Of course, it would have to be eggs Benedict day in the Club Restaurant for breakfast, something I have never once in my life consumed, but G enjoys it, so he had that while I ate one piece of toast and enjoyed my decaf Americano. We had seen that both sides of the Promenade Deck were closed off but could see sun shining outside the dining room windows. After breakfast we went up to Deck 10 and found the outer decks there also closed off. Walking down one deck and out to the pool showed us exactly why. The wind was ferocious. The pool was netted over but the hot tubs were still open. But it was not a good day to linger outside (however, it did feel warmer than we've had in days!).
I went into the library on Deck 10 to publish last night's blog post while G returned to the cabin to clean up a bit for the 10:15am Veterans get together. Although we did not commemorate Veterans Day yesterday en masse on the ship, due to it being a port day, Captain D did make a very appropriate announcement about it and asked us all to give it a moment of silence and thought at 11:11am at our home time. And we did. (Thank you, Suzan, for your kind thoughts. I've relayed them to G.)
I had worried quite a bit, when I went up to the library and felt that telltale vertigo that precedes sea sickness, about my ability to make it to the MTP luncheon, held right next door in Sabatinis on Deck 10, but as soon as I sat down I was fine. Since lunch involved mostly sitting (and drinking and eating) I figured I could manage to not make a scene by rushing out. With G out of the cabin, I readied my clothes and jewelry for lunch and actually had a few minutes to sit and read a non-travel book for the first time this season. Really. I see people all around me on the ship with their heads tucked into books (one couple sat in the Pacific Lounge next to a window and read all the way through the Grand Canal two nights ago, which had me wanting to take photos of them rather than the Grand Canal), but they are not married to G and I suspect they do not write daily blog posts. Those two things conspire to keep me fairly busy with any downtime we do scrounge up on these port intensive cruises. So today I opened my Kindle app and happily started reading The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson. If you've ever read any of his books, you know he is laugh out loud funny, and it is dangerous to read one in public without drawing pitying glances from nearby people wondering if you've lost your mind. But alone in the privacy of our cabin, I laughed with glee for the first time in...oh, about four days. ;-)
Too soon I had to set aside the book. G was still out of the cabin and, although it was only 10:50am, bathroom time is in short supply on formal nights and MTP luncheon day and I thought I'd better get ready while I could. Captain D gave a weather update at 11:50am, saying he had an engagement at 12:00pm and couldn't do the noon update. ;-) He also said that our early departure from Kotor yesterday had allowed us to outrun the worst of this weather front and that things should be improving today by 4 to 6pm. (He was absolutely right about that, but, in our Deck 3 cabin, we continued to have washing machine-type views with waves covering the porthole until we went to dinner). The sun was shining brightly even before the wind (40 knots and gusting higher) calmed. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the high 60s and sunny. We love Greece!
Below is today's MTP luncheon menu. I will add photos when I return home. Actually, I'll have to get them from G. I didn't take any today.
Captain D checking out the menu being described by waiter Samsuri from Indonesia
(they are both among our favorites!)
Starter
Potpourri of shellfish Neptune, with crab meat salad, lobster tail and sea scallops
Whoops, not the potpourri of shellfish Neptune!
I forgot that G had ordered something without seafood for his starter and received
beef carpaccio with parma ham and mozzarella balls.
Intermezzo
Lemon and sage sorbet
Entree
Baked, herb crusted turbo filet
OR
Mediterranean style stuffed rack of lamb (my choice)
OR
Vegetarian risotto
Mediterranean style rack of lamb
Dessert
Pistachio parfait with chocolate profiterole
With
Petit Fours
I can count on two fingers the number of times in my life that I've had lamb, but it was tender and delicious and I loved it.
At 2:45pm, we had to be in the Cabaret Lounge for the BIG!!!!!! $500 Treasure Hunt Drawing*!!! (*must be present to win). Again, G did all the work getting the required stamps from each department on the entry forms. All I had to do was to show up. It's the least I can do. ;-) Believe it or not, we were BOTH winners! Such excitement! G won back the chocolate covered strawberries we used to get on formal nights anyways and I won a free casino tournament entry fee worth $20. So, although I won the opportunity to make $100s, we all know exactly what I'll come away with, right? Nada. Still, the slot tournament (the only one I am skilled enough to play) will be on the next sea day so it's kind of fun having something to look forward to. It's like buying a lotto ticket...it makes for fun dreams for at least a couple of nights.
After that momentous event, I was so concerned about staying cleaned up and looking put together for the evening (because we were posing for a formal night picture for next year's Christmas card...round 1) all I did was sit in the cabin and read. At least our porthole hatch was unbattened after our cabin was serviced this morning, which made it a more pleasant place to be. We had our photos taken and were in the Club Restaurant with no appetite at all at 5:30pm...but that didn't stop us from eating and drinking even more. At least we went light on dessert with just pink grapefruit sorbet (yummy).
We finished up the evening with production show Motor City, so you know it was a good day all around. And, tomorrow, we don't arrive in Santorini, Greece until 9am, and the forecast looks great. Even better!
And, finally, this sea day provides me an opportunity to mention a few things that I've been meaning to tell you, and to do a bit of catch up, so buckle your seat belts for the GPS-worthy section of today's post.
The travel vests we have from TravelSmith have been a huge success. G has two of these in different colors, and wears them all the time at home, but I had more recently purchased one, figuring I could wear it on walks and to the boys' practices and games and on other occasions where I might not want to carry a purse. For these European ports, they've been all we've needed. I brought my backpack but mostly for the Caribbean ports we'll be visiting where we'll spend days on a beach. I've worn the vest alone over a long sleeved t-shirt (on the few warmer days we've had) or over my Goretex jacket, and have finally gotten the hang of its 15 pockets. (I'm simply consistent about where I put things.) We've been able to avoid the bag checks when entering different cathedrals and sites and they were especially nice when riding the vaporettos in Venice, where there are signs posted instructing that backpacks be removed and placed on the ground beside passengers. Passing through metal detectors we simply remove them and place them in bins on the conveyor belt; everything metal is in them and not in pants or shirt pockets. They've been very good things.
I'm pretty happy with the daily pill bags I'm using for the first time this year. They have certainly made the morning and evening pill taking exercise faster, but I've learned to empty them out on the bed sheet and not my palm. I had pills rolling every which way when I tried the latter. As for my Ambien in its original bottle, not once during our three transatlantic flights and multiple immigration interactions did anyone even open my roll aboard.
We have been in the same cabin on Deck 3 for two cruises in a row (and would have been here for the cruise that wasn't, too), but are scheduled to move to Deck 8 next cruise and then down to the same cabin on Deck 4 for the two cruises following that. Gidea in Passenger Services is trying to find us a cabin on either Decks 3 or 4 for next cruise, to make it a bit easier to move, but if it doesn't happen, it's fine with us. If we couldn't live with the Deck 8 cabin, we shouldn't have booked it. It's just that we couldn't get the same cabin for all of our originally scheduled cruises so we took what we could.
For friends who knew the trials and tribulations I endured trying to get a combination of shoes and orthotics to be able to comfortably walk and climb cobblestone paths (one friend's first comment when she heard of our travel plans was, "Oh but 'that' foot!", and rightfully so, because it is an issue everyday of my life), through preservance and duct tape and foam padding I am fairly comfortably walking miles and climbing hundreds of stairs nearly every day, nothing less than a miracle (hmmm...maybe all the candle lighting has paid off). On our return, I am going to take my duct taped and foam padded orthotic to my doctor and ask him to copy that...EXACTLY. No changes!
For those cruisers who are joining us on one of the next two cruises, I strongly recommend packing warm layers. Except for our Greek ports, temps have ranged from cold to frigid. I brought a headband and gloves and have since added a wool hat. G is wearing a ski cap and heavy gloves. I'll admit that our cold tolerance has no doubt been affected by six winters spent cruising tropical islands, and wet cold is ten times colder than dry cold, but we've heard several comments from fellow passengers that they did not pack warmly enough.
Is that it for miscellaneous thoughts? I guess so. I need to start writing them down when I think about them, because when I finally have time to talk about them, I can't remember what they were. And if that's not proof positive that I am solidly moving through the back half of middle age, I don't know what is.
