Sat May 4, 2024
Hi All! Today was a nice relaxing sea day. So we slept in but still did lots of fun stuff. We started off listening to our friend Nikki talk about the Rock of Gibraltar. While we won’t visit there this trip we will be at Tangier, Morocco right across the strait of Gibraltar from it.
The name Gibraltar is derived from the Arabic Jabril Tariq (Mount Tarik) honoring Tariq ibn Ziyad who captured the peninsula in 711. The ancient Phoenicians called it and the mountain on the Morocco side the Pillars of Hercules because they thought it marked the end of the known world. Interesting fact is the Gibraltar area has the 7th highest life expectancy in the world! While it’s located near the tip of Spain it is actually a British territory. They are thinking of building a tunnel under the water from Gibraltar to Tangier! Crazy!
We then went to the Seabourn “signature event” of Caviar by the pool. Last year, when we were on this ship in the Caribbean, they did Caviar in the surf along the beach. That was fun. You can get unlimited Caviar anytime you want on this ship. Well, LA-TEE-DAH!
After lunch we went to listen to Jonty Warneken, the motivational speaker who lost his leg at a young age, give a talk called “From the Antarctic to the Alps”. It was about the history and future of competitive and adventurous Ice Swimming. It is unbelievable that this guy with only one leg swims in icy cold water for a mile! Makes me cold just thinking about it! And we barely survived the polar plunge!
After that we played Name That Tune with a group of four other people and did really well. We came in second place and only missed first by one question! It was who sang the Tennessee Waltz in 1950 and we said Patsy Kline and the answer was Patty Paige. And the prize was these cute little Seabourn Teddy bears that I wanted to give to my grandkids. Oh well!
Later we had what they called “The Captains Dinner” where there was a set menu (on a scroll none the less, LAH-TEE-DAH again!) and it was all very tasty. After dinner we went to the show to listen to the Seabourn singers do the music from the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, etc.). Great old classics!
After the show we just listened to a little music then went to bed early since we have a 10 hour tour tomorrow starting at 7:30 AM going to both Casablanca and Rabat (the Capitol) in Morocco. Should be cool! Hope everyone is having a great weekend!
The Wandering Italian 