This day was spent at sea. In the morning, the Chocolateers gathered for a photo session, one of the results of which was this picture:

(Keep an eye on that Nestle's Crunch bar, we'll be seeing it again a little later.)

In the afternoon, Terry went to what is referred to in the program as a "Tia Maria Event." This turned out to be another cooking demonstration, this time showing recipes made with Tia Maria liqueur.

That evening there was a passenger talent show. I was rather surprised at the low turnout. You'd think that, out of all those passengers, there would have been more talent. Only two of the performers were American (one of them me, of course), while the rest were Italian. The first American performer was a woman who sang Carly Simon's "You're So Vain." She sang well, but got nervous and messed up the words.

I then took the stage and sang Cole Porter's "Do I Love You?" I sang the song to Terry, who didn't know what I was going to sing. It turned out rather well, I thought. The accompanist, who was one of the ship's entertainers (he played piano in the bar), was quite good. He was not familiar with the song, but found it in a fake book. He was so impressed that he told me he was planning on adding the song to his repertoire.

In the second picture, I'm sitting on the edge of the stage - I sang the song sitting down.

I was followed by the Italian performers. There were four or five of them. Most were middle-aged people singing Italian popular or folk songs. One was a young man with a guitar who sang in a Bob Dylan-ish voice.

But the final performer! An older woman introduced as Nina. She started singing "O Sole Mio." I use the word "singing" out of respect for my elders. The verse was passable, but when she got to the high notes on the chorus... !!! I was ducking as stray notes went whizzing past... But we hadn't seen or heard the last of Nina, as will be seen later.

Here's a picture of Andre, our cabin steward, with Robbie. They got to be good friends.

We got to know the family seated at the table next to ours in the dining room:

The older couple are Robert and Vera. The younger couple are their daughter-in-law Rhoda, and their son... Robbie! Well, actually Rob. They were from Ohio, and were quite friendly. Rob was quite a character. One evening, the waiter brought a plate of assorted cheeses. One of them was of the Bleu variety (Roquefort, Gorgonzola, some such - something moldy). Rob looked at it and said - in a loud voice - "What is this, penicillin?" He never did eat it. Although they were nice people, they were a bit provincial.