Day at Sea-en route to Malaga, Spain

15 November 2007-
Full day at sea

Eleser, my cabin boy, waiting outside my door as I go to breakfast at 7. I think they try to figure out your schedule so they can do their job without inconviencing you. They put a small piece of paper between the door jamb so when you open the door it falls on the floor in the hallway and they know you've leftr the room. The diet will be a problem as omeletes cooked to order are too appealing. Then it's a stroll around the deck to watch the coastline of Spain going by and make it up to the computer room to sign up for the internet and look for special deals- there are none and I didn't get the 500 free minutes from the raffle either. But find that my cabin is within wireless range so I won't have to lug my laptop up to Charleston lounge everytime I want to upload. 10 am it's a travel program to tell you what shore excursions are available at extra charge- There is one that's an overnighter to a luxury hotel in Marrakesh that will then meet the boat in Agadir. Bill and Rosemary have signed up for it- but it's a little pricey for me and I swore I'd never go back there after having to literally brush the beggars off at my last visit in 73. Starving by lunch and hope my full stomach will not cause me to nod off at Prof Norman Keesal's lecture on "How nations compete." He is a Harvard trained economist under John Galbraith- Kennedy's ambassador to India (which I considered a stroke of genius and the vision of Utopia appeared only to be dashed out on 22 November 1963) Anyway Prof Keesal quoted Porter's book frequently and pointed out that a nation can be an international competitor if it has 3 one of 3 things- acheap labor force, lots of natural resources or ingenuity. Pointed out that Germany and Japan have succeeeded because of quality products- so Quality plays a role. Major exports were interesting- US aircraft, Britain auctioneering, Germany printing presses, Sweden wood and stainless steel, Japan cars and microprocessors, etc. Keesal did a great job and was followed by an idiot- Carlos Bakota who was to speak on "the mediterranean- crossroads of the world." Completely disjointed- his power point slides were terrible, mainly maps of the Mediteranean that has nothing to do with what he was talking about and the last straw was when he put Francis Drake and Horation Nelson in the same century. I walked out.
Evening was better. It was the Captain's reception and supposedly formal- few dinner jackets, mostly suits rare tuxedo, Glad I didn't pack my mess dress- it's prbably poor form to upstage the captain. He intodused the officers with a noticable exception of the doctor who I hope was busy attending a patient and not drunk in his cabin.. Oh yes, they still xray your carryons to make sure you don't bring your own booze on the ship. I they find any they take it away and hold it for you til the end of the cruise. I've already schemed to put vodka into waterbottles and see if they find that. New lady appeared at the table from Nebraska- Ann from Australia showed up a little late and lost her seat- too bad because I like an international group.
Entertainment to night was a Russian singer from Siberia who put on a good show and did a great job on Phantom of the Opera where you could hardly detect his accent. So with all that free time you'd think I'd get alot done- well maybe napping.