2022-06-24 I got up late this morning. Kay had already been up for a while, and we went to Sea Day brunch. It was a nice brunch and we had one of the best morning wait teams we've had so far. The only real plans we had for today were bingo, to use our free game we won on Deal or No Deal. Buy the cards at 1:30 and play at 2. So we got there to buy our cards, and we stuck with the basic package that we had won. They tried to upsell us, but we were smarter than that, and we didn't put any of our own money in. Maybe I should say we were cheaper than that, because we were determined not to spend any of our money on it anyway lol.
Bingo started and right off the bat, in the first few numbers, I was already standing! I was so excited. I've never won anything in my whole life at bingo ever, and I lacked one of winning... and I was the only one standing. All I lacked was the letter I16. Wouldn't you know it, just a few more numbers were called and someone else won. Not me. And let me just say that on games two and three I didn't even get that close. It was pathetic honestly and convinced me all over again why I should never spend my own money playing bingo. Believe me Carnival does well with this game. The fanatic package was $58 and there was a package even more than that where you could get a bingo shirt. And let's don't forget with those big packages, you got your souvenir dauber to go with it for free. Oh wait, Kay and I did have to pay for our souvenir dauber, so one of you lucky people that I love so dearly is going to get that souvenir when I get home. Who's going to be the lucky one?! Kay's coming home with her souvenir too, so Shelley here she comes - she's got your present and it even says Carnival on it for you to have a memory.
When we got back after bingo, I came to the room and did a little PD work that I needed to finish by the end of June. Kay went to play games in the lobby, which she had been doing and really enjoyed. She was playing reverse charades and having a great time. She reports that walk the plank was not quite that much fun! I met Kay, Chuck, and Vivian in the atrium to hear Emerald Trio, a strings group, have an hour of Abba tribute. I know you're thinking right now, wow what fun a Carnival cruise is. That was your dream and desire to hear a strings band, I know. But honestly guys, these people are really good, and I enjoyed it very much. I've done two videos and I'll see if I can get them uploaded so you can listen to them. They played for about 45 minutes and then took a short break and then came back for the next hour and just played miscellaneous music. It was so calm and soothing, and I enjoyed it very much. I had to take my contacts out last night, in 2 week preparation for my eye surgeries that I will have July 12th and July 19th. So today I'm kind of walking around blind, and it was nice to just sit and listen to the music. Fortunately I can see my phone up close and I'm not seeing as badly as I thought I was going to so it's not too bad. It'll all be worth it after July is over when I can see 20/20 without contacts! They're going to take out my cataracts, and they'll replace a lens under my eye that's permanent. So I'm actually excited about that, believe it or not :-)
After supper, okay dinner if you're from anywhere but the south, we came back to the room. Nothing too much going on, and I've got a great book I'm wanting to finish reading.
I texted for quite a while with Kelly tonight. I can't begin to tell y'all how much I have appreciated her spending time with my dogs, loving on them, checking on them, and just in general being over there with them. They love her and she's so sweet to send me videos and pictures of them. I miss all of my babies, human and pet so much! I promise I'm never going to leave them again for that long! This has been fun and I loved it, it's a dream trip, but isn't it great to be home again too :-)
Tomorrow is Helsinki. Now that it's over, and we're not worried anymore, I'll tell you what happened last night. We left Stockholm, and Helsinki is northeast of Stockholm. Some members of our Facebook group happened to notice from the map that we were headed due south. Well we already knew that Russia had been doing some missile testing exercises in the Baltic, trying to intimidate Estonia and Lithuania because they're about to join NATO. We had heard that. When the ship started sailing south, everyone started wondering why, because it was the wrong direction. This continued all night long and the speculation grew. I have to admit, I didn't want to scare family members but I was worried. I talked to Kelly a little bit and I talked to another friend and asked them not to say anything. I was afraid that they were trying to keep us from getting stuck north of Estonia and Lithuania in case there were problems and they couldn't get us out. But I didn't want to worry everyone. That was the general consensus of our Facebook group. This morning we woke up and we were headed north again. The ship had gone as far south as Visby before turning around to head back north again. Then after breakfast we looked at the map again and danged if we weren't headed south again. All day long we kept looking and it kept doing north south north south... We finally had some people that seemed to be in the know who said that the ship can't be still and just park anywhere. If it does, it can't make potable water, make its own energy or something like that. So it couldn't just stop and we were just not far at all from Helsinki, so we basically did a Baltic cruise last night in the middle of the night and all day today going all around the Baltic until it's time to go to Helsinki tomorrow. Funny thing is I'm looking outside right now and wherever it is, we're just sitting. So I don't know why they couldn't do it all night last night, when they seem to be doing it right now?! But at any rate as far as we know we're headed to Helsinki tomorrow.
Look for pictures from me tomorrow. It's been a fun day and we have no more sea days until the last day now. Five port days in a row! Have a good night. If you want to hear the strings playing some short snippets, I have two short ABBA ones posted here.