First Reception

The highlight of the day today was the first faculty, staff, life-long learner, and family reception in the Faculty Lounge. The Faculty Lounge is a large bar in on the top deck of the ship at the front. It has a huge set of windows in a 180 degree circle configuration looking out from front of the ship over the ocean. It is a beautiful spot whose only drawback is that being on the top deck is profoundly effected by the rough seas. We spent most of our time chatting with an Scottish astronomer and a woman who organizes in port excursions for us through the Institute for Shipboard Education. Turns out they were recently married and this is their honeymoon trip. She was very helpful with respect to understanding some the strange policies related to those excursions. Her husband apparently is an expert on Scotch and hold tasting events so that other can learn to appreciate it as much s he does. He also takes his students to the very top of the ship so they can observe the stars from the middle of the ocean. Sweet.

The seas have not been as rough today as they were last night. Many people, including Jayne, have said they had the worst night of sleep last night they've had on the voyage so far. Jayne woke me up to ask me to stop snoring! Once person told us their bed had shifted eight inches during the night from all the rocking. It is a bit troubling that captain of the ship was not at the reception because he didn't think he should leave the bridge because of his concerns about the weather.

Last night was our first pre-port cultural event in relation to Ireland. It was disappointing. There is no space large enough for everyone and we watched on closed circuit television in a classroom. Except for us, the room was filled with students. By the end of the second of five presentations there were only two students and us left in the room. Hopefully, the one tonight on England will be better.

We have signed up for a couple of additional trips while in port. From Galway on Friday, we will take an excursion to the Cliffs of Moher. And Barry will be the field trip liaison (meaning he gets a price reduction) for a day trip to Ghent and a visit to a Belgian Chocolate factory our first day in Antwerp.

The clocks will be turned forward an hour again tonight and another hour tomorrow night. So, I think we will be four and then five hours ahead of eastern standard time.

A final thing: we learned last night that Notre Dame will be playing the Navy in football while we are in Dublin. We hadn't even realized the game was taking place!

Jayne working with a kindergartner in the dependent-care program.