millimita

Still in New York, and it's getting colder still. Today it was about 13degrees Celsius, and rainy most of the day. We're busy busy as usual, no sleep-ins for me this weekend either, though at least my cold is getting better.

Last weekend I went to BALTIMORE to finally, after what, seven or so years of only internet contact, see my friend Andrew and his wife, Kathy. A really good idea, I must say. I had a WONDERFUL weekend, again, thank you so much! Went down by bus, some confusion about the time to get there, so somewhere towards the end I started panicking a bit about maybe having caught the wrong bus. Luckily I hadn't. Andrew picked me up at the station, we went by his house on our way to pick Kathy. Then it was time to feed Mr Tapeworm (our relief engineer Travis used to say I was living in a symbiotic relationship with Mr Tapeworm) and we went to Appleby's, a typical American family diner. I thoroughly enjoyed the meal, very good food (and yes, the company too;). On our way home we went past a book store with sale. Not good. Not good at all. Though now I've at least gotten a fair way on my xmas shopping list=). Luckily I didn't pack more than half the bag I had brought...

Saturday we went to the yearly Maryland medieval fair. Much much bigger than I thought it would be. Much fun, we sat forever in a car queue (what is it with America and car queues?) to get the last couple of miles, almost managed to hide the car from ourselves, and saw a few good bands (mostly Scottish, for some reason), loads of shops with interesting stuff, and a jousting match at the fair. I found a couple of nice horns for Halloween, and Andrew got himself a kilt. I challenged him on the Strong-man thingy (where you have a sledge hammer and try to get a thingy to go all the way up to the top), but we were equal there, so no one won. That sledge hammer was REALLY heavy!

Andrew and Kathy are very early risers, and thanks to my cold I was, as well. Sunday we went to a mall, I managed not to buy too much more stuff, hooray for me=) So, Andrew and Kathy are LOVELY people, but they seemed to take me to way to many good stores to shop... Bad influence.... t-t-t-t *shaking head* oh, and ERIKA - got a present for you from them, and I know what it is, and YOU don't.... Hahahahahahaha *sweet revenge*

NEW YORK. The day we got here it was foggy, all the way to the first bridge. We were a bit worried that we wouldn't se anything, but luckily it cleared up enough for us to see some of the city, though the sky was grey. As we had some time before the tide was right, we took a small detour around the statue of Liberty and up the river.

The first weeks we spent next to a golf training range. It's protected by netting, but even so quite a few golf balls made it through the net. Most days we found a ball or two on deck, and sometimes a mark that wouldn't rub off. Now we've moved a bit, so no more golf balls to duck for=)

Being next door to a gym managed to get me motivated enough to sign up for a month. Did some yoga classes, and something called zumba - 45min of energetic dancing, everything from Charleston to hip hop. Though now, with guests coming so often and us not knowing how long we're staying, I haven't signed up again. I'm going to try and do some stuff onboard instead, wish me good luck, I'm sure it'll be as always - I'll manage for a day or so, and then it's just back to maña maña...

Next week I'm looking forward to going to Stomp with Kaz and Yves. Have been wanting to see that one for quite some time now=)

Halloween - we're celebrating that onboard this weekend, and I've just made my second pumpkin ever! Cool, huh?