Friday, March 20, 2020

October 27, 2019 – At Sea – Gulf of Mexico – Mostly Sunny – 70s

Formal Night 1

A gently rumbling all night – slept until 5:15 AM.  No idea why I can’t sleep at least until 6:30AM.

Finally got up at 7:00 AM and went to the Marketplace for coffee and to log yesterday’s activities.  For breakfast today I had a waffle, cottage cheese, jam, and scrambled eggs.  All good and the coffee kept flowing.  The breeze from the doors caused me to change seats to avoid the cold draft.

At 10:00 AM (right now), I am in the Galaxy Lounge waiting for Terrence Smith to give his world affairs lecture – “The End of the American Century”.  He started off his lecture with a news flash that the leader of ISIS had been eliminated yesterday by the US Delta Force.  He then talked about how the influence of the US across the world was diminished as well as the trust other allies had in the US to have their back. I am not sure how all of this was taken by this audience because I don’t know the demographics. Nevertheless, he had a pretty good turnout – maybe half the theater.

Ellen joined me at 11:00 AM to hear Jim Brochu (part of the Crystal on Broadway contingent) talk about “The Abominable Showman”, the story of famed producer and little liked, David Merrick.  Jim is amusing as always.

We had lunch in the Waterside Restaurant – Ellen had her favorite trout and I had the chow mein noodles – both were good dishes.

We spent the afternoon up in the Silk seating area and I am making good progress on my Jack Reacher novel.  I also tried a Midori Daiquiri – very green but very tasty.  


It's a pretty nice day at sea - dramatic storms in the distance but smooth sailing where we are.  I also captured another iconic shot of Ellen on the deck.



Tonight is formal night and we had ordered special kosher meals – we got seats near one of the service stations and because of the large crowd in the Waterside Restaurant, it was pretty hectic.  We started off with salads and I had the mushroom soup.  Ellen had the duck and I had a hamburger (the chef had made me a milk free bun for my burger - how about that).  There were two patties so the burger was essentially a Big Mac or Whopper, kosher style. I had a pound of fries with it but only ate a handful.  I wound up eating the whole burger, which is the largest meal I have had in two months.  I certainly will only ask for one patty the next time I have a burger.  Also contributing to the calorie fest was a small order of delicious chopped liver.  We were both stuffed and will probably not do this again for a while and certainly not on a formal night  All in all, the meal was great.

At 8:45 PM, we went to the Galaxy Lounge for tonight’s On the Town Show. Tonight is a special event – an “Evening with Rachel York”, star of Broadway (“City of Angels”) and TV.  Rachel put on a spectacular performance singing the difficult “Defying Gravity” and the soulful “Piece of Sky” from Yentl and just about everything in between.  She had wonderful stage presence and is also a terrific musical impressionist doing a dead on Marilyn Monroe and scary Julie Andrews.  Unfortunately, she is only doing one show on this cruise.  This performance was an order of magnitude better than her show on the Broadway Cruise a couple of years ago.  She was fabulous.  

He show was late so we took our stuffed selves to the room because tomorrow I am giving my first talk in the morning.

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