My final laundry trip of the trip, clean clothes enough now to last until I get home.
A walk to find coffee and a cricket score. Should’ve kept to the coffee. On deck the wind proves the foolishness of venturing out with hair still wet from my morning shower and I sit in one of the ship’s cafes to read the news looking unkempt and a little scary.
A couple of Q&As, one with the presenter of the onboard cookery shows, another with the guys running the hotel and food/drink. Both are Indian but both moved to America before joining the cruise line. Does that make them American Indians?
The captain does his normal lunchtime tannoy announcement. We’re still hundreds of nautical miles from our destination, the weather front we’re following is causing 2-2.5m seas and he’s sorry but it’s the motion of the ocean and he can’t prevent that. Apparently the rolling will halt when we dock tomorrow.
Jolly decent of the US to re-open their Government for long enough for me to get back into and out of the country at the end of the cruise. It was interesting watching the media build a narrative from the second the announcement was made but the primary impact to me will be adequate staffing at the borders.
That led to a very interesting dinner. It was all lovey dovey to start, a nice young Finnish couple on one side, three Americans the other, a Canadian couple opposite, chatting about the cruise, the ports, Florida. They got onto TV shows, the Finns and I discussed driving in the US; on returning to Fort Lauderdale they’d be trying it for the first time. I pointed out that Europeans drive better than Americans and Finns drive better than other Europeans so they were going to find the US pure easy mode.
The entree arrived. Lamb chops, on a gala night no less.
Then the lady next to me raised the day’s political events and said she refuses to ever watch Trump on TV. She followed that by saying she refused to ever use the P word regarding him. Apparently her hatred is so unhinged she can’t even acknowledge that he’s the President of the United States of America.
Obviously I sought to explore this irrational idiocy.
The Canadian played peace broker, doing his best to shift the conversation away, try and trap me on Brexit. I let that happen and we sat for an hour after the meal, a long and interesting discussion that covered multiple topics. The lady beside me fled at the first opportunity, seeming surprised when I wished her a pleasant evening. Her husband thanked me for the company during dinner, shook my hand; I think he’s had to learn to keep quiet, the poor man. The others left too, including the Canadian lady, her excuse a need for the bathroom, a trip from which she didn’t return. Her husband seemed happy to keep chatting long after so eventually I got up from the table, let him go and find her.
Back in my room another towel and just ten hours before we reached port. I put on the TV, hopefully the 10pm news would include the cricket score. The banner at the bottom did indeed include a few words, but they told me about the innings that had finished yesterday, nothing about the day’s play today. Similarly the football news was 24 hours old. BBC World News is shit.
Just 3km walked for the second day in a row. TV off, book, bed, sleep.