12 May 2007:

Late Evening:

Dinner was very nice this evening. It was another formal night, so we all looked like characters from “Happy Feet”...it was also Lobster Night, so the food was very good...or “Excellente” (pronounced with an Italian accent....even if you are from the Philippines) as the dining room staff likes to say. To add to our pleasure, Secret Agent Man was 25 minutes late to dinner....he had been hijacked by an employee of the Lotus Spa (the onboard spa and beauty salon) for a hand massage....if I had know this would hold him up so long, I would have gladly paid for a full body massage. We only got one story out of James Bond this evening where he stopped in the middle of it to say that he couldn’t tell us about something because it was classified....which is a great improvement. In the mean time I am actually starting to bond with Mr. SuperGlue....only a small pun intended....having fled the immediate vicinity of James Bond for a few days, I am seated next to the SuperGlues and they are fairly entertaining once you get past the “I’ve got all these things that cost so very much” stage of things. Mr. SuperGlue was at the Maitre’D’s Wine Tasting this afternoon. I spoke to him briefly as I was leaving the event....he seemed a little disappointed in the quality of the wines. At dinner he again mentioned his disappointment in the wine tasting....I mentioned that I thought the wines were very nice, but that we had tried all of them except for an Ornellaia (Italian red wine....and a very nice one). He invited me to try his wine....this is the same wine that he has been drinking every night of the cruise. It is a Caymus Vineyards Special Selection that sells onboard for $145.00 a bottle. Mr. SuperGlue knows his wine....it is very, very good wine.....and I am such a slut....Mr. SuperGlue is now my best buddy. Mr. SuperGlue Rocks!

Note to Susie (Susiecsd@xxxxxxx.com) and John Sussman: I received your emails and sent responses, but received a delivery failure notice and a blocked-as-spam notice respectively. I’ll look forward to seeing both of you on the Baltic section of the cruise. I’ll be the guy running around with the camel colored camera bag that has a yellow “SPI_Rick” luggage tag on it.

13 May 12, 2007:

Today we are in Lisbon doing an on-your-own walking tour. The trip was very pleasant and uneventful, so I have a lot of pictures but no real incidents to talk about. The best I can do is to relate my experience trying to get to the “Barrio Alto”....the high part of the city with a great view of the surrounding area. The walking tour directions instructed us to ride the Eiffel Lift “Elevador Sta Juste”. There is a longer story involved, but to cut-to-the-chase....you needed a 2.60 Euro ticket to ride the lift....the lift operator doesn’t sell tickets, the ticket office was closed.....in many places this would seem like an error, a problem that needed to be remedied. But, here, the lift operator merely pointed in the direction of the closed ticket office and shrugged.....’No Tickee, No Ridee’.  In the end it was foot power that propelled me up several steep hills to the Barrio Alto where I found the park containing the vantage point that I had struggled so long to attain was.....CLOSED....with a chain-link fence surrounding it to keep the wandering tourist at bay. But an eight-foot tall chain-link fence is not a major obstacle for an American looking for photo opportunities. I found a break in the fence used by the local homeless guys and managed to sneak into the park to get a few shots.

On sail-in to Lisbon harbor the ship passed the United States Carrier Eisenhower anchored near the harbor entrance....they are doing a port-call this week.

Lisbon is a pleasant, scenic town. But, since I was touring on foot I was limited to a small area of downtown. I’ll try to post some photos to give you a feel for the city.

Not much else of interest to right now....once again we are changing time....now seven time zones from home....and I’m a little pressed for time and need to close this out.

Note: I am having laptop problems. If the system dies completely then I will not be able to compose these narratives off-line or upload pictures, which will pretty much bring the website to an end until I return home. I’ll keep going for as long as I can, but if I suddenly stop posting you’ll know why.