Okay, okay, please be patient with those of us who have been too indolent, exhausted from dancing, busy with cooking classes, hung over, or all of the above, to post. As Greg and Kathy have posted, all is going marvelously. Captain Knute is managing to keep the ship in more or less the right direction to get us to the next destination every day (it was a bit of a challenge today with the Force 8 winds).

The Cordon Bleu cooking classes are wonderful (and once we start pouring the wine, quite lively). Tonight, we have a Cordon Bleu dinner at La Veranda with some of the chefs. The gala graduation dinner is Sunday in Signatures, with a special menu designed by our Cordon Bleu instructor in cooperation with Cornel, the Executive Chef for the ship, and Michael, the new executive chef for Signatures. By the way, there will be a new Signatures menu next week. It is being designed this week. BLISSers will get to try out several new items.

Sandra Bowern is on board with her fantastic and enthusiastic (she makes the Energizer Bunny seem lethargic) lectures. They are not to be missed. She is looking forward to next week's Baltic cruise. (Ngaire, it turns out that Sandra did the Hanseatic itinerary very similar to ours on PENGUINS-POP several years ago and found it to be one of the best travel experiences of her life.)

At this moment, we are docked in La Coruna for a half hour or so to pick up the devoted people who made the pilgrimage to Santiago del Compostela today. I hope they don't all have bloody knees from crawling the last mile or so of the pilgrimage. That would make an unpleasant situation for the poor laundry folks and the ship's doc.

We read in the Directory of Passengers that Susan Wempe and her husband are on board but have not run into them.

Tomorrow, the six of us from PIP (Kathy & Frank, Wendy & David, and Pat & I) are going with a private guide to see Santander and Santillana del Mar and have a good tapas lunch. On Friday, the PIP Six will have a guide to St. Emilion.

Saturday is another sea day (Yippee!! We can start drinking even earlier than usual...). On Sunday, we'll be in lovely little Honfleur and plan to just wander about the town.

I am amazed that I have been able to stay on line this long to write this note. Now, the great mystery: will it post? The internet connections the last few days have been dreadful and provided a powerful excuse for those of us who prefer drinking & dancing to typing to give up quickly in our attempts to get online and stay there. In any event, we send good thoughts from this beautiful ship.

Cheers, Fred

PS - Kathy may have won the slots tournament; but Freddie left the casino $450 ahead last night thanks to a very hot slot machine. I almost hated to abandon it, since it had been so kind to me.