“We're probably so completely wrong about this”

We woke up late-ish, and were in no hurry to get up.  We went out to the pool area on 8 to listen to podcasts and read.  Justin got some of the infused tequila from Matias – it was tastier today.  It was sunny with no wind, and a little warm in the sun and a little cold in the shade, so maybe upper 60s (18-20C)?  We eventually migrated to a table in the sun for lunch.  We were joined by a Bob and Diane from Jacksonville and a couple from Quebec City – the woman had laryngitis, and her husband seemed to be enjoying that.  We talked about travel stuff for the most part.  Antonio (another one of the bartenders, one who we never established the same sort of rapport with) was bringing around passion fruit coladas, and Justin grabbed one – awesome, much better than pina coladas. With our drinks and random stuff being brought by, we were double and even triple fisting it at lunch. Last day of all-inclusiveness.

After lunch we went back to the room for a bit and packed some stuff.  We also realized we’d gotten a lot of sun, so we made sure to be more cognizant in the afternoon.  We went back to the pool area, but covered up a bit since it was a lot of sun today.  Around 6pm, right by the pool there was a band, tapas stations around the perimeter, and then the cruise director (and all of us) thanking the crew who had come out altogether.  Whilst all of this was going on, we finally settled on our idea for the “family” of 6 that had mystifying us for days now.  Our guess was that there was an Ex-husband (the 45-50 year old man), his ex-wife (the 45-50 year old woman), his new wife (the 30 year old woman), the son from the original marriage who chose to hang out exclusively with his mom, the daughter from the original marriage (who hangs out mostly with dad), and the young daughter from the new marriage.  We spent entirely too much time thinking about this, and Justin commented “We’re probably so completely wrong about this.”  But it passed the time.

The musical choices by the band were a bit odd (some slow ballads), and made us not regret going to 5 more often – Helder was great to hang out with anyway.  Our table was out of the sun, and it was the opposite of so many days where we wanted to be out in the sun to be a little warmer.  If only the weather had been this nice the rest of the trip, particularly the first week.  We stayed past all the others, and chatted with Matias as some workers started cleaning the deck.  We went up to the Observation Bar thereafter, and grabbed a bunch of plates of olives, chips, ham, cheese, etc. before they took the snacks away.  We decided that would be our dinner, as we couldn’t stomach the idea of eating at one of the restaurants after all the great meals at Earth & Ocean.  Antonio was there when Helder stepped away, and we found out he was a former professional surfer, and he found out we lived part of the year in Hawaii – we were all surprised and intrigued.  It’s too bad we figured this out on the last night instead of the first.

We saw people leaving for dinner and eventually coming back a couple hours later.  In the interim we chatted with Helder and the other guests that were there.  We had a good conversation with some Aussies, who asked about our conversation with “First Class Joe.”  We’d spoken with Joe a bunch of nights, and had no idea he had this reputation with some of his countrymen – apparently he wasn’t in any hurry to chat with them.  We told them we like chatting with people from other countries more than talking to Americans, so maybe it was just that.  Several of us got pictures with Helder, and he turned the lights back up so it would be easier to get decent photos.  Whilst Joe was at dinner, one of the employees brought up a bottle of Pernod – apparently he’d drank all of the Pernod in the Observation Bar and they ran out the night before.  Before he got back from dinner a bunch of us tried the new bottle out, and we all decided that Joe can have that to himself.  We eventually wrapped up around 11, traded contact information with Helder, then did some more packing before calling it a night.

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