Day 16- Thank God The Toilet Cleaner Knew How To Tie A Windsor Knot!

Seeing as how Colleen's options were pretty limited about how far and where she could run to on an ocean-going cruise liner, I was able to force her into partaking in some activities with me that she may not have otherwise indulged in.  We started the morning off with some couples hot-tubbing and followed it up with the ultimate old-married-couple experience; watching a live cooking show.  Yes, it was safe to say that our surroundings were starting to get the better of us.  That afternoon we also took in a speaking engagement hosted by our cruise director titled The Life and Times of The Crocodile Hunter: Steve Irwin.  Our cruise director (guy who oversees all the entertainment and whatnot on the ship) had worked at Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo for a number of years as his director of entertainment.   Long story short, as someone who has visited the zoo, loved the show, and is basically a big nerd, I thought it was a great presentation.  Colleen, well Colleen, likes looking at the backs of her eyelids.

That afternoon I unfortunately made another pilgrimage to the poker tables and low and behold found myself in the final three players of a tournament where only the top two positions paid out.  My two combatants at the table were some guy who I think it was his first time playing cards and the other was Don Gavin, the standup comedian from the night before.  Sadly, he did not tell any jokes at the table, nor did he appreciate my comedic piece on waterproof watches (I'll let you imagine what I said).  In the end, Mr. Gavin and the extremely lucky European fellow got the better of me and I was resigned to another third place finish coupled with the fact that I was never going to be the next Jerry Seinfeld.

That evening, we had the second of our three formal dinners on the ship, where everyone gets dressed up like they are going to the prom.  Not knowing what to do about tying my tie, I frantically asked a bunch of the housekeeping staff until one of them was able to piece together a knot that looked presentable.  Things such as formal dinners are very serious business to cruisers and they take the dress code very seriously.  Men are supposed to wear dinner jackets, but alas since I do not own one I did not have one.  Luckily, I was able to very slyly make my way to my table without the dinner jacket police catching on to me and nobody asked me to tie a Windsor knot for them to prove my validity in the fancy-pants cruise dinner club!  You know you're classy when you don't own a tuxedo, you can't tie a tie, and your dress shoes are of the Dr. Scholl's variety!  Having survived the proceedings in the dining room, Colleen and I decided to check out the Molecular Bar.  The Molecular bar had come recommended to us from our tablemates at dinner and was the onboard bar that specializes in the new global craze of molecular gastronomy.  Without getting too much in to the science behind it, the drinks are a combination of some of the weirdest ingredients you could imagine, including: egg whites, peppercorns, liquid nitrogen, obscure liqueurs, and various spices that you would never think to put in a standard drink.  I had some watermelon infused drink that I found to be quite tasty, while Colleen was not such a fan of her cocktail with egg whites in it!  Feeling that we needed to get back to some more traditional drinks we decided to take our funds over to the Martini Bar and  invest some coin there as well.  I mean they didn't have liquid nitrogen, but the free peanuts will get me every time (even if the drinks are north of $10 each)!

~Brentski~