When I woke up on Friday, I dressed for Spin class, but right after breakfast it became apparent that spinning was not going to be on my agenda, as I had a golf ball sized knot in my back. Agony. But I got an appointment for the afternoon with Christopher in the Spa, who is trained in Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture. Just before I went in to see him, I was leafing through a thick binder of rave handwritten reviews from passengers, which intrigued me greatly. As I am typing this days after I can say that he is a wonder. He hails from Australia, got his degree there first, did an internship in Beijing, then Japan. I have 4 more appointments with him, and he is even promising he can seriously help me with my psoriasis. That would be a miracle, but he says he has a 90% cure rate - whereby the symptoms disappear. Once more I have to sing the praises of life on a world cruise ship: imagine waking with a pain in your back, and walking up stairs to a well qualified in practitioner. The crew on these world cruises are hand selected to a person, and it shows. For now my exercise program is on hold, and the weight training will be last to resume.
Barry has changed from Tai Chi to Qi Gong which is another Oriental self acupuncture exercise procedure. I am going to attend one day with him, so we can continue to do this at home. Danube is the Lifestyle instructor and we first met her last year. She is much touted by everyone on this ship for her manner and expertise for all she does. Our problem is that there are not enough hours in the day to attend all that is available.
The weather is still very hot and humid and overcast. It is very pleasant to sit out on the Lower Promenade though, where the warm sultry breezes are welcome.
Dr Robert Schrirer gave his last lecture on The Optimists, providing some possible world scenarios which are possible in this ever more complex world. I cannot remember a speaker who drew as many attendees, with both the lower main floor seating and the balcony being packed.
I also took the morning on Saturday to rearrange my cupboards, drawers and closets, packing away things that I will not use henceforth. We are resigned to having to ship some things home, as between the gifts provided by HAL, and the things we have bought there is no way we will be able to fit everything in our car to drive home from Florida.
Saturday night we had a formal night, whose theme was "Prom Night" (strange for a crowd of our generation, but fun nonetheless. Grace and Calvin were invited to join us at dinner again, as Karen and Jonathan were hosting The Captain's dinner. Karen and Jonathan had suggested that we might want to join Calvin and Grace in Sri Lanka, as their plans couldn't accommodate all of us in the car. The dancing was held at 9:30 in the Crow's Nest, and the main entertainment was a big screen showing in the Queen's Lounge of "Lincoln". We chose to do the movie and were extremely moved by it. Both of us have been reflecting on the character of Lincoln, and the burden he carried, often alone, and the personal sacrifices he and his wife made to abolish slavery. Imagine if he had not risen to the task, and had not been able to curry the votes to get the Amendment passed.
We decided to skip the dancing as we were getting up at 6 a.m. to meet Calvin and Grace
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Throughout the ship are very imaginative fresh flower arrangements such as this Chinese hat one. The Amsterdam is the only ship which carries dutch-trained on-board florists for the World Cruise.
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