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May 4, 2019
Le Havre, France

Today was our only destination in France, Le Havre. Le Havre is a port city, where the Seine River meets the English Channel. Le Havre is the closest we will come to Paris, though the city is still a three-hour drive away.

We had a long stop here, and most of the ship’s passengers spent the day out on excursions. The trips to Paris – whether to see the Louvre, Eiffel Tower or self-navigation – would take 10-11 hours. By 8:30 am, the ship was almost empty.

We stayed aboard. Gail’s cold has gotten worse. She cancelled her escort excursion to the Medieval town of Honfleur and spent the morning sleeping in the cabin. Russell walked around the near-empty ship taking pictures.

In the afternoon, Russell took the free shuttle into Le Havre and took more pictures there. Gail finally went to the ship’s doctor. She discovered she doesn’t have a cold – she has both upper and lower respiratory infections. What’s more, she has probably had them for the past three weeks. She is now on antibiotics.

This evening we hosted our second lecture: “Fascinating Facts About the Mona Lisa – Tidbits You Never Learned.” (May 2 was the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci.) We knew beforehand that our timeslot would be challenging. As usual, it was at 6:30 pm – right in the middle of dinner time. In addition, all of the Paris excursions were still underway, with passengers not returning until 7:30 or later.

Nevertheless, Gail estimated that Russell’s audience included pretty much everyone who was still aboard the ship. Once again, we received universally positive feedback. Passengers kept us busy well after the lecture with their questions, comments and discussions.

A fellow lecturer told us it is actually beneficial that all of Russell’s lectures are at the end of the cruise. We will be fresher on passengers’ minds when they fill out their after-cruise surveys.

Russell’s next lecture will be tomorrow morning at 10:30 am, just before we arrive in our next port of Bruges, Belgium. This will be Russell’s only morning lecture, and we are hopeful that the more attractive timeslot will give us a larger audience.

 

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