Cruise Day #2, At Sea

Well, I’m writing today’s post from the balcony of our cabin. It’s been a largely uneventful day. As the observant amongst you will have noted, I was up rather late last evening posting on the blog and then reading until near two o’clock in the morning. However, I was up and around by seven this morning. Libby awoke (with my assistance) shortly before our pre-arranged breakfast arrived promptly at 8:30. We enjoyed fresh fruit and pastries, along with coffee and juice, out on the balcony. The weather today has been chilly—around 60ish—with cloudy skies (punctuated by a brief clear period in the late morning). The seas have been favorable, described on the televised Captain’s Log as being “smooth with wavelets.” Wavelet – what a wonderful word, don’t you think?

After our leisurely repast, we made our way to the morning’s activities. At 10am, we attended the “Shore Excursion Presentation.” This was followed at 11am by the “Port Shopping Talk.” Both were focused (with very limited rhetorical success) on hawking the cruise line’s services and preferred vendors (which I expected) but also largely uninformative (which I thought a bit of a shame). I’m fine with the salesmanship, but I’d at least appreciate some useful and/or novel information. Failing that, I’d at least like to be entertained. However, in defense of NCL, these activities weren’t billed as being part of their “NCL ‘U’” enrichment program. To that end, tomorrow I’m planning to attend one or more of the scheduled “enrichment” events to see just how enhanced I become as a result. :-)

After the morning lectures, we came back to the cabin and watched a little television to get caught up on the news. I was saddened to hear of the sudden death of Tim Russert, a well-known reporter for NBC News and host of Meet the Press. As something of an observer of politics, I will actually miss him.

We had a light lunch (by cruise standards anyway) around 1 o’clock on the rear Lido Deck, known as the Great Outdoor. I ate a hot dog (very, very good) and some fries. Libby had a salad and turkey mini-sandwich. After lunch, I went back to the cabin and finished the “trash fiction” novel I’d been working through: David Baldacci’s The Winner. It was actually a pretty good read, albeit a bit of a guilty pleasure. I’ve now started on reading a work of more literary value and nautically apropos to boot: Patrick O’Brian’s The Road to Samarcand. After reading, I took a nap for a couple of hours, which is also something of a very rare (though not guilty in this case) pleasure for me.

While I was idling away, Libby went to the ship’s fitness center to work out on the exercise equipment. It’s a nice facility aboard the Jade and complete with numerous devices of torture that inflict various forms of pain… all while facing majestic views of the sea. In addition to the do-it-yourself gym, the Jade offers free and fee-based organized classes (aerobics, Pilates, yoga, stretching, cycling, etc.) and fee-based sessions with a personal trainer. I’m thinking of trying the cycling class myself… Hey! No laughing out there!