Day 7
This was a day at sea. I finally started to adjust to the 3.5 hour time change. I worked out in the morning before breakfast.
We attended a destination lecture covering Mumbai, where I picked up a few interesting tidbits:
• Victoria Terminus – handles 1000 trains and 2 million passengers per day
• Elephanta caves - The Mahesamurti - triple headed statue of Shiva as destroyer, preserver, and creator.
• Most densely populated city in the world - 30k people per square kilometer.
• Literacy rate of 85% in Mumbai.
• Two seasons - dry and wet.
We played family dodge ball in Adventure Ocean and then had lunch at the main dining room. It was another formal night with pictures, so we only had a couple of hours of free time in the afternoon. We used the time to hit the water slide at the kiddy pool.
After a couple of hours in the hot sun, we returned to the room to get ourselves ready. In addition to the formal night with pictures, there was a reception for all return cruisers. So we hit the pictures at 5.30, reception at 5.45 and dinner at 6.30. The entertainment did not start until 9.15 so we decided to skip it in favor of getting to sleep early to be ready for our big trip to Goa the next morning.
Day 8
We awoke outside of Goa to find that Sydney had a fever. This was a bit of a problem since we had tickets for an excursion that was starting in an hour. After giving her some medicine and putting cold compresses on her head and stomach, we started getting ready to cancel our excursion. At that very moment, the captain announced some sort of disagreement between local fishermen and the port authority. The local fishermen had blocked the port. Negotiations had been going on for at least a day and there was no sign that an agreement would be reached today. The captain figured that even if an agreement was reached, it would not be safe for us to get off the ship, so he decided to spend the day at sea en route to Mumbai. We were disappointed not to see Goa, but at the same time relieved that we were not going to lose $200 for canceling our excursion. Everyone had their excursions refunded. We had breakfast in the main dining room, and then attended a lecture on the 7 wonders of the world. Sydney came with us as she was still not feeling well while JP went to the Adventure Ocean. The first accounts about the Wonders came from Greek writers and this influenced the places included on the list (All in the former Greek empire). The list was written in 225BC by a Greek philosopher. The list was argued about and edited for hundreds of years. Here is some info about the wonders:
1. Statue of Zeus - constructed by Phidias - the Greek Michelangelo in honor of the Olympic Games. Construction 435 BC. Took more than 7 years to construct. Made of ivory. In 391BC, all temples were closed - that's when the Roman Empire went Christian. Statue was transported to Constantinople where it burned in a fire in a museum.
2. Temple of Artemis - built in honor of the goddess Dianna. Largest marble temple ever built. It took over 50 years to build and was destroyed by fire by Artemis.
3. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon - constructed between 600 and 550 BC. Ruined by an earthquake around 500BC. The only wonder we are not sure really existed.
4. The Mausoleum - started by King Maussollos and finished by his wife Artemisia. Built in 350BC. 140 feet high, 110 feet wide. First known cranes used to build it. An earthquake in 1494 AD ruined the museum. Built in Turkey.
5. The Colossus - built in Rhodes. Statue of sun god Helios. Built after Alexander the Great died and built as a symbol of unity. Constructed 292 to 280BC. Made of Bronze. 36 meters high. Destroyed by earthquake in 226BC.
6. The Great Pyramids of Giza - Cheop's Pyramid is the largest and was built in 250BC over a 30 year period. Until the early 1800's, it was the tallest building in the world. 450 ft high and 756 ft wide. Only wonder to survive to this day. Average weight of each stone is 1 ton.
7. The lighthouse of Alexandria - built on Pharos island in Alexandria. Built in 280 BC. Could be seen from 40km away. Built after Alexander's death to leave a mark, showing how rich the city was. About 400 ft high. It was a working lighthouse. Had a fire at night. Destroyed by earthquake between 1303 and 1480 AD.
We had lunch in the main dining room and it was incredibly slow - probably because the dining room was not planned to be open with the unexpected day at sea. It was so slow that we had to complain to the headwaiter. After lunch, we went to see a sing along version of the movie Mama Mia in the main theater. No one sang along, but it was a very fun movie. The kids knew many of the songs and did a lot humming and head bobbing. After the movie we decided to look at our pictures from the last few days. I am becoming less photogenic with every day, but there were a few we liked. By this time, Sydney was feeling much better and her fever had disappeared. She got a lot of sun the day before and I think it just caught up to her. We decided to stay out of the sun today and instead started getting ready for dinner. We signed the kids up for dinner with their Adventure Ocean friends so that Sandy and I could have a quiet evening. We had a nice dinner in the main dinning room and went to the main entertainment which was a Scottish female singer. She was really fantastic and apparently won star search a few years ago. She was good, but sang a lot of older tunes, so we decided to do some gambling. I had a 10 in my pocket, which we lost within about 5 min, so I went back to the room for 20. After pumping a few quarters into a slot machine, I won a 40 jackpot. From there, we went to our favorite machine that pushes quarters over the edge. We pumped a lot quarters in, but eventually won a 10 and two 20s. We walked away with a profit of about 60 for the evening - not bad.
