Our third day finds us still moored in Venice awaiting arrival of new printed circuit boards en route from Germany. Our captain has advised us that we will have the circuitry in hand, installed and ready to sail at 12:00 this afternoon. It is certainly a disappointment to have missed visiting Croatia, but what do you do? Venice is not such a bad place to be stranded if such an unfortunate occurrence is to beset our ship.
Melauna and I were up and about by 7:00 this morning. After another delicious breakfast in the Lido Restaurant, we set off to explore some parts of Venice that we may have missed yesterday. We decided to take a different route this morning and visit some of the more residential parts of the city. It was certainly a different look at the city with the locals going about their Sunday morning routines; grocery shopping, heading to church, hanging out the laundry for drying, etc. It was interesting to get off the beaten tourist path and see the “real” city. On one of the narrow roads, we found some tables that had been set up for selling items similar to a small flea market. We purchased some old postcards of Venice, some dating from the 40’s. Kind of a neat piece of nostalgia…I will have to find someone who can read Italian to tell me what the original sender of the postcard was saying to his/her recipient. With some time still left before needing to return to the ship, we made our way back towards St. Mark’s Square just to soak in a little more of the history of Venice. We have had a beautiful day so far for wandering around; clear skies and very comfortable temperatures.
After returning to the ship, I slipped out on to the veranda to soak up some of the Venetian sun and read while Melauna went up for lunch at the Lido. On the subject of the lunch buffet…maybe an hour or so after Melauna had returned from lunch, I accompanied mom and Lyn to the Lido for lunch to find the place absolutely jam packed. Every single passenger aboard the entire ship must have decided to have lunch…at the same place…all at once. Had I gone up there by myself and seen that horde of people, I would have quickly made my exit and found one of the other umpteen different venues offering meals on the ship without a second thought. Am I the only one with any common sense? What would possess people to subject themselves to that? Hunger, and here I am talking about the kind of hunger that presents itself a mere three hours after the last free meal, apparently releases some sort of chemical blocking agent that inhibits rational thought as well as common courtesy. Sheesh! Anyway…I found a table to hold for the three of us while mom and Lyn joined the herds at the feed trough. Fifteen minutes later, after they had arrived back with their lunch, I went back in to find the lines had diminished to reasonable lengths most of the crowd dispersed mitigating the displeasure of having a fellow passenger wedging herself between myself and another to yell “what is that?” to the friendly server behind the glass, or anybody else within earshot on Deck 9. A little common sense coupled with common decency folks…common sense and common decency…that’s all I saying.
The rest of the afternoon I enjoyed just relaxing out on the veranda with a book. The weather has been perfect today…and oh yeah…were sailing! We got underway around 1:00 or so. The mid to upper 70’s temperature and breeze blowing off the Mediterranean cannot be beat. While I was enjoying the veranda, Melauna had scheduled a spa treatment and so was being pampered, doted upon and generally soothed. This evening, the four of us enjoyed dinner at the Manhattan Dining Room and were treated to the singing of Happy Birthday in Filipino in honor of mom and Lyn’s birthdays. Dinner was wonderful as always and was begun with a complimentary glass of wine courtesy of the Captain as an amends for having to skip Croatia on the itinerary. This was a nice gesture I suppose…I mean, I understand that it was an unforeseen malfunction and probably could not have been anticipated or avoided but skipping one of the ports on a Mediterranean cruise is kind of a big deal in my book and to offer a complimentary glass of wine as compensation was…I don’t know…I suppose I would have been content with just an apology, which we obviously did receive from the Captain. I certainly didn’t expect any sort of monetary compensation as we did not have any excursions booked either through the ship or otherwise, so we were not out any money due to the malfunction. We were just out the opportunity to see a place that the likelihood is that we will never have a chance to see again, and part of the reason why we chose this particular cruise in the first place, so the free glass of wine kind of cheapened it for me I suppose. But, maybe that’s just me…
The after dinner entertainment was excellent again! Katzenjammer was a piano dynamic duo that was able to blend classical piano with comedy, which is no small feat. Both guys played side-by-side on the same grand piano simultaneously with hands and fingers just a blur. There was a video camera that was situated over the piano such that the audience had a close up of their hands as they played. One of the players had on white sleeves, the other black so that you could differentiate between the two…hard to explain, but a joy to watch. For anyone interested, search for the name Katzenjammer on YouTube and check it out for yourself. Melauna was able to get the guys to sign the DVD that they were selling to give to our nephew Gabe who is a fantastic pianist in his own right.
I probably should have called it a night after the show, but the craps table was calling and like the siren’s song, ended with me smashing my cash ship into the rocks. Mom, on the other hand faired really well at the casino, hitting a $237 payout on one of the slots. All’s well that end’s well. Another great day in the books.
Melauna and I were up and about by 7:00 this morning. After another delicious breakfast in the Lido Restaurant, we set off to explore some parts of Venice that we may have missed yesterday. We decided to take a different route this morning and visit some of the more residential parts of the city. It was certainly a different look at the city with the locals going about their Sunday morning routines; grocery shopping, heading to church, hanging out the laundry for drying, etc. It was interesting to get off the beaten tourist path and see the “real” city. On one of the narrow roads, we found some tables that had been set up for selling items similar to a small flea market. We purchased some old postcards of Venice, some dating from the 40’s. Kind of a neat piece of nostalgia…I will have to find someone who can read Italian to tell me what the original sender of the postcard was saying to his/her recipient. With some time still left before needing to return to the ship, we made our way back towards St. Mark’s Square just to soak in a little more of the history of Venice. We have had a beautiful day so far for wandering around; clear skies and very comfortable temperatures.
After returning to the ship, I slipped out on to the veranda to soak up some of the Venetian sun and read while Melauna went up for lunch at the Lido. On the subject of the lunch buffet…maybe an hour or so after Melauna had returned from lunch, I accompanied mom and Lyn to the Lido for lunch to find the place absolutely jam packed. Every single passenger aboard the entire ship must have decided to have lunch…at the same place…all at once. Had I gone up there by myself and seen that horde of people, I would have quickly made my exit and found one of the other umpteen different venues offering meals on the ship without a second thought. Am I the only one with any common sense? What would possess people to subject themselves to that? Hunger, and here I am talking about the kind of hunger that presents itself a mere three hours after the last free meal, apparently releases some sort of chemical blocking agent that inhibits rational thought as well as common courtesy. Sheesh! Anyway…I found a table to hold for the three of us while mom and Lyn joined the herds at the feed trough. Fifteen minutes later, after they had arrived back with their lunch, I went back in to find the lines had diminished to reasonable lengths most of the crowd dispersed mitigating the displeasure of having a fellow passenger wedging herself between myself and another to yell “what is that?” to the friendly server behind the glass, or anybody else within earshot on Deck 9. A little common sense coupled with common decency folks…common sense and common decency…that’s all I saying.
The rest of the afternoon I enjoyed just relaxing out on the veranda with a book. The weather has been perfect today…and oh yeah…were sailing! We got underway around 1:00 or so. The mid to upper 70’s temperature and breeze blowing off the Mediterranean cannot be beat. While I was enjoying the veranda, Melauna had scheduled a spa treatment and so was being pampered, doted upon and generally soothed. This evening, the four of us enjoyed dinner at the Manhattan Dining Room and were treated to the singing of Happy Birthday in Filipino in honor of mom and Lyn’s birthdays. Dinner was wonderful as always and was begun with a complimentary glass of wine courtesy of the Captain as an amends for having to skip Croatia on the itinerary. This was a nice gesture I suppose…I mean, I understand that it was an unforeseen malfunction and probably could not have been anticipated or avoided but skipping one of the ports on a Mediterranean cruise is kind of a big deal in my book and to offer a complimentary glass of wine as compensation was…I don’t know…I suppose I would have been content with just an apology, which we obviously did receive from the Captain. I certainly didn’t expect any sort of monetary compensation as we did not have any excursions booked either through the ship or otherwise, so we were not out any money due to the malfunction. We were just out the opportunity to see a place that the likelihood is that we will never have a chance to see again, and part of the reason why we chose this particular cruise in the first place, so the free glass of wine kind of cheapened it for me I suppose. But, maybe that’s just me…
The after dinner entertainment was excellent again! Katzenjammer was a piano dynamic duo that was able to blend classical piano with comedy, which is no small feat. Both guys played side-by-side on the same grand piano simultaneously with hands and fingers just a blur. There was a video camera that was situated over the piano such that the audience had a close up of their hands as they played. One of the players had on white sleeves, the other black so that you could differentiate between the two…hard to explain, but a joy to watch. For anyone interested, search for the name Katzenjammer on YouTube and check it out for yourself. Melauna was able to get the guys to sign the DVD that they were selling to give to our nephew Gabe who is a fantastic pianist in his own right.
I probably should have called it a night after the show, but the craps table was calling and like the siren’s song, ended with me smashing my cash ship into the rocks. Mom, on the other hand faired really well at the casino, hitting a $237 payout on one of the slots. All’s well that end’s well. Another great day in the books.
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