Male, Maldives tomorrow

4 20 2010


I got ready and Ed went to the gym. We got an extra hour last night. Since we are so close to the equator now, our days are 12 hrs of light and 12 of dark. It seems so strange.
The day started off with three strikes: I stubbed my toe pretty good last night, my temple piece on my reading glasses came apart, and a favorite pair of earrings came apart and I have no pliers to repair them until I get home. The glasses I’ll take back to the place where I got them for repair. In the meantime I went down to the boutiques on board and picked up a pair of cheaters in a high power and they work fine. It takes some getting used to and they’ll never win a beauty contest, but they work.
Computer class(es)
I showed up to audit the 10 am class and no one showed up so I visited with the teacher who is a nice and talented teacher. At 11 am, a lady did show up and so I was able to audit that one. At 1 pm, Ed took a class I had already taken thus it gave me an opportunity to audit one more for the review.
Lunch
I went to the dining room with Ed and we sat alone for a change since I had a tight time schedule. It was nice not to have to entertain other folks which takes a lot of energy out of me but which Ed seems to enjoy very much.
Port Talk: Male
This is really just a collection of Atolls SW of India and West of Sri Lanka. The airport is on one island and the capitol city on another. Very strange. It is really a very expensive resort area with snorkeling, scuba diving, and just sun bathing sometimes on uninhabited islands. I think we’re signed up for a walking tour of the city.
Endless forms most beautiful: Darwin’s Cabinet of Curiosities
This was the photojournalist again and the photos as you may expect are darling but equally as interesting is the story of how they are achieved.
Trivia
My team didn’t win this morning (I was auditing a computer class). Evelyn, our most interesting member who was born in Egypt, speaks 5 languages and lives in Rome among other places, was asking Ed and Chuck what the Rainbow GLBT get together. I came up while this discussion was going on and she clearly thought they were pulling her leg. So she asked me what it was and when I told her, the reaction was so hilarious. She went down to see this gathering and no one showed up; she thinks they don’t want to come out of the closet. We clearly do have some folks who would fit that group on board but just as I don’t always go for meetings of groups where I would “fit” (think the COPD meeting: egads!) I suppose they have the same feelings.
This afternoon there were only the four of us and WE WON! And it was not an easy quiz either. The team whose paper we graded got only 6 out of 20. Our final score was 16. Sometimes we just get on a roll. Even then, we had two answers that were correct but we put something else down. Ed and I bowed to Chuck and Evelyn each of whom had a correct answer that didn’t make it on our page. Had we listened to them, our score would have been 18 but in reality no other team came close to us anyway.
This evening there was a Broadway show trivia. We were joined by a couple who’s son just graduated with a degree in music from CSUN (and who can’t find a job) and the two profs from Florida. We all knew we were outpaced by another team where they have some real experts. Predictably that team did win. However, we were rather shocked at how well we did do given the fact that we were out of our league. And again, I’m surprised at some of the answers that just seem to pop out of nowhere.
Formal night
Ed wore his red Chinese jacket we got him in Singapore and I wore mine as well. The reaction was cute with most folks thinking it was a clever idea and the photographers in particular having a ball posing us. We’ll see if they turn out respectable or if we simply look silly.
Dance
This was the show tonite with all the energy of the dancers. They are so good it is astonishing to me that we can see them up so close and really see what they are doing. We’ve seen this production at least twice before but it is still fresh and new to us.
Indian immigration
These are the latest forms we have to fill out: three in fact and we cannot separate them from each other or the directions. One of us will take them down to the purser’s office tomorrow so they are ready for Indian immigration to check out. This is such a time saving method for us. I can only imagine what it’s like if you have to do this on a flight into the country. And the folks who are going to the Taj Mahal, a trip that begins at 4:30 am and finishes when they return at 11 pm, will really appreciate the facilitated run through immigration and passport check.