Saturday, February 27, 2016

Life Continues on the Pacific Princess



Well, it’s hard to believe but we’ve been on the Pacific Princess over thirty days already.  Neither of us is feeling “home-sick.”  

Gym Facilities:   Important to us, the gal who’s in charge of the gym, Jessica, is absolutely terrific;  she conducts the cycling classes three times a week and, although I had anticipated going to one class a week, we find ourselves signed up for each one and enjoying it immensely.  She really works us and, although not always happy while doing it, we’re always happy afterwards when it’s over!  

Book Club:  I joined the onboard book club early on.  The ship made available small Kindles, each holding 260 books, so even when we’re not reading the book assigned for each cruise segment (LA – Sydney; Sydney – Hong Kong, etc.), the Kindle is available to us and I can take advantage of many other books. 

Our first book was “A Man Called Ove” which I absolutely loved.  This segment’s book is “The Sound of Glass” – something I would never elect to read but, after thinking about it over the past few days since I completed it, I’m sort of liking it more.  I think it was far too long and dragged out a bit, but overall, I gave it 3 stars on Goodreads. 
We meet at the beginning of the segment to select a book and then we meet again before the end to discuss it.  We’ll select another book next week after we leave Hong Kong and start our third segment.  

Entertainment:  We’ve had some pretty wonderful entertainers onboard.  We’ve had Hawaiian and Maori dancers, pianists, singers, banjo players, and magicians.  Michael was actually called up by the magician, Nick Nicholas (yes, that’s his real name and he was born at St. Nicholas’s hospital in London), to do some crazy thing with a card he inscribed and turned up in a “sausage” – unfortunately, I was really feeling under the weather earlier in the week and missed that show; fortunately, however, one of our new acquaintances, grabbed Michael’s phone and took several photos of him on stage.  Needless to say, since that evening, several people have come up to Michael telling him how wonderful he was on stage.   (By the way, our waiter, Andrii, recommended a Ukraine remedy for my achy head cold – a shot of vodka and black pepper – which I imbibed that night and I’m happy to report, by morning, my achiness went away completely.) 

Time Change:  At this point, I have no idea what time it is back home.  It was easy until we crossed the International Date Line (losing a day) but then starting to gain an hour every couple of days.  My body has adjusted very easily to all this and, while I’ve had to rely on pharmaceuticals in the past because I’m a terrible sleeper, I haven’t needed anything other than my Gaba at night.  I think it’s much easier to “turn your clocks back” every other night than actually flying to Europe in the other direction and having to adjust to a 9 hour or more time change.  I really don’t think about it much.  

People:  We, of course, have dinner at a 2-person table every night.  I couldn’t even imagine sitting with the same people for 111 nights.  But we have met some really nice people and some not so really nice people. 

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