Thankfully there were laundromats on the stateroom floors because you can imagine we had a lot by this point.
Tuesday night was one of two formal nights, the rest were "smart casual", so we spent a while getting ready for that. I had ordered a nice dress from a catalog, but had to have it altered, and even then, I wasn't happy with how it fit.
This put a slight damper on the evening.
It was our first time in the Venetian dining room, 6th deck, where we were assigned a permanent table with permanent servers who get to know your preferences. It's like going to a fancy restaurant every night where they put the napkin in your lap, have things you never thought to eat on the menu, and scrape your place after each course with one of those scaper things. It was very nice, but I like serve-yourself buffets as I'm less tense when not conspicuously watched, hence the reason why I'm a blogger instead of a public speaker. But while eating my heaped buffet platter full of food, I feel like a pig. Whereas at a more carefully paced, multi-course, served meal, with small, attentively prepared dishes served on stacked china, it feels more respectful to the food and elevates the dining experience by making it more about the people around you.
Afterward Ben went with George and me to the Princess Theater, 7th deck, to attend the Piano Man show featuring the music of Liberace, Elton John, and Billy Joel, while the other kids went to the Vista Lounge at the other end of the same deck to see a magician show. The Cruise Director noted that there where a lot of kids on this boat, I guess more than usual, so they had to make the shows rated PG. The performers sometimes good naturedly complained that they had to edit their material, and gave the kids funny sideways glances as they paused and tried to work around certain topics. Some of it was still a little edgy, and Glenn Hirsch hid behind the curtains a few times or got on his knees in desperation because he couldn't go as far in saying what he wanted to. It was pretty funny, and I appreciated their acknowledging age appropriateness.
I wish I'd gotten some pictures of the Atrium during formal night. There were a lot of elegantly dressed people, including the fully dressed out crew with those shoulder braids on their uniforms, and walking among them made me feel sort of special somehow. I loved this Russian quartet who played familiar classical music in the Atrium and even had a command performance in the Vista Lounge another evening. On that night the first chair violinist played some very difficult solo's, including one where he mimicked several bird calls. It was heavenly.
"There [were] a lot of elegantly dressed people, including the fully
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walking among them made me feel sort of special somehow."
If there was one good thing about the movie Blast from the Past with Brendan Fraser (and, if it's a movie w/Fraser, that's about all you can expect, imo), it was a line in a conversation between the well-mannered, (literally!) sheltered young man from the previous generation (Fraser) and two goth-appareled, "whatever" kids from this generation. The two kids were criticizing Brendan's character's insistence on "dressing up" (which was pretty casual) and showing manners to the young lady (opening doors, pulling out chairs, etc), but Brendan said this was done to show respect and honor to those who were visiting -- it showed that they were worth all the ceremony and trouble.
The goth teen girl was taken aback; she had always been taught (and thus felt) that such behavior and dress was done for no other reason than to prove to others how better you are than they. Thus, what once was done as a service is now often perceived as pretentious and self-serving.
Sad, but it also explains the discrepancy between our insistence on glorious, pageantry-filled worship--done, in our opinions, as service worthy (somehow) of a King--and the contemporary decrying of such as mere cultural superiority or unnecessary distance from our "Good Friend."
In both cases, familiarity is seen nowadays to breed a contempt that most mistake for true respect.
Very well said. Yes, I've heard that criticism of Orthodox pageantry. *must hide behind the curtain to squelch my response to it* If I remember right, Fraser focused on the receptive girl, rather than reacting to the critics. Think I'll put that movie on my Netflix queue.
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