Went to the track today

My grandpa is visiting from Florida and my aunt is up from Virginia.  We went with about 15 people to the track today to watch the horses.  This was my third time going this year. Two years ago when the family went, I had two big winners.  Today, everyone was asking me what to bet.  I told them to bet the opposite numbers that I bet because I am not as good as they think I am.  Did they bet with me when I won a $168 exacta today, nope!  That was the only bet I won today.  The rest went down the toilet. 

Tuesday August 21: our first full day at sea

My friend set his alarm so that he could call his mom in the morning.  If he didn't call, his mom would have been freaking out.  I, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with my cell phone until Saturday morning, and even then I didn't want to touch it.  We woke up about 7:30, ate breakfast, and were outside on deck laying in the sun by 9:30.  I was looking in my small bag that I bring up on deck before we left the room and noticed my iPod was not there.  I looked everywhere in the room for it and could not find it.  My thought is that on Monday, I took it out of the bag on deck and did not put it back in and somebody must have stolen it.  That's the only thing I can come up with.  Anyways, I go to guest services and they did not have it in their lost and found.  They told me to come back later that day and I could fill out a missing item report.  While on deck, I just stood for several minutes looking in front of me, to the right, and to the left.  There is something about looking at absolutely nothing but water every way you look that is so relaxing.  I could have stared at nothing for hours.  Some people might freak out when they don't see land.  It had the opposite effect on me.  I had no worries in the world while looking at the light waves coming off the water.  I eventually walked away and sat on my chair and relaxed.  One annoying part about being so high up was that it was extremely windy.  I was very happy to have my kindle because I didn't have to worry about the nonexistent pages blowing everywhere.  At 12 o'clock I did a blackjack tournament.  I didn't last long and went right back outside to catch some more sun.  On the highest possible deck later in the afternoon, my friend and I played mini golf.  That was challenging because the wind blew the ball everywhere.  The 9 holes took us forever because there were so many people in front of us,  It was ok though because we didn't have anywhere that we had to be.  They had a sports trivia contest at around 4.  They asked 20 questions.  You had to write down the answers and not shout them out.  Some of the questions were very easy and others I had no clue.  I only got 10/20 right.  Oh well.  At about 5:15, I decided to go down to guest services again and fill out the missing item report.  I cannot begin to tell you how many times they asked me the same exact questions!  They offered to do a room search.  I said that they could.  I told them I had to get going and asked if they could do the search without me.  They said that they could not and that if I left, I would have to do the paperwork all over again.  At that point, it was 5:50.  I told my friend I would be back in the room at 5:30 to get ready for our formal dinner.  I still had to shower and get my nice clothes on.  I finally left them and sprinted down to my room.  I got to the room at 5:52 with my friend freaking out because he almost walked out of the room looking for me.  I showered and got dressed and we got to dinner at 6:03.  I was quite impressed with the time I made.  I had prime rib, mmmmmmm.  I decided against the lobster tail, ew.  I love eating anything I want on the ship for free! 

Although I put sunscreen on all day, I noticed I was starting to get a burn.  It hurt to put a shirt on my shoulders.  The back of my neck was feeling raw, too.  Right after dinner I went back to ask for the room search.  He made me fill out a report of where I last saw my iPod and stating that I give them permission to tear apart my room.  Once again, he asked me the same questions over and over again.  He searched my room and found nothing.  The reason I had him search was because then I felt like I did everything that I could do to find my iPod.  We wanted to go to the show that started at 8:45.  We got there at 9 because of the hoopla.  The show was pretty good.  It was singing and dancing throughout the decades.  We went to both adult comedy shows at 10 and 11.  Both of them were hysterical.  Once again, I still think comedy can be very funny without swearing, but whatever.  Naturally, we got food somewhere in there just because we could.  After the comedy I ended up playing poker until around 1 and walked away with a little bit of extra dough.  I accomplished a lot that first full day at sea.  Tomorrow, you will get to hear all of the adventures that took place at Grand Cayman.