October 27

Sunday, October 27

Shades of Amtrak, Israel, Delta Air Lines from Barcelona, and even US Airways to Nassau. All have been the scene of damage to whatever walker I was traveling with at the time. Now I can add to the list US Airways from Charlottesville to New York. My new walker on its first trip arrived at LaGuardia minus a screw that holds the right front wheel in position. With the wheel assembly flopping around, the walker was less useful than a 3-legged quadruped. I will say that the US Airways baggage claim agent was as sympathetic and helpful as she could be. Once I got on board the Caribbean Princess, I got the Front Desk folks to send a ship's carpenter who turned up early this morning with his box of miscellaneous nuts and bolts, so my walker is back in business again. 

Our bus from LaGuardia to the dock in Brooklyn had the personality of an Egyptian camel (Frances H will know what that means). She only made very wide turns and complained bitterly every time. Add to that New York/Brooklyn Saturday afternoon traffic and extremely narrow streets with a perfect maze of one way signs, and we had quite a trip with a side trip or two through and around the maze. Fortunately our driver had patience and a sense of humor and must have been a camel driver in a former life.

Mark and I had a lovely long dinner last night at Sabatini's which is the Italian specialty restaurant on board Princess ships. It turns out that if you want a nice, unhurried dinner in any of the specialty restaurants, plan to go the first night as that is the least busy time. As soon as you get to your cabin, phone for a reservation and you can get your choice of times at any of them. Anyway, I had a fabulous Spaghetti Carbonara, and Mark had a veal dish that appeared to  be about half a calf. We had a nice long catch-up-on-news session over dinner.

By the time we finished dinner, the ship was out in the Atlantic, past the heavy traffic shipping lanes and beginning to head south. "Rocked in the cradle of the deep" would have described sleeping last night except for the ship's stabilizers. They did a fine job of cutting the soothing rolling and replacing it with several varieties of jerky motion in an irregular pattern. Ah well, I managed to get a good night's sleep anyway.

Today was wonderfully calm and relaxing. The sea was like glass...not even any white caps or clouds. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon on our large balcony watching, alternately, the ocean and the inside of my eyelids. This evening is a formal night, so we will be meeting our table-mates for the first time in all the personal splendor we can muster which includes Mark's Jerry Garcia wild purple tie.