{"id":2719,"date":"2009-12-18T09:05:25","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T14:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/?p=2719"},"modified":"2009-12-18T09:05:25","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T14:05:25","slug":"on-board-the-queen-mary-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/uncategorized\/on-board-the-queen-mary-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"ON BOARD THE QUEEN MARY II"},"content":{"rendered":"

i got up at SIX THIRTY this morning.\u00a0 i don’t know why.\u00a0 maybe because i have a lot to do today.\u00a0 mostly today i have to make stuff for randy’s party tonight.\u00a0 i was going to space it out during the week so i didn’t have to do everything today, but i kept getting caught up in other things.\u00a0 yesterday i did no baking because i was baked out.\u00a0 plus i took the dogs running and mollie rolled in something dead that was exceedingly stinky (as opposed to marginally stinky?), so i had to give her a bath.<\/p>\n

anyway, last night randy was here making out a list for the stuff he has to buy for the party and he finally said, after writing down “soda” and “oranges for wassail,” GRACE, YOU’RE DOING EVERYTHING FOR THE PARTY!\u00a0 I SHOULD PAY YOU!<\/p>\n

yes you should.<\/p>\n

no, not really, it’s not that much stuff, but like i said, it would have been nice to have some of it done already.<\/p>\n

but at least mollie smells really sweet.\u00a0 for now, anyway.\u00a0 today if we run, she’ll be on the leash the whole time.<\/p>\n

one thing i’m making for the party are those delicious blue cheese-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon.\u00a0 the ones i made at thanksgiving and GAINED FIVE POUNDS FROM.\u00a0 today i’m not going to eat any of them, because i now know where it’ll lead.<\/p>\n

finally, here are more photos of the queen mary.\u00a0 i thought i’d post all of them, but there are too many.\u00a0 ALMOST done with them, though.<\/p>\n

eating eating eating…as i wrote before, it was a good idea to wear the very tight dress at the first opportunity.\u00a0 we’d have a healthy breakfast at about 8:30, then lunch in the fancy dining room at 12:30.\u00a0 after lunch there was always a planetarium show, where we’d go in the fancy auditorium and sit in plush seats that tilted all the way back.\u00a0 they’d shut off the lights and project the show in the dome and some famous actor with a deep and sonorous voice would talk about…what?\u00a0 it was more like being lulled to sleep by harison ford, or tom hanks, or morgan freeman.\u00a0 every day i struggled to stay awake, and it was about the most vigorous thing i did during the trip.<\/p>\n

at 3:30 there was a very fancy tea in the queen’s room.\u00a0 VERY FANCY – millions of waiters wearing white gloves served you endless little cups of tea on all the fancy china, and they kept bringing in tray after tray of delicious hot scones served with clotted cream and jam.\u00a0 clotted cream, fyi, is basically whipped cream.\u00a0 of COURSE we had to have more than one delicious hot scone.\u00a0 they also served us fancy little crustless sandwiches, but i managed to only have a couple of them because they were just ok.\u00a0 also they served very fancy-looking little cakes of all kinds.\u00a0 again, only a couple – they were pretty good, but the scones were the best.<\/p>\n

after eating a lot of tea, we went to the early dinner, which was 6:30!\u00a0 crazy.\u00a0 there was always a healthy option for dinner, but many times the non-healthy options sounded way too good to pass up.\u00a0 plus the desserts…<\/p>\n

luckily we’d done all that biking before getting on the ship.<\/p>\n

here’s us with our new friends carol and mary, lovely english women who were our table-mates at dinner.\u00a0 our other table-mates were an english couple who now lived in florida.\u00a0 luckily they were still british citizens so they couldn’t vote because they DIDN’T VOTE FOR OBAMA, and one night we started talking about politics a little bit and the old guy was saying some unfortunate things about obama and democrats and luckily i was dressed in a fancy long dress so i didn’t feel like punching him.\u00a0 i then tried not to hate them, but they were actually very sweet people, in spite of their fatal flaw.<\/p>\n

carol and mary, though, were lots of fun.<\/p>\n

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this guy was sitting at a table right by ours, and the first time i saw him i said THAT LOOKS JUST LIKE DAD!\u00a0 a much OLDER dad, of course.\u00a0 so kevin covertly took a picture of him one night.<\/p>\n

kevin, Mr. Covert, is getting a SPECIAL COMMENDATION this morning.\u00a0 he has to put on a suit and tie and go to the state police headquarters.\u00a0 i wonder if he remembers how to tie a tie?\u00a0 i bet he’ll shave!\u00a0 he’s getting it for the workup they did on the killing of a state cop who died in that incident involving that bar out in the country that has since been closed down.\u00a0 so kevin is going to have a very busy morning, then he’ll go to wayne’s house this afternoon and continue laying tile in wayne’s basement.\u00a0 hmm, i feel that kevin will want to leave the party tonight at about eight.<\/p>\n

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kevin took this first photo of the clouds and sea.<\/p>\n

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i’d been out of the room, and when i came back, he was sleeping.\u00a0 i went out on the balcony and couldn’t help myself – i took many, many photos because it was just so beautiful.<\/p>\n

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looking out, it seemed that there was nothing but sea and land.\u00a0 the last day, though, i was up in the library looking out and saw a dolphin.\u00a0 “a dolphin!” i exclaimed to the guy sitting next to me, without even glancing over at him.\u00a0 “where?” he asked excitedly, and we followed the dolphin as it swam around to the side.\u00a0 i finally looked over at the guy.\u00a0 now, people weren’t really dressed up on the ship, but this guy was wearing flip flops and shorts and carried a big, serious bird book and some binoculars.\u00a0 his son was also there in the library, and clearly the family had spent much of their time looking out.\u00a0 the guy told me about the dolphins he’d seen, and the birds.\u00a0 “Birds?” i asked incredulously.\u00a0 i didn’t think there could be birds all the way out there.<\/p>\n

but he said that if i just stared out for a while, i’d see them.\u00a0 he showed me, and he was right.\u00a0 he said that at night the birds would all cluster together and sleep on the water.\u00a0 it was very cool, seeing these birds that i’d have totally missed if i hadn’t run into that man.<\/p>\n

and here is kevin sleeping inside.\u00a0 being on the ship made us very sleepy – not just from all the food, but we decided that because the ship was always gently rocking, it made us tired.\u00a0 everyone else we talked to on the ship felt the same way.\u00a0 we almost always had to nap at some point during the day, and we didn’t stay up late partying.<\/p>\n

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they had incredibly interesting lectures every day, and i attended almost all of them.\u00a0 john maxtone-graham is a frequent lecturer, and he has written books on ships and one day he gave a lecture about the titanic.\u00a0 there was also another guy, i can’t remember his name, who talked about new york architecture.\u00a0 he was really, really interesting.\u00a0 another day this same guy also talked about Thomas Paine.<\/p>\n

he had written a short book about him and Paine’s paper “common sense.”\u00a0 kevin went to the ship’s library to get his autograph when he had a book signing. (kevin was the first person in line).\u00a0 it was a beautiful library.\u00a0 as i wrote about earlier, i videotaped everything on the whole ship, but kevin didn’t take as many photos.\u00a0 maybe i can capture some of those images from the camera…yeah, that’s going to happen sometime soon.\u00a0 we haven’t even looked at the video yet!\u00a0 come to think of it, we haven’t even finished watching our WEDDING video!\u00a0 how will we know how the day turned out?<\/p>\n

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the main lobby.<\/p>\n

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carol really wanted to do everything that was offered on the ship, and she signed up for art classes (there was a fee for them).\u00a0 i think they lasted four hours a day, which seemed extreme to me.\u00a0 carol ended up only going in the mornings, after she’d get up really early and go swimming.\u00a0 here she is with a fan she painted.<\/p>\n

\"scotland-264\"<\/p>\n

even though the ship gently rocked, it didn’t really affect us; we could only barely feel it.\u00a0 but the second or third night it was very rough, and when we got back to our room i felt that i had to lie down RIGHT AWAY instead of even taking off my makeup.\u00a0 lying down felt better.\u00a0 but that night carol got very very sick.\u00a0 they had to call in a cleaning crew to clean up the room.\u00a0 she saw the doctor, and then they made her stay in her room for one entire day.\u00a0 they brought her horrible, bland broth and really boring stuff.\u00a0 they had given us all a paper about SARS when we board the ship, and i guess they were afraid she might have it.\u00a0 she didn’t, and she was fine the next day, eager to make up for the day she’d had to spend in bed.<\/p>\n

we really wanted to get a photo on the deck but it was SO WINDY.\u00a0 this is one of my favorites because my hair looks so crazy.<\/p>\n

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almost every morning we walked around the deck.\u00a0 this was quite fun.<\/p>\n

we were also going to work out in the gym, but the first day it was unbelievably crowded.\u00a0 i went there later on during the voyage, when it was raining, and there was almost nobody working out.\u00a0 clearly, people lost interest.<\/p>\n

there were always workers out polishing the wood and working working working.\u00a0\u00a0 it would be really hard work, having a job on a ship.<\/p>\n

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here’s our fancy dining room.\u00a0 this was the main dining room; there was another, smaller dining room for people in the REALLY expensive cabins.\u00a0 when we walked the deck we could peer into that room and it didn’t seem nearly as lavish, just because it was smaller.<\/p>\n

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here’s me with a delicious chocolate desert on the last night.\u00a0 one night we had baked alaska.\u00a0 this, though, was one of those chocolate cakes with a molten filling.\u00a0 i’d thought that was what was on the menu at lunch, so i’d ordered one, but it was just a regular chocolate cake.<\/p>\n

i think i had at least four desserts that day.<\/p>\n

\"scotland-268\"<\/p>\n

whew, now i feel full just thinking about all that food.\u00a0 that’s all for right now; maybe i’ll have more time later today to post the rest of the ship photos.\u00a0 THEN there are a few photos from our short stay in NYC.<\/p>\n

ok then, i hope your friday is filled with holiday treats and happiness!<\/p>\n

grace ready to whirl into action after two cups of very strong tea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

i got up at SIX THIRTY this morning.\u00a0 i don’t know why.\u00a0 maybe because i have a lot to do today.\u00a0 mostly today i have to make stuff for randy’s party tonight.\u00a0 i was going to space it out during the week so i didn’t have to do everything today, but i kept getting caught […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-2719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-scotland"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6JLYy-HR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}