Cagliari, Sardinia

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

We visited Cagliari on the island of Sardinia today. It was a beautiful 72 and sunny. For the first time that I remember, we did not sign up for an excursion. We set an 8am alarm, but I couldn’t get woken up until 9. We lingered over breakfast and finally walked into town around 11.

We climbed the hills and strangely my heart did not go bang, bang, bang and it was AWESOME. We climbed up the stairs of some sort of pretty stone/brick/something hard building and looked at the view. We listened to a guy playing saxophone in the square way below us. When we climbed (climbed? What do you do down? Went? Went doesn’t seem good. De-escalated? No) down we went over to put money in the saxophone guy’s case and found a place to buy a can of Coke Zero. It was warm and we had moved a bit, and it was so good, sitting there under the trees, listening to the guy play jazz standards.

We shopped in a store that sold jewelry made out of recycled aluminum and/or recycled brass. I bought a bunch of stuff, because it was chunky jewelry, which I love, and it was recycled, which I love.

We would’ve bought this awesome moon plate, but it was too big to get home.

I wore my Harris. Walz. Obviously. shirt and had several people like it. We played trivia with a dad and son (when they asked us to play, I was a bit boggled that I couldn’t hear if they were Brits or Aussies. Turns out originally from south of London and now the son lives in Melbourne. Both! They were welcoming of my shirt and wished us good luck on saving humanity with the vote today) and had a marvelous time. We lost by one (of course) and would have won the tie breaker had we been in the tie break. We stayed an hour afterward, hearing stories of Simon’s (the son) many escapades throughout the world. Wow – interesting!! His dad, Keith, (can you believe that!?) was funny, telling him to tell us this or that. As we were leaving the Wheelhouse Bar to go back to our room, I went one way and Keith went the other. I was lost earlier, so it was fair to doubt my direction, but I felt pretty solid. Checking out the door, Keith (mine, not the Brit) had to admit he was wrong. There were six ladies in front of us and I made the point that I was right and he was wrong. They cheered that he admitted it. We walked out and started down the stairs. A lady touched my arm and said, “Do you know what’s going on?” Not one to pick up change of topic, I said I am going down to 6 because I live there. She said, “No, with the race.” I remembered my shirt. She is from Ohio and hoping as we are hoping. We told her we wouldn’t possibly get any news until 5am tomorrow morning. Hopefully, it will be a landslide for Kamala and everything will be over in another day.

We had dinner in the buffet again, because we aren’t able to make dinner reservations for the dining room. It is all full. Buffet is good for us. A couple from San Fransisco sat with us and struck up conversation. They were very interested in MN and are planning to visit, because they never have. What? Planning a trip to Minnesota? That has not come up before. We talked about other cruises, and they hated Viking as much as we did. That was a fun rant. They love Jeopardy and we totally nerded out about that. We all went to the evening show, Peter Grant, a vocalist. He was good, but probably quite forgettable (hence I wrote it down). We exchanged contact information with Kevin and Marie so we can plan their trip to MN. Won’t that be fun, if it happens?

We tried a new game show at 9:30 The Living Room Game. It was run by three assistant cruise directors. One we encountered yesterday, and she does not seem to understand what is going on with the games, or with what people say to her. One was new today and she seemed to think it was fun to cheat during the game. The other one was overrun by the other two, but seems to know what is going on and was trying to let people have fun. It was two “families” of four playing against each other. Half the room was supposed to cheer for their family. The cheating girl had her half yell out answers. She decided if the other family missed a question, her family could steal. I could go on, but won’t. It was not fun at all. A LOT of people left. We stayed just to see the questions, I think. I was waiting for the movie category – they got six movies to put into chronological order. I liked that one. I didn’t know Good Fellas – but knew all the rest of the 12 total movies. Hopefully, my family would have helped me.

We finished the evening in the piano bar again tonight. There are a lot of drunk people in the piano bar. One lady would whoop (literally) and throw her arms in the air and yell, “I love this song,” at the beginning of every song – then immediately continue her loud conversation with her friends about things she saw today. A not drunk lady was standing outside the bar area, singing along to every word of every song, doing tiny dancing – ever so small swaying and finger movements. Her husband was on his phone.

People are interesting. Let’s hope all the people are voting for Kamala. Three more hours until MN closes. Go vote!

A view from our stateroom window: