April 16 – 19
Four days at sea on Holland America's Eurodam. It's a tough life.
Breakfast is on the Lido Deck, where one can choose from a vast buffet of egg dishes (scrambled, fried, poached, soft-boiled, and omelets with your choice of almost anything added), hot and cold cereals, fruit of all kinds, yogurt in boxes or in a parfait with fruit and a touch of granola, breads, muffins, pastries, coffee, and a variety of teas. An eight-page digest of news from the New York Times is available for reading over a second cup of coffee.
Speed-walking on the Promenade Deck is nothing like that in Tucson. The track at Morris Udall is steady, but in the middle of the Atlantic, when the ship rides up an ocean swell, it feels as if you're lugging a ten-pound weight in each hand; then, when it dips down, you feel like Bugs Bunny racing in mid-air after dropping off a cliff.
Meanwhile, waves tip the ship from side to side, so walkers stagger about like drunken sailors. At home, the Zs and Slow-Bob may cruise serenely like the Queen Mary in calm seas; Rose may tack like a skiff in a light breeze, and Jean may sip by like a Chris-Craft, but on deck, you lurch from railing to deck chairs, hoping not to collide with other passengers.
Then there's the wind. Add 27 knots to however many the ship is cruising at, and on one side, you lean into it like a speed-racer; on the other, you just hoist your spinnaker and let it carry you along. At 55 degrees, it bracing, to say the least. You're also aware, always, that there's over three miles of dark water straight down between you and terra firma.
The ship's menu of activities for the day runs from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm and includes such options as Tai Chi on Deck, Sudoku, Mass, Acupuncture (most stimulating with 4 – 5 meter waves), travel lectures, a seminar on how to eat more and weigh less, bridge, golf putting, line dancing, culinary arts demonstrations, chess tournaments, tea at 3:00 pm, bingo, meeting of Friends of Bill (AA), an abs class, pre-and-post dinner shows of comedians, jugglers, dancers and singers belting out songs from the 60s and 70s, pub crawls, a trio, jazz, and dancing. And of course, there's the sing-a-long bar!
Usually we read in the library/computer area and find time for at least one nap. In the evening, we continue to meet in the Silk Den for discussions with our shipboard-friends about the same topics that dominate those at the Morris Udall Walk Track in Tucson—health (cardiac by-passes, cancer, etc.), food, and maybe politics (after carefully testing the waters to detect any lurking Republicans).
Dinner (“smart casual” or “formal,” which means only jacket and tie on this ship—unlike the Queens) is the highlight of the day. Unless we skip out for another restaurant such as Pinnacle Grill ($20/person extra unless you have a gift certificate from your travel agent, as we did once), Tamarind Pan Asian Cuisine (only $15/person, but we're too cheap), the Lido (buffet), or Canaletto Italian (free!), we join our four Swedish friends and a couple from “near San Francisco” who, because we suspect that they're not-so-secret Republican sympathizers, are seated, fortunately, at the far end of the table from us. The Swedes, like a delegation from the United Nations, provide a buffer zone.
This is Table 35:
Barbo, Göran, Bob, Stew, Ingegärd and Gun.
Bob and Göran entertain our end of the table with jokes and friendly insults. Göran turns red as a ripe tomato when he laughs too hard. This is hard to capture on film, but at least we have photographic evidence of his existence along with his wife Barbro. On the other side of the table are the other two members of our Swedish delegation, sisters Ingegärd and Gun.
Our waiter, Irwin (pronounced Ere-WHAN—here with Ingegärd & Gun) is from Indonesia, as are most of the service staff on the ship.
We usually sleep from ten pm to eight am, even with 4 – 5 meter seas, which make the bed feel like a gently rocking hammock. Every day or two we set our watches ahead an hour at two pm, as we gradually shift from east-coast time to European.
We are pleased that at our table is an important Rotarian from Sweden: Barbo and her husband, Göran.
