The Gig is (being) Up

The ship is the Regent Voyager a vessel designed to carry about 700 passengers. There are only about 440 aboard on this leg of the cruise – from Rio to Fort Lauderdale, it will be full – and with 442 members of the crew, it makes the service ratio almost one to one. The ship has 12 decks; most of the passenger spaces are topside, with the common areas near the bottom of the ship, where it’s more stable in rougher seas. There are plenty of places to eat: The Compass Rose (the main dining room), the Veranda (where most of the food is served buffet style; you get your plate and a waiter takes it to your table), two up-scale and smaller restaurants: Signatures and Prime 7, and a pool bar/dining service on the pool deck where you can get a hot dog or a hamburger. One can hardly go hungry. And if all are eating like me, avoid putting on pounds. My cabin (or suite, as the ship prefers it be called) is on deck 9 and is very spacious, with both a presumed bedroom and living space. The bathroom has both a shower and a tub and the sink area goes across the whole space, making it much more convenient than the smaller spaces of my experience. The only complaint I’ve heard among the guests (read passengers) is the 200% single supplement, which is steep indeed. Yet many guests pay that to be on the ship. The atmosphere is similar to a country club, where friends meet again and again as they accumulate nights that provide traveling privileges. I understand from the company that got me this gig that Regent is discontinuing the gentleman host program on June 1, 2010, except for their world cruises. So this may be my only time doing this.
The food is great, and there is plenty of it. In the dining room and special restaurants, the quality is gourmet. A guest has the option of an appetizer, soup, salad, pasta, sorbet, main course and desert. That’s a lot to eat. I usually have just one first course – a salad or soup – and the main course. And, of course, the desert course is hard for me to ignore or forego. I usually have a large breakfast, my favorite meal, consisting of fruit and eggs with the best turkey bacon ever, crisp and delicious. Even the steam table scrambled eggs, usually so leathery and hard on top, are soft and delectable. As on other cruise lines, one can eat wherever one wants – the specialty restaurants require a reservation – with anyone one wants to join, at any time, and in any amount. All food and booze is included in the price. And speaking of booze, I counted 280 cocktails on the lounge menu, including 19 champagnes, all the way from those included in the basic price to Cristal Rose at $735.00 a bottle.
The weather started out cloudy: no rain, but no sun either. The temperature, and the seas, have been mild. But during the last couple of days, the sun has been out and the weather is hot. We are, after all, in the tropics. With only the sea around us, it’s easy to forget that. I’ve put away my sweater, usually a part of my uniform, until we go back north.
The passengers are mostly American, many from Florida – even they refer to the state as “God’s Waiting Room” – some from the British Isles, some from South Africa, some from Canada, but a largely English-speaking group. About 60 of the passengers are going “all the way,” meaning they boarded the ship in Athens and are going through to Fort Lauderdale. 80% of the guests (read passengers) have traveled with Regent before, which is an obvious testament to the line’s approach to service. I’ve counted only one child, a young boy traveling with his fairly young parents, the daddy a body builder with the biggest arms I’ve ever seen. The crowd, although incredibly widely traveled, seems a little less sophisticated than on other cruises but that could be only that, by virtue of my responsibilities, I am usually with the same people, especially at dinner, which Heinz and I have every night with those Solos who have no other plans.
There is a lot of variety among the passengers. There’s the very short older lady (read 70), with bleached hair she favors in pigtails with colorful ribbons woven into them; the suave upright 50 with a boy’s haircut and almost always dressed in white with a turquoise sweater I would kill her for; the 94 year old mother with the studious son and his ballroom competition black wife who likes to put her hand out delicately on open breaks, with her fingers extended in a ballerina-like pose; the bodybuilder with the huge arms and tattoos, who reads all the time, even at meals and couldn’t stop to teach his young son how to cap strawberries; the complainer from Alberta, always leaning slightly forward as if girded for battle; and the lady with the hip replacement whom the airport control would call “a heavy.” There’s the lady with the Jean Harlow hair, bright red lipstick and sad eyes who says she’s gained 10 pounds since Athens as she sucks up another Manhattan at the bar and worries about her son, asking me where she went wrong; Henry, who’s been through the Panama Canal 15 times, wears lots of gold and many diamonds on his fingers, paid for, I presume, with income from his company that makes specialty hardware for hospitals (must be a profitable business), the tiny lady from Palm Beach who looks like an older (read much older) Barbara Stern, always on deck in white shorts, a white baseball cap pulled way down over her eyes (and remanufactured face), a colorful sweater thrown casually over her shoulders and wondering out loud why she’s here when she has so much more fun with her friends at home; the couple from Massachusetts, she with the pink tops and vague resemblance to Senator Mikulski, he with his Nikon D700, taking pictures of anything that moves, telling me he doesn’t want one of the two of them because it would make his wife mad to be seen with such a beautiful woman; and the captain, who comes into the Veranda for breakfast and hides in a remote corner (so he won’t have to be with any of these people?).
My life has moved into a kind of routine where I lead a schizophrenic existence as both a host and a guest, sometimes one and sometimes the other and even once in a while both. As a guest, I’m up at five or a little after (Heinz sleeps until 9), struggling in the dark to get dressed and find the things I laid out the night before and rushing up to deck 11 where I hope to capture the sunrise. Once recorded (if there is one), I then rush to the computer room where, as a guest, I try to bring my blog up to date and read my email (not easy) before breakfast at 7 or 7:30, depending on whether we’re in port or not. I compose on Word, save (if necessary, like now), then go on line (when I finally get there) where I copy and paste, then erase what I’ve written from the hard drive on my computer and empty the recycle bin (I wouldn’t want some of these comments to ruin my gig).
8:30, host: back to my cabin to dress for the day in my uniform: pressed Khakis, one of my many uniform-like black Polo shirts, my badge.
9:00, host: go to the coffee corner and mingle/smile, remember all the names.
10:00, guest: free time to do laundry.
10:45, host: dance class where I steer ladies (and myself) through whatever is being taught that day: salsa, samba, meringue, swing, slow waltz.
Noon, guest/host: lunch wherever, alone, or with guests.
1:45, host: back to dance class, to review what we learned in the morning and add to it (we usually don’t get that far).
2:45, guest: I’m free until cocktails. But remember to smile all the time and greet those I’ve met by using their names. Hide. Take a nap.
6:30, host: meet in the Solo corner in the lounge, dance with those Solos who want to do whatever the band is playing, remember all the names, try to think of some new subject for those with whom I’ve already spent a lot of time.
Dinner, host: ditto
After dinner: escape, if I can, to the show, only permitted if I’m squiring some lady from dinner.
After the show until midnight, host; the prime dance time in the lounge. Another performance. Smile!
On the way to bed, host: pick up the schedule from the office for the next day. Fall into bed.
And the next day is pretty much the same. I try to stay tuned.

Sunday, November 29: Still at Sea

Getting up at 5:15 finally got me a sunrise. It wasn’t much – the canvas of clouds onto which the sun could splatter its colorful return was stretched pretty thin – but I watched it develop and took as many photographs as I thought worth the memory, both mine and the camera’s. Since my days are falling into a kind of routine, I came here next, to the computer center, to work on my blog. The process is very slow and I’m always afraid that at that moment when I’m transferring the information from the Word program in which I write it to the blog itself, it will get perversely lost on its way. But yesterday it worked, giving me a great sense of accomplishment. Breakfast outside on deck was lovely until Nancy showed up, complaining about her roommate, Donna, who does seem depressed. Nancy tells me she spends hours on her make-up and hair, and while they are always very nice – she has large eyes that she smears with mascara – the time-consuming effort doesn’t produce a result I’m sure she thinks she’s produced. But then, aren’t we all like that? Working hard, one way or the other, on how we present ourselves to the world when if we’d just let ourselves go, the picture would probably be just as bright, just as interesting? Nancy, always loquacious, and without much sense of editing, rattled on about her husbands, her house in Jamaica – how little she paid for it and how much it appreciated during the time she owned it – her children, and how difficult Donna, a long-time friend, is to travel with. I couldn’t help but wonder why Nancy decided to take this cruise under those circumstances.
After breakfast, I have a little scrap of time before I’m required to make an appearance at the coffee corner where my job is to mingle with the guests, introduce myself and help to smooth over any of their irritations. I’m getting used to it. This morning, Kay (a man) was working on his morning Sudoku – Elsa, who produces them, gives the guests harder ones on days at sea since they have more time to fill. We were shortly joined by Pat (a woman) from Alberta, who has a tendency to complain. She was outraged that the ship recognized Thanksgiving but not Veterans’ Day. I try, sometimes without much result, to blunt this attack, whatever its nature, but I’m only partially successful. This morning she and Kay were talking (as usual) about the cruise levels and what they get for achieving them. Eighteen people here have reached the titanium level of 300 nights or more aboard a Regent ship. The way I figure it, that translates into about a quarter of a million buckaroos, not even including the standard 75% single supplement.
To me, there seems something sad about spending so much of your life going from one port to another – “Oh I’ve been there so many times I can’t even remember,” or “I’ll be going through the Panama Canal for the fifteenth time” – collecting days that finally add up to free laundry or free computer time, dipping one’s toes into the water of life but never really swimming. When I ask people if these things are important to them, important enough for them to be incentives to travel, they always say no. But then when they get together with other Regent guests, they don’t talk about how interesting St. Helena was and how Napoleon must have felt when he arrived there. They talk about their hard (and expensively achieved) privileges.
This morning I met Virginia and her husband (whose name I can’t remember – I’m getting better at it but when the names come in rapid succession, I’m still not perfect) at coffee corner. They’re the only other guests from Baltimore, where they live “…in a large condo on the waterfront.” When I pressed them about where it was, they were vague. It didn’t matter. They were not friendly and I thought, why bother?
Speaking of which, I haven’t really had an interesting conversation with anyone, even with Heinz. And so far, no one knows anything about my life. Not that this matters either. I’ve become rather skilled at the game of “Talk about Yourself.” I’m not allowed to participate; I’m just the game’s facilitator.
The dance lesson for today was meringue, a street dance where you simply stomp on one foot and then the other – “don’t stop, don’t stop” – doing pretty much whatever you like with your hands. We stomped so hard that we interrupted the lecture going on in the theater beneath us. Gabrielle came up to the studio to complain.
Ah Gabrielle. She’s taken a shine to me. And if any Solo should like to be with me, I’m happy it’s Gabrielle. She’s invited me for dinner tonight in Signatures with “two couples from Canada,” who I hope will be interesting. And she wanted to be with me at cocktails and insisted that we try the rumba together. She’s a little stiff but a pretty good dancer. And she shares many of my hobbies: keeping a diary of the trip, taking many photographs and editing them on her computer by using Picasa. Elsa placed me next to her at dinner – Elsa dines with us often and always puts the table together and tells us where to sit. I asked her later if I was paying too much attention to Gabrielle at the expense of the other Solos and she said, “On no, no, no, not at all. Gabrielle needs taking care of. She’s titanium. And she’s sometimes quite diff-E-cult. That she’s found someone whose company she enjoys is wonderful. That doesn’t happen often with her. No, no, no, no, no. Please. Just keep her happy.”
The weather was great and I enjoyed some time outside in what I thought was a secluded and shady spot. But apparently the reflections of the sun on the water invaded my spot for, without thinking I needed sunblock, I got very sunburned. My forehead hurts and looks like I placed it directly on the bottom of a hot frying pan.
H. Stern, the Brazilian purveyor of high quality jewelry, has two sales people aboard. They mingle with the guests and soften them up for a trip to Stern once these guests go ashore. One of them sports a sapphire watch, the movement placed into a hollowed out sapphire, which twinkles expensively in the sunlight. I’ve seen three of them on the ship. Gabrielle told me at dinner that H. Stern always sends a private car for her in Rio, so she can go wherever she likes, without having to be confined to a bus with all “those other people. I know they want my business. And I give it to them.” She was wearing a triple stand of beautiful large pearls, fingering them as she told me this.
One of the Stern guys told me that a couple of years ago, sixteen tourists got trapped on St. Helena. The cruise ship they were on had gotten them ashore by tender but as the day progressed, the sea became much rougher and the ship could never land a tender safely. The captain decided to leave the passengers (hardly a way to treat a guest) and sailed on for Rio. The people had to stay overnight in St. Helena, take a small boat the next day to Ascension, fly from there to London and then taka a London/Rio flight to catch up with the ship. That must have cost Holland America a fortune.
Sasha and Olena dance beautifully but in the Russian/ballet, controlled tradition. After all, they’re from Ukraine so that is natural. But Fernando and Mayara move with a Brazilian sensuality that is mesmerizing. I remember how it felt to dance like that, making complex moves and showing off my partner. But even with a reminder course in Salsa, and dancing it with several Solos in the lounge after dinner, I’m reminded that I’m no longer capable of such abandon. Maybe it’s my mind, losing its flexibility along with my body. On board, there are mirrors everywhere – not only prominently in my cabin/suite but also in elevator lobbies, the gym, the lounges – and I have the odd sensation when I have to look at my reflection in them (which is almost unavoidable) that the person looking back at me is someone no longer me. Big breakfasts, which I love, and ice cream in the afternoon, which I also love, will do that to a body, no matter how much it stomps around dance floor. I feel like the first Queen Elizabeth, who banished mirrors from her palaces after she reach a certain age. I know now how she must have felt. Old. Stay tuned.

Saturday, November 28: St. Helena

As usual, I got up early to photograph the sunrise. I was so “into” my camera – focused on seeing through the lens, searching for something, anything in the east that might make a nice picture – that I neglected the other end of the ship. So when I went forward for a change, I was totally surprised to find St. Helena looming large in front of us like a huge reddish brown iceberg. I couldn’t help feeling compassion for Napoleon when, after 69 days at sea, he arrived here in 1815 with this massive, foreboding landscape in front of him. After conquering most of Europe and ruling an empire, he must have felt a sense of true defeat, knowing he’d been exiled to such a remote and desolate place. The only thing the least bit cheerful in this doleful picture was spinner dolphins swimming along with the ship, jumping out of the sea and spinning around, before splashing back into it again. I gave up on the sunrise and concentrated on St. Helena.
St. Helena is only 47 square miles in size with a quay at the harbor of its only settlement, Jamestown, the only place to get on or off the island. The place was discovered by the Portuguese who used it, along with Ascension (another desolate island further on in the Atlantic), as a way-station for voyages to and from Brazil. It does have water and the interior of the island is fertile if only in a shallow layer above this volcanic rock. I was asked to accompany a “Round the Island” tour as the ship’s representative, which means you carry a first aid kit, supplied by the Destinations Desk, and count people at each stop. The tour guy (read me) gets off and on last. After the first stop, I stood at the front of the bus and told everybody my name, that I had first aid if they needed it and that an as ardent photographer, I would be happy to photograph any couple that wanted their picture taken together. The crowd was not buying my cheerful presentation and when I told them I’d do anything I could to make their tour more comfortable, some wise ass yelled out that he wanted a cappuccino. That I couldn’t help him with.
We drove for a long time and then walked a long way to visit the Napoleon’s tomb. Even though his body was exhumed and returned to France in 1840, the island clings to the only distinction it has. The site of his original tomb was down a long grassy path – and I mean LONG; it took about fifteen minutes to get there – in a little round grotto-like space, carefully tended and beautifully landscaped mostly with little red orchids, which bloom naturally here in great profusion. After the tomb, we went to Longwood, the place where Napoleon lived until he died here in 1821. The house is simple, certainly not the palace he must have been accustomed to and is now a museum furnished with many of the original pieces. The many photographs I took compensated for no sunrise. Legend suggests that “the little corporal” received his guests at the fireplace in the billiard room, painted a bright mint jelly green, and insisted on formal court attire. A few of his uniforms are preserved here and, yes, he was tiny. The house is surrounded by acres of white and blue agapanthus, those showy flowers with long stems and alium-like flowers at the end. They were in full bloom and just incredibly beautiful and so prolific that I had to brush them aside as I walked down the paths. Our tour continued with a stop at Jacob’s ladder, 300+ steps up from the village to the top of the mountain. Not for me, thank you. And we stopped on the road several times for pictures of the landscape – including the heart-shaped rock cutout on the side of the mountain – and vistas of the sea. At a stop in the center of Jamestown, I was interested in the way the natives had gathered to see us, observing in wonder as we tried to spend our money on T shirts and postcards, proving to friends and family that we’ve actually been in such a remote place. There is no airport so everything has to come and go by boats. One comes from Cape Town once a month and we were only the second cruise ship to anchor in the harbor this year. So you can see we were a curiosity, with our sun bonnets and cameras.
Back on the ship, with the first aid kit and my critique turned in – after all, I’m a good little boy – I had lunch on deck with Nancy and Donna. Donna’s health and attitude have definitely improved but Nance told me the same story she always tells me when we are together. I escaped to my cabin for a nap.
It was formal night so I had to get all gussied up in my tuxedo, not my favorite uniform. Heinz fussed in front of the mirror for about ten minutes, playing with his coat handkerchief until he got it just the way he wanted it. Then it was off to the theater for a reception for guests who have traveled enough to qualify for brass, silver, gold, platinum or titanium levels. I learned that 85% of those on board have traveled with Regency before. I worked the room, talking to people I now know and searching out any stray Solo ladies. I chatted for a while with Anne, from South Africa, a tiny woman with a stern exterior that belies her humorous personality. I met her in dance class.
Dinner with Rudy, Heinz, Patrick and Diane was enlivened by a new to us woman: Ellie from Bradenton. Probably in her seventies, with shoulder-length brown/black hair cut like a boy, she looked stuffy but turned out to be a welcome relief to those others I’ve grown so used to. She was wearing a black dress with a very colorful mumu-like scarfy thing over it. And she was littered with emeralds, big ones on a chain around her neck and even bigger ones suspended from her ears. Each emerald was surrounded by small diamonds. She told me she had hesitated to join us – we had an extra seat at our table and had asked the maitre d’ to give us another guest – so the maitre d’ said he’d bring her over near to us and if she didn’t like the way we looked, he would seat her alone. But, she said, we looked okay and she enjoyed herself tremendously. Again, she talked about the ships she’d been on - she can’t remember them all and doesn’t even remember where she’s been; she just likes the way the crews always treat her – but then moved on to more interesting topics. I enjoyed her company.
The violinist violined again. And then we went to the Lounge for Latin Music Night. Even Sasha and Olena had a hard time keeping up with Fernando and Mayala who gave a couple of incredibly sexy demonstrations of their version of the samba. It was too much competition for me. I danced a couple of times with Gail – from north of Austin and traveling with her husband and her mother-in-law (who is an incredible 94) but she and her husband are fond of ballroom competitions and she was out of my league, her hips swiveling and her arms spread out as though she was about to take off. I sicced her on Heinz who was happier than me to lead her around the dance floor.
Gabrielle took me aside after dinner and asked me to join her in Prime 7 for dinner on November 30. She has reserved a table for eight and needed another gentleman. It’s quite an honor to be included and I had to ask Elsa’s permission. I told her I would be happy to forego this privilege but she said that Gabrielle “needed taking care of” (read travels with Regent a lot) and I should go. Heinz won’t like it. Stay tuned.

Friday, November 27: Still at Sea

I was up early, as usual, to photograph the sunrise but, as usual, there was none to photograph. Only clouds. What a disappointment. A good breakfast was a good remedy and then I was required to go to the coffee bar where there is a mini-breakfast buffet and about five tables for four where people gather for lighter fare and to meet their friends. I was asked to mingle with the crowd, introduce myself, get to know people. Heinz and I are, after all, ambassadors for the cruise line and as such, getting to know as many people as possible is being a good ambassador. This is somewhat contrary to my nature but when pushed, I can do it.
So I met Ramona, a sad, 60 year old lady with too much eye make-up (at least for so early in the morning) who told me immediately that she’d gained ten pounds since Athens but just couldn’t stop eating. Hmmm. I tried, really hard, to cheer her up but she wasn’t having any. She had another sweet roll instead. George, from Pebble Beach joined us and wanted to talk about his Bridge game, what he’d learned and how much he enjoyed it. I’ve learned not to volunteer anything; people really don’t want to hear about you. They only want you to encourage them to talk about themselves. So, although I know a lot about Bridge, I did the male equivalent of batting my eyes at George and asked him to tell me all about his fascinating times playing Bridge, thinking all the while that some of my Bridge experiences would put his to shame but not daring to interject them. Otherwise, he might give me a bad evaluation. (Not that I really mind, mind you. I’ll probably never do this again anyway. But it would be nice to have said, even then, that I did my best to do my best.)
Leaving Ramona and George to their own cups of coffee and croissants, I hightailed it to the Lounge for lessons in slow waltz. And wouldn’t you know? Just as in Samba, Sasha and Olena do the waltz backward from the way I’ve always done it, going forward on the right foot instead of the left and back on the left instead of the right. Anne, from South Africa, a very thin lady of about sixty, with glasses perched high on the bridge of her nose and with her chin lifted as though she was about to lose them, agreed with me that this was a backward way to learn the slow waltz but then, when we got on the dance floor at night, we could do it any way we wanted. She was so thin that I could have steered her by using her shoulder blade like a rudder. Still, she was pleasant enough, and game. We enjoyed the lesson.
Lorraine, our peppy cruise director, had organized a James Bond evening. All the entertainment staff was formally dressed, the men in tuxedos and wearing shades, the girls in long dresses. Lorraine had squeezed herself into strapless black velvet number with a slit skirt, long black gloves and a microphone. The dress was so tight that not only her breasts but also her upper back threatened to overflow. Not pretty. She managed the evening like a drill instructor and it came off pretty well, with trivia questions about Bond movies, their themes played by the orchestra and the actual movies going on in the background. It was a little confusing. She told me…no ordered me…to dance in two specific places, at the ballads. I chose Margot (with a T) for one dance – like hauling around a Mack truck – and Melanie, a reluctant participant, for the other. It was okay.
Dinner with Margot (with the T), Elise (who’s very sweet, despite her wandering eye), Diane, Nancy and Donna (who has now recovered) was as it might be expected: the same conversations about where they’d all been in the world and if they have enough miles to have their laundry done free. Elise has five cruises already booked for 2010 and I heard, again, how Margot (with a T) was thrown out of the country at eight because she was German and didn’t have a proper visa. Her view of Obama’s uplifting speeches reminds her of Hitler’s speeches in the thirties. So you can imagine how far that conversation went with me.
The show featured an aging gay star, who played the piano and sang, working the crowd for all the applause he could garner. Let’s just say that grinning like a maniac showing perfected teeth, winking and pointing at the audience, and sticking out one’s tongue to lick those pearly perfect teeth are not so enticing after fifty-five. I felt like shouting out, “Oh, please, Mary. Get a grip.” At one point, the screen behind him showed a picture of him 35 years ago with some famous actress – it was to establish his credentials, you see – and when he referred to himself, some one from the audience shouted, “WHICH ONE IS YOU?” He recovered pretty well, saying, “Oh, it was going to be that kind of evening, was it?” My answer (entirely to myself) was a quiet yes.
There were no Solos in the lounge and I couldn’t wait to get to bed. Tomorrow is St. Helena, an island in the South Atlantic in the middle of nowhere, which is about how I feel. Stay tuned.

Thursday, November 26: Thanksgiving at Sea

Even though I was up early, there was no sunrise to photograph. I wandered around like a man without a country – I don’t feel comfortable going back to my suite with Heinz still sacked out – until I could get some breakfast. Then I changed from my passenger clothes - a T-shirt with sweater and my grubby khakis – into my social outfit: a Polo shirt and my clean khakis. And my badge, of course, which identifies me as Phillip Cooper, dance host, contrary to my request that they call me Phil Cooper. Wearing this outfit and my brightest smile, I presided over the coffee corner, where there are about six small tables of four seats, between nine and ten. When Heinz joined me in his best Bavarian presence, he sort of took over (as he has a tendency to do). I was doing just fine, introducing myself to people and chatting merrily away. But he’s so used to inserting himself into every social situation, he can’t help it. But he’s also very good at – better than I am – and I don’t really mind. It just makes it harder for me to establish a rapport with the guests.
I had looked forward to the morning lecture on St. Helena and Napoleon. The woman who gave it droned on saying every-word-as-though-it-should-stand-alone, making what I thought was interesting information, less interesting. When the British finally defeated Napoleon, he was afraid to surrender to French authorities and so surrendered to the British. They decided to send him to St. Helena, where he and a retinue of a few loyal followers arrived after sixty-nine days at sea in October of 1815. The house where he ultimately lived was small but renovated to accommodate a man who had once been the head of an empire. He had a daily routine that included receiving guests, always dressed in court attire. He gardened and read and was fairly well treated by the British commander in charge of his exile. But in 1818, there was a change of command and the new British consul didn’t like Napoleon and so had him isolated from visits and constantly followed. Napoleon died there at fifty-one in May of 1821 and there have long been rumors that he was poisoned by arsenic. I read some time ago that they now think there was some arsenic in the glue used in the wallpaper. Our lecturer didn’t elaborate. When Louis Napoleon visited the island in 1840, he was appalled at the condition of the house where Napoleon had been living and offered the French government’s assistance in restoring it to a museum, which it now is. Because the island is so remote, nothing much leaves or comes in and so the museum has been able to outfit the house with furnishings that Napoleon actually used. Napoleon’s body was removed to Des Invalides in Paris at that time. When we visit the island, a simple hunk of rock, five miles wide by ten miles long, we’ll do so by tender, which should be interesting.
After the lecture, there was a Thanksgiving Day parade, complete with members of the entertainment staff dressed in costumes, a marching band, balloons and, of course, a Santa Claus at the end. It was sort of like a Halloween parade, birthday party, football rally, Christmas extravaganza. Lorraine, the cruise director, who works really hard to keep everybody entertained, organizes these things and then participates. In this parade, she wore a Santa outfit (that showed her legs) and twirled a baton. Cute.
Then a buffet, an incredible spread laid out in the Atrium around the elevators on Deck 5. There was everything from sushi to roast beef, all displayed on tables with ice sculptures, slowly melting, and lots of things carved from vegetables: lion’s heads from watermelon, flowers from eggplant. The most interesting was a watermelon hollowed out to form a cage, with love birds made from carrots, nestling on a celery perch. The opening was shaped like a heart, with flowers all around it. Cute
The samba lesson in the early afternoon was somewhat confusing for me. Apparently there are several ways to do the samba. My way is old-fashioned and largely abandoned in favor of the Brazilian Samba, which is more lyrical, sexier, and less jumpy. It was hard for me to get because the emphasis and the long step come on a different beat in direct conflict with the way I’ve traditionally done it. But the teachers, from Sao Paulo, were very good – and beautiful – and the class was large. I danced with Mayala, the female part of the teaching duo. After our class, they gave us a demonstration of their expertise and it was so over the top, we all gasped at the end. It was too bad, really, to show us how good they were in comparison with how little we knew. But, as always, the guy wanted to show us his skill; clicking back on his Lucite heels was only a minor part of his routine. Mayala wound up suspended in his arms and supported by his knee. I don’t think I can manage that.
This was the night I was to have dinner with Henry in Signatures, one of the upgrade restaurants. When I saw him at breakfast, with his western omelet covered with A-1 Sauce, I warned that Elsa still had to obtain permission for me to do this and I hadn’t had word back from her yet. He dismissed my concern and, thrusting his hand over his plate, with the diamonds flashing in the sunrise, he said, “It’s a done deal!”
I changed into a suit for the occasion and met Henry and others in the Lounge as always. Elsa was there, of course, and in a two piece satin outfit – she seems partial to shine – that was a medley in pink and mauve, not her best color. Heinz danced while I shifted back and forth between chairs, trying to make conversation with first one group of Solos and then another. Unfortunately, none was very interesting and I find myself saying the same things over and over: “How was your day? What did you do? Did you enjoy it?”
I was surprised to find that Henry had invited only Elise and me to join him but we had helped him on the Dinner under the Stars night and I guessed he wanted to thank us. But he had another motive. He’s taken a fancy to Elise. He talked almost exclusively to her in an old-fashioned and courtly manner that was quite sweet, while I looked on feeling like the duenna at a first meeting between prospective (read over 80) lovers. Near the end, Henry invited Elise to join him again, this time in the other gourmet restaurant and said he would call her to give her the details. “What time do you get up?” he asked her. “Is it okay if I call you at nine o’clock?” On the way out, Henry left us to talk to a couple he knew and Elise, taking my arm to steady herself in the swells, admitted that she liked him well enough but didn’t want him pestering her for the whole trip. I think that’s their problem. Meanwhile, the food was excellent: fois gras with prune jam, a seafood bisque (more complicated than lobster or shrimp), champagne sorbet, roast turkey with stuffing and garlic mashed potatoes and green beans (done to perfection), and a dessert from the cheese tray. Henry had chosen a great wine – a Riesling that was very smooth and buttery. I asked the waiter for the name and he later presented me with the label from the bottle, still wet and carefully wrapped in paper folded paper towels.
The violinist was good. At least she didn’t fall off the stage (which happened once on a Silver Sea cruise). And she was young and pretty, which didn’t hurt. Then back to the lounge for more dancing. I don’t know why but I just don’t seem to want to dance. First, there are no Solos to dance with – even if there were, I probably wouldn’t want to dance with them – so I sit and watch Heinz jitter around the floor with anyone who’ll accompany him. The theme for the night was Rock and Roll and there were a lot of people there. Swing is one of my favorites but I just couldn’t bring myself to dance, even with the entertainment kids who were there in force. I did jitterbug once but it wasn’t successful; the girl I was dancing with really wanted to be alone to do her thing; I was only an excuse to be on the dance floor.
Not dancing is not a good thing. I could see Lorraine, who was the emcee for this gala event, watching me, and see the wheels turning in her head. He’s a dance host. Why isn’t he dancing? No one has said anything to me about it yet. But Heinz is beginning to be impatient with me, separating psychologically, as though to protect himself. I’ve learned that Ray left the ship because they weren’t satisfied with his behavior. If I don’t shape up, will they throw me off in Rio? Stay tuned.

Wednesday, November 25, Walvis Bay, Namibia

Again today, I worked to keep my blog up to date. And stayed aboard. There isn’t much to see here except the desert and, although I would have preferred to go ashore on an excursion into the desert, I saw enough sand and dunes at our extravaganza last night. So I blogged. Chrissy showed me how to send photos and although it involves many steps – some of them unfamiliar and illogical, and like so many experts/teacher she took them very fast – I may try to do it again with some photographs from my small camera (the slow computers on the ship are not capable of handling the mass of information on the 8G cards in my bigger one.
Taking a break from all that typing, I went on deck for some fresh air. The ship was tied at both the stern and prow with turquoise lines, looped around the steel bollards on the pier and, of course, the color caught my attention. Even though the ship was tied securely at each end, it slowly rose and fell with the shifting water in the bay, tightening and loosening the lines, making it look like the ship was slowing breathing, in and out as the lines tightened and loosened, over and over, as perpetual as the sea itself.
We sailed at 2 PM and as always when I watch this procedure, I was amazed at the maneuvers needed to loose this huge ship from its moorings and return it to the sea. As we were leaving the harbor, I tried, unsuccessfully, to find some subject for a photograph but as I’ve already said, there isn’t much here but sand. I spent some time on deck while, Eric, my waiter, pestered me to have a drink. I finally had an iced tea, just to make him happy. It was nice to have a rest from being constantly “on” but a nap was even better. Then came dressing for cocktails, dinner and dancing.
Heinz and I were finally able to convince Donna and Nancy to join us for cocktails and dinner. He worked with Nancy – they seemed to be having a good time – while I chatted up Donna. She’s been married twice and has six children, there of her own and three of her husband’s. He died some years ago and now she travels. She’s lived in Libya and Turkey – her husband was in the oil business (Midland; what else?) – and told interesting stories about the people and her life in both places. As our conversation continued, I could see that she was becoming uncomfortable and she came out of her wrap, saying she was hot. Then she became even more agitated and finally excused herself, saying she was going to be sick and had to go back to her suite. Her friend, Nancy, said Donna was a depressed woman, often sick, chronically upset and really “just needed a man.” Her brief stay in the hospital on the ship had already cost her more than $900.00. I guess I wasn’t the right man. Which suited me just fine.
At dinner, I got stuck between Margot (with a T) and Patrick, both of whom love to talk, Margot mostly about how many cruises she’s been on and Patrick establishing his credentials as a bon vivant. Unfortunately, he began on his world tour again – I had heard that all a couple of nights ago – getting side-tracked once more in the manor house while his friends were in Barbados (bar-BAA-dos) for the winter. Finally, I just zoned out, remembering to nod my head once in a while and say, “Right,” occasionally. He spoke veddy softly and I could only catch a few words here and there and, as before, he mumbled and delivered his repartee with physical emphases, mostly eye blinks (like would you believe?) and licking of his lips, like a snake. It went something like this: “…well, in Kenya, I…” mumble, mumble, mumble, eye blink …”saying to my GOOOOD friend…” mumble, mumble, “…so I…” lick the lips, mumble, mumble, “It was hor-EFFF-ic, so I…” mumble, mumble, wink and then close the eyes for emphasis. I could only say, “How interesting!” Like when you see a new baby and don’t know what to say – they all look alike to me – “Now THERE’S a baby.”
Heinz chatted up Nancy on the other side of the table and I tried, between stifled yawns to listen to Margot (with a T) tell me about her many trips through the Panama Canal. “I think this next cruise will make it fourteen,” she said.
I was SO happy to escaped from dinner – we were the last in the dining room – and go to the show, which as shows go, was okay: mostly pretty, young girls and boys, leaning up against the proscenium at the edge of the stage, swinging a red boa or a tuxedo jacket over their shoulder and belting it. You know: NEW YORK, NEW YORK! Love and loss from kids who may not have experienced either. But it was entertaining.
Again, there were no Solos for dancing in the lounge. While the band played old favorites, including many of mine, a very fat young man entertained his group of six or seven with spurts of humor and wild gesticulations that kept them all in stitches. You know: the comic from the neighborhood who insists on putting on a show in his garage on Saturday afternoon. If you don’t come, he won’t invite you to his birthday party. When 11:45 came, I was happy to shuffle off to bed.

Still Tuesday, November 24 at Walvis Bay

(I’m sure this will be confusing but going forward, I’ll title the entry with the date/day of the events, not the day/date that I’m writing this. For instance, it’s now Thursday, at 6:45 in the morning but I’m writing about what happened two days ago. Now that you’ll thoroughly confused…..)
I spent most of Tuesday trying to bring this blog up to date but I had a lot of trouble getting on line until Chrissy, our IT specialist, helped me. We had dinner together and I promised her my recipe for onion soup, which she loves, and so she showed me a better way to do this. I just create my entry for the day on Word. Then I go on line and copy and paste the entry onto my blog. That saves me loads of internet time. So here we go.
Tuesday was a catch-up day. I didn’t get selected to go ashore here and so worked on the blog and did some laundry. I spent some time on deck, just resting up for the big event of the evening when most of the passengers went ashore for a “Dinner Under the Stars.” We boarded huge busses and snaked our way through the town here – which isn’t much – and into the famous Namibian Desert, which is, with dunes as high as a 15 story building. The highway was truly washboard, with deep, rocky ruts under the sandy surface. Getting there was like a very long vibration in a cheap motel. We turned left at Dune #7 – there’s literally a sign saying “Dune #7” – and threaded our way into the dunes themselves. We turned a corner and there, tucked away in the sand was our oasis, a U shaped tent nestled up against the highest dunes I’ve ever seen. A red carpet took us into the courtyard of the U where we were greeted by kids from Namibian schools, singing folk songs. It was really sweet. There was a campfire and a cook, tossing vegetables chopped like slaw on a big surface that looked like the end of a steel drum. Inside the tents, all was civilized, with white table clothes, plastic chairs slip covered in white material and palm tree plants. It looked like a wedding reception. The food was okay if you like ox tail soup and lamb stew and the wine flowed freely, which made the food taste better. I sat with Elise and Henry, making Henry my charge, even helping him to the pot-a-potty in the dark. (He’s taking me to dinner tonight in one of the two upscale restaurants on board). As it grew dark outside, the hundreds of candleros – candles in paper bags – that had been scattered over the landscape (even up in the dunes) made a beautiful tableau, like so many fireflies buzzing around. Unfortunately, the sky was not clear so dinner under the stars became dinner in the sand, but what the heck: it was a memorable experience, all the same. Back on the ship, I ran into Rudy in the lounge (which sounds like the title of a CD of Ethel Smith playing the organ in a bar) where, for a change, I didn’t have to be on dance duty. Rudy wanted to talk over his cognac so I joined him for a real vodka. He let me know that Heinz is married, yes, married, and his wife doesn’t really like him doing this. I can see why. Rudy also got friendly, putting his hand on my shoulder and inviting me to visit him in Los Angeles. I escaped by saying I had to apologize to Dirk and Melanie (who appeared at that strategic moment) for standing them up for dinner. They understood but I don’t expect them to repeat the invitation. And then to bed. Stay tuned.

Tuesday, November 24: Walvis Bay, Namibia

It’s six AM and I’m on deck, waiting for the sunrise but it’s so far a foggy, gloomy day and I feel like a fool, for while the sun will surely rise, its advent does not hold much promise for a great photograph to add to my collection. Too bad. I could have slept another hour and avoided sneaking around in my site so as not to wake Heinz. We’re due to dock at eight AM. But I wasn’t selected to chaperone a shore excursion and since so many guests will go ashore, I have the chance, instead, to try to bring this up to date. I am disappointed, though, for I had wanted to see and photograph the spectacular sand dunes for which this area is famous. Still, I may see some of Namibia – can you say that three times in quick succession? – tonight when most of the guests and Heinz and I will go ashore for what is billed as “Dinner Under the Stars” (and please take a wrap; it’s cold in the desert at night).
Yesterday was a busy one for Heinz and me. No Solos came to the family table where we were stationed at 9 AM for breakfast. I guess they preferred sleep to companionship. Or maybe they had both. At 10:15, we joined Sasha and Oleana for salsa lessons. Salsa is not part of my dance vocabulary but learning a few basic steps was easy and I partnered Carol, a pretty brunette who is traveling with her mother and her mother-in-law as well as the mother-in-law’s sister. Carol dumped the husband some time ago but the family relationship, even without grandchildren, seems to have survived. Among the other students for salsa lessons were Bob and Marty, a gay couple of a certain age, one short and Latin, the other taller, and probably older, with a very bad wig wound around his head, with pieces of it spindling off into space every here and there. Like so many wig wearers, he would look better without it. Vanity: thy name is well, vanity. Bob, the Latino, threatened to dance with me but n order to save face and not upset him, Heinz advised me to say that while I might like to do that, it was against my contract. Still, I told Bob that since he and Marty had paid for their cruise, they should feel free to dance with each other whenever they wanted. “We do it on Seabourne,” he said. Good for them! I approve.
After salsa lessons came the Block Party, held once each leg of the cruise, an event where guests gather in the corridors outside their suites, are served champagne and wait to see Lorraine and the captain literally run down the halls, trying to get to all the corridors before the time limit. In my assigned space – not outside my own suite – I met Kyle and Joe from San Diego. A gay couple – how do I seem to meet them all? – they’re both in their late 40’s and both attractive; Kyle,with matinee idol eyes and dark hair not yet going, but what I’m positive will be, even more alluring, and Joe, with a body and a brush cut. They seemed very nice and we had a pleasant, if short, chat. They’ve been on the cruise “from the beginning” and are “going all the way,” a designation of their superior (read wealthy) credentials. They established that I had joined the ship in Capte Town and was a dance host, which established mine. They were game but not much into block parties and we were the only people in my assigned area. They retired to their suite (a real one) and I moved on to another area where I met so many people I can’t remember: a couple from northern California who escaped from uncivilized civilization and live in the wood with no cell phone but a huge fireplace, a man from Scotland whose accent was so thick I could only nod in mute agreement while he was talking to me and Linda and her husband, a giant whose thick gray hair had a mind of its own, exploding around his head and on his eyebrows.
Lunch, more salsa lessons – we actually had six or seven couples this time and Sasha worked up a sweat trying to get them all to count, one-two-three, one-two-three to music so fast that even I had trouble with the twisting and turning. “Take smaller steps,” he yelled. “Take smaller steps. One, two, three. One, two three.” A short nap and then into my tuxedo for the captain’s welcoming party where I acted as a host, positioned n an aisle of the theater so I could greet guests by saying, “Good evening,” over and over again. I felt like a modern day vampire. “Good evening, my sweet. What a lovely neck.” I know now why Stacy said I had to smile, smile, smile. A big notice came to all the cabins saying that no one should be offended, but contrary to usual practice, we should not shake hands. Hand sanitizers are everywhere and there are rumors of people in sick bay. Then on to the lounge for a pre-dinner cocktail (which I never have; keeping track of all those names is a full-time job not helped by alcohol) with the Solos. There I met Malcolm and Anne Marie from Cape Town. She was really big and so were her diamonds. She wore two rings on each hand and the stones on the right side were the biggest I’ve seen since The Smithsonian. I was also introduced to Henry, a legend on Regent ships, a reputation he’s earned by traveling, like the Flying Dutchman, almost all the time. When he leaves this cruise in Lauderdale, where he lives, he’ll spend Christmas with his family and then depart for the Caribbean for a New Year’s cruise, and then four days after he gets back, he’s leaving again on Regent for a cruise “around South America.” When I commented that he’d have little time even to get clean clothes, he said he never worried about that’ “they” took care of everything. Henry’s wife died some years ago and I gather he’s done nothing much since then but travel. He’s also partial to diamonds and wears them on both hands, one ring loaded with stones wandering around the middle finger on his right hand like a clinging vine. When one of the women admired them, he said, rather dramatically, “They’re not for sale.” He also sports lots of gold jewelry: three humongous chains on each wrist and several around his neck. Do I need to say that all members of the crew treat him with extreme deference? Not! He’s a little feeble and foggy around the edges and “Elsa made it my responsibility – “he has a tendency to lose his way” – to help him safely from the captain’s reception to cocktails and then on to dinner. I didn’t mind. He’s very nice and cooperative and helping him is not so far from helping Mom for all those years. And I wouldn’t want Regent’s prime customer to have a problem on my watch.
Which is a great segue into how I’m doing and feeling and would I want to do this again. While it’s a little early for critical evaluation, doing this is hard work. And somewhat confusing. At times, I’m treated like a guest. But at other times, I’m just another cog in a giant wheel aimed at spinning more cruises, which, quite aside from the attractive distractions of places and shore excursions and events on board, is what every member of the crew (read me) is focused on. Go there. Do that. No messing around. No humor about it. Just smile all the time and do it. Greet everyone. Suffer fools gladly, over and over again. Remember everyone’s name. Rush to the side of single women “across the crowded room” and give them lots of admiring attention. While this is not hard for me, as I anticipated, it means summoning an effort to which I am somewhat unaccustomed. I knew all that going in, so no problem. But would I want to do this again? More on this subject after I’ve had a little more experience.
At a table for eight, I sat next to Gabrielle, my flirt from Florida. Like me, she keeps a diary of all her trips. Like me, she loves taking photographs. Like me, she uses Picassa to edit them. And like me, she has a large camera with two lenses – the same as mine – and a small camera without a view finder, its only drawback, which we agreed makes it somewhat difficult to take pictures in bright sun. She’s traveled extensively, mostly on Regent cruises, and is very particular about her food, insisting on using a desert fork for dinner because as a small person, she needs a small fork. On my other side was Chrissy, the IT person on board who offered to show me how to add photographs to my blog (at least one of which you’ve now seen; she showed me how to do it but I’m not sure I can do it alone). She’s also a self-professed great cook and offered to trade me the recipe for her famous Tira Mi Su (shared with her six gay friends, who know good food) for mine of Nancy Hernke’s onion soup (made with chicken stock and dry vermouth). At the other side of the table, Henry made jokes and flirted with Elise (who’s becoming my friend). Heinz, humming Christmas songs to himself, stirred the pot whenever it seemed it might burn. It was a very interesting dinner.
The show was a big production number featuring the dancers and singers and what can I tell you? They danced and sang. Sasha and Olena were the headliners. He has amazing presence and an incredible, flexible body, moving with the grace and concentration of a leopard across the stage. It’s impossible not to look at him – not because he’s beautiful (which he is) but because he devotes every ounce of his body to his dancing art. Usually it’s the woman who commands attention and Olena, his partner, was also very good. But the show was his, as I’m sure he wanted it to be. Seven costume changes in an hour? Please.
Again there were no Solos in the lounge for dancing. I sat in the background, humming to the tunes played by the combo and moving my feet around on the floor, trying to remember the cross over breaks in rumba. I only really danced once, when Robert, the black half of a mixed couple, went to the bathroom, and Lola wanted to swing. She’s a little heavy for that. But what Lola wants, Lola gets. Stay tuned. And guess what? I’m up to date. And I found my nail file.

Monday, November 23: At Sea

At sailing yesterday, I met Dirk and Melanie, a nice couple from Austin. Dirk and I were on deck taking photographs as two tug boats were threading this huge ship through an incredibly narrow opening in the harbor’s sea wall. Melanie joined us and after a short conversation, they invited me for dinner, saying they wanted to experience one of the two upgrade restaurants on the ship. I explained that as a dance host, I had to ask permission to go there and this late in the day, that was probably not possible. No problem; they would join me in the dining room. We agreed to meet in the Horizon Lounge, where most of duties are located. However, when I got to the lounge at cocktail hour, I was required to join all Solo travelers – that’s what they call people traveling alone – at a cocktail party I didn’t know about. I never found Dirk and Melanie. Perhaps they didn’t come (although that would seem out of character for them), or perhaps they looked for me and couldn’t find me in all the confusion. At any rate, we didn’t make it for dinner. Instead, we formed a party of eight, at two adjoining tables, a group put together by Elsa, my boss.
Elsa is not my favorite person, which, since I must work with her, is a shame. She looks and acts like a rabid chipmunk on speed, all teeth and popping eyes, her fingers nervously drumming on a table top as she calculates what to say, or do, next. Underneath her overly cheerful exterior I sense an actually curt and angry personality, determined in its own way to make the Solos so happy they’ll sign up for another cruise while still on this one (which many of them apparently do). She’s Australian – from Melbourne – with stringy, unwashed white/blonde hair that doesn’t hide the dark strands underneath the stylish barrette she uses to hold it all in place. The hair straggles out behind her like a garden hose, gushing, gushing. She has a nasty giggle that forecasts a cutting remark and when she heard I’d invited a couple – a couple, not a Solo – to join me for dinner, she was not happy. Instead, she put me with Diane, from “near” Tampa, a widow who spends most of her time traveling (and talking about traveling); George, a retired dental surgeon from Pebble Beach (he let us know that Robert Mondavi had been his patient) and Elise, another widow, this one from Montreal, with one wandering eye and whose luggage arrived at the ship only one hour before sailing. She didn’t want to talk, so while trying to listen and comment on the ongoing comparisons between George and Diane about where they’d been in the world and how much it had cost and how their next cruise was going to be so much less and the discounts they got and the air and land arrangements and how they’d now traveled enough days to get free laundry, I desperately attempted to engage Elise, who stared at me with the one eye on which I tried, not always successfully, to focus. She finally warmed up, after several glasses of (very good) South African wine.
After dinner, I escorted Elise to the theater where we heard an incredibly good jazz clarinetist before Elise left me for the casino (where I am not permitted to go – she asked me to join her at a slot machine but, like an electric fence, the doorway stopped me) and I bid her a good, goodnight.
Then it was back to the lounge for dancing. The combo was good and one couple (Greg and Margaret) took command of the dance floor, so graceful and competent in their cha cha that it made me feel a rank amateur. But there were no Solos except for an aging gay couple, dripping diamonds and gold, who spoke endlessly about their “crossings” and compared the Regent ships on which they’d sailed. They prefer the Voyager; the Navigator doesn’t have as nice a layout and the laundries are not on every floor. They left me half say through their stingers to “spread their business around” to other bars on the ship. When midnight came, I was very ready for bed.
Heinz told me that two entertainers – he didn’t say what kind (but I later learned they were two male dancers) – had been thrown off the ship in Cape Town. He didn’t know why, but I’m sure he’ll find out. On my instruction sheet for today, which I got last night, there was a warning not to participate in the rumors going around. And, of course, there went Ray, my intended compatriot, who was also thrown off the ship. I’d better watch my step.
Some miscellaneous stuff. In Cape Town, I was amused by a sign over a clothing store for Dolce & Banana. Everyone talks about Robben Island, in the Cape Town harbor, where Mandela was imprisoned for fourteen years. Houses on the gold coast in Cape Town are among the most expensive in the world. And with their view, they should be. Many of the passengers lament not having bought property here some years ago but then, with the new democratic government, “who knew how the country would go?” I heard twice from guides that there’s a house there for sale for “one hundred million Rand,” about 14 ½ US dollars. My description of the singer on board would probably meant more if I’d said that when she sang “Under the Boardwalk,” she reminded me of how good Bette Midler really is. The crowd here is older than on Silver Sea and, so far, less sophisticated. Let’s see: last night I added to my growing list Mort and Jean from Isla Morada in the Keys; he only manages money for his family, not his friends; and Eva from Palm Beach, a shriveled and definite aging little thing with a stretched face and massive lips. Her chic black T shirt sported a flamingo wrought in rhinestones.
As I’m getting to know Heinz: he’s very good with the guests, introducing himself and inserting himself into conversation without any hesitation. He knows how to keep the conversation going but even he grew tired of Patrick, passing him off to me at dinner. Heinz fusses a lot over his clothes and hums Christmas songs to himself absent-mindedly as he’s dressing, tying his shoes with double knots and primping endlessly in the mirror in order to get the pocket handkerchief just right. He wears bikini underwear in flowery colors and shocked me the first night at dinner by appearing in glasses with sparkling, multi-colored rims around the lenses and bright red temples. He’s been very kind to me – keeping me posted on his whereabouts and helping me be in the right place at the right time – and is an easy roommate.
I’ve given Elsa $60.00 for 600 minutes of internet time, barely enough, I’m afraid, to get me up to date. She insisted that I be in American twenty dollar bills – the machine that issues internet cards for the crew will not take anything else – and said she would give the cards to me this morning. And now I must join the family (read Solo) table for breakfast (before Salsa lessons at 10:45, a “block” party (everyone gathers in their corridors to meet their neighbors), more salsa at 1:45, and then into my tuxedo for the captain’s reception at 6:15, then more cocktails at 6:45 when my evening routine begins again. Maybe somewhere in all this, I can find time to bring my blog up to date. And find my nail file. Stay tuned.

Sunday, November 22: Still in Cape Town

On the appropriate form, I’ve offered to accompany any shore excursion where I might be needed. After all, why visit a port if you can’t see the place? But the schedule we pick up every night in the cruise office didn’t indicate that I had been selected. I was disappointed. One of the most important sights here is Table Mountain and the ship had an excursion going there. Heinz suggested I ask at the Destinations Desk anyway, just to see if they had room for me on the bus. As it turned out, they did. So I was able to go on Bus #7, just like a “revenue” (read paying) guest.
We wound our way through the city before arriving at the mountain, our guide telling us about the Dutch, the British, the Dutch again, then the British again as she pointed out the post office, the Art Deco buildings and the parks and statues. It was interesting enough, but not enough for this expensive computer time. The mountain, however, was another story. We took a round cable car to the top. It’s round for two reasons: better dynamics in wind and so that the floor can rotate, giving everyone in the car an equal view of all the surroundings. Nice. In windy weather, they fill a reservoir in the bottom of the car with water, to give the car more weight. The views form the top are spectacular. I’ll just leave it at that until I can figure out how to add photographs to my blog. (Which, by the way, is still days behind. I’ve been typing this diary by first composing on Word. That avoids the costly internet time. Then I print out the composed entries and keep the papers so that when I eventually do get on line, I can simply type what I’ve already written. But I haven’t yet caught up with Elsa, my boss, who has to sell me the permit. So, bear with me. When I eventually do get on line, there will be/have been a lot of entries in succession.)
(I’m entering this on Wednesday, November 25, so you can see how far behind I am. Chrissy, the IT specialist, has just shown me how to compose on Word and save. Then I can go on line and copy what I’ve already written into my blog. This will save a lot of time and maybe, just maybe, my permits will last for most of the cruise.)
We sail at five, right after lifeboat drill. Then it’s a rush to get ready for Solo cocktails when I’m expected to work the room, rounding up ladies for dinner. Then another opening, another show: more dancing. Stay tuned.

Saturday, November 21, continued

Patrick, on the other hand, likes to talk. When a subject of conversation arose at that first dinner aboard, he always chimed in and then continued talking, wandering merrily along through his mind in whatever direction whim took him. It all made some sense, but he never got back to the starting point, nor answered the question posed to him in the beginning. We learned that he sold his florist business in Sydney some years ago and decided to travel around the world before settling down. We heard about his hygira through many places in Africa (each described in critical comments) and had only gotten as far as Europe when we tried to divert his attention. Or let someone else say something. No success there. He spoke about some friends in England who lived in a manor house and invited him for Christmas. After the holiday, they went to Barbados for the winter and asked him to stay on and maintain the manse. He told us, happily, about starting at the top of the manor house and turning on all the radiators on first one floor, and then the next, working his way down and turning on all the radiators to keep the house minimally heated and prevent mildew. It was an amusing story. His accent is delivered with great emphasis on the one syllable he thinks important, drawn out until you woooooooonder if he is going on. But just when you think you can intercede, he starts again. He's slight, with delicate hands and eyes like a deer in the headlights. The eyebrows looked plucked (although I'm sure they're not) and I couldn't help thinking what a good drag he would make. When he wasn't talking, he put his elbows on the table, made a platform of his hands where he rested his chin and batted his eyes. He looked like the perfect English fairy about to anoint a believing child in Peter Pan.
After dinner, I went to the show, a young woman who sang songs from movies, many of them from Disney. She had a very powerful voice with not much sense of how to use it. Too bad. Most of it was just loud.
After the show, I retreated to the Horizons Lounge, my workplace for the hour after the show each evening. The combo was terrific, especially the sax player who may be the best I've ever heard. They played old standards and when the go to "As Time Goes By," I had to sing along under my breath, in honor of Jean and Lionel. There was some event ashore so the lounge was sparsely populated: two couples, a group of six, a man and his girlfriend/wife who never left the dance floor, and me. Although the music was great, the dancers were not and they had a hard time, jogging round the dance floor but enjoying themselves tremendously. At a waltz, the lady turned to me - I was lurking in the backgrounds - and asked me to show her husband/boyfriend how to waltz. This is a no-no. I've been told that teaching on the dance floor is a violation since it embarrasses the lady. But since the lady asked mt to show her, I had to so something. So I danced with her until she got the hang of it and then turned her back over to her partner. She asked me to be gentle; she was in heels. "And going backward," I said, "just like Ginger Rogers." She didn't get the reference.
Going to bed was heaven. Heinz had rearranged the suite so that one bed was up against the wall in the living room section and the other up against the wall in the bedroom section. This actually worked pretty well. The curtain between the two areas can be drawn, giving each of us a modicum of privacy at night. I slept soundly. Heinz said I only snored a couple of times. I guess he was paying attention.

Saturday, November 21: Going Aboard for Going Abroad

Without any indication in my papers about when to board the ship, I checked out of the hotel as quickly as possible, happy to be rid of the place, only to find at the dock that new passengers could not board until noon. The prospect of standng in 92 degree heat for over two hours in my uniform, complete with the white shirt and required red tie (why red?) was so unpleasant that at the risk of getting off to a poor beginning (a serious no-no), I pleaded to be let aboard, if only to wait in air conditioning. The man at the end of the gangway didn't seem to understand my papers - "please give Mr. Cooper your complete cooperation and help in any way" - and finally called someone aboard for authorization. Hurray! I got aboard. But I had to carry my own luggage. All 100 pounds of it!
Since my cabin/suite was already occupied by my fellow gentleman host, the desk allowed me to check in. I struggled with the heavy bags and two carry-ons down the hallways and up the elevator to my suite. Heinz was not there so I pushed on with the daunting task of trying to find places in very small spaces for all this stuff I thought essential. I should have remembered my trip to Turkey, when my luggage was lost and I lived out of a plastic bag for four days.
It wasn't long before Heinz joined me. He's tall and thin with receding white hair and a very wiry moustache. He introduced himself and showed me where his things were and where I could put mine. He was fair; he left me half the space, if at the bottom instead of the top. I managed to stuff everything into someplace and now that it's there, I still don't know where everything is. Now, just where is that nail file? Heinz and I had lunch in the Pizza Place, where the help-yourself style suited my mood. It also is a place where there are a few tables outside. Lovely. After lunch Hienz showed me around the ship and introduced me to many poeple whose names I'll never remember. In the process of this grand tour, I got to know Heinz better. At 67, he's been doing this for a long time. When I asked him where he'd been in the world, he laughed and said, "Everywhere." He let it go at that. He's from Munich and speaks English so competently, and so quickly, that I can't catch everything he says. On our tour, he demostrated his charm with many of the passengers and staff, stopping often to greet people and introduce me. In the process, I met Donna, from Midland, Texas, Nancy from Vero Beach, both ladies traveling alone, Lorraine, the cruise director and our ultimate boss, and Elsa, the entertainment director who supervises and directs our activities.
At the appointed cocktail hour, Heinz dragged me off to meet the singles at the Going Solo cocktail party. Only one woman came. Gabrielle, of French origin, but now from Pompano Beach - her husband, now deceased, was in the American diplomatic corps - was a real coquette. Of a certain age, perhaps 65 or 70, she's well-preserved, petite, and a very good dancer. She willingly demonstrated by asking Sasha, the dance instructor from the Ukraine - why are they all Russian? - to give her a turn around the dance floor. She's a very good dancer and their cha cha was disheartening to me, with my primitive steps. Just outside out suite, we ran into Margot, pronounced, she was quick to add, "Margo," but spelled with a T. Maybe 75 - it was hard to tell; most of these ladies are preserved in bee balm - she insisted that she'd met me before although neither she nor I could remember where. Then out of the blue, she asked me if I knew Enzo, our maitre d' on the Silver Shadow when Rhea and I went to Australia. She knew him as a very competent concierge, who could get her into anywhere in the world she wanted to go (and had been, she let me know.) The fact that I knew Enzo has made Margot (with a T) a fast friend. At cocktails, I also met Pam and Chuck, from Seattle. Chuck favors glasses with yellow lenses and when I told him I was from Maryland, he said he once raced on the Choptank River. What a surprise; my hometown, Denton, is on the Choptank River. We agreed that the world is, you guessed it, a very small place. I also met Rudy, a man in his 80's from Los Angeles (although he's originally German) and Patrick, from Sydney. Since we couldn't find any single ladies to join us for dinner - Gabrielle was going ashore - we asked Rudy and Patrick to join us.
Rudy's family was once very wealthy but his parents lost everything when the Russians occupied his part of Germany after the Second World war. His wife died almost 20 years ago and after she passed away, he found an old school mate on one of his frequent trips to Germany and they, once lover, became lovers again. But he's getting too old now, he said for such foolishness and for the fist time, will be alone for Christmas. He has children and grandchildren, all of whom have asked him to be with them for the holidays but the multitude gets on his nerves. I understand how he feels.
(Trying desperately to catch up, I've been at this keyboard for hours. I need to rest. Stay tuned for my description of Patrick, who was quite another cup of tea.)