Good Morning! I think this will be the last time I ever start a blog entry with – The clocks went back again last night! As of now, we are on “island time”!
Yesterday was bittersweet though, there were many goodbyes and the end of life as we have known it now for over a week, with the exception of the day we were on Madeira. Alan and I attended our last ballroom dance class. We mainly videoed it though so we might be able to practice and achieve these more involved dances – the Tango, Foxtrot and Samba, in the privacy of our own home. Maybe one day you might see us on a dance floor. Ryan did the Foxtrot with me for a while so I was able to dance a bit at our last class. But I think the videos will be more help in the long run. We all thanked Ryan and Ksenia and wished them well with their competition. Their website is RyanKsenia.com. I can’t wait to watch what this young couple will achieve. Who knows? We may see them on Dancing with the Stars one day!
Next it was time to do our favourite line dances at our last class with Lisa. Always fun! But not the total end, she has invited us to perform at the Xtra Factor on the night before we arrive at Barbados. I do hope it is only to perform and not to compete!
There was supposed to be a huge barbeque poolside in the afternoon, but the sky opened and this had to be cancelled. There was so much water on the deck I was glad I had changed my shoes to flip flops. I saw lots of people just take their shoes off. What a shame to miss that. However, we spent the next hour and a half just chatting to a couple from Yorkshire and a woman from Devon. (we always try to sit at a big table so we can meet people but this was the most fun result so far)
One of the line dancing people had arranged to teach advanced line dancing a while ago and he is a good teacher. But I only went to a few classes because they were in the afternoon and I felt I was missing too much time with Alan and also too much sun time. (there has not been a lot of sun time anyway, come to think of it). However, I am considered part of this group too. And, as usual, I have volunteered Alan in his photographic role. So we had to go to the Manhattan and take a group photo Dave hopes to submit to a line dance magazine! With the weather being so awful anyway, I was able to stay for yet another last class and big thank you to Dave and Mary.
During our luncheon conversation, we learned about the Trattoria Restaurant on Deck 15, it is actually one of the buffets but they transform it at night into an Italian Restaurant. Perfect! We had different plans for the evening and our normal seating time would not have allowed us to go, so we went to the Trattoria! While I was there, I began to wonder just why I was so excited about ordering lasagne. Then I remembered when my friend, Dana, returned from a week in France. I phoned her to see how she was and if she wanted to go out that night. I was living in Atlanta at the time. She waxed lyrical about how much fun she had and how beautiful Paris was. But she said she was really hungry for American food and could we go out for some? Question from me – Where did she want to go? Answer – I don’t care, Chinese, Mexican, Italian, anywhere American! You know a good long term marriage when your husband of 25 years looks at my face after the first bite and asks if I am enjoying my American food!!!!
Apart from the sheer joy of eating American food, the main reason we ate early was so we could participate in the Bollywood Hour! This was privately arranged by the group of young Asian women on board. Apparently one night the disco had morphed into Bollywood dance lessons and everyone thought it would be a good idea to arrange a more formal night. Alan got us a fantastic seat, actually next to most of the Asian people who were there hosting the evening. There were possibly 50 women in the most beautiful saris imaginable! The first dance was a formal dance to welcome us all, but after that anyone could join in and be part of the magic. What magic it was too! Women of all ages danced with us and showed us various moves and footwork. I cannot resist a good dance and spent the whole hour on the dance floor! Once or twice running to our table to get a well deserved drink. One beautiful Asian woman in particular was beginning to look a bit tired and as if she were going to sit down when the music changed, but then she would just go on dancing. Finally, another woman I was dancing with and I asked her to please sit down because she was beginning to look exhausted. Their saris were much heavier and many were beaded and must have been too heavy to do the amount of dancing we were doing. But most of them never stopped and by the end we were all hugging each other and getting loads of pictures taken.
Bollywood Dancing!
It is 5 am now and we should be docked at Antigua by 8. It will be nice to see land and I am more excited than I thought about returning to this island. With any luck, I will also be able to check my emails and send some of this blog on its merry way! While rereading this, it sounds as if my main focus of the day is the internet café, let me assure you this is not true! My goal is to find a nice beach and enjoy the sand between my toes!
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.”
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