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2004-09-06 - 9:22 p.m.

On day six, I treated myself to a very leisurely morning, as I had not signed up for any shore excursions on Cancun and therefore did not have to be in the early groups taking the tender boats over to shore. I just wanted to nose about Cancun on my own, or else do nothing.

I was practically the only passenger in the main dining room and was therefore given a wonderful table at the very back of the room, right against a huge window. Immediately Romina came over to see me, happy as always. I ordered a breakfast filled with all my self-indulgent courses, two raspberry sweet rolls, yogurt, a bowl of cereal, eggs, sausages (what they called �Scotch bangers�), coffee, and toast. As I was indulging myself at breakfast, since the workload at that time of morning was so light, Romina indulged herself by hanging around me. It seemed that she really did like me a lot, or, at least enjoyed my company. We joked and laughed and talked about things I don�t even remember. At one point I asked her if I could film her, and she agreed, so I taped her for a little bit. I didn�t want to take advantage of her good nature, so I didn�t film her too much, just enough to get a taste of her.

She asked me, �How come I never see you at dinner?�

�Well, I guess I�ve just been unlucky, I�ve been here almost every night, except for a few times I had dinner at the barbecue or at the Big Apple Caf�.�

�Oh, I see,� said Romina, �I work every dinner in the Pasta Caf�. Haven�t you ever eaten there?�

The Pasta Caf� was one of the specialty restaurants that required a reservation, and based on the name, I figured that was all it was, pasta.

�No, I haven�t ever eaten there, is it good?�

�Oh yes, it is very good. Do you like Caesar salad?�

�I love Caesar salad,� I answered honestly.

�I make a wonderful Caesar salad,� she said, and kissed her fingers like a French chef. �The restaurant is very quiet and intimate, I can give you good service.� I think she meant by that that the restaurant was the smallest on this ship, half the size of even Le Bistro that charges a cover charge (I think the Pasta Caf� holds only 28 people), and therefore there wouldn�t be a lot of staff in there with specialized functions. Romina could pretty much be my one and only waitress from soup to nuts.

�I�ll eat there tonight!� I promised, and then after breakfast on the way back to my cabin, I went to the reservations desk and made a reservation for the Pasta Caf�. That was good, Romina gave me a good excuse to try something new.

Back in my cabin, I changed into my bathing suit, put on a t-shirt, filled my backpack with a beach towel and my camcorder, put on my walking shoes, and headed downstairs to deck one.

The tender boat was already there waiting, so I went aboard and went upstairs to the upper deck. I was the first one up there this trip, so I was able to sit in the front, but pretty soon, it started filling up.

While they were waiting, either for a certain number of passengers or else for a set time, some members of the tender boat�s crew were fishing off the boat�s bow. They didn�t use poles, but merely threw baited lines off into the water and let the weighted line sink down. After a while, they would pull the line back in and three-quarters of the time, they had a fish on it. I figured if fishing were that easy, I could have fresh-caught fish every night for dinner and never spend a penny for protein. I made a note to look into the various fishing piers in the L.A. area to check out that possibility.

A little boy who had come aboard with his family was interested in what the fishermen were doing, so he slipped underneath the barrier labeled �No Passengers� to go down to the deck where the guys were fishing. He stood there watching them for a while, when one of the men said, �Would you like to throw out a line?� The boy nodded his head like a Bobble-head figure, so the man got him a fresh line and showed him how to bait the hook. The boy did that, and then threw the line out as far as he could into the water. Then he leaned against the railing and carefully studied the surface of the water to see if he could notice any movement. Meanwhile, the man pulled in his line and it had a fish on it. This excited the boy even more. The man baited his line again, threw it out, and then said to the boy, �Pull yours in now, let�s see if you caught anything.�

The boy carefully pulled in the line and it had bright yellow fish on it! He held it up excitedly and said, �Daddy, look what I caught!�

�That�s nice,� his father said, �but what are you going to do with it?�

The boy said, �I�m going to give it to him,� and then turned to the man who helped him fish and said, �Can I give this to you?�

The man smiled and said, �I�d love to have it, it�s such a pretty fish, I can take it home to show to my kids, and then we�ll have it for dinner.

The boy seemed very pleased that his gift was accepted, said �Thank you� to the man, and then climbed back up the ladder to our deck. He sat down next to his father and said, �Fishing was so much fun, Daddy.� The father gave him a little hug. I hoped he made a mental note to take the boy fishing when they got back home.

Pretty soon it was time to be off and the tender boat pushed away from the ship and began the journey across the water toward the high-rise hotels of Cancun. The journey was relatively long, and as we continued to get closer to Cancun, we�d see more and more activity�other boats, water skiers, jet skiers, even somebody parasailing, hanging down from a yellow parachute with a smiley face painted on it�the smiley face had a cute expression with its tongue hanging out. The sand all along the shore was pure white and the water, of course, was the most beautiful turquoise.

Closer to shore there was a semi-submersible and lots of excursion boats, and the numerous jet skiers were frantic with activity. Several of the Caucasian vacationers on the jet skis were almost black with very dark suntans, making them look like they had spent the entire summer out there in that water, and I remembered the days when I, too, would get that dark, and suddenly I missed the lazy summer days of my youth. Now, I hardly ever get out in the sun, certainly not enough to tan.

The boat nuzzled up against the dock and we all got off. We were immediately inundated by people hawking various excursions and I realized that for this port, one really didn�t need to sign up for one of the ship�s excursions�you could find them all right here. However, I really wasn�t in the mood for anything and simply walked out past all the shops and bars and restaurants toward the main thoroughfare, where there were busses and taxicabs galore.

I don�t know, I just didn�t feel like going anywhere or seeing anything. I didn�t want to get too far away from the ship. Most people were taking shuttles to one of the several modern new shopping malls, but going to one of those didn�t interest me too much�I had already seen that kind of thing on Cozumel and shopping in a setting that mirrored one of the malls back home was not an appealing idea.

A man came up to me with a detailed map of Cancun, mostly showing one hotel right after the other. He tried to sell me on the advantages of my buying this elaborate map, and for a moment I was interested and thought it might give me an idea of something to do, but once I saw that all it showed was hotels and the modern shopping malls, I lost interest. I told the man �No, gracias,� and he walked away disgusted, thinking that he had already made a sale. Like Miami Beach and Tijuana combined, I thought this place was like.

Another man was walking toward me, ready to sell me on the idea of riding in his cab, I supposed, so I simply turned around and walked back into the dock complex. I saw a guy sitting under a palapa sipping a beer, and that looked nice, so I followed suit. I requested a Superior at the tiki bar, a brand I had enjoyed on the catamaran in Cozumel and one I don�t believe is exported to the U.S. I sat at a table and quietly sipped my beer, enjoying the clear-water waves churning the white-sanded shore and watching all the frenetic activity out in the water beyond. Somebody deposited a few coins in the jukebox and oldies rock music blared out, creating by this an artificial atmosphere of fun.

I decided against going into the water�the beach was too crowded and the wave breaks too close to shore. I figured I would have a more pleasant time back on board the nearly empty ship. But first, I still wanted to buy some kind of suitable Maya-oriented souvenir, which so far I hadn�t found. The shops here, while mostly full of junk, had so much stuff that I figured I might find some kind of hidden treasure.

I searched and searched and searched, and everywhere I went, it was the same thing, somebody would stand out in front of the shop or kiosk and say �Come and look, come and look,� and then when I came in to look, somebody else would point out various things, none of which was what I was looking for. While I understood that they were trying to make a living, I was nevertheless irritated by their methods, which did more to hurry me along and out than it did to facilitate my finding what I wanted. For one thing, every shop had hundreds and hundreds of t-shirts, and I wasn�t looking for a t-shirt. Lots of the shops had pretty nice-looking carvings of things, a pyramid, a toucan, an iguana, things I might have considered buying, but then the good carving would be glued to an extremely ugly base with the name �Cancun� painted on it. I suppose I was specifically not in the market for a souvenir with the name of the destination painted on it, although I confess that later on the ship I did buy a shot glass for each of the ports we had gone to, and the shot glasses did have the name of the port on them, but they were very beautifully done and that made all the difference.

Finally, almost in despair, I found the one shop that was an exception to all the others. Nobody hawked me to come in and look. And once inside, nobody approached me and bugged me. There was one young woman working in there as a sales clerk, but she merely smiled and pointed out the fan on the floor and said, �Please excuse our primitive air conditioner.� I smiled and said, �All these shops are open to the air, air conditioning would be a terrible ecological waste!�

The cool thing about the fan was that it was right next to a rack of something that caught my eye�reproductions of genuine Maya carvings printed on suede leather. One of them I recognized right away, it was the carving of �The World Tree� emerging from (growing out of) the body of the dying king that archaeologists had found on the lid of the sarcophagus of the Maya king �Pacal� in the great city of Palenque, one of the most exciting archaeological finds of all. The carving showed such complex elements as a sacrificial offering plate, a double-headed serpent spewing itz (i.e., blood), and representations of the Milky Way and The Big Dipper in God-Animal form. There is much more in that carving than I can explain or yet understand, but it was a perfect representation of the kind of thing I was looking for.

On the back of the suede was a written description: �Figura Maya conocido como lapido sepulgral de la tumbo de Rey Pakal Kin.� I asked the sales woman to help me translate it. She was wonderful, because her English wasn�t so good, or so she thought. She struggled to explain each word, and as she unlocked the keys, I remembered from my Spanish from long ago. �Figura,� figure, �Maya,� Maya, �conocido,� well-known, �como,� as, �lapido,� tombstone, �sepulgral,� sepulcher, �de la tumbo,� of the tomb, �de,� of, �Rey Pakal,� King Pacal. �Kin� was not translatable, apparently, and I�m not sure if it is part of Pacal�s name, or means something else. But definitely the main gist of this was clear, this was a well-known Maya carving on the stone that covered the sepulcher of King Pacal�s tomb. So this was an accurate rendition of something genuine and very meaningful, not �The God Who Protects the Animals� or some other pseudo creation to appeal to tourists who don't know any different.

I asked her how much it was and she said, �Forty dollars.� This was probably twice what she would take for it, but I didn�t want to bargain since this item was the fruit of several days� search, and besides, this seemed to me to be a fair price for this, apparently, very hard-to-find item (at least, I�d not seen anything like it anywhere else). She not only took dollars, she took traveler�s checks without batting an eye, so I wrote out two $20 travelers checks for her and she carefully wrapped the item I had bought. While she wrapped, I noticed on the shelves behind her very well-done pornographic carvings�people having sexual intercourse or performing oral sex and other acts. I say �well-done,� because they weren�t the least bit crude, but were actually quite erotic. They somehow seemed to capture what each participant was actually feeling, and therefore from that point of view, I considered them works of art. I even considered buying one, but demurred because, first I would have been too embarrassed, and second, if what I bought cost forty dollars, I was sure that those things would cost quite a bit more, which was way more than I wanted to spend, particularly for something frivolous.

Rescuing me from the pornographic sculptures, the sales woman asked me where I was from, and I said �Los Angeles.�

�Oh, Los Angeles,� she said, �there are too many Mexicans, there, aren�t there.�

I was rather amused at that, a Mexican saying �there are too many Mexicans there,� but I didn�t want to take that bite, plus it isn�t what I feel, anyway. So I said, �Well, there definitely are too many people there, and certainly some of them are Mexicans, but the people come from all over. I�m probably one of them myself. I think if you have a job here that you like, there would be no reason for you to come to California.� Seeing her in this shop, in this Miami Beach-like setting with the elegant high rise hotels, blue water, and white sand beaches, I couldn�t see why she�d ever want, or need, to come to California, and I think that was something she clearly understood.

Having finally made my souvenir purchase, I decided it was time to go back to the ship. I made my way to where two other people were waiting for the tender to board. One of them was a guy in his twenties that I had seen in the hot tub every time I had gone up to the pool deck. It was, actually, surprising to see him somewhere else, like there actually was something he wanted to do on this cruise besides soak in the hot tub. Next to him was a frumpy, middle-aged woman who kept talking to him and he kept nodding, but never really answered her. I figured that she was his mother, which might explain his less-than-garrulous response to her conversation. I said a few words to both of them about how I figured Cancun was a cross between Miami Beach and Tijuana, and the woman said that was a good characterization of it, but the guy responded with the same vague disinterest with which he responded to the woman, so I figured talking with him was a waste of time and when we were able to board the boat, I made a bee-line for the top deck and away from the two of them.

It took quite a while for the boat to finally get underway�that, and the length of the trip across the water to the ship made the whole operation take an hour. Which was fine with me, I had absolutely no plans or ambitions other than to just simply sit there in the refreshing breeze and enjoying the movement of the boat and the wonderful sights of Cancun and environs. That tender boat ride was like an enjoyable excursion, all by itself, and my body appreciated it greatly.

Back on board The Norwegian Sea, it really was quiet and nearly empty, so I took advantage of that to sunbathe on a deck chair. Thinking about those dark-black guys on the jet skis, I figured it was high time that I got to work on my tan. Sure, my cruise was nearly over, but the summer sure wasn�t.

Being what I thought was conservative, I sunbathed only half an hour, lying on my back. I would have then turned over and sunbathed my back, but based on today�s schedule, I only had time for lunch before they would show the movie, The Pirates of the Caribbean, a movie I actually had never seen and now wanted to see. Every afternoon on the ship they had had �movies and popcorn,� but as I had always been busy with something else (mainly being on shore), this was the first time I was available for the movie.

I went down from the Sun deck to the Pool deck and walked past the hot tub. In there (again) was the young guy from the dock, this time chattering away with a couple of other guys in a Germanic-sounding language which I thought was possibly Norwegian. No wonder he hadn�t responded to my comments with any sort of enthusiasm, he probably hardly knew English. The middle-aged woman, she was nowhere to be found and I surmised that instead of being his mother, she was as much of a stranger to him as I was.

I went down to my cabin to shower and change my clothes, and was shocked to see that I was now very badly sunburned. I had only sunbathed half an hour, and look what happened! And I had been so careful on this trip with sunblock. Well, now I was glad that I hadn�t sunbathed the other side, too, which, if it hadn�t been for the upcoming movie, I would have done for sure. Laving myself with aloe vera oil, I got dressed and went to lunch, then the movie.

It was lots of fun seeing the movie and I was surprised to see as many people in the theater as there were. It just continues to show that all the activities offered on shipboard have their various adherents.

Johnny Depp had created quite an appealing and unique character for the film, and while I admit I lost track of the plot somewhere along the way (if, indeed, the plot had been able to hold water), something about pirate ghosts living an eternal curse and the woman betrothed in marriage to somebody, I simply enjoyed the ride due to the characterizations of Johnny Depp and Benjamin Rush. For example, I loved it when the Pirate Captain Johnny Depp double-crossed somebody who had made a deal with him and who was surprised to have that betrayal happen, Depp reminds him, pirate! That kind of thing was very clever. I also appreciated it when he said something along the lines of, �I want to have my own ship, again; to have a ship is freedom.� Sitting there on The Norwegian Sea, I couldn�t have agreed with him more. Perhaps I should buy a sailboat?

After the movie, the last tender had come and gone and the ship was already sailing away from Cancun out into the open sea. I set up a quiet deck chair in my special spot near the golf driving net and read from the book I had brought about shooting digital video. I stayed there until it was time to get dressed for dinner in the Pasta Caf�.

I arrived at the Pasta Caf�, which is at the rear of the very top deck in-between Gatsby�s Wine and Martini Lounge on the left and Le Bistro on the right, and overlooking the Big Apple Caf� below. The hostess knew me by name when I arrived, which indicated to me that Romina must have been talking. That had happened several other times on the cruise, crew members I had never seen before knew me by name, which made me think that they all talk among themselves about which passengers are cool and which ones are big pains in the ass, and of course they would--why not?

Fortunately, I felt that the reputation that preceded me was a good one.

Romina immediately saw that I had arrived and greeted me with a big hug. She really liked it that I had come to her restaurant at her suggestion this morning. But then she noticed how horribly sunburned I was and she became very worried. She took over from the hostess and seated me at a table for two and I noticed that the shark hunter, his wife, Tadzio, and his friend were at a large table over to my left. They didn�t really acknowledge my presence, but I didn�t take that as a sudden rudeness, but more as if they assumed I wanted my privacy. Romina was fawning all over me, which I certainly liked, and while I was the diner and she was the waitress, it was almost as if we were on a date.

�Does that hurt a lot,� she said, all worried, and �have you used yogurt?�

�Yogurt?� I questioned.

�Oh yes, yogurt, it is nice and cool, it is the best thing, it is a secret remedy from my country, yogurt will fix you right up.�

�You�eat it?� I asked.

�No, you put it on your skin, the coolness of it pulls away the heat and the pain, and the milk in it heals the burn and will turn you brown, the bacteria in it will prevent you from getting an infection, it really is the best remedy, I will get you some from our kitchen to use.�

�All right,� I said, �I�ll try it.�

�I have to go downstairs to the refrigerator there to get some, but I�ll be right back. You put it on your skin before you go to bed and it will help you to sleep.�

I was touched that she would take the risk (if it were a risk) to leave her post and go down to the deck below to get me this remedy. She really was a wonderful person.

When she came back up, she handed me two containers of plain white yogurt. �Come see me at breakfast tomorrow,� she said, �and tell me how well it worked.�

�Okay,� I promised, �I let you know. Thank you!�

That taken care of, I now moved my attention to the menu. I could see from the wonderful selections that this was much more than simply a �pasta� restaurant. It was, in fact, more properly an Italian restaurant. I figured I might as well go all out and order wine, too, something I don�t normally order unless I am on a date. Well, with Romina, this was like a date, in a way. I looked at the wine list and saw that they had a wine from Marche, a region in Italy where one of our teachers at school owns a farm. She goes there every summer and that�s where she will retire. I have a standing invitation to visit her there, and plan to someday take her up on her offer, but so far all I have done in that direction was try this wine in the Pasta Caf�. The wine was great.

I had chicken saltumbacca (I�m sure I have misspelled it) with risotto and, of course, Caesar salad, which Romina actually did make for me, mixing it up in a large bowl at my table. I must admit that with the shark hunter family sitting over at the next table, I was glad for all the personal attention Romina was giving me. I didn�t have to feel like such a pariah, otherwise, eating in this romantic restaurant all by myself. It was very, very quiet in there and the only voice I ever heard was Romina�s; the shark hunter family at the next table spoke in cathedral tones, as did everybody else in that restaurant. So, Americans can be quiet!

I went for dessert, too, and had a complete, delicious meal. Romina handed me a check for the wine and I presented my key card. She ran it off and brought the bill back for me to sign, which I signed with an extra tip and gave her copy to her.

Then on whim, I tore a piece off the bottom of my copy and wrote on it, Losing My Virginity, the Autobiography of Richard Bramson, and as I got up to leave, I stepped over to the shark hunter�s table and handed the slip of paper to Tadzio�s friend, explaining that I really did think he would like that book and I figured he probably wouldn�t have remembered the title. His face nearly slit in two, he was smiling so much, and said, �Thank you so much, I did want to read this book and I had forgotten the name of it!�

I said, �Oh, I never remember the names of books people recommend to me, I always have to write them down!� I looked around the table at all the happy, smiling people who were saying, �That was really nice, thank you,� and I noticed that Tadzio, in particular, was smiling at me adoringly. I�m glad that I did that. Then I said �Have a good evening, I hope to see you all tomorrow,� and they were, �You too, you too!�, and then I left. Romina caught me for a goodbye hug (I�m sure everybody figured we had a secret romance going on, there, and who knows, maybe I could have been having a rendezvous with her down on the hidden crew decks. I told her I was thankful for her secret yogurt remedy and she reminded me, �Tell me at breakfast how it works out.�

The show tonight was the final show of the Norwegian Cruise Line Production Company. I developed a sudden desire to have one of the ship�s souvenir frozen Margarita shakers, so I ordered myself one filled with a frozen Margarita and then sat there in the lounge sipping what will always be one of my favorite drinks.

The most memorable feature of this show was the heart-warming finale in which it looked like every member of the crew was invited to come on stage (although I am sure that some must have had duties that prevented that, surely not every single one of them was free to leave their post) and the applause that accompanied that was thundering and relentless. I was glad to see that everybody else on board appreciated this crew as much as I did.

The way they did it was very good, too. �Here are the people who planned your activities,� (clap clap clap!) as they marched down the aisles to the stage, �Here are your kitchen staff, hidden behind the scenes preparing the meals you enjoyed,� (clap clap clap!), �Here are the room stewards who kept your cabin spotless,� (clap clap clap!) and so on. It truly was glorious! I clapped extra hard whenever anyone I recognized walked past. They all looked very proud, as well they deserved to be!

There was still one more thing I wanted to do tonight (despite the fact that the ship still had tons of other activities that lasted throughout the night), and that was go to the famous chocoholic buffet. Everybody had been hearing about this outstanding event throughout the whole cruise, and it was supposed to be really something.

Now, I don�t want to be a wet blanket about anything, but this was something that I truly did not enjoy. I guess that I am not really much of a chocolate freak�for me, a little chocolate goes a long, long way.

This was the first activity that they had on board that ship that led to everybody on board wanting to be in the same place at the same time�all other activities, whether it was the meals or the shore excursions or the shows had people spread out to different locations and different times. So this event was hugely crowded, with every single cruise passenger waiting in line, and pushing their way into the main dining room where there were four long tables lined up filled to groaning with all things made of chocolate and decorated with dozens of beautiful ice sculptures.

I am the kind of person who wants to know what all of the choices are before I zero in on what I want, but the way this was set up, there was no way to scope out the choices first. You simply had to start at one end of one of the long tables and put stuff on your plate without really knowing what else lay ahead. I could see people who had been ahead of me leaving with plates stacked high with a sickening pyramid of chocolate items, way more than they could even eat in a week, let alone at one sitting. This led to me being quite conservative in my selections, and by the time I had gotten to the end of the tables, I only had about three items on my plate. And even that was too much chocolate! I sat quietly at a table by myself eating my chocolate and developing a headache from the sugar high. Once I was finished, I left the dining room, passing further passengers running by with their plates piled high, acting like little kids on Christmas morning.

I laughed when I opened my cabin door and saw that the cabin steward had turned down my bed and there, as usual, sitting on the pillows, was a little piece of chocolate! But guess what, I popped it into my mouth like a ritual (a shipboard communion with the gods of the sea), and then stripped off my clothes to put on Romina�s yogurt, which meanwhile I had kept covered in ice in my ice bucket.

The yogurt was cold and sticky, but I did manage to rub it in everywhere, all over the fiery red skin. I wondered how I could possibly sleep with all that stickiness, but soon my body absorbed it and it lost the sticky feeling. I slipped into the clean sheets and turned off the lights, glad that I still had one more day left of the cruise. I couldn�t see how I could stand it to be my last night, but that was still to come. For now, I wanted to completely feel, remember, and appreciate every motion of the ship as it rocked me to sleep.

END OF DAY SIX.

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