there quite fast. On my way back i got ice cream and asked a guy alone at a table out on deck if i could sit with him there for a minute and he said yes. He and his wife are from Houston Texas and are on their 32nd anniversary trip. He told me that he and his wife had snagged tickets to do the chefs table tonight which includes a visit to the galley. It sounded pretty awesome but i know i’ll never attend because it’s super expensive and i’m not really into the gourmet things they’ll have like maybe raw oysters or something.

After wandering through the art gallery i entered the contest to name a certain piece of art. It was an abstract of a man with an umbrella and the upper half of the scene was muted coloured half circle thingies. The first thing that came to my mind is what i wrote down so i didn’t have to think anymore. I called it “Pipe dreams” and then realized that i was just an elevator ride away from my cabin so down i went and am now going to have a little nap. I never nap at home. This is the new me i guess.

Woke up a couple hours later and my room was actually a little too warm even for me. I got freshened up and changed my plan of eating dinner in the Lido to the Black Pearl restaurant. That’s the dining room where i didn’t really like their food very much but decided to give them another chance. So i went via the new route that i learned and found a one lady lineup. The door was closed and a sign said it would be open at 5:15 and according to my watch it was now 5:25. I stood there a couple minutes and then thought i’d open the door to the room to see what was going on and it opened and i see four waiters standing around chatting. I asked them if the restaurant was closed and they said no, it’s open but you have to go to the other end. I thought omg i thought i had figured this place out but nope, i was at the wrong entrance; it was actually an exit. Then one of them said you can just walk through the room to the front desk instead of going around so i did but the other lady who had been waiting had disappeared. So i get to the front desk where you have to show your ship card and i noticed the entrance lobby was packed full of people lined up waiting to get in. It was awkward but i bravely just cut in behind a couple who were next in line because there was no way in hell i was going to walk through them all to get in line behind them. Nobody noticed me, thank God cuz it could have been embarrassing.

So i told the maître ‘d that i was alone but would like to sit at a table where other solos or singles could join me. On my last cruise they had big round tables for 6 singles and solos. Well, maybe they didn’t have that here because he led me to a table for two. A few minutes later i hear a woman from about 6 or 8 tables away call out to me “are you eating alone?” So i said yes and she says well come and sit with me. It kind of took me by surprise but i said ok and then realized that i’d had my water poured and had drank some, the menu had been given to me and to move at this point might be rude or troublesome for the waiter or something because he’d have to remove the bread basket and silverware and water and i didn’t want him to get in trouble over it so i said to the woman i don’t think i should move at this point and she says oh, well I’ll move to your table then and over she comes.
And so i met Linda, a Canuck who had been born in Labrador, Canada, the Province that my dad was born in and so i felt an immediate connection. Linda lived there until she was 8 years old and then her family moved to Colorado. She said she pretty much considers herself to be an American although her passport said Canadian, she was 58 yrs old and a recent widow. She was a fun lady, full of humour and i liked her right away. She had sailed on the Splendor before and in fact had done several cruises the last couple of years but after this one is over she has to return to work for a few years and doesn’t think she’ll be cruising again for awhile. I enjoyed her company as we dined and then she asked me if I wanted to go with her after dinner to the Dive In movie Bohemian Rhapsody at the Carnival Seaside Theater under the stars so i said sure.

Suddenly there was some excitement; another ship was in sight! It’s funny how people can get so excited over seeing another ship. Turned out it was the Carnival Legend on her way back from Hawaii. Everyone rushed to the windows and took pictures including me. It seemed pretty cool to pass like two ships in the night but we weren’t close enough to wave or see anyone waving back. You’d think we had been lost at sea for weeks instead of on course for 4 days.

By the time we got to the Dive In it was pretty much filled up and there were no more loungers to lay on and no more seats on the deck so we had to go upstairs and were lucky to find a couple chairs at the only table left. It wasn’t the best of seats and the railings around the deck were in our way but it was better than nothing. We got blankets in case we got cold, popcorn and water and the show began. It seemed tedious at first, there were subtitles on the screen that i don’t think were very good for anyone with a hearing problem because it only mentioned things like sighing, groaning, phone ringing, someone knocking at the door etc and i thought it was weird but maybe deaf people appreciated it even though they weren’t getting any other dialog. I like Queens music and seeing the show was nice but i didn’t really like the guy who played Freddie Mercury although i heard someone later say that he had won an Oscar award for his performance. Yeah, i cried at the end along with everyone else.

Linda had commented a couple times right from the beginning that she couldn’t follow what was going on in the movie and finally she decided to leave as she was tired and wanted to go to bed so we made plans for her to phone me in the morning and so we said good night.

After the movie was over i was going to drop in to the Lido for ice cream but then decided to just go home. As i approached my door i could see what looked like a lot of mail in my mailbox. Apparently a lot of people have forgotten the date of the postcard exchange and have started delivering them already. I know myself if i didn’t have it written down i would have screwed up on the date too. And here i thought i was the only passenger who didn’t have a phone or other internet connection to keep tabs on the group so i feel a little bit better about that. But I’m pretty sure i’m the only one onboard who still uses a pop up flash camera though instead of a phone.