We've crossed the line now

The ocean blue looks like rosary beads I had as a child. The weather is terrific and the movement of the ocean is not bad.

Sizes of clothing: Just to give you an idea: we often complain that sizes are not reliable in the US. Well over here the people tend to be much larger so the shirt that Ed got in Papeete says it’s a medium. Now he’s lost weight but not THAT much! Same is true here on board. I got a top the other day that was a small and it is big on me (there was no smaller size and there are many of us on here that are smaller).

We continue to enjoy the Georgia couple in trivia in the morning. I often hear some southern accent coming with my words as well.

Newspapers: It is not advertised, but you can get 3 newspapers in English at the Passenger Services desk each day. I pick up US, Canada, and Britain and read the headlines then pass them on to Ed. Many stories are duplicated in each but with the twist for that readership. I like this, that is, seeing how it is presented for each population. It is only 4 pages but has a nice variety of articles. They pull from AP, Reuters etc.

My mascot: devil ducky. I see that our room steward occasionally moves him around for different activities. This is always a fun part of cruises when this begins with your cabin steward.

O M G ! We Won! And by 2 points over the next closest team! And we were only 5 members, not the 6 allowed. They gave us a bottle of cheap champagne (instead of each of us getting a cheap something or other). So we are going to take the bottle back again and see if we can trade it for some cheap something or other. One of our folks doesn’t drink and so that will be our handle. We missed only one question and we would not have missed that, as we had the correct answer as another option, but the group went with the wrong answer.

Passport issues: We had to go see the passenger services desk to be sure we had the proper Indian visa. Mine is in my old passport. Apparently they changed the colors on the visa at some point in the intervening years and so it was double checked and verified that we are legit.

The officer was lamenting the requirements imposed in Indian ports. Bureaucracy is the lode stone of India’s government. An example was 12 copies of the environmental report. So the guy we were talking to hates going to India ports. The young India man near us was laughing but agreeing with him.

Then he started in on the litany of when we get our passports back, what happens when we required to have them, when they take them back, and on and on. Each country is different and for many it is a breeze and we just carry the usual ID.

Currency questions: as I went through Ed’s old bills, I found some of the 500 denomination bills. A few months ago Modi pulled all of them back and they cannot be used again. So as it turns out, a representative of the bank in India will be coming on board to sell currency so we will ask them if they can exchange them for us. Otherwise, we are stuck with now worthless bills.

I have all these little plastic sandwich bags with currency of the various countries in them. It’s amazing how much Ed had squirrelled away!

Singer tonight: a woman from Australia with the great sense of humor we’ve come to love in them. She was far better than the last singer that’s for sure.

Photos: they had casual photos tonight and we had fun with our favorite photographer and the other couple with whom we have dinner. They have different kinds of ideas about the pics and so it will be fun to see how they turn out.

CROSSING THE INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE:

We did this during the night so we have lost a day. Well we really haven’t lost it but since we are moving our clocks back by one hour with regularity, we often have 25 hr days. And since there are 24 time zones around the globe, we will have used up one day by the time we reach LA again. So we are now AHEAD of you time wise, that is we are earlier in the day. Right now we are 3 hrs ahead but that will change as we move along. So as I write this, it is 8 am on Sunday Feb 5^th. Wake up sleepyheads.