3/3 - Sea Day

On 3/3, we had a "sea day", which usually are either formal or informal nights on the ship as you have more time to get ready for them (and spend money in the spa/salon doing so) on those days. At the spur of the moment, I did go in and get a pedicure as they were able to squeeze me into a cancellation at noon, and Jim played in a ping-pong tournament. He met Claudio from Chile (possibly one of the only people that is just a little bit better at ping-pong than Jim is) and they became fast friends, hanging out throughout the ship bars after I would go to bed some nights.

Claudio and his wife, Virginia, didn't really speak any English at all, and Jim and I were only equipped with our very rusty high school Spanish, but it was fun to try to understand each other and teach each other new words. They are from Santiago and decided at the last minute to jump on to the cruise with some of their friends, as there were last minute deals and they wouldn't need to fly anywhere to get on (although I'm sure they had to fly back from Buenos Aires at the end.) It was amazing how many passengers were primarily Spanish speakers; all of the announcements and even Bingo and other trivia games were played in English and Spanish. The constant use/reinforcement helped us remember some of our Spanish vocabulary and made us feel comfortable using it - and we practiced it on many people we talked to in port as well as on board. Unlike Mexico and even Europe, where I've found that most people are likely to speak English back to you when you try to speak their language to practice, here, many people wouldn't have understood us if we spoke English. It was really different from other places I've been.

Here's a cute picture of Claudio and Virginia- they really were a cute couple. Another skinny South American woman! Throughout the three countries we visited (Chile, Argentina and Uruguay), they either tended to be either small boned and thin, like her, or were shorter and athletic looking (a lot like my build.) It was really funny. I felt pretty at home in these countries and people always assumed I could speak Spanish. But in these countries, you could never predict who would speak Spanish and who wouldn't. There was no stereotype. Because of the mixed German, Italian and Spanish backgrounds of the people, there were people who looked every different way who were Spanish speakers - blonde, red haired, light complected, dark complected.

Anyway, after hanging out on the pool deck on this day and the previous (this time with SPF 15) we got ready for dinner and pictures. We had chosen the "main" or "early" seating for dinner, at 6:30 pm as the late one at 8:30 (sometimes 8:45!) was way too late for us to eat. I'm spoiled and live five minutes from work, and Jim has been home for the past few years working on home improvement projects, also my office is pretty much a standard 8-5 one (if not earlier), so I am lucky enough to be home around 5:15 every day. Usually we eat right away when I get home, as Jim has something ready, or he picks me up from work and we go out from there. So...we usually eat between 5:30 - 6:00 and 8:30 wasn't going to cut it. We would have ended up eating so many snacks in between that we wouldn't have been hungry for dinner.

We started a new tradition of taking a self-portrait in the mirror before dinner, borrowing from the WIP/FO blogging technique of mirror portraits:

Then we had some professional photos taken - my beef with all of these is that more so than on other ships, they seemed to position you in such a way that you filled up the entire photo. I didn't think they were the most flattering, as a result. I even said something about it, and they said that their "mark" for each photo was designed to optimize the lighting and other settings on the camera so that was the only way they would take them. Every formal night, they would have three or four different backdrops that we would "do the rounds of" before we would go to dinner, and here's some of the ones I liked best:

They also would take pictures of couples at the dinner seatings (you can see here how sunburned we were - I tried to blend the strap marks with some bronzer but it obviously didn't work!)

and of the entire table. Here, only half of our table had arrived yet so this is us with Margie and Bill from Ohio and Bill's sister Stevie from Michigan. They were really cool, and told us all of their great travel stories. The other half of the table was yet to arrive, but we have another picture with the entire table (all ten of us) on a later formal night.

Tomorrow - one of my favorite port days: Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas. It was some of the most beautiful scenery I'd ever encountered!

Comments

[Stacey_CrimsonPurl]

Wow! You were right the sun was silent burn!

Tee hee @ sexy pic luvs it! ;op

Juliet is blocking now! Yah!

[Kim]

Ouch --- the sunburn hurts from here!

And the detailing on the dress is so pretty. . .

[Bobbi]

I love your dresses! You look so great in all the pictures!

[carol]

On that second self portrait...what is Jim doing with that hand?? :)

[Kari]

I love your dress!

[Suzie]

What a fabulous trip!! You both look so relaxed and happy, that the sunburn could easily pass as "glowing". ;)

[Koko]

I enjoy reading entire your story through everyday and photos as well in great suspense for the result(especially the Day One at the Miami airport)!!
Jim and you look so great!! I love all photos you showed, particularly one which you both stood on deck just in front of the moon...romantic.

You both got tanned nicely but didn't it irritate you?

[Liz]

I'm loving your sea tales! Sounds amazing, looking forward to the next installment! Have a great Easter!

[Michelle]

I love reading your stories! Makes me wish I was on a cruise this week! That's Ok I can live vicariously through your trip!

[Kat]

Really awesome! Ouch...that sunburn looks like it hurts though. Can't wait to see what "we're" doing tomorrow ;) .

[KeanaLee]

I hap 3 thought reading this:
1)WOW you look great in that dress
2)I want to go on a cruise
3)Can't wait to read the next post

[adrienne]

I LOVE the look on Jim's face!!! He is in loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! :-)

[Carol]

Very nice! The English/Spanish speaking thing is a lot like living here! ;-) You both look terrific and make a really cute couple :)

[Jenny]

Jim is too funny. Who else could make friends with someone that doesn't speak English? hehehehe. Most of my wedding pics have us at that weird angle too. I look HUGE in them. Oh well.

[knittymuggins]

Sounds like such a fun day! Your new friends are cute :) Have you made plans to stay in touch? I love all the formal photos especially that second self-portrait of you and Jim where he looks like he's kissing the top of your head. So sweet!