Day Three

Today started rather abruptly with the doorbell ringing at 9:00 am. Mom and I were both still sound asleep. To our credit though, we were up until 1:30 am just talking away and we lost another hour, so in reality it was 7 am. We had another wonderful breakfast, but I think we were still half asleep. After slowly waking up I made my way to the gym, though I got lost several times. They have a wonderful gym on board with weight machines and every type of cardio imaginable. I took full advantage of an hour long work out. I need to do something since I’m eating all of these desserts! In the meantime mom got ready and I then came back and did the same. We were supposed to talk to Dad at 10 am EST but we had technical difficulties and I could not get online. This was very upsetting. We’ll work on that. Next was time for a ballroom dance lesson. Today’s lesson was the waltz. All I can say is it is so much harder than it looks. They were great about breaking down the steps and another single traveler was kind enough to let me step on his feet! Mom sat and watched the spectacle. I was amazed at the number of people taking the class – around 75 couples. Tomorrow’s dance is the jive and I’m looking forward to it. They are setting up for bingo now, so we need to see what we’re going to do next.
As I was finishing the previous paragraph, I was again dragged out on the dance floor to attempt the waltz. Evidently I like to lead. We then went down and had a light lunch. We both had the tomato soup, mom had stir fried chicken and I had the most wonderful mussels with garlic toast for dipping. We skipped dessert and opted for tea at 3:30. We then went to see “Elizabeth: The Golden Years” in the theater. By the time that was over it was time to dress for dinner. Tonight is another formal night. We had the Commodore’s reception with champagne and hors d’oeuvres. My dance partner of earlier found me and chatted us up for a bit. We then went on to dinner where I started with duck Carpaccio and Mom had cream of mushroom. We followed it by a salad and we both had lobster medallions with a Newburg sauce. For dessert Mom had some sort of pineapple ring with coulis and I had the kumquat parfait – so good. We met a lovely couple who has the table next to us who are from Charlottesville, VA. They are off to visit their sons in London. We will probably get together for drinks in the next day or so. We also discovered the “A la carte” menu for our dining room which has caviar, escargot, chateaubriand, etc. We may also have to try out their breakfast in the morning if we can get up and out. Mom and I are now having an after dinner drink in the lounge while I write this. We are going to try and contact dad again tonight. Turned out the technical difficulties of earlier were due to the sun passing between us and the satellite. Hopefully we won’t continue to have that problem. I think we may try to retire a bit earlier tonight as we stayed up way too late last night as we will lose another hour tonight. The seas are a wee bit more rough tonight so we should be rocked to sleep.