Day 74 Mar 18 (sea day)

Nice to have a day of "rest" - well sort of - after two days of early mornings and lots to see and do.

Pretty normal morning. Up at 8, breakfast, Tai Chi, Vantage discussion - compared notes on India. Still a pretty mixed bag of reactions to the country. Perhaps more positive than before and less negative. I didn't share my Monday afternoon adventure (Fort Mahim, etc.). Didn't want to horrify the squeamish among us. Some are still recovering from the culture shock. That phrase has taken on new meaning for me. I'm still processing my experience in India.

At 11 we had a new speaker. This guy is named Shreeyash Palshikar. He comes highly recommended by Chris the Vantage guy. He is younger than I expected and talks a bit fast but seems to know what he is talking about. His talk today was about Pakistan, its evolution and current situation. Pretty interesting. I'm beginning to think we can blame most of the world's problems on the colonial period of our history. There is blame to go around to the big players, France, Portugal, Spain, Holland and last but definitely not least is Great Brittain. The sad thing is that we so often don't learn from history. I used to tell my students to learn from their mistakes so they could make new ones. It's so boring making the same ones over and over. Perhaps our leaders need to hear from me about this topic?

Got whipped at trivia today. (We got 6/22, the winners got 14.)

Took it easy in the afternoon. Took a nap, did some Tai Chi on my own and got ready for dinner. Tough day.

The show at 8 PM was the Irish-Australian Comedienne/Singer named Geraldine Doyle. She performed a few days ago. She was much better tonight. Sang about 6 Irish songs (tonight was our St. Pat's Day party - hope you got the great pic of my green beer tongue.) I even bought one of her CD's and had her autograph it. All Australian-Irish songs. Kind of Irish folk music. Pleasant to listen to. Her brother, Danny Doyle, sings on it too and he is apparently fairly famous. The two of them are easy to listen to. Good on ya Irish!

Irish Name That Tune - Music Trivia later. My team tied for first but lost in a tie breaker again.

At 10:15 PM we had the St. Patrick's Day party. They decorated the Crow's Nest - that is where I got the green beer. I asked, "do you have any green beer?" The answer was yes. I asked what kind of beer it was and was told that any beer I would like could be green - food coloring is great isn't it. Or did I tell this story in the email with the picture I sent? Sorry if I'm telling it twice. Anyway, we had some fun and lifted our glasses to all the Irish friends we have. Our cruise director, Bruce, would interrupt from time to time with another Irish toast. Then, at about 11:00 PM the place just seemed to empty out. This age demographic doesn't party hearty for the most part. I mean, we gain an hour tonight! So it was really like 10:00 PM when most of them went beddy-bye.