April 17th, Thursday

At sea on our way to Lisbon, weather is windy and we’re heading into a near gale force wind. The captain said we will be passing the rock of Gibralter Friday night around 7:30. Hopefully it will be light enough for me to get some pictures.

Chris and I have packed 4 suitcases with clothes we won’t need from now till home. Hopefully we have room for everything in the remaining suitcases!!! We got some good news today about our transfer to the Queen Mary II. We won’t have to drag all our to suitcases through British customs. Cunard has arranged for transfer of our suitcases direct from one cabin to another so all we have is take our carry-ons with us through customs.

We met two Americans at lunch today who got on in Barcelona because they’re taking the Queen Victoria on it’s next cruise to the Canary Islands. The woman is a judge in Cincinnati, Ohio and told us about running out of ballots for the Democratic primary because more people wanted to vote (including Republicans who switched parties to vote).

I forgot to relate and interesting event that occurred at lunch in Barcelona. Chris started getting a migraine and we were sitting at a table with two doctors and a physical therapist who noticed she wasn’t feeling well. The therapist took her right hand and pressed a point between her thumb and forefinger while pressing another point on her right arm below the elbow. Chris immediately felt better and her headache vanished. Everyone at the table wanted to learn about these pressure points - valuable information!

The friends we made from the Isle of Wight, Mike and Lito, invited us to their cabin for champagne before dinner. I went to the Lido deck and got a plate of small sandwiches and grapes so we didn’t go empty handed. We had a great time with them drinking Pink Champagne, eating hors f’ouvres and talking about our trip. It turns out they were on the same Mediterranean cruise we were in 2000 on the Grand Princess (what a coincidence). They mentioned the trip to Florence and the lunch in the back of the restaurant that I remembered. I have to look through our pictures from that trip when I get home to see if they’re in any of them.

Dinner was quick tonight since our companions, Damon and Ginny, didn’t join us. We finished without dessert since Chris wanted to see if we could get one more laundry done (our last until we get home). We both called it a night afterwards (I had a headache from the wine at our friends cabin before dinner).