My future home

Thanks to the generosity of a man who, I suspect, woke up from a nap to answer my knock on his door, I got to see the stateroom I'll have for the world cruise. It's on the third deck, the "lower promenade deck", with a window looking out at the ocean. The view is "partly obstructed" by the graceful sweep of a column of the ship's external superstructure, and the obstruction is maybe 15% of what I'd see if it weren't there -- absolutely no problem. The exterior of the window is covered with a mirror-like substance, so I can stare out at people walking by without having them stare back in at me.

You can see what the space looks like by going here, then clicking on "Staterooms" and "Oceanview". I'm going to see if I can get the room configured with only one twin-size bed against the left-hand wall -- that's all the space I need to sleep in, and it would be nice to have more floorspace, plus that second bed will, guaranteed, end up being where I throw all my stuff, which the housekeepers will dutifully fold and stack for me and which I will regularly unfold and unstack to get to random items of stuff that I think I want. They will come to hate me.

The stateroom (I keep wanting to write "cabin", which I think I will do in future) is close to a door out onto the external walkway that goes all the way around the ship. I meant to find out how long that walk would be, but I forgot. There are lots of chairs on the deck, and Nanette assures me that, should the weather be chilly, they come around with cups of absolutely delicious split pea soup for anyone sitting outside.

I'm spending a lot of time thinking about being in that cabin or walking around on the deck. I've been assured that even when the ocean is fairly rough, the ship is engineered so that walking around will be possible. Here I am, looking out to sea, watching waves crash and blow in the stiff breeze, sipping my soup. And smiling. There's a lot of smiling in these fantasies. Can't think why.