Day at Sea

Another day of sleeping late. We were finishing breakfast while the Seaside Cafe buffet was changing over to lunch, so before we left we got a neat plate of antipasti just because we could. We skipped the Finnish class, knowing that all of Scandinavia speaks better English than many Americans, and instead did the crossword before cha cha class and St. Petersburg history class. Then we walked a bit, then Russian class. That class ran over by 100%, only breaking up when the teacher, Renata again, had to run a bingo game seven decks down on the opposite end of the ship. Someone's question about the Soviet mindset had started her telling stories of growing up in the Soviet Union; I remember two. First, that there was rampant workplace theft, because things were too expensive to buy, so if you worked at a shoe factory and wanted a book, you'd steal some shoes, and hope to find someone who worked at a bookseller's and needed shoes. Second, that they found out Lithuania was starting to break apart from the USSR when a newsreader suddenly came on speaking Lithuanian; the Soviets violently overtook the station later that night.

We'd been looking forward to a High Tea that we'd missed on the other sea days, but were seated with a fairly dopey North Carolinian couple and a duo we almost immediately dubbed the Disagreeable Kiwis. The Disagreeable Kiwis could complain about everything, most notably the perceived lack of attention from the staff (the same staff that Greg sometimes found eerily obsequious) and the small portions. "I don't know how anyone can claim to gain weight on a cruise," she sneered, tucking into her third scone despite the lack of clotted cream, "the portions are so small." When we later told our dinner companions about that one--in the process of thanking them for not being like our lunch seating--I'm certain they didn't believe us. Anyway, we did enjoy salmon, prosciutto, tiny eclairs, and scones with jam and whipped cream...despite the Kiwis.

The last bullet point for this day in my journal is "walked around a bit more, then dinner, then walking, then new movie of 'The Producers.'" And that's that.

Pedometer count: 10,265