Gene's birthday !

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

Slept late and room service found us without a problem! Then the fire alarms went off! There was apparently smoke in the switchboard or somewhere below and they followed standard procedures and sounded all the alarms. Quite scary but then they came on to tell us what had happened and they sounded the “stand down” signal so the crew could come out of their fire suits and hoses were put back.

Found my earring! Know you are thrilled to hear the news…it had blended in to the design of the carpet in the 2nd room we are still occupying.

I attended the future cruise consultant overview of the new Holland America cruises for 2010 and 2011. Very interesting itineraries…especially the ones going to the Arctic and Greenland. The newest ship will be sailing on July 4, the Nieuw Amsterdam, the sister ship to the Eurodam.

Met friends around the ship – no time to be outside today except we did play croquet – or rather a competition to earn more “dam” dollars. The Lido buffet men sang to Gene at lunch for his birthday – an Indonesian greeting. We worked on our shore excursions and all four of us were at dinner tonight. A dinner companion is a watercolor painter and gave us the most beautiful set of note cards of her paintings!! Wonderful gift. They are great cards and paintings! And Gene had his own birthday cake and another round of birthday greetings, this time sung in Chinese, from the dinner staff.

Off to our first cocktail party with the Captain and Sr. Staff and you could see the full moon shining on the water in front of the ship. I LOVE that view. Absolutely beautiful. Promotion in the internet café/library that they will give back ½ of your minutes used between 7-9PM so we hurried up there to do some work. We are still living in two cabins – dehumidifier is still running and the floor is still wet. Lots of birthday cake to enjoy and the crew have been very caring and kind in sending us birthday wishes.

Show tonight is Justin Miller (Guitar Wizard) and Penny Mathiesen (opera singer).
Missed the flower arranging, Sit, Kint and Needlework, Duplicate and party bridge, bible study, dice bowling, fitness yoga class, Cha Cha dance class, mah jongg get together, Indonesian Tea Ceremony (hope they hold this again!! – I’ve been before and loved it!) and watercolor class….