The Tasman Sea has returned to "normal"

Tomorrow Sydney
Yesterday afternoon there wasn’t much going on so Ed spent the time in the cabin and on line finishing up something he had brought from home. It didn’t get finished so I presume he’ll find time today to complete it. I finished one novel and began another. I stopped long enough to go see what the journal meeting was about. There is a kit you can buy for $7 that provides some scrapbook like decorations to use in a journal. I’ve done this in the past but with the blog and photos, I don’t want to take the time even though I enjoy the final product. And I can’t write that much by hand anyway.
We had said we would show up for trivia but we both got engrossed in our respective activities and it was already started by the time Ed remembered it. I felt bad as we had told Evelyn we would be there. So she was the only regular from our “team” (now called the Wizzards). We saw her later and she said she joined up with another team.
Dinner: formal night
We had formal photos taken on the staircase. Ed hasn’t seen them yet but I don’t think they are as good as others we’ve had taken on this cruise. I put them aside for his viewing.
We cracked one of the bottles of elegant champagne Ed had been saving for some time and we all toasted what fun we had at our table. We had our usual fun talking about various activities and oddities on the ship; as you may expect, the Chinese laundry lady got air time among us as well.
John said he heard someone saying that they understood someone was keeping a blog of this trip and she wished she could have the address. That’s funny because I’m sure one could google it and find several actually. I know of Ken’s and I found it by googling.
C’st Magnifique
Well I probably didn’t spell it right but it was one of those spectacular shows done by the dancers. The costumes were spectacular but the audio was off and it was hard to catch all the music and singing as they deserved. Bobbie, this teeny little lady who is part of a great older couple who dance every dance elegantly, wore her sequined red dress and I had my blue sequined dress. We remarked that we needed to find a woman in a sparkling white dress to have our photo taken. AS it turns out, the ending piece in tonite’s show had such a dress with a hat that any red hatter would die for. In fact there were many hats that, if dyed red or purple (perhaps my next project?) would be the envy of any red hat gathering. The ostrich plumes alone were worth several hundred dollars.
Music trivia
The new lounge entertainer, a Brit by accent, did the music trivia by giving us a one sentence teaser and then playing a song for us. We had to name the song and the Broadway play from which it came. I am really no good at this. We joined with two other couples and we were far away from being any challenge to the winning team which had the dancers on it. But it was fun to try to recall the names of songs and recall the plays most of which I haven’t seen anyway. It wouldn’t matter, because I can recall melodies but few lyrics and certainly not names of pieces.
One more hour! Yippee
We turned the clock back one hour tonite. As we went to sleep, the seas were pretty calm but they didn’t stay that way during the night.
Weather changes
I did not want to wake up this morning—or more accurately, I didn’t want to get up. I’ve been having some vibrant dreams that while not awful, leave me uneasy when I wake up and it’s hard to go back to sleep. Eventually Ed snuck into the bathroom and I heard the tapping of his razor. The phone wake up call rang twice while I refused to move but eventually I flung the curtains open to a great looking ocean. There’s more rocking at this point but not too bad. So we got ready and went to…
Aussie immigration
Our floor had to appear before Aussie immigration between 8 and 8:30am. We had an immigration form to complete and we picked up our passports on one side of the Pacific Lounge, saw the nice Aussie guy, and then relinquished our passport again to the ship’s staff. The officer asked Ed about the added pages in the passport and remarked that it was better than getting a whole new passport. And we need to remember to ask about carrying two passports. This has been an ongoing discussion among many of the US passengers but I have no idea what it means or why one would do that. 250 passengers are getting off in Sydney so many kept their passports.
This immigration exam is new as is the requirement for an Australian visa. They are universally polite and quick so it’s a minor inconvenience though none of us likes getting up early and waiting in a line that seems never to end.
Susan G. Koman on deck race for the cure
We went out and signed up. The wind was already pretty fierce; the ship had steadily begun to rock and roll a lot more in the past few hours and one definitely needs to hold onto the side rails around the ship. As we were standing there, it began to sprinkle and one could see ominous rain clouds on the port side. There were also rainbows which is a good lesson to remember in life. So the race was cancelled but the donations will go to a good cause in any event.
Last sale before….
Well clearly there will be more on this ship as much of the merchandise is an old friend to us by now. I finally broke down and got a hat that would cost me somewhat more in the states and looks like it might be forgiving of crushing and the sun. Anyone who’s cruised on Princess has seen most of this merchandise.
Port talk: Sydney
This is beginning to start so I’ll close here and upload as I’m already in a spot with a good internet signal. I’ve also found a good signal in the stairwell (I’ve discovered this on all the small ships we’ve been on) but folks aren’t keen about me sitting on the steps taking up room.