April 20, 2103  Sea Day

We continue to change our clocks and watches back an hour for the third day in a row as we head towards Brazil. Our morning lecture was by Howard Walker who presented a talk titled: Behind Embassy Walls: Who Works There and What Do They Do? It was a very interesting talk on embassies’ core functions of reporting, representation, negotiation and consular. He discussed all of the types of work that embassies do around the world and how many different departments and purposes they serve.

For lunch they featured a tapas bar poolside where they had items like, empanadas, small quiches, garlic olives, meatballs, scallops in a cream sauce and many more. It was a nice change from the usual offerings.

The afternoon included the Indonesian crew show of traditional music, song and dance from their homeland of Indonesia. Many of the dining room stewards and cabin stewards participated in the colorful and lively show.  They needed a little more practice…but considering how many hours they work, we will give them credit for showing up!

The evening’s entertainment was a second show by the Spanish group called Kings of Pop, Queens of Soul. Not many people liked the first show they performed last week so the audience was sparser than usual. The show was not that bad.

Rusty water—Since we boarded, we have experience frequent discharges of rusty water in the shower and sink in our cabin.  We have reported it and they have tried to solve them problem, but it persists.  Today, Kent wrote a note asking for some money back if they can’t provide safe water for bathing and drinking.  HAL immediately sent plumbers to investigate again and gave us bottled water to use.  They followed up with a phone call to see if all was well.  No mention was made of returning any money to us for the inconvenience.  It is OK for now.  At one time or another, all passengers joke about asking for a free cruise if anything isn’t “just so.”  Guess Kent will try that next.  HA!