Africa 2023:
Day 16 - At Sea

	Wednesday, October 25, 2023: We set our clocks forward an hour before we went to bed, so it was light out before 7:00 AM. Our wake was a straight line to the horizon and beyond.
	Breakfast in the Pinnacle Grill consisted of daily special Bananas Foster French toast for Debbie, ...
	... and the full English breakfast for Tom.
	There were two small birds that visited our balcony several times today. The first was this little guy, ...
	... followed a few minutes later by this even smaller one. He was mostly brown with a orange breast the color of a fall sunset, so we're guessing he was a European robin.
	In the early afternoon, it was still hazy out so we enjoyed our afternoon inside.
	We had fetched lunch from the Lido and brought it back to the cabin, and then several hours later we went back up and brought bread pudding and cookies back to the cabin for dessert. Nothing got photographed except our leftover dishes, neatly stacked for our cabin stewards to whisk away while we were at dinner.
	Tonight was a theme night, Casino Royale, and the main dinning room was decked out with a poker theme.
	Even the napkins were red and black to match the theme.
	The staff member that had shown us to our table offered to take our picture, and while we usually refuse, we looked so good tonight that we agreed to it. Yeah, we look goooooood.
	The menus were special tonight, with Casino Royale printed on the outside, ...
	... and the items on the menu marked with a heart, a spade, a diamond, or a club to indicate vegetarian, gluten free, non-dairy, or no sugar added, respectively.
	For a starter, Debbie ordered the Maguro No Tataki, which was seared tuna on noodle salad with chilled daikon, jellied ponzu sauce, and flying fish roe. It was absolutely amazing. Tom ordered a Caesar salad, which doesn't need a photo.
	Just before the main course arrived, our waiter, Dolly, brought Tom a steak knife and left it balanced on its edge. Amazing!
	Debbie ordered the duck breast with dried cherries, and Tom got the New York strip loin. Everything was delicious.
	Back in the room, Josmen and Catur had straighted the room and left our nightly documents. We finally figured out that fancy chocolates ...
	... and towel animals show up on formal and dressy nights.
	Our minifigs were in their Casino Royale finery to go with the evening's theme.
	At 8:00 PM, we headed back down to deck two, passing the Rolling Stone lounge, ...
	... which might be the bar where we had drinks with Jill when we were all on the Zuiderdam in 2012.
	When we entered the casino, the cruise director, Ian, was explaining how the night was going to work, ...
	... while a very talented waiter poured champagne into a pyramid of glasses. On a moving ship at sea. That's talent.
	We wandered around the casino for a while, talking to some of our tourmates from Agadir and Casablanca, ...
	... and admiring all of the decorations. We'd brought along a five dollar poker chip that we got on our previous trip on the Zuiderdam ...
	... and were delighted when they still cashed it in. We took our brand new, crisp, five dollar bill back to the room and ...
	... watched the first "Mamma Mia!" for movie night. It seemed appropriate since we would be in Greece tomorrow and we wanted to refresh our understanding of all of the local customs. Day 17 >