Thursday the 6th and friday the 7th of August, we were pretty busy at sea. looking at my pictures, though, it’s so much all about the food. well, one reason, like i’ve mentioned, is because amy wanted to see photos of food! also, there were many beautifully-presented things. stuff we normally don’t eat, or get to see.
i usually felt that i got way more to eat than kevin at the buffet. but i got lots of good fruit! but yet, i did have a nice hunk of brie. because it was there. and i love brie! i wrote in my journal that day “Didn’t eat quite as much as the other mornings – i’m trying to not eat all the cheese every meal!”
gee, it looks like a whole lot of food to me…the other mornings must have been pretty gigantic.
after eating, we went to a couple of lectures – lots of the lectures on the ship were very interesting. somebody talked about the origins of opium, heroin, and morphine. here’s an interesting thing we learned – the origin of “junkie.” at the turn of the century (i think that’s when it happened, women stole metal from junkyards and sold it to buy heroin!
and it’s called “heoin” because the drug was created to stop morphine addiction. they tried it on workers, who said it made them feel like a hero!
this was followed by a lecture on howard hughes, but the topic was way too long for the 50 minutes alloted, so the guy really roared through his life.
salad for lunch!
we’d been to a lecture about the Magna Carta the day before, and today we listened to the 2nd part of the lecture. the magna carta was introduced in 1215, so this is the 800th anniversary. much later in our trip, we went to a display about the magna carta in maidstone, with our friends carol and alan. but that’s much later….
tea at the buffet; not as fancy as the one in the ballroom, but almost as good.
i spent too much time getting ready for the formal night; too much time for me, that is. i don’t like to spend so much effort putting on lots of makeup and stuff. i know that many women do this every single day, but it seems like too much of a waste of my very important time.
it was fun to sashay all around the ship all gussied up, though!
this is a fancy menu, which we got every night.
i guess the meal wasn’t memorable, but the dessert was delicious! i had the rack of lamb, and i never eat the red meat. it was good.
afterwards we stopped in at the big band ball and actually danced one dance! this was something, because the ball didn’t even begin til 10:30, waaaaay past kevin’s normal bedtime. it was fun to dance, although a little more challenging because of the gentle swaying of the ship.
Friday, August 7th – more breakfast, more cheese, and then we sat out on the deck. it was beautiful and sunny, and we talked to two women from Blackstone, England. they’re flown over a week ago, spent five nights in NYC, and were sailing back to the UK. lots of brits seemed to be doing this – i think they can get great package deals. but they rarely see anything else in the US, which is such an incredibly distorted picture of the whole place!
i walked all around, up to the top deck, and stopped by the kennel to pet a little old white dog. i took a few photos.
There were a few people sunning themselves (why do people still do that???), but there were way more of them down on deck seven, the promenade. maybe some people never venture all the way up to the top.
at lunch, there was always some special thing set up in the middle of the buffets; today it was lots of puff pastry, with this cute little minion. i could make one of those! maybe.
the many varieties of puff pastry were a visual delight, but not as delicious as they looked. this was lucky for me, so i didn’t feel the need to dive headfirst into them.
every day they had some kind of low-sugar dessert, and kevin almost always got them. plus some delicious-looking chocolatey thing from the puff pastry bar.
the writing “timamisu” is edible, i don’t know how. magic, probably.
after lunch we went to the second performance of a great classic guitarist named Nils Klofver. we wish we’d seen his first show, because he was so good.
afterwards we bought his cd from him, which he autographed, and i play it while giving massages. we’d see him around the ship later during the voyage, but because he wasn’t dressed up, he looked like a teenager. more and more people look so very young these days…
we walked six times all around the deck, which was 2.2 miles, and then drank iced tea out on the deck. i’m glad we spent so much time outside on this voyage, because it was chilly most of the way home and we weren’t outside so much at all.
we invited the english couple we’d met when we were setting sail over for champagne before dinner. rob and anne, they were fun and engaging.
i didn’t document my dinner this night, but did write down that i had prime rib with yorkshire pudding – how light and healthy!
before dinner we went to yet another concert; i can’t remember these girls’ names. they were pretty good, but not as good as nils. i thought it was funny that the blonde wore such casual shoes with the sparkly long dress. practical, but not very showy.
the sky was especially dazzling that night.
we went to bed pretty quickly after our late dinner, maybe around 10:30, but the people next door, who had complained about kevin smoking his pipe, were out on their balcony talking…and talking…and i got more and more angry and they just didn’t stop, so i finally got out of bed and called to complain about them. shortly thereafter i heard their phone ring, and then they shut up. but then, a while later, our phone started ringing and ringing! grrrr….i finally got up and answered it and the person on the end was calling to make sure that the “horrible noise” i’d complained about had stopped. well, i didn’t say horrible noise, i just said they were talking and keeping me awake, and then i was so wound up that it took way too long to get to sleep, and then woke up in the middle of the night forever, and decided i needed to cut back on all the caffeine during the day, plus all the red meat!
another exciting day at sea, getting closer and closer to OUR WALK!
ok then,
mrs. sailing hughes.