At Sea

Today we are at sea all day as we travel from Italy to Turkey. At the moment we are somewhere south of Greece and we can't see land at all. James and I are relaxing beside the small pool, which is less noisy than the main pool which always has music and sometimes dancing too! The pool is in a circular tiled courtyard with a bar called "The Solarium" and it is decorated Roman style with mosaics, pillars and statues. It is very attractive but the ship must weigh a lot, and goes up fourteen floors above the waterline at its highest point! We are finding out way around the ship pretty well now, and have chosen our favourite bar for the evenings.
We can feel the motion of the ship more today now that we are farther out at sea. I have been surprised by how cosmopolitan the atmosphere is; I had expected the clientele to be mainly British but this is far from the case. There are quite a lot of Italians and lots and lots of Americans. The staff are from all over the world; our waiters always introduce themselves by saying where they are from which so far has included Texas, Turkey and Mexico City! I quite like this because it feels like being in a small floating city.
I have started "The Guermantes Way" which is the 3rd volume of Proust's "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu". I had decided to wait until 2013 before reading the next volume but a sea voyage seems an appropriate time to set my thoughts adrift with Proust, and I have recently finished Alain de Botton's "How Proust can change your life" which made me want to get back into it sooner. So I will get back to my reading and then a dip in the pool.