Day 27 - Saturday, February 1, 2025 – At Sea

I have an app on my phone that takes pictures that provides latitude and longitude information. We were crossing the equator around 4:00 AM. Mary got out of bed and got a picture using this app that shows 0.19.50° N. That's about as close to the equator as you can get. A little later she got another picture that shows 0.2.34 S. This is immediately after the equator. I consider these great pictures. I think I've said it before, it's the little things that make me happy.

If you noticed, there was no Friday, January 31st, 2025, in the list. We missed this day when we crossed the international date line. We went straight from the 30th to the 1st. We are now something like 17 hours ahead of central time. When we called my parents this afternoon it was 12:00 February 1st here and it was about 6:00 PM January 31st there. Strange but true.

The most interesting part is that today is my birthday, February 1st. Head we crossed the international date line one day later, my birthday would not have existed for us. We would have skipped it. I could have stayed 59 for one more year. It didn't work out that way, so I get two birthdays. I get my birthday on the ship and then tomorrow when I wake up it will be my birthday back home. My parents and family will call and wish me a happy birthday. Again, strange but true.

We got up early. Our intent was to get on the list so we could play the poker tournament at 10:00. We made it down to the casino at about 8:20. As it turns out all ten spots for the tournament were already taken. They've gone to a paper list instead of people sitting in line. I'm not sure I agree with this, but that's the way it is. We did find out that they do have a 1:00 tournament. So, this all boils down to we did not play cards this morning.

We walked up to Sabatini’s. There, we had our normal breakfast. Except, at the end I was presented with a decent sized chocolate cake. The waiters all sang happy birthday. It was a nice way to start the day.

I decided to go outside and push on seven. It was very nice out there. Mary decided to go do some things on her list. She worked out for 30 minutes. She went to the excursion office to find out information on the couple of ports where I cannot get off but she can. She ran into one of the ladies we had met previously. Apparently, they talked for half an hour. One thing that I found amazing is the number of people that have gone on multiple world cruises. There's a couple we have met at breakfast. This is their 17th world cruise. For another couple this is their 4th world cruise. The lady Mary was talking to today this was their third world cruise. And that's just a sampling. We've run into others that have multiple world cruisers behind them. It's something to think about. Maybe not every year but every other?

I pushed for about 90 minutes. I got in about 3000 pushes. I might have worked off one or two fork fulls of that cake. We're starting to run into people repeatedly so one off conversations are becoming more frequent. I talked to a guy for about 15 minutes. He was interested in my smart drive. He broke his back and uses a scooter. He was wondering if a wheelchair with a smart drive might be better. Who knows, I thought. Everybody's different.

 Mary found me around noon. We went back up to the room. I worked on the log. I finished watching the movie from last night. It was OK, not great. It took a micro nap. I updated our checking account. That's always fun. We're having some work done in our bathroom. The thought was we would pay the guy at the end. In typical Welti luck we have to pay half when half of the work is done. It's not a big deal, but it's something that wasn't expected. Ain't nothing easy.

After lounging in the afternoon, we got ready and went downstairs to Sabatini’s a little before 6:00. We had signed up for a Tuscan wine dinner. I thought it was a repeat of one of the wine tastings we went to in the last leg, but at this was different. It was all Italian wines with food at each course. I won't go into great detail, because I will put the menu and the associated wines below. We learned a lot about Italian wines. Of course, the food was awesome. Unfortunately, none of the wines were home runs. They were all just OK. I've had Italian wines in the past so I know they make very good ones. So, we know that there are good ones out there. They weren't bad by any means. The most interesting part, from my perspective, is Mary drank and ate just about everything. This included things like clams, Calamari steaks, asparagus, etcetera. This is an adventurous side I haven't seen from her. She drank all the wines. The last course was paired with a limoncello drink. This was very good too. It goes without saying, it was another incredible dinner. I may not have liked the wines, but I learned a lot about them. The food was awesome also. Probably the highlight of the night was a birthday cake. The entire room sang happy birthday to me. The cake was huge, heavy and delicious. They cut it up and I think it served two or three tables of people. You can see the pictures. That is quite the birthday gift. We met two other couples at our table. Gary and Rita are from Indiana. Lu and Zaptora (?) live in San Francisco. Both couples had a lot of wine experience. It was fun talking with them too. We said our goodbyes and headed up to the room.

Our room steward, GeDe, put a happy birthday sign up on a wall. He also had special happy birthday pillows put on the bed. It was a nice finishing touch to my birthday.