Day 5 - At Sea

Last night after dinner at the Italian restaurant we went to the show.  They brought on a renowned Polish conductor, composer, and clarinet soloist, Wojtek Mrozek, to entertain us tonight. He performed his adaptations of pieces by Artie Shaw, Beethoven, Bacarach, and others.  Accompanied by the Regent house band, he turned several sedate pieces into jazz.  It was a very enjoyable show, ending with a great rendition of Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing".

After the show we only had to stay up another half hour to see sunset at 11:20 PM.  This was our last sunset for a few days, since we are heading north to where the sun never sets this time of year.  We were fortunate that our room is looking out to the west for the northbound portion of this trip. 



The last few days caught up with us this morning. We slept late and almost missed breakfast.  They stop serving breakfast at 10AM and I just got out of the shower at 9:30AM.   While Ray was in the shower I ran upstairs, had breakfast just before they closed, and brought Ray back some cereal and pastries.  The waiter was kind enough to wrap some cellophane over a glass of milk for me and to carry it to the elevator for me.  When I got to our hall, our butler saw me with my hands full and opened the cabin door for me.  Everyone here is so kind and helpful.  I love this crew.

This afternoon we watched the enrichment lecture we had missed this morning as a replay on TV. The guest lecturer is Terry Bishop.  He spoke the first night on the ship on "The complete history of Norway in 45 minutes."  (We watched that the next day on TV too.)  Today's lecture was "The Real Cold War - The Arctic Convoys 1941-45."  This was a lecture on WWII as it played out on the coast of Norway.  You don't hear much about the events that happened in this area during WWII, so this was very interesting.

Lois and her blue nose, with Captain Daniel Green

 We stopped watching the lecture about half way and picked it up later on the next replay, so we could attend "The Order of the Blue Nose" ceremony.  This is a ceremony marking the crossing of the Arctic Circle.  I'm not sure there is really any history behind it, but it was a fun way to break up a sea day.  The captain read from a script listing all kinds of torture sailors would be put through the first time they crossed into the Arctic Circle, then said, since this is a 4-star cruise and he wanted good ratings from us, our initiation would be that he would dap blue foam on our noses and we would then be offered hot chocolate and pastries.

Ray got his blue nose from the captain next.

Tonight they are showing the World Cup Final match in the theater instead of a show, so we will pass on that.  All the music in the bars is either too early or too late.  We like to have dinner early (6:30PM when the restaurants open) and the bars all schedule live music 6:30-7:45PM. Then the performers take a break and don't start again until 9 or 10PM.  I guess a lot of people like to go have drinks before dinner, then a late dinner, and a show or more drinks afterward.  Even the theater shows all start after 9PM.  Unless it's something we really want to see, like last night, we would rather not stay up that late, especially if we have a tour in the morning.  I'd hate to oversleep again like we did this morning!