Astronomy, and Dinner from Hell; Cruise Day 3
Good cruises = good lecturers. Today, after working out, I went to an astronomy lecture. Now, I have never been to one in my whole life, but the environment here is great for enrichment. For starters it is OK to walk out whenever you choose, which in this case was not necessary. The lecturer was riveting.
My experience has shown that the speaker is more important than the topic. Historically, Regent Cruises attracts world-class speakers who bring an interesting dimension to any topic.
Mr. David Aguilar has some title a mile long from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics. He is speaking three times this segment. I can’t wait to hear his next lecture on alien life.
By the way, you know all those metals and minerals we have in our bodies (like iron, magnesium, calcium, zinc)? We are all products of three supernova explosions: the sun and planets, our galaxy and everything in it. Wow.
Tonight was the Captain’s welcome party, which is always fun once per cruise. Here we get the whole picture if nothing else. I don’t plan on hearing him introduce his staff the other seven segments.
Years ago, we attended all of these events to get free drinks. Now the drinks are free around the hip, and I can thankfully afford them anyway.
So you don’t think I just paint rosy pictures, let me tell you about dinner. We were invited to the General Manager’s table with two couples. One, from Berlin, rejected the entire meal as inedible, and said nothing other than they can’t stand American small talk.
I thought I was down on them until the other lady popped up, saying Bernie Madoff probably wasn’t such a bad guy for all the elderly people he defrauded. She claimed they will be better off starting all over, and they will die shortly anyway. Then she explained that she doesn’t understand why Jews are so cliquish, and isn’t it terrible that not all the men are wearing tuxedos (I had on a gorgeous navy blue suit).
She went on say that all men are reprehensible. She might be right but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of agreeing. I chuckled and she asked me if I believed in G-d; I said no and she said that explains it all.
Tomorrow is our first port – St. Barts.
