At sea

Tuesday 6th September

According to our original programme we should have been en route to Istanbul, ready to fly home. However, those arrangements had changed a month earlier after the bombing at Istanbul airport. Instead, arrangements had been made for us to cruise back to Athens and fly home from there.

We woke to slightly overcast skies and no sun. We had no incentive to go to the sun deck. We had a slow breakfast and then watched the dance lesson. If anything, this was the worst of the lot. It was a cha-cha. The ‘teacher’ wanted everyone to start on the ‘cha-cha-cha’ and this resulted in some very strange counting, as he did not seem to know how to count the half beats of the ‘cha-cha’ step. He therefore counted ‘… 2 3 4 … 6 7 8’ instead of ‘1-and 2 3 4 5-and 6 7 8’, or even more easily ‘cha-cha cha rock rock cha-cha cha rock rock’. The terminology was very strange throughout, with instructions of ‘hip to hip’ (instead of ‘shoulder to shoulder’) and once again chest-expanding exercises for the arm movements.

By this time the sun was out and we found some seats in the sun. Luckily it was not too hot, as the pool was in use for Pool Olympics followed by a game of pool volleyball for those interested.

I left at about 5pm to shower and change and then start packing. I never let packing take too long. I had finished the main part by 6pm and then started on David’s case. That took even less time. He arrived back from the pool in time to take his casual clothes down from the cupboard over the bed.

We had arranged to meet someone for a drink and then dinner at 7.30. We ordered a Cosmopolitan for me but it was made by a different bartender and was not really worth drinking. The first one had subtle flavours whereas this just tasted of alcohol. We inducted our friend into the delights of Tanqueray 10 in a G&T and then went to dinner.

David admitted he was not feeling well (too much sun?) and went back to the room. I returned as soon as I had finished my main course and found him sleeping on the bed, curled around my suitcase as he had not been well enough to move it. He woke up and offered to move it for me but I had not yet finished with it, and I knew it would be easy enough to just slide it off the bed when I was ready. David slept (waking at odd noises like the zip on the case) while I packed our small cases and did odds and ends in our room, getting ready for departure. I put the main cases outside the door by 10pm

Unfortunately I did not sleep well, even with a sleeping tablet, though David was able to sleep off whatever had upset his system.