Noon Report:

• Location: 42° 15.85′, E 005° 15.81′
• Speed: 9 knots
• Course: 245º
• Weather: High Thin Clouds
• Temperature: 15º C; 59º F
• Wind: E 5 knots; 6 mph
• Sea: 3′ swell

Cheryl is still recovering from this nasty head cold (and her sprained ankle was swollen) so I left her peacefully sleeping and hit the deck for a brisk 4 mile walk. Returning to find her still slumbering away, I hopped in the shower and when I emerged she was up and getting ready for the day.
We celebrated a sea day by visiting our friends at Mamsen’s for waffles.
Is it an indication that we’ve been there a lot that when we walk in Jennifer Farah shows up with coffee and orange juice (for me) and Earl Grey tea (for Cheryl)?

We lingered just a bit over breakfast but still made it to the 9:30 lecture – 40,000 years of Spanish history (to 1492) in 45 minutes – another rather high-level romp that was at least entertaining. This was followed by the 11:00 lecture on Barcelona and Catalonia.

Lunch today was a celebration of the quartet from the talent show. Ten of us (which included our accompanist and all the spouses) met in The Restaurant and spent the next couple of hours getting to know each other, chatting, and waiting forever(!) for service.

Then it was back to the room where Cheryl donned a swimsuit and headed out on the veranda to soak up some sun (since warm days are getting fewer as we’ve been getting farther and farther north) while I worked on yesterday’s blog.

4:30 saw Cheryl editing the blog while I took in the lecture: “Autonomous Airline Flights: Could We See Un-crewed Airliners?” Perhaps a scary topic until you consider how much of the process of flying an airliner is already automated.

Dinner this evening was back in The Restaurant – celebrating Pat Potthast’s birthday. (This is Pat of Denny and Pat from our BBB team.) It was a great time – and a surprise to Pat as she walked in to a rousing round of “Happy Birthday” from the group of 23 attendees. The ship’s guitarist (Zeus) dropped by and sang her a song and led us in another “Happy Birthday”. (We’re big fans of Zeus and enjoy listening to him in the Explorer’s lounge before BBB every night.) The wait staff led us their “Happy Birthday” song as they presented the specially decorated birthday cake which was shared out to everyone – you sense a theme here.

We were having such a good time that we missed BBB tonight. We’ll hope Bruce wasn’t too broken hearted. I’m sure if we had been there we would have ended up singing another round of Happy Birthday.

Back in the stateroom we cleaned up a couple of blogs for posting and headed for bed.

Tomorrow is Barcelona. The La Sagrada Familia is closed for a private event so we can’t see the inside, which is SO unusual and beautiful – luckily we have been here before, but still we hate to miss it. Our tour will cover other famous Gaudi sites.

Till then,
R

Cheryl’s Factoids:

• Prehistoric people occupied Spain clear back to 39,000 BC (as cave paintings attest in northern Spain and southern France). Phoenicians arrived, then Greeks, then Carthaginians expanded into the Iberian peninsula and in 218 BC their famous general Hannibal took his soldiers and 37 African battle elephants marched from southern Spain to the plains of northern Italy – but took an unexpected route. Instead of following the coastline or going by sea, he crossed the Alps, to the surprise of the Roman Empire army. He arrived with only a dozen elephants as most had died from the cold and lack of food. (As the Carthaginian Empire ran along the top of North Africa, elephants were commonly used in war where they were a deadly weapon trained to charge and trample the enemy – from a Roman perspective, their use was a bizarre and frightening.) Rome attacked back and took over Carthages’ lands during the 2nd Punic War. Then the Visigoths moved in and ruled the area for 300 from the 5-8th century. In 711 BC, the Visigoth kingdom came under attack from the Muslims (it had only taken 100 years for this political religion to take over almost all of the former Roman Empire). The Muslim Empire ruled parts of Spain for over 800 years. In 732 C.E., Muslims invaded France but were defeated by Charles Martel and the Franks at the Battle of Tours. This defeat stopped the Islamic Empire from expanding into northern and western Europe.
• Isabella I of Castile married Ferdinand II of Aragon (which united their two countries). Isabella considered herself to be a Joan of Arc to defend Christianity so focused on using their combined armies to drive the Muslims out of Spain (the “Reconquistra”). After the Muslim surrender of Granada in January 1492, the entire Iberian peninsula was controlled by Christian rulers and Muslims either had to convert or were forced to leave. On July 30, 1492, all the Jewish communities were forcibly expelled. Now that Isabella had achieved her goal she could turn her attention to Christopher Columbus and his idea of reaching the spice islands by sailing west.