3/12 Relaxing at sea

Saturday 3 December.

Woke early with the beginnings of pink dawn streaming through our balcony doors. The sea is dead flat and it is a wonderful way to start the day. Lazed about and then had to hurry to get a quick brekky in before the stretch and aerobics session, which was indoors today. Better than on deck but very cramped on a dance floor. Ummmm why not in the purpose designed training area in the gym? Probably some insurance/liability issue. We have to sign a disclaimer before we can get in there. Went up to said gym for a bit of extra work but it was packed. Never saw a gym so full. Stayed until it was time for the daily quiz. Today it was Airports. They tell you the name of the airport (5 times) and you have to name the country. We didn’t get anywhere near the 11/12 it took to win.

Had the buffet lunch – pretty uninspiring. For the first time, we suddenly experienced the feeling of having nothing to do and all afternoon to do it. The balcony was in sun but just a tad cool so we stretched out on the bed and watched the occasional tanker go past. CNN was running a “Year 2011 in review” programme that had got as far as the Japanese earthquake/nuclear meltdown back in March, while we were in Malaysia. We both had a strong feeling of “but that was years ago” and were quite stunned to suddenly remember that the bizarre workplace events back in March were the start of this whole experience. The crazy thought of taking a year off did not float until June this year and it may well have been July before we committed to anything.

And yet here we are afloat in the Med on our way to Rio and it seems we have been travelling forever. Sorry to bang on about it but we need to take reality checks occasionally. It feels so natural to be here but it is pretty extraordinary.

We boarded with the suspicion that maybe we had overdone the trivia contests on Cunard and MSC have helped us out by only running one a day. Well two if you count the late night game. So we have been spared temptation and opportunity.  They do play a variety of games all day long.   If only they would stop serving food?

Tonight we had free cocktails before dinner. They were very generous and allowed us in before opening time. The waitresses then sought us out and cajoled us to drink up because it was free. My sort of chicks really.

Dinner was as we expected then on to the evening show, called French Carrousel . If we hadn’t had the show last night we would have said this was the best yet. It was sensational but perhaps slightly not quite as good and we had already seen the same people doing similar work. The can can segment was excellent and just went on. Some of the girls were tall and one was quite a giant who kicked so high over her head. They seemed to have got their clingy undies from Tony Abbott. We were supposed to have met our dinner companions but the theatre filled very early and we hadn’t specified a meeting point so we missed them.

The late night game was hysterical. Definitely NOT Cunard – they auditioned a bunch of women who wanted to be Ms Musica and got them to strut their stuff, then gave them a pole to dance with (no – not like a Hungarian!) and finally the test they called the Karma Sutra. The women were given 4 balloons one at a time and required to burst them by bumping up against random men. For the last two, the men were seated. The balloons seemed to be quite sturdy and a lot of robust action was needed to burst them. The entertainment staff are all from Brazil and seem to be very good at this sort of thing (and of course they all have 6 languages).

The chocolate extravaganza afterwards was an anticlimax. Lots of cream and pastry – not much chocolate. Well – we don’t care because we have renounced chocolate and late night food anyway. My suit was held together exclusively by the belt tonight – the clip didn’t come within an inch of contact.