OK, THE FIRST THING.....

I want to tell you about our trip is that we had awesome tablemates for the dinner meal. (On a cruise, everyone is assigned a certain table for dinner during the entire cruise.) What a diverse group we were. Of course, there was Tony and me, typical midwesterners.

Then there was the family below. Susan, Sophia and Daniel are a family that has lived all over the world. Susan is from the US and is married to Daniel who is from Honduras. They have a son and a daughter; their daughter, Sophia, was vacationing with them. They have lived in Honduras and Taiwan and now live in Spain. Sophia is going to college in Washington, DC. They were all three extremely interesting people to talk with and Daniel kept the whole table in stitches every evening. He has a really sharp wit!

Next around the table, and on the opposite end from me and Tony, were this daughter and father. Mother could not come because of work. This is Thuy (pronounced "Twee") and Liem. Liem is from Viet Nam. I'm not sure where Thuy was born. Liem lives in North Carolina and Thuy just finished law school in New York City. She took her bar exams right before they came on the cruise. She won't find out until October how she did.

Next around the table were Jimmy, Michelle and Erica. They, too, are from North Carolina and found that they live relatively close to Liem. Jimmy's mother was pregnant with him when the family moved to the US from Greece. So he is a first generation US citizen. He works for an airline. Erica sat right next to me and we had a WONDERFUL talk the first evening. This was her first cruise and she was so excited. The one thing she was looking forward to the most was swimming with the dolphins which she got to do on Wednesday while we were in port at Nassau. She is very grown up for her age and quite a little lady. As you can see, she's going to be a heartbreaker. Dad has his plans made. He has a gun and a boat and won't be afraid to use them. LOL

I can honestly say that I looked forward to dinner each evening knowing that these were the folks with whom I'd be sharing my table.