12 APR Day One at Sea

Today was our first full day at sea.  We didn’t do too much, but went to a couple of trivia competitions in the afternoon.  The latter one was a “progressive” where you set up a team and add your scores over all of the sea days, for a final winner.  Our team was a young couple from Canberra, and older couple from Melbourne (in the State of Victoria), and ourselves in Texas.  So, our Team Name became ViCanTex.  We are off to a sad start with a score of 9 out of 15.

Before this one, the other competition was on Australia Trivia.  We did not excel there.  But we learned a few interesting tidbits.  Sydney is the State of New South Wales.  They call people from Victoria (like Melbourne) “Mexicans” because they are “south of the border”.  They call folks from Queensland (like Brisbane or Cairns (where the Great Barrier Reef is) “Canadians”, because they are “north of the border."  Then they call people from Tasmania “Alaskans” because it is cold down there. And, apparently, they can make any body's name into a Nickname.  For example, Jim is Jimbo; Fred is Freddo; Jeanne is Jenio...etc.

This was the first of three formal nights, and our dinner companions included a couple from Austria, one from Australia, two from the US, Indianapolis in particular, but one of them had moved to Costa Rica.  So, the discussions were interesting.

What is it?  And what is it doing with my drink?

We went to the show in the evening, which was OK, but no AC/DC on a violin.  We came back to our room and found a towel animal.  We’re not 100% sure what it is.  Theresa suggested maybe it is a vampire bat, but I think it is something more like a simple bear.  Any votes?