This, That, and Other Things

First, a quick run through the activity news. During last night's karaoke session in the Golden Lion Pub, I sang "God Only Knows," "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," "I Saw Her Standing There," "Bad to the Bone," and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." I had a lot more ballads I wanted to sing, but almost everyone else -- including some very old men and some very young women -- were singing slow songs and ballads, so I had to change it up. (British folks really seem to love American country music, from Hank Williams to Shania Twain, for some reason.) There will be another karaoke session tomorrow night, and I intend to get my ballads in early.

Today, I had sushi for lunch: only maki sushi, since they couldn't really serve raw fish four days out of port, but there was a lovely salad made of edamame beans and shredded seaweed, as well. Carole and I explored the top decks (a protected look-out on the 14th deck above the bow; open deck, pool, and two open jacuzzis on the 13th deck; a covered pool area on the 12th deck, where 8 dogs and 1 cat are reportedly kept in a kennel but not to be seen without owners' permission; and other curiosities). We took nearly two circuits around the boat on the 7th deck; the day was partly sunny with rain squalls in the distance, but not too windy. Last night got windy and a little rough -- there was a lot of extra rumbling of the floors and rolling when we went to bed, which made trying to sleep interesting, but it's been a lot quieter and calmer out here in the middle of the Atlantic today.

We saw the Sunrise String Quartet play a bunch of pop classic faves (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, several portions of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," Khatchaturian's "Sabre Dance," Offenbach's "Can-Can," the famous movements of "Carmen," that sort of thing) at 2:30. The players are all based in Kiev or Lviv. I was amused to hear the first violinist announce "Joseph Handel" and "Joseph Strauss."

The ship had scheduled Shabbat services at 5:15 in the Atlantic Room -- a glassed-in observation room on the 11th deck above the bow -- complete with prayer books, printed service, kosher wine, and fresh challah. One rather indignant lady complained to the rest of the Jews about the thoroughly Christian memorial service for the 9/11 dead that was conducted by the commodore earlier in the day. (Carole and I skipped that.) We were a mix of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and other varieties of Jewish congregations, but it was a largely harmonious service mostly presided over by a fairly young professional man who had done this sort of thing on other cruises. Some of the chants and prayers had rather different East Coast "tunes" from the ones we know, others were very familiar. A spry 92-year-old Orthodox fellow with a cane got up to do the blessings of the wine and challah.

After dinner we saw the six recent grads of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts who are on board perform a stripped-down, 55-minute version of "Romeo & Juliet." Nice swordplay, some very swift costume changes, a duchess substituted for the Prince of Verona, many of his lines given to Friar Laurence at the conclusion, and of course lots of cuts that were hardly noticeable to anyone not intimately familiar with the text.

I may have neglected to mention that I've gone to little workshops in warm-up, projection, and improvisation being run in the mornings by the RADA grads (they look like such KIDS to me, but they're all highly experienced), partly because I've had to leave early to get to our theater guide's lectures. None of the content is particularly new to me, since it's intended for theater fan/beginners, but one or two things helped crystallize things I only understood intuitively. We're supposed to get a little certificate of some kind from them at the end.

I wanted to mention the smoothness with which modern electronics enables Cunard to handle the billing. After we got through the security check in their hangar on the Brooklyn docks, we went to windows where we were issued little plastic cards, just the size of credit cards, with our name, ship, and dates of voyage along with the Cunard name and logo on the front, and a metal swipe strip on the back. This took only minutes to issue, but it handles just about everything on shipboard: toting up charges for an extra bottle of wine at dinner, drinks in the pubs, gift shop purchases (a Cunard logo polo shirt for me, a Cunard logo jacket for Pixie, etc.), other services on board, such as care in the Canyon Ranch spa, logging on to the computers and keeping track of the time I've purchased on the Internet and am using right now . . . and it is also our stateroom key! Every swipe at a shop, pub, or cashier's computer in the restaurants totes up the grand total of our bill for the trip.

I was attempted to assume Cunard had printed these in advance and had them ready before we showed up on the docks Monday morning, but it was purely a matter of chance which of more than a dozen processing windows we were shuttled to out of the long waiting lines, so apparently the Cunard employees are able to print these out from their computers, right there. Now I wonder whether we'll be allowed to keep them as one-of-a-kind souvenirs, or have to turn them in at Southampton.

I've spoken a little about the chinks in the armor in past blog reports. Now I want to mention just a few of the tiny signs that you are in professional, practiced, quality hands. I suppose these would be nothing to wealthy people who live in New York or Miami and probably see similar practices in the finest hotels and restaurants, but most of this is new to me.

For instance, we are served all our dinners in the Britannia Room on Cunard china -- everything has a gold ring around the center of the rim, with the Cunard logo (a crown above a British lion, cradled in 12 fronds of what looks like wheat or ferns, but is probably laurels). I looked on the underside of one of the small plates for rolls and the label reads Wedgwood, 1759, made especially for Cunard with, again, that logo. I suppose breakfasts and lunches are served on the same china, but I don't know, since we haven't come in for those.

Plates in the King's Court buffets are plain china, but the silverware is also wrapped in cloth napkins. (Another professional touch: there are no stray water droplets on either the clean glasses and mugs or the trays they wait on, in the King's Court.)

Something I MIGHT have seen in old movies is the wait staff's practice, after the appetizer, salad, and entree courses but before the dessert, of lightly scraping or wiping all the crumbs from the table cloth before each sitter with a curved golden tool.

All very small things, but rather telling.