I’ve been on a river cruise for the past week.  Let me talk about seating for breakfast/lunch/dinner.  It’s not assigned seating and so my husband and I just sit in a corner with a window view.  My husband thinks I’m going to throw up from motion sickness, but I just want the seat with the view.  Interesting enough, in our little corner, we could potentially appear anti-social.  Lot of other couples were sitting with other couples, getting to know each other and we were quite content where we were.  Once in a while, when the dining area gets crowded, a couple will request to join us at our table and we had no issues with that, but for the most part we kept to ourselves and everything was just fine.  Most couples just figured we were anti-social and kept away from us.
On our second to last day, on a tour of Porto city, we waited in line to see the library that was the inspiration for JK Rowling’s Harry Potter.  You guys have heard of that book, right?  The line to get tickets was 10 minutes long.  The line to enter (after you have purchased tickets) was about 40 minutes long and we only had 50 minutes to hang out in the city.  Being the Harry Potter fan, I was not leaving without seeing this staircase.  The plan was this.  My husband waited in the main line.  I waited in the ticket line.  So, by the time I got tickets, the main line had moved a bit, maybe.
Well, we were about 20 minutes out into entering this fabulous bookstore when we saw this mother and her daughter.  They were both from our cruise and the little girl was a Harry Potter fan.  Her mom  asked me about the process to get to the store.  I explained.  By now the back of the line was a 50 minute wait.  The mom told her daughter that they couldn’t make it.  The poor girl was dejected.  I felt bad.  I couldn’t let that happen.  Gosh!  They were all the way in Portugal, at the bookstore that was the inspiration for Hogwarts staircases.  I said to the mom that I would allow her to cut the line and join us.  She let her daughter wait with us and got tickets and well we all got to see the fabulous bookstore.  Yes, that’s me standing in front of the staircase.  The bookstore was so amazing.  I can see how she got inspired by it.
Well, the mom was coughing on and off and on our last lunch, she and her daughter joined us.  So much for us being anti-social.  Before we left the cruise, she gave me a hug and told me she had a great time and thanked me again for letting them cut in line and all that good stuff.  I got on the airplane and I knew something was wrong.  I wasn’t feeling well.
I don’t know if it was the first connection or the second one but I was coughing and almost throwing up while coughing so fiercely.  My husband was worried.  I needed to start my antibiotic immediately but we had a long journey in front of us.  Well, 14 hours later we drove straight to Walgreen and I got my antibiotic.  There’s another story in there about always carrying your ID for being a doctor, but I’ll spare you.  I came home and wondered.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be anti-social.  Maybe I should have not been so kind as to let them cut the line.  All that time on the boat, I was fine.  I was perfect.  We sat in our little corner and I was healthy.  Then you get to meet more people and hang out more and come home sick.  More anti-social behavior from me coming right up!

Best wishes to you all.  Happy New Year.
TTR