Day 70

Barbados…something-town…like “road” or “bridge.” Remember how I said there was no way I was going anywhere today? That was a clever trick I pulled on Barbados! It seems like every time we come here we have a show, or the night before we say we’re going to go to the Boat Yard (more on what that is later) and the weather sucks when we arrive. So, this entire cruise I was saying I wasn’t going anywhere. It worked. But first…more stories of Albert.

A lot of us were at breakfast together this morning and along comes Albert. Doing the same thing where he stands right by us without saying anything, and then he finally does. Keelan and Charlotte were actually with us this morning when he arrived. After much pause Albert told Keelan he was going to go get some cards. Keelan and I decided to switch seats to see if he would notice, but then they both left before he could get back.

I’d bet $50 bucks that he’s from Brooklyn. He’s got that accent. When Albert shows up he says “Where’s Charlotte?” to which I reply with embellishment “I made them…DISAPPEAR!” His reply was the best. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where are they?” He started trying to show me tricks and I would feed it with things like “Wow. That was great! What do you call that trick? All great magicians name their tricks.” He showed me The Vanishing Joker (he puts the joker on the top of the deck, I watch him move the top card to the bottom, he shows me the top card and it isn’t the joker anymore) and his famous Bubble Shuffle (it is hard to explain because it is so easy). At one point he asked me to guess his name. I tell him to put his hands out in front of him and pretend that I’m reading his mind. I say it’s Albert. He says “No. It’s Eddie. Albert is my brother.” Turns out he was lying. That’s not even the best part! Picture everything he says in a Brooklyn accent. He wants me to pick a card. I do. He says to put it back. I ask if I should put it on top. With attitude and the accent he says, “I don’t care where you put it. Put it back!” I told Albert…OH! Not Albert. His magician name is Zach Danno. I tell Zach, “I don’t think any other magicians are doing that. You should stick with it. Try to not care about the audience and let them know it as much as you can.” Later he did a trick where he took a Joker and said “I’m just going to crumple this up in my hand.” And then took the other Joker, ripped it up, and produced the crumpled Joker from his hand all in one piece! Everyone at the table went “Ooooo!” I said, “They all seemed pretty impressed. What do you say about that?” Zach Danno replies, “I don’t care if they liked it.” God bless Zach Danno. I can’t wait for breakfast tomorrow. Oh, also he asked Jen if she was from Harry Potter.

Enough about magic kids. So, we went to Boat Yard. It is a place that gives crew a discount. You pay $5 to get in and you get a free drink coupon and access to their beach. Lots of loud music, beach chairs, two floating trampolines, a floating iceberg that you climb, and about 1,000,000 guys offering to rent jet skis. There were so many people. It made me cringe when we arrived. I wanted to get out of there immediately. Deanna talked me into staying and I’m glad I did. We swam out to the trampoline. There were three people just laying on it, but that is what beach chairs are for. I had no qualms about just jumping on it…two of them got off as I was climbing the ladder. I went and climbed the iceberg. I had heard this thing was extremely tough to climb. Andy said this little side part was new. Without the new side part (something to get your feet on) I don’t think I could have climbed it. We hung out with the JARs a bit and then I took Deanna out on one of the Jet Skis. I had been wanting to rent one at least once and today seemed like good prices.

I drove out first with Deanna hanging on behind me. Usually I’d hear her say things like “Careful!” or “I’m falling!” About 5 minutes into our half hour we switched places. She took off like lightning and all I heard was “Weeeee haaaaa!” It was a blast. Jen and Andy went out there too so we were crossing paths every so often.

Later was lazy town, and then our first dinner at Mama’s. Mama’s is the Italian restaurant on the ship and it is very near the spot where we always eat lunch. When I called for reservations no one picked up the phone, so I went up. I asked for reservations for two at 8:30 and the manager said “We only have seating outside at 8:30…where you normally eat breakfast.” So, they know us.

There was another crew party last night in Spinaker. This time it was a cocktail party with dance lessons. I had heard that the crew wanted lessons…there were eight of us up there learning and only two weren’t second city or JARs. It was a new step though so it was well worth it. I was having trouble and then Sveta stepped in…she was amazing. I was trying to do this turn around move with Deanna and lost count. Sveta grabbed me and we were spinning like crazy. Deanna and I are going to do private lessons.

There was also a weird moment when Christopher pulled us (Second City) aside and said he had major news. We thought he had heard something bad about something happening to us, but it was some gossip (albeit major gossip…too major to feel comfortable writing about as it is not my business) about the JARs.

Busy day.