Greek Oz or Argostoli, You’re not in Santorini Any More

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We finally have a morning where we can take our time rising and shining. I was perhaps not keeping up with Sharon who seemed to be in a hurry to get to mass. She urged me, “It’s Sunday, we need to go and get a seat!” I gave her that “Please, there are going to be plenty of seats this early in the morning!” look with my eyes. “Well I’m going now, I’ll save you a seat if I can,” and off she went. I followed about five minutes later and arrived about five minutes before the hour and lo, there were, count them, five people in the room. I whispered to Sharon, “Thanks for saving me a seat!” More people eventually did arrive, and there were perhaps two dozen worshippers in all. Father Schaut talked much about marriage and the annulment process in the Catholic Church, and how all are welcome in the church. We thought that we’d be the shoo in for the couple being married for the least amount of time (Sharon won’t let me count by months). But there was a couple sitting in the back who are crew members and they’d been married just 3 ½ years. One couple had been married 59 years, so my counting months method would have just edged them out!



We ate breakfast in the dining room and sat at a table for six where a very young doctor from China was eating alone. Another British couple joined us a bit later. This was his first cruise and he was very interested in where people liked to travel, and was putting Antarctica on his bucket list after talking to Sharon. I had the Swiss muesli and American Breakfast with eggs over medium. Sharon had the scrambled eggs again; and, again tried to get some crispy bacon but instead wound up with a glob of soggy congealed pork fat. Everything we’ve encountered so far on the Nieuw Amsterdam has been as good as or often much better than what we’ve experienced on other DAM ships; except, the bacon! We’ve had the same issue every morning on this cruise, and it doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s in the dining room or on the Lido. It’s as if the bacon is cooked to a point of being almost done in batches in the oven; but, if you do that you need to do something to keep them appetizing. Allowing them to settle and cool in their grease is never going to make nice crispy bacon. The Nordam and the Statendam were able to make great bacon for us in Alaska on our last two cruises in that part of the world, so it is possible.



We got to the Crow’s Nest early and I was able to beat Sharon on both the Easy and Hard Sudoku before our British teammates Jeremy and Audrey arrived. Dave started with “What brand of rum has a bat as its logo?” which I guess because it was the first question that meant that it was supposed to be easy. The only rum we could come up with was “Bacardi” (Well, I was pretty sure the answer wasn’t Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum). I knew the point value for “Q” in the game of Scrabble, and I had to convince Audrey it wasn’t 12 and said “The letter point values are the same as they are in Word-Crack” and as much as I’ve been playing that Sharon knew my answer of 10 was right. As a boy I remember playing Scrabble for hours on end with my grandmother. A slew of easy “gimme” questions followed, such as “What was Wendy’s (and her brothers) sir name in Peter Pan?” or “What is entomology?” or “What is the substance that builds up in muscles that are fatigued?” All from previous cruises to be sure: Darling, Study of Insects, and Lactic Acid. Our British partners must be avid dart players because they knew how much a bullseye in darts is worth (Sharon and I know it as well after missing this one in Alaska). It’s probably obvious what word appears on virtually every bottle of very dry champagne. Audrey wrote down “7” for the number of lines in a limerick; while, I’m trying to remember a limerick or two, and Sharon and I were thinking the same thing, that the answer is more like 5. I wonder if the limericks Sharon was thinking of were the same ones I was thinking of! Then Dave hit us with a movie question, and I’m sure she would have liked it if her brother Kevin was here to help us! “Who recently was picked to be the next Batman?” I’m not even sure we even answered that one! I could have come up with the original Batman; or, even his replacement! But this remake of a remake is just ridiculous. No wonder we seldom go to the movies anymore. I suppose that Ben Affleck is an equally unlikely choice as Michael Keaton was in the original. Sharon knew “Who played Peter Pan in Hook?” It was Robin Williams… Do you remember who played Captain Hook? (Dustin Hoffman) We were into the bonus questions! It pays to have British teammates because we seem to have quite a few soccer and rugby questions: “What is the traditional dance performed by the New Zealand All Blacks before each game?” We couldn’t even guessed, much less come up with “Haka”. Name the three wives of Henry VIII that are said to haunt Hampton Palace (Court): I’m pretty sure everyone could come up with Anne Boleyn. The main ghost that is always sited is Katherine Howard (our team came up with Katherine Parr). And the other was Jane Seymore (the one who died in childbirth bearing a son). The final bonus, worth six points, was name the six Nobel Prizes that are awarded each year. We actually managed to come up with these. When going over the answers, even Dave said, “Everyone better get this first one: Peace.” There is also Chemistry, Physics, Literature, Economics and Medicine. We missed tying for first place by just one point!



We decided to skip Bathrobe Bingo today. We would have had to rush back to the room to get our bathrobes (to earn the bonus blackout play). Back at the cabin, I went back up to the Lido to get chocolate chip cookies for Sharon (Don’t ask me why we didn’t stop and get some on the way down from the Crow’s Nest!) I stopped by the Dining Room to see what was on the dinner menu and was surprised to find that they were open for lunch. Back at the room I told Sharon that the menu looked pretty darn good to me, with an (bacon/guacamole) burger and beef dip; but, Sharon didn’t want to ‘risk it’. I went back to the Dining Room by myself and enjoyed lunch, sharing a table with a young couple from Sacramento. I had the corn and crab fritter, the curry and split pea soup and the veal cordon bleu with a Coke. We need to drink quite a bit of soda to use up this soda card before returning to Venice.



After lunch, we walked around town. It was more than warm, with the sun beating down and a real contrast to Santorini. Here was definitely a stark contrast to the day before where there were throngs of people, meandering streets of vendors, tightly cropped buildings mostly white washed (with that occasional rebel) and sometimes a blue roof; but, here there was a long walkway from our berth, then the street along the waterfront. There was the occasional café and one convenience-like store that we checked for Band-Aids (Sharon’s foot was rubbed raw by her shoes when we went to the Pinnacle). We weren’t terribly impressed by the caves when we took a tour here on our honeymoon (especially the hundreds of steps that were involved). This was a Sunday (at least the cafes were open). We couldn’t even find a gelateria. We walked by one dreadful stony beach next to the concrete wall that went down from the waterfront. A few locals were in the water taking refuge from the smoldering heat. One of the 10 best beaches in Europe is supposed to be on this island just 30 minutes’ drive by car away! We decided to call it quits and get back to the ship. Talking with other people later it seemed like most felt the way we did that this port just didn’t live up to the others on the trip. For some reason the crew seemed to like it but we’re not sure why.



Sharon survived when we went to China on peanut butter cookies that she smuggled into the country. Here, with her new teeth, she seems to be surviving on chocolate chip cookies. We had some hours to kill before dinner and when we got back to the cabin, the TV wasn’t working. I was on the large laptop that Sharon likes to use to work a bit on the blog and she went off to get some cookies, complain about the TV at the front desk, and then about there being nothing to do. She went off to do nothing somewhere else. She wasn’t quite at the meltdown point; but, she was definitely flirting with it! Okay, maybe I was monopolizing the internet as well with my Word-Crack gaming. She keeps threatening to hold an intervention for me. While she was on her walk-about a cabin steward came by, and he also couldn’t get the TV to come to life. He said something about a black screen problem which led me to think that this might not be uncommon. Just after Sharon came back, the TV tech stopped by, popped in with his own remote control, and easily clicked the TV on. Do we look like fools, or what? He did say they had been installing updates to the system so that was probably it.



Dinner time seemed to creep up on us. I ordered the smoked halibut & mackerel appetizer (not great to my taste buds, but it was something different). I had the Greek mint chicken soup and went with the cheese enchilada. Sharon had the prime rib (It was the third time they served prime rib on this 12-day cruise). She forgot to substitute a backed potato for her Jackson potato (a twice baked potato which was at least cooked, unlike the monster baked-once potato she had the night before). I had the opera cake and Sharon the crème Brule again.



Sharon headed to casino to try her luck, and I noticed that they’re still playing 6:5 blackjack; although very few people actually seem to be playing table games. This struck me as odd considering size of ship; but, not odd with rules like these. One person sitting there getting killed by the dealer. I left to work on blog. I stopped to drop by the casino at 8 PM to find Sharon glued to her machine but struggling. We decided to meet at the Ocean Lounge for Jeremy’s special show. I headed back to the cabin to finish the Santorini blog.



It was time to meet Sharon and go see Jeremy in ocean bar. Things turned around for Sharon after she went back to her first machine, leaving behind what those DAM lemmings were doing her in! Jeremy gave a very engaging performance, sporadically interrupted by shouting and pointing to the “New People” and everyone was supposed to toast the newcomers. Started with a couple pieces from the night before, Jeremy said that he was recording the show and it would soon be on You-Tube. Sharon had spotted the camera on top of the light fixture coming into the lounge. During one set he solicited audience participation (Jeremy’s show is all about enthusiastic audience participation, especially those sitting in what he calls his “Inner Circle” where you must sing along, clap and sway from side to side). He asked people to cheer and make noise when he named the month you were born in. Sharon and I and the lady sitting next to me all stood up and cheered when he said “March” . After two chances, March clearly won both times! The Holland America performers all showed up to join Jeremy on his last hurrah (he leaves the ship at the end of his contract in Venice). They sang some of their favorite show tunes in a cabaret like presentation. We watched for some time and decided it was time to go to bed. I don’t think Jeremy reached his goal of 350 people packed into in the Queen’s Lounge but it was close. Some people left to go to the Dancing with the Stars finale and then later for the Indonesian Crew Show.

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