Day ?: Offshore Accounts

Today I got off the ship for the first time in a city called Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. It was about 22 C out which I believe felt around 65 or 70F. Right when I got off the ship there was a giant mall. I looked around for a minute, but was more interested in the beach that was also nearby.

On my way to the beach, I passed a lot of little shops and restaraunts, some in buldings, some on the sidewalk. There are two things there are an abundance of in Las Palmas: Chinese Buffets and Banks. I took a picture of the first chinese buffet I saw, I thinking it was a funny novelty, but then I saw about 3 more just in my walk towards the beach. Since this seemed to be a big tourist city, I imagine there are a lot of asian tourists as well. The nice thing about the restauraunts was that they had their menus posted outside in multiple languages.

Since it was a port day, I knew I could eat upstairs in the guest cafe cand have a nice selection of guest food (which I'm starting to realize is crew food, just a day earlier.) Since I could eat free on the ship, I decided to stop in a bakery and ask the woman behind the counter to pick something sweet out for me. She gave me a pastry that was cut into a long triangle, similar to a pizza slice. The pastry was on the top and bottom and sandwiched between was some sort of cream and lemon custard. I asked what it was called and I'm pretty sure she said "cunio" or "curio." Anyone with better access to google might help me out and post the answer.

As I said, the other thing in abundance was is Las Palmas was banks. I realized that when people say in movies (or I imagine in real life too) "he transferred the money to an offshore account in the canary islands" that THIS is where they meant! I didn't ask if any of the banks had a super saver account I could store my remaining 8 Euros in.

After I came back I practiced a bit and then we had rehearsal. We paused rehearsal for about 20 minutes to watch the Obama inaugeration and speech in the theatre on a drop down movie screen. Both the band and the cast stood and clapped often. Even the Brits amongst us recognized the importance of the moment.