Paul:
Amanda and I look forward to a packed schedule. I hand Christopher my laundry; I have only one formal shirt and need it for Thursday. After breakfast we tour the deck, one lap and read our books. Lewis Man by Peter May is shaping up to be an absorbing read. At 11.30 we are back in the Queen's ballroom with 60 others, some wearing cowboy boots. The line dancing lessons are enormous fun; I enjoy this more than ballroom dancing and it's more energetic too. Although Amanda and I are new to this we quickly synchronise our steps with the other folk turning, twisting, sliding and shooting guns in the air. By the end we are puffing a bit but agree we made more progress with this than the ballroom stuff. We have another walk on deck to cool down.
After lunch we return to the Britannia restaurant for the wine tasting: five wines each with a speaker to explain the grapes and the winemaker. Amanda and I share a table with 2 Austrians and an American. The Austrians believe New Zealand is famous for Koala bears, but the Sommelier is looking for a different answer: Sauvignon Blanc. We consume the wines and I like the Tokay 2001 best followed by the Masi 2009 Valpolicella Amarone. The Austrians explain that the young Pinot was best but then they do believe Koalas come from New Zealand.
Within an hour we are transported to Iran 1979. Ben Afflick's Argo is a big draw for the majority of QM2 Americans. Some walk out after 20 minutes. It is a thrilling story and by 1850 hours I need a drink. All scrubbed up and in smart informal clothes I neck a Gibson with Amanda who delicately drinks a strawberry flavoured drink. I used to have problems understanding the waiter's phrases, "strayup' or onrox" and "graygush", but now I know what these mean and my order is processed in a third of the time.
The Todd English restaurant is posh and the waiters greet us like old friends. Fizz on top of the Gibson followed by a house Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay rounding off with a Tokay 2008. However it's for food the restaurant is most famous and we pay an extra 20 quid each to get in. Amanda and I agree it's the best food so far: my wild mushroom Asparagus flat starter worked well with the Pinot and my Brick cooked free chicken and veg and Amanda's sea bass tasted good with the Chardonnay. To our left a 60 something female New Yorker PA system shouted non stop, interspersed with shriek laughter, at some poor old boy at her table who was reduced muttering, "hmmmm" and "uh uh". Relentless ploughing on about the states of the capitals in Mongolia and the USSR I assumed she was mad. They left to see the David Copperfield magic show. The rest of the dinner was enjoyed in peace save for a multinational rendition of, 'happy birthday', for a grandmother sung by, Filipino, Brazilian and Russian waiters.
The big band sound in the Queen's ballroom is so impressive and the singer's voice is sufficiently powerful to rise above it. The sounds range from 1940s swing to contemporary songs with a nod to swing. The 16 piece swing band has attracted around 90 swingers [people] to the dance floor all attempting to: quick step, rumba, waltz and walk to the bar to the same tunes each time. Crash man and his catalogue bride career around the floor using an unconventional jumping motion like astronauts on the moon. Amanda and I thoroughly enjoy our dances together and our hybrid Rumba Pogo is a hit with white haired onlookers. It all ends too quickly at midnight......we head back to our room exhausted by dance and Cointreau...
Amanda:
I had envisaged us waltzing around the ballroom, gazing into each other's eyes: sadly we could not channel Fred and Ginger and the disdainful Russians who were our ballroom teachers were not good at teaching. Natasha confined herself to the odd helpful comment: "Ladies, in ballroom we follow partner. In dance only but not in life". Doubtless full of meaning - the audio version of a Russian fortune cookie - but not great in helping me master the waltz/rhumba/quickstep. We give in and try line dancing. I had thought of this as dancing for geriatrics which does not explain the film of sweat we leave the class with. It is however pretty easy, even mesmerised as I was by the woman in front of me's extraordinarily garish and authentic black and scarlet lizardskin cowboy boots. She is brave - this is tantamont to a declaration that she is an expert line dancer. I do not love country music and have to set my teeth at a rendition of 'Achey Breaky Heart' but allow it to give extra vigour to my stomping. I would like to do more of this and threaten Paul that I'll be buying him cowboy boots for Christmas. He is, as ever, unperturbed.
By contrast, the string quartet with cocktails was beautiful - the Aussies at the next table have to shout to each other over it in order to convey their conversation to the room. I applaud (the quartet, not the Aussies) but restrain myself from going over and thanking them since the harpist the other night was clearly startled when I did this. We also did an inexpert wine tasting which I itched to take over and then went to watch Argo leaving me 20 minutes afterwards to get into cocktail attire for dinner in the paying restaurant. Soothed by Vivaldi and Mozart - and a frozen Daiquiri - we saunter into dinner and immediately order two glasses of champagne. This is our special meal - paid for on top of the trip. It's worth it. Although I snigger that Paul seems to have ordered pizza as a starter, it is in fact delicious - as is my crab cake island in a sea of bloody mary soup. Our waiter is absurdly handsome - perhaps this is how they pick them for the top restaurants! He likes Paul's suit, shirt and tie combo and flutters his long eyelashes. We have a tussle with the sommelier who wants - perhaps wisely - to restrict our wine consumption by taking our wine off and rationing it strictly. Paul gets up and brings the bottle to our table and defends it manfully from re-capture. We finish with 'fallen cake' which seems to defy description but which makes all the waiters go misty-eyed in the attempt; it is a chocolate fondant souffle thing and delicious. We discuss the fineness of Ben Affleck's beard (surely up for Best Supporting?) before heading off to the big band. It was great, I only wish that there was a way to dance to it that didn't involve a year's worth of lessons. I sing quietly along to Chattanooga Choo Choo whilst Paul sings the percussion line: no-one is disturbed by this. We critique the others' dancing, including an amazingly graceful woman in her 70s who Paul had congratulated at lunch on her dancing the previous night. All the professional male dancers want to dance with her but she dances best with her husband: lovely.
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