The first formal night

This afternoon you find me sitting in the “Crows Nest” once again – the lounge area overlooking the bow of the ship. According the numerous announcements throughout the day we’re nearing 900 nautical miles into the journey, averaging 20 knots – anticipating a little weather this evening, and arrive into Cadiz in the early hours.

After (finally) making it down for breakfast this morning – or rather brunch – we returned to the cabin to find invitations for drinks with the captain before dinner this evening. Tonight is the first formal night, so I’ll have the dinner jacket on for the first time. It’s going to be fun.

While everybody else trundled off to fight over lunch earlier we headed to the pool – where I can boast about swimming twenty or thirty lengths (the pool is about 5 metres long).

Afterwards – while stretched out on a recently abandoned lounger, I pulled out a book I discovered while searching for any novels about Cadiz – our first port of call. “Candide” is apparently famous for being banned, so I naturally asumed all sorts of debauchery, and was quite disappointed to discover it hasn’t aged well. Quite apart from being translated from French – which never helps – it seems fragmented, broken, and lacks any sort of character development apart from the protagonist claiming she has been “ravaged” in the opening chapters by a swarthy cast of characters on an almost daily basis.

I’m not sure I care enough about the characters described so far to continue reading about them.

I found myself quietly people watching around the pool – amusing myself with the performance put on by so many – and wondering who it is for. Perhaps people get so used to their act, the no longer know they’re doing it – the behaviours, affectations, and ticks.

An elderly man behind us struck up conversation with another lady wearing a bikini – I’m pretty sure because she was wearing a bikini. She seemed happy with the attention, but I couldn’t help grinning into my book.

(Fast forward an hour)

After arriving back at the cabin this afternoon a steward arrived with a silver tray bedecked with what looked like glasses of champagne on it. We accepted it, then started worrying. I called reception, and questioned the delivery – and was assured it was a planned gift – part of our package.

I then started wondering – why did the champagne include spoons?

It wasn’t champagne. It was champagne jelly – served in fluted glasses – with fake foam – that looked exactly like champagne. I ate it immediately – because I’ll eat most things if given them – my other half ate perhaps half of hers.

We chalked it up as one other stranger things to happen so far.

(Fast forward several hours)

We just got home from our first formal evening on-board – which entailed an hour of flapping in the cabin before heading down to first meet the captain at an arranged “meet and greet”, and then on to the restaurants.

Formal means “black tie” for men (read: black or white dinner jacket), and sparkly dresses for ladies. I got ready an hour before we needed to leave, and gradually became more stressed as my other half dived this way and that around the cabin – changing her mind about this dress, or that dress, or this necklace, or that necklace, and so on, and so forth.

There’s a moment – then you leave the cabin – particularly for the men, I think – where you think “if nobody else is wearing a white waistcoat and dinner jack, I’m going to look a bit of a knob”. Thankfully as we neared the Captain’s reception, we ran into lots of other couples decked out in similar clown outfits.

Perhaps clown outfits is a bit disingenuous – a time portal to 1920 is probably more apt.

We bumped into some new friends along the way, and joined them for the Captain’s reception – then on to dinner together, and a show. The dinner was incredible – and while I’m usually the least appreciative of “fine dining”, even I had to admit it was good.

The show after dinner took place in the main theatre on board – with a live orchestra backing a gorgeous female singer called Scarlett Baxter – who worked through an incredible repertoire of show tunes. I was fine until she started singing “I dreamed a dream” from Les Miserables, and knocked it out of the park – then started worrying about tears or snot staining my dinner jacket.

After the show we retreated to Andersons – once again crossing paths with one of the service staff that has become an unlikely friend, before heading up to the Crows Nest, and meeting back up with the rest of our dinner table companions – rapidly becoming the loudest, and probably most problematic table on the boat.

Anyway.

Tomorrow we arrive in Cadiz – a port in southern Spain. I need to remember to take a the proper camera. Here’s to adventures yet to come!