Happy Birthday Randy.
We were awakened by room service as our coffee was a little early, and our alarm was set a little late. We had coffee and got cleaned up and dressed for breakfast. We arrived downstairs in the dining room at 8:20. We were seated on the main floor directly in front of the huge wall art. At our table were some American and a British couple from near Cambridge. They were a little younger than we were. The other couples were older Americans who had traveled often, or as the gentleman said that in total they had been on Queen Mary 2 for almost 300 days, including two around the world cruises. They were Germans who had worked in Germany, Brazil and the US for Volkswagen. He was quite proud that he could draw SSS and Medicare.
We had our usual good breakfast and then went up to deck 7 for a walk on a beautiful sunny morning although it was a bit blowy. We moved indoors to the purser's office where Nancy inquired about a birthday car left at our cabin with the name Beatie Russell. They were quite apologetic---apparently it was a typo since we are the only Russell's on board ship.
We headed to the Chart room where we had a mocha and read our books until the gemologist / jeweler gave a talk about tanzanite, a blue gemstone with beautiful color and good brilliance, but it is a very soft stone. It is a relatively new gemstone having been only discovered 50 years ago. The stone is found in Tanzania. The gemologist said that it could be cleaned only with a very soft toothbrush on the back of the setting. The stone must be stored alone since other stones, such as diamonds, can scratch it. He also told people that it cannot be cleaned in an ultrasound jewelry cleaner because this kind of cleaner can actually split the ring. After the lecture, Nancy went to the jewelry store to view the collection of tanzanite. The tanzanite was without price tags, so she assumed it was expensive as even the diamonds had price tags. She did not buy any.
After the jewelry, we went upstairs to seventh floor to take a turn around the deck before lunch. Lunchtime included a piece of chicken, two small barbecue ribs, one corn on the cob about two inches long, and potatoes----one lunch for the two of us. After lunch we went around the deck twice more. It was still a beautiful sunny day. We saw three sailing vessels...one fishing trawler, on cargo container ship which came quite close and on large ship that was too far away to determine what it was.
We went back in and finished reading our books. We started our new books and read until 3:00 when we went to the lecture hall to hear a talk about Rogers and Hammerstein and how they revolutionized musical theatre with Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific and others. It was very interesting and we will go listen to him again.
We went back to our cabin where Neil napped for a bit before getting ready for dinner. Tonight is the first of three formal nights. Tonight is the black and white ball in honor of the officers on the ship.
With our formal clothes on, we went to the Britannica Restaurant for dinner at 6:00 PM. We eat during the early seating. The second seating is at 8:45. It was fun watching all of the ladies come into the dining room in their black, white, or black and white long formal gowns. It was also interesting watching the few who wore red, purple, or light blue, or pants or short dresses figure out that they were not quite with the program. Some it did not seem to bother at all.
Someone....and Neil swears it was not he (lie detector test will be arranged) who had told the waiters that it was my birthday. A group of waiters showed up with a large piece of cake with a candle and sang happy birthday. The couple from Cambridge were also celebrating their 50th anniversary today. The waiters asked them if they would rather wait until tomorrow to celebrate. Thus, it appears that we will celebrate that on Sunday and on the 2nd of August, we will celebrate the birthday of another lady at our table. I asked them to cut the cake into six pieces, and we all had a one inch square of cake.
After dinner we stopped along the way for a portrait in our formal clothes. We will see how they come out tomorrow.
We went on to the theater to see a performance by (name to be put in later) , a single male vocalist. He performed music by Bert Bacarak, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. This is not really Neil's kind of music, but he was very talented. The one thing Neil really enjoyed was his rendition of Route 66. He sang part of it and then asked if a song about an American highway could be popular in the UK with place names that most UK had never heard about, could it be a great hit in the UK and America if it were about the A56, a 27 mile stretch of road near Digby in the North of England. The answer to his question.....probably not.
The final activity of the day was to watch the Black and White Ball and have a drink. We went back to our cabin, moved our clocks back, and checked the ships position.
STEPS:
Huge centerpiece by grand staircase
This is from the 27th. I forgot to put it in. It really appeared that all three ships would collide.
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