Day 6 - Mon 12/10/18 - Funchal, Madeira, Portugal



The ship slid into its berth in the early morning darkness at 7:45am as we were eating breakfast. We met our little group of 3 other couples in the Dutch Cafe before heading off the ship to find our driver, Daniel.

He showed up a few minutes later and took us in a wonderful trip along the west coast of Madeira Island, to the north coast, and back to the ship using the valley that runs north and south. Along the way we had a light lunch at a bakery, and sampled some liquors and wines along the way. We had been to many of the places on a previous visit. He explained a truism about Madeira: if you are not going up, you are going down. The roads are generally very twisty and going sharply up and down. Plus there are hundreds of tunnels.

Back at the ship, we headed back to town to find some super glue for a nativity scene project Angela is working on. At one store, they happened to have a tube for their own use, but sold it to us. We walked back to the ship and reboarded it just after 4pm for a 4:30pm onboard time.  

I watched the sail away before we enjoyed a simple dinner of a Reuben sandwich and potato chips before watching the quintet perform Schubert music on the Lincoln Center Stage (excellent and a great venue location). Afterwards on the World Stage, we watched a sassy and excellent jazz pianist, Judy Carmichael, who also has a program on PBS. The auditorium was virtually full for the first time for us on this voyage.

Today I met the person in charge of the internet to inquire about why the internet had been virtually unusable for the past 3 days since Cartegena. He explained that there were severe technical difficulties and personnel were put on board to fix it. He also indicated that if it's not fixed by tomorrow, an adjustment to the pricing would be made. As a postscript, overnight the speeds resumed and pictures could be uploaded and websites visited.

Tomorrow has a full slate of lectures and the cabin crawl. Stay tuned.

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