Noon Report:

• Location: N 06° 12.10′, E 088° 25.40′
• Speed: 14 knots
• Course: 267º
• Weather: Partly Cloudy/High Overcast
• Temperature: 28 C; 82 F
• Wind: NE 5 knots; 6 mph
• Sea: 1-2 ft swells

Another sea day…
So we stared with waffles at Mamsen’s.

Then it was off to a Resident Historian Forum. These are times set up for small group discussion with the Resident Historian to talk about specified topics. The interesting thing about a World Cruise is that so many people are interested in the forums that they are held in the Star Theatre – which kind-of defeats the intent of small and conversational, but there you are. They are generally as good a forum for discussion as you can get with a group of 150 people. Today’s topic was “Southeast Asia and the Cold War.” It turned out to be a great forum with insightful questions and thoughtful comments from both the Historian and the audience.

Following the forum we stuck around for the 11:00 lecture: “Banishing the Vanquished: Some Exiled Asian Monarchs.” The talk looked at the treatment of three specific royal families by the (chiefly British) colonizing forces. (The kings were banished to various islands for the rest of their lives – thought of as a more humane treatment than killing them.)

Then we headed to the room to hang out for a bit (gather the Noon Report and ships position map) before heading up to the Cafeteria for lunch. Today was Pizza Day with large pizzas being served by senior officers.

At 1:00 we had a meeting of the group of us taking a private tour in Ephesus in April. Most of the people we already know – friends with the same interests that we share excursions and lectures with.

2:00 saw us in Torshaven (the night club) for another of Bruce’s Music Appreciation sessions. This one was a collection of piano concertos written specifically for movies (mostly British movies from the 1940s). There’s some pretty amazing music there.

4:30 was the Port Talk on Colombo, Sri Lanka.

After the Port Talk we threw in a load of laundry (There were machines and we wanted to be as caught up as possible before we hit Colombo.) so we missed the lecture: “Sri Lanka – Land of Serendipity.” We’ll catch that on TV later.

Then it was dinner and an amazing sunset.

For BBB this evening we were functioning with half a team (The other half had dinner reservations and a pedicure appointment.) but we managed to eke out a respectable 14/26.

Back in our stateroom we:

• Moved our clocks back 1/2 hour (I know, but that’s how Sri Lanka and India do it.)
• Read
• Wrote today’s post
• Read some more

When we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer we didn’t.

See you tomorrow, R