No Lesbos, No Mykenos, No Kidding

---

Sharon went to mass after we slept to almost 7:15 AM. I finished up one blog, and still had to write yesterday. I chose to try the Eggs Benedict, which must not be as popular as they are on cruises in Alaska or New England. My experience is that they often have a dedicated Eggs Benedict station with a dozen different types of Eggs Benedict offered. Here in Europe there was no special Eggs Benedict station, just the normal Egg Station. And the eggs weren’t ready, they were cooked to order rather than already there to take out of the hot water. My dish was very good, but there was a bit of a wait.



We headed up to the Crow’s Nest to meet our trivia teammates; but, first we were to play our Sudoku Challenge. I won the Easy Puzzle; but, found difficulty in the Hard Puzzle and was forced to restart. After some (silent) cursing, Sharon gave up because the puzzles are too small for her detailed notation. I soon realized that I’d made another mistake so we had to call that one a draw with two DNFs!



It was just Jeremy and Audrey and Sharon and I for today’s trivia at 10:30 AM so a bit too early for a Happy Hour kick-start. We had some repeat questions, such as “What is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that is still standing?” The Great Pyramid of Giza. Or “What is 50 feet by 26 feet 1,500 miles?” From our China trip we know that the length is over 10,000 miles short, but to get this answer on a Holland America cruise you’d better say The Great Wall of China. “What is the technical name for laughing gas?” Lucky I was there to say “Nitrous Oxide” which everyone agreed with once I wrote it down. My mother could have helped with “Who is the author of “Pride and Prejudice”, “Mansfield Park” and “Emma”… Jane Austin. I thought I would be the only one in the room that could come with the chemical that comes last alphabetically. Many did come up with Zinc? But I edged them out with Zirconium! The room got stumped with what is the largest fruit crop in the world? Many people would ask, is that by volume, by weight, by value. Dave would say, and he said the 3 times, “That is an excellent question. Allow me to clarify…” And then he would say “What is the largest crop in the World!” This combined with Rule number 1 and 2 of Team Trivia made us know this was the limit of any clarification! We settled for apples but also came up with oranges or bananas. It didn’t matter, the actual answer was “Grapes”! Our teammates knew what novel/film that Phineas Fogg was the hero in: Around the World in 80 Days”. And our British friends knew their soccer: What team does Leonel Messi play for: Barcelona. Sharon wanted to know how I knew who the rapper was that made the region 8-Mile famous… Hey, I saw the movie about Eminem. Sharon suggested that the birthstone for May is the emerald. The final regular question was “In the nursery rhyme, ‘The cow jumped over the moon, what ran off with the spoon’?” Jeremey came up with “Cat” (and that’s what I came up with as well). The answer was “Dish”. In the bonus round, Sharon and I both felt a deep sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach when we heard “In the game of golf, what does the ‘GOLF’ stand for?” We drew a complete blank and our teammates don’t play golf either! We instantly recognized Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden when we saw it on the answer sheet that we were grading. What is Rembrandt’s first name? Sharon and I had both heard this trick question before, and I think we even got it right then… Rembrandt is his first name! We got 19 out of 23 points which was good enough for a tie for second place. Oh well. Again we had a good team effort!



Sharon went up to The Dive In to get her burger and fries and brought it back to the cabin. I was working on the blog, and then decided to go try one of their made-to-order pizzas. In the rear outside on the Lido Deck their Thin-Crust New York style pizza place has several fixed menu pizzas, or you can design your own pizza. I ordered the fixed menu pizza with spice ham and sausage with basil, mozzarella and red sauce. As with The Dive In I was given a pager. My pizza was prepared quite quickly and I took it back to the room. It was delicious and I’m looking forward to having another pizza in the future.



The itinerary for this trip originally included Lesbos as the port for today. If you’ve watched any news recently you’ve probably seen that that is the island where many refugees are trying to get to by boat so they changed it to Mykonos about 2 weeks ago. However, as we were getting close it was obvious the seas were probably a bit rough for tendering. The captain announced that do to the surging sea and 45 Knot winds that we would not be able to tender at Mykonos. We were looking forward to taking a walk and checking out the windmills. It was quite a trick to get the ship turned around and the ship did lean for a bit but not to the 14 degrees we heard about from the passengers aboard for the previous cruise. The captain then headed south for awhile instead of north to find a sheltered place to better be able to turn the ship around.



Sharon decided to take advantage of the sea-day by visiting the Casino. When she put in her card she was rewarded with a bonus of $20 of machine play. I watched for a bit at the Blackjack (with 6-to-5 odds) table, and then I walked around to look at what games were being played at the other tables. One of the pit bosses came over and asked if he could help me with anything, and I asked if they didn’t have any real blackjack games. He pointed to the table busy with three players. I said that I was talking about “Real Blackjack” that pays the full 3-to-2 odds. He pointed to the empty table at the end of the vacant pit, and said they do have that table that pays 3-to-2 odds, but it has a $10 min… then he corrected himself …er, $25 minimum bet. I guess I looked like I might play at a $10 table but not a $25 table. He seemed to scoff at me and indicated that everyone plays 6-to-5 odds. I replied that it wasn’t what I play. Then he said that his boss has told him that this is what they are playing in Las Vegas. Wow, is he really going to play the “Las Vegas” card with me? Okay, so I let him know, that simply isn’t true, Las Vegas plays 3-to-2 odds on blackjack, even at the minimum bet tables of $5 (and even $2 if you can find them)! And then I may have fudged the time line a little bit, and said “I am from Las Vegas.” More correctly, I was in Las Vegas less than two weeks ago and observed plenty of $5 action at tables that play 3-to-2 odds. I returned to our cabin and continued to try and get caught up on the blog.



When we got to the dining room we found it nearly deserted. We were seated at a table for two and were the only ones seated at the rear on the starboard side of the ship. They sat three people next to us by the window, but after a couple of minutes they got up and left, or wanted to be seated elsewhere. Sharon thought that they moved because the automated drapes at the rear were down and they could look out the window. We asked the server about the empty Dining Room and he seemed to think it pretty normal when the ship is moving as much as it has been. Sharon objected that this was bad motion. I had the Fruit Cocktail with Sambuca, and Sharon said that she would have expected at much from me. It was very, very good, especially the watermelon pieces that had soaked up that Italian liquor. I will need to remember this for future reference. I also had the chicken kabob appetizer with a couple kinds of aioli. I ordered the spicy chow Mein with veggies, and asked for it to be made a litter spicier. The waiter grinned, and I was hoping that was a good thing. Sharon enjoyed her turkey with baked potato, and my noodles were very, very good as well; and, yes they were quite spicy. We both had the chocolate triple indulgence cake (chocolate cake, chocolate icing and chocolate cream). We both had a scoop of vanilla ice cream added and it was very, very good too!





We both went to the show and enjoyed the violin performance by Craig Halliday. I especially enjoyed his rendition of “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.” He told the audience that he and some partners also raise Arabian Horses in Great Britain, and then showed a slide collage of these beautiful horses running free in Patagonia while he accompanied the slide presentation with an appropriate violin piece. He was accompanied by the band with a piano, keyboard, bass guitar, lead guitar and drums. We enjoyed the performance and it was too bad the theatre was half empty. Perhaps the ship motion is too much for some people.

---