Sing Us a Song! 

On our first formal night we wandered around after the Vegas-style show they had, looking for something to do. Joe was bummed because we'd missed karaoke, as it was held during our dinner seating that night. I remembered reading something online about a piano bar, so we set out in search for it. We had so much fun, we wound up there for several hours each night thereafter.

It was SO much fun to feel such a part of a group. We ran into these people all over the ship, hung out at other events, saved seats for the comedians, etc., bought each other drinks. It was like sailing with our extended family. We got to know many of the people quite well, though some we only knew by face or by what song they liked to request each night.

Mark "Not Brie" Guttenplan Our host and pianist, Mark, was actually filling in for the hospitalized Brie during the week of our cruise. You'd never know this wasn't his regular gig, if he hadn't admitted it. He was a ton of fun, was rarely stumped on a song request, and made our evenings really great. "Let's see a karaoke machine do that!"	Russ! Russ hailed from Pittsburgh and what his vocal skills lacked, he more than made up for with his enthusiasm. Here, I've caught him in the midst of his trademark "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon now touch me , babe" Doors rendition. Russ brought people into the piano bar and on subsequent nights they came back for more and more.
Daniel, My Brother Well, he's obviously not really my brother, but we all serenaded Daniel (the guy in the black shirt) with the famous Elton John song of the same name.	Oops! Here Daniel does a little deck-swabbing, cleaning under the piano when someone bumped a drink. Mark played as loudly as possible, to help. ;)
I Will Survive This woman from Virginia (I didn't catch her name), shows comedian Jim Brick some Woman Power in her rendition of "I Will Survive."	Just the Way You Are Joe was very popular in the piano bar. People would pass him the mic and request songs for him to sing. He was particularly popular with Billy Joel's "Piano Man" and "Just the Way You Are," as well as "New York, New York." He even did an a capella "Stars" from Les Miz on our last night.
Joe and Katerina Our buddy Russ developed quite a crush on Katerina, one of our cocktail waitresses for the week. She was really great and we all liked her a lot. She's from Slovakia and is coming up on her vacation soon.	Katerina Sings Russ and Mark prepared a special song which Russ sang for Katerina, with all of us as backup singers. Katerina was so touched, she sang for all of us.
Great Balls of Fire Mark does Jerry Lee Lewis.	Fun People The man's name is Charles and he drank champagne every night, so we all called him "Champagne Guy." The woman in the middle was from South America and helped us all with the words to "La Bamba" and "Guantanamera." Her friend is the same woman as the picture up above.
O Danny Boy Vicki is from Ireland and really should sing professionally. Her singing (including "O Danny Boy" of course) gave us chills.	Our Waitresses Danica and Katerina took very good care of all of us every night. The guy in the middle we saw everywhere and was travelling with Russ and Russ' best friend, Andy. He was their high school running coach, so we just called him "Coach."
William I swear I took half a dozen pictures of William and they all made him look sleepy like this. He was a really nice guy. I hung out with him and his wife on the last afternoon on the ship.

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