Day 1 - At Sea 5/17/09

The first sea day was definitely a day to earn our sea legs. Neither of us was feeling the greatest in the morning, and both ended up taking the medicine that they give out at the front office. After we got those and some food in our systems, we both felt great. We walked lots of laps around the promenade deck because the brisk fresh air felt so nice.
In the afternoon we went to one of the Rotterdam’s many bars for the Team Trivia contest. We paired up with a lovely couple from Long Island named Jim and Linda, and we got 13/20 questions right. Not enough to win, but it was fun! Some of the weird questions we didn’t know: the dots on dominoes are called ‘pips’; the German surname ‘Beethoven’ translates to ‘beet garden’; a group of humming birds are called a ‘charm’.
We spent some time in the library before dinner, reading and trying to do the NY Times crossword puzzle. After about half an hour of that we felt stupid enough, so we headed to the Lido for dinner.
Dinner was amazingly good. I had filet mignon and Rick had a rack of lamb. Our waiter, Joey, started a bit of a conversation with us, and when he heard about the troubles we’d had, he insisted on bringing both of us glasses of cabernet sauvignon on the house!
After dinner we grabbed a table in a bar to play some cards. Two folks who had seen us upset about the passport at the pier stopped to say hi and ask how things were going. They left, and a few minutes later they came back and gave us a large bottle of French champagne!
We went to the movie at 8:00, which was Frost/Nixon, then to bed for the night.