I so wanted to sleep with the balcony door open, but when its open, cold, air-conditioned air screams in under the door, whistling as it wiggles its way in. So although it was fabulous outside, we started to freeze inside. So we closed the door but leave the curtains drawn all the way back and I can still see the ocean swishing by as I lay my head down. This morning I discovered that if I simply put a towel in front of the door, all is back to normal, so tonight we will try again.
So after breakfast, up we headed to the top deck where a thick red line circles the deck and is always dotted with people trying desperately to work off the pounds we all put on at each meal. It's the start to another day just filled to the brim with people watching. What a selection there is here... all types of all sorts of people. On the very very top deck, right in the bows of the boat, up a separate set of steps is the topless bathing area and its hilarious to see some of the youngsters sneaking up there and coming down with very rosy cheeks just a minute or two later...... They all try to look totally cool, but we just look at their mouths and that smile is just waiting to break loose. And not a day has gone by that we have not seen this..... Can you tell where one of my favorite places on the ship is?? No no - not up those stairs! Definitely near the bottom though. :)
Food is everywhere, as are drinks and soda's. And its all way too good. The bread is killing me and I have developed a liking of Brie Cheese smeared on a fresh multi grain bread roll. Oh dear. I have promised to swear off all things chocolate, all bread (except my home made whole wheat) and all ice cream till end of April, but only once we get home! We are taking the stairs most times - yup even all the way up to the 11th floor....... well, we do live on the 6th floor, but still. Its something.
One set of elevators is glass all around and its just lovely to ride, which we do about once a day just to get the effect of falling into the water........ It screams downward and the water rushes upward and it looks as if it will never stop in time -just lovely! We always hope that no one has pressed the button and that we get a 'free ride' all the way down. When you get into the elevators - yes, yes, I know - just finished telling how we use the stairs and now all these elevator stories......... anyway, as you step into the elevator, a mechanical voice says 'going down'.. Well really! They could have picked a different way of saying that on a ship, don't you think?
Around 10.30am we went to a talk about the Panama Canal... it was really interesting. We will go in at around 7am on Friday and about an hour later we get to the first lock - I think they are the Gutan Locks. All in all we will be taken up to 85 feet above sea level to go over the Continental Divide, and then back down through more locks on the other side. I was really hoping to remember all the names so that I could write them here, but...... well. I do remember that the Canal is the number one modern made made wonder of the world, that it was finished 2 years ahead of schedule and cost a huge amount of money. The French has first shot at building it, but apparently they royally messed up on it and the USA took over from there. The lock we will be going through is the same length as this ship and only one foot wider. We will be attached to mechanical mule so that the ship does not hit the sides - really close all around, I would say. It will take all day to get through the Canal and at the end is The Bridge of The Americas which is part of the PanAmerican Highway that runs from Alaska to South America. We have been on part of this road in a number of different places, Peru and Ecuador as well. So many interesting things to learn.
After the talk, we decided to play bingo....... yup, bingo. We paid way too much for the tickets, spent a slow and funny hour in a darkened auditorium checking numbers that were huge on the screen, won nothing, but were allowed to keep our pens! Whoo hoooo. So for better luck we headed to the casino...... our luck stayed the same. ( Kate, there was a few of those machines that we played and I took a pic just for you! Made me laugh after our second $10 went into it and nothing came out).
Off to lunch out on deck again, wandered around the deck, came back home to sort out stuff for tomorrow, made sure we changed our watch back one hour for Costa Rica and so that we will not miss our tour tomorrow morning! We were way too full for dinner, so we gave that a skip, walking a few rounds on the red road on the top deck and then headed off for the show of the night.... It was not really what we were in the mood for, although he had a great voice - Riggens, was his name and apparently he has sung for the White House too, but.. well, we headed back up to get some outside time again. The wind has picked up and the white caps dot the water everywhere around - no storms yet. We are sort of hoping for a storm, but only when we are at sea and definitely not on Friday while going through the Canal.
Tomorrow we are heading back into the Rain Forest of Costa Rica.... I really am excited and the camera is all ready to roll again. And she now has a name! "Gypsy".........I loved the suggestion, Bea, as well as your reasoning :) We also changed one of the tours we had booked - one for Cabo San Lucas - now we will get to go in the glass almost-submarine and also have plenty time to walk around by ourselves and maybe even have time for a long beach walk. We also booked two additional tours in Acapulco - one to see the Cliff Divers - more about them later, and another that willt ake us to see a good few of the old town of Acapulco. So now we are all set and I swear Gypsey is smiling bigger than that sloth of yesterday! I meant to attach a photo of us hugging yesterday, but forgot, so here it is now.
Time to call it a day, get some rest for tomorrow and test my 'open door' theory.
love, light and laughter
Annie
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