Although
Jesse had planned to attend the end of a Samba dance lesson, when he arrived,
the instructor was thanking the passengers for their attendance. Sally thinks the Samba is a boring, tiring
dance (of hopping up and down) and is not interested in learning more.
After
Sally’s nap, we walked to the other end of the Lido deck for a light lunch and shared
our table with a couple from south Wales, UK.
After lunch, we lounged the rest of the afternoon in our cabin.
After
dinner, we went to the Club Fusion for dancing, but very unfamiliar Latin music
was playing again. The common ballroom
dance steps that we have learned don’t seem to fit that music. However, the group of Portuguese-speaking
passengers was having a great time, while controlling the choice of music! One Asian couple was attempting to learn dance
steps they appeared to be learning; the other non-Portuguese passengers (including
us) left after a few songs. Although
there hasn’t been as much opportunity for ballroom dancing on this cruise as on
previous cruises, the opportunities have now drastically shrunk.
Anyway,
since there was no other dancing available, we decided to go for a short evening
swim instead. The pool and hot tubs were
empty, so we had them all to ourselves. Near
the end, an Australian gentleman joined us in the hot tub. During our conversation, he warned us about
malaria-carrying mosquitoes in Vietnam and some other parts of the world, including
in parts of Australia. He had contracted
malaria twice during his lifetime, from which it took him only a few days to
recover; however, apparently there are more severe strains. We brought insect repellent with us and will use
it during our visit to Vietnam.
On
Friday, 18 Oct 2013, we awoke at a decent time, after setting our clocks and
watches back one hour the previous night.
After breakfast, we returned to our cabin, where Sally resumed her
napping. The movies being shown on the TV
are a repeat of the first segment of our cruise, from Whittier to Beijing, so
there are no new movies to watch.
At
12:15 PM Jesse went to a Salsa dance class and learned a few new steps. Afterwards, we had a light lunch, and later
went to the 3:30 Tea Dance. During the
dance, we ran into Neona and Dennis, so we stayed with them afterwards in the
Club Fusion for the afternoon Trivia Challenge.
We warned them that neither of us is very good at Trivia, but they were
very persuasive – and we were able to answer 3 or 4 of the 20 questions. One of the questions that we answered was the
name of the US president was quoted as saying, “I am not a crook!” Also, we figured out what “NATO” stands for,
and who declared himself emperor of France in 1804. We all knew the musician’s name who wrote the
song “9 to 5” (Dolly Parton). One of the
questions that our Australian friends answered was, “How many stars are on the
Australian flag?” (However, since this
apparently isn’t taught in school, it seems to be a confusing question for Australians;
they have both states and territories.) Also,
Dennis knew the city with the most millionaires (Singapore). At any rate, our total team score was 13 out
of 20 points, which wasn’t too bad for us.
The winners tied with 18 out of 20 points. We stayed and talked with
them until dinner.
After
dinner, we danced to the Superfly Band for 30 minutes in the Explorer’s Lounge,
where we just happened to run into Neona and Dennis again. Since our meet-up time for our Ho Chi Minh
City excursion is 7:00 AM, we retired early for the night.
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