Time to Cruise

We said good by and then headed to the dock.  We got there even earlier than they said we could check-in but they still let us go all the way through and get on board.  It will be years before we cruise again but one lesson here was that we did not need to check our luggage.  All we needed to do is find a spot to park it and wait for an hour or two at which point they allowed us to enter our rooms.  It was nice because we already had our keys and at about 1 PM they just made an announcement that the rooms were open.  We did get our luggage before dinner so we were dressed appropriately but it would have been nice not to worry about it.

Anyway, after we ate lunch at the buffet, I wanted to sit in the central lounge and listen to the guy playing Spanish guitar.  Kim and Cathy were a little stressed like we were on our first cruise because they were not sure what to do or what to expect or what was expected of them.  Rachel and I totally got it because we were in the same metaphorical boat years ago.  Rachel and Cathy took off to explore the boat while Kim and I sat and listened to the guitar and read.

Before dinner we danced just a bit which was nice.  Dinner was an OK experience however, it was harder to find conversation topics than I remember it being on the last trip.  Conversation with strangers should flow in a pattern where you ask questions about their lives and they ask questions about yours until you hit on a topic where the speaker had a story to tell or something.  Another key is always reciprocate.  If they ask you a question about a particular topic, always end with how about you, did you ever...  They asked you for a reason whether they were conscious of it or not.  It fits within their domain of experience and understanding.  Chances are that they do have something to say on the topic.  Also, when someone does start telling a story, at least feign interest.  Several times, I was trying hard to fish for a topic they would be interest with no luck or reciprocation so I decided to launch into a story that I thought might be of interest and two of the three couples basically dropped out.  The mother and her friend were able to hold a bit more in conversation but her daughter, son-in-law or the two wierdos who sat at the end of the table were conversational dead ends when the topic did not excite them and finding those topics was tough.  Fortunately there was enough other conversation going on in the room that the din was thick.  The down side of that was that you could not really have a table whole table conversation which meant at most, you could converse in groups of 4.  Next time, I'll pick a table of 6 so it is just a little more intimate even if i do sit with conversational duds.

Now that I have that off my chest, we saw a comedian act that was kind of funny and then went to bed at about 10 or so after a long day.