I woke up early - around 6AM. The amount of city light kept throwing my sleep pattern off. I got some coffee and sat on the roof top patio, taking in the sights and sounds of the city. Listening to the sound of passing cars and motorcycles, birds singing their sweet songs, dogs barking for some unknown reason and people passing on the street. A cool breeze was in the air.
Later, I went downstairs to start gathering our gear. I heard the sound of children's voices and peeked outside the front door curtains to see children, with backpacks on their backs, marching down the street - undoubtedly for school.
Later that morning we left the AirBNB and dropped the keys in the mailbox after locking the door behind us. We got a taxi and headed to the dock. By noon we were aboard the Royal Caribbean 'Brilliance,' waiting to set sail. It was a day of settling in - getting food - taking naps.
The problem with this door to our AirBNB is that the only way to lock it or unlock it was with the key. So if a person got trapped inside the place during a fire and didn't have a key to unlock the door, they'd have that lovely door pattern burnt into their hide. It made me a little uneasy but I'm here to tell about it.
Part of the requirements to sail on a ship is to go through the safety drill. Basically everyone is herded onto the deck where the emergency life boats are located and then to listen to the crew demonstrate how to put on a life jacket. It's required attendance and they do a roll call of names. So Philip and I did our part to get educated. I kept thinking how it would go if a real emergency happened. How many of these crew people would still be here to help out? I was trying to take a selfie of the two of us in our training camp and a young man offered to take our picture. After the first picture he said "Act like it's really happening." Maybe he was thinking similar thoughts about the crew.
Around dinner time (6:15) we went to the dining room and were seated with a half a dozen other sailing folks. As I was making my dinner choice from the menu, I made the mistake of telling the waiter that I was lactose intolerant. Enter into my life - Glenn - the head waiter - (more about him - later). Glenn asked about my food allergies and jotted them down on a scrap of paper. Then our regular waiter - Connor (I cannot remember his name to save my soul - though the real name he was going by was probably a phony name too - so Connor it is), brought my milk free dinner choice and just as I was eating and talking with the folks at our table, I look right beside me at the face of Glenn. He had popped in and was three inches from my face - handing me the menu for the next night's dinner. He wanted me to take time out from my present eating to choose my future eating. The pressure, the pressure - and it's sea bass for Sarah! I felt so embarrassed to be put on the spot like this until another diner said "I'm more allergic than she is." So they moved on to him, though that was a weird claim to make on the other diner's part, but thank the Lord!
After dinner we went back to our room and I ended up having diarrhea! So much for a lactose free dinner. Outside the bathroom, Phil was waiting for us to go to the show and was asking "Are you ready, are you ready?" Finally, I felt better, took an anti diarrhea pill and left with Phil to see the show. We trudged over there and discovered that they weren't having a second show on that first night. There was no show to see. Philip was not happy. He said that he must have miss set his clock but later he said that it was my fault that we had missed the show. According to Philip, I should have reminded him of the time and kept him from missing the show. The day ended with me doing a count down of the days to go - 11 days.
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Funny thing, Philip kept mentioning how the cruise was full of old people.
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Pictures of our room.
This is obviously our bathroom / my office.
This room saved my sanity on more than one occasion.
Mid week they came and changed out the bed frame on this bed.
Not that Philip and I had anything to do with that decision.
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