Changing Weather in Cornerbrook

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Our arrival in Newfoundland saw sunny days again shining on us. “Newfoundland” has always been an awkward word for me, not sure how it should be pronounced; yet, having heard it pronounced so many ways. As it turns out, almost any way will do. A few days back the guest lecturer talked about just this subject in his presentation of the fossil record in which he’d done much research in Newfoundland. You can sound out each letter New-Found-Land. You can put the emphasis pretty much where you want. The more common pronunciation is more in the line of NEW-fn-lin; but new-FN-lin and new-fn-LIN work just as well. However, locals may take some umbrage with New-Fn-Lun. The speaker noted that with his distinctive Scottish brogue he is prone to the faux pas and after his speaking apologized for the several times that he transgressed.

The skies were blue with nary a cloud as we had breakfast up in the Lido. I had my cold cut sandwich (again), and I seem to be growing fond of my Continental breakfast. Sharon managed to scrounge up a humongous chocolate croissant, a large (very large) crescent shaped pastry dotted with many melted chunks of chocolate on top and filled with ample chocolate. She said that it didn’t quite reach the same level as that chocolate croissant that we once enjoyed in a Barcelona Airport (that really was in a class by itself); but, this came close. The normal chocolate croissants are rectangular folds of puff pastry containing a small amount of chocolate which can usually be seen oozing out of one of the ends. And they can range from good to maybe not-as-good. This registered a GREAT. I postulated that, maybe this treat is a Sunday thing… we will have to see!

Sharon suggested that we pick up some Sudoku sheets in the Exploration Lounge. We took them back to our cabin. It’s hard working with these tiny forms; which, have only gotten worse. The sheet now puts the crossword puzzle, the sudoku and three daily trivia questions on a single sheet, as well as the answers upside down on the bottom for all of these. Every time I complain about these sheets, and every time they change them; but, seem to find a way to make them worse. Sharon basically gave up on her puzzle the previous two days because her scribblings became too confused to make sense. I was surprised today when I had just a few numbers yet to mark that Sharon says, “I think I’m done!” She continues to check so I quickly fill in my remaining numbers. Some how I screwed that up too, and Sharon indeed gets the win today.

We sit on the far-right side (just following Sharon’s lead). Our group is the second group called, and we are nearly the last people to trapes out of the Showroom to get our stickers and disembark. We’re told that there is just one bus for all of us today. We were lucky to get two seats together at the back of the bus. Our guide was a fast-speaking local with a heavy Scottish brogue which at times made him difficult to follow but he was very friendly and gave us good information about the history of the area. At one point he started using his left hand to illustrate the geography of the island, pointing his thumb upward, and extending his index and baby fingers while folding back the other two to demonstrate the bay and water inlets. It was when he then pointed to the various towns and locations on his hand with his right hand that things got dicey as he tried to juggle his microphone with his chin against his shoulder. “I really do need to get a headset,” I heard him say a couple of times.

Our tour is a short 2-Hour sightseeing tour called the Highlights of Corner Brook. We made a stop at the “Newfoundland Mount Rushmore”. It’s called “The Man in the Mountain”. To be honest, it was much like trying to see the Virgin Mary in a Grilled Cheese Sandwich. I guess, people can see what they want to see. To me, I saw a mountain. And yes, there were some interesting strata lines and formations and coloring, and if you want to see a nose and a chin and a man’s hat, I suppose that’s possible too; but, this is no Mount Rushmore. Next, we stopped at the local ski area with something just under a 1,500-foot vertical drop. The slopes looked challenging and I didn’t notice any that would pass for bunny slopes. There was also a commemorative pole that had been commissioned to capture the local history for a winter sports competition held there. The final half-hour long stop was at a promontory overlooking the area and dedicated to the life of Captain Cook. A bronze statue of him stood tall in a park like setting. It was ringed by placards documenting various aspects of Captain Cook’s life. Even the lady sitting in front of us on the bus; who, until now had remained on the bus got out to walk around in her sequin adorned fluffy open toed slippers. Trails around the area provided access to various outlooks. We were able to see the ship from one of them. From the left we could see the sky was darkening and it appeared that rain was moving our way. The ship was to our right and the skies were clouding over on that side. We got on the bus and by the time we got back to the ship the rain had caught up with us. Sharon had planned to take the shuttle into the port town after getting lunch on the ship; but, not in this rain.

I got another NY Pizza, and this time got my specialty “Wall Street Pizza” with mushrooms and Kalamata Olives. It was delicious. Sharon had nearly completed her turkey lunch by the time I’d gotten back to the poolside table on the opposite end of the Lido; and, she had to go to the other side of the Lido to get some white meat from the Sandwich carving station. The lady in front of her in line almost took quite a bit of the remaining white meat there but there was enough left for Sharon. She then headed to the other section to get the mashed potatoes and carrots. I opted to count this as my “Soda Day” for the week on the ship, and I had a Coca-Cola with the Pizza. I got it from the bar next to the NY Pizza and they gave me a warm can with a small glass of ice. I needed to get more ice by the pool where we ate.

Jim and his wife were still out hiking when Trivia started. There were a lot of people looking for teams to join. I was sitting there by myself trying to hold our area together; but, Sharon, Duncan and Pam did finally appear just in time. We thought we were acing it after the first ten questions. We even thought that we knew who the oldest actor was, that had played James Bond. We went with Sean Connery figuring that his reprisal of the role in “Never Say Never Again” after Roger Moore took over the part with Aeon Productions made him a shoo-in. Evidently both David Niven and Roger Moore played the role at 57 years of age; and, the answer that was the one that Linda was looking for was Roger Moore. She asked another drink question; well, I shot my wad on that topic yesterday. What is a Black Velvet made with? Champagne and Guinness! Yuck! “Starting with the Letter-C, what is a group of hyenas known as.” I really must memorize this list in my spreadsheet. I came up with “Chortle”. Close, but no cigar. It is a cackle. The bonus question is what Linda called “Movie Math”. “Take the number of Rocky movies, then the number of Harry Potter movies, and then add those two numbers together, and write the whole thing as an equation!” We got this one right. Sharon confided to them that I have these on DVD. The answer is of course “7+8=15”. Some people evidently forgot that the 7^th Book of Harry Potter was made into two movies! We scraped by in about third place with 11 out of 22 points. The winners had 14. We chalked our loss up to our two AWOL teammates. It will let us sleep well tonight.

Sharon rationalized yesterday that she didn’t need to go to mass. Her “excuse” was that it was a Vigil Mass and that she could go tonight instead. She claims that my “excuse-making” was inherited from my mother, and now it seems to be wearing off on her. But this being Sunday, there are no excuses that will allow her to miss mass today. So she headed off to the Wajang Theater for mass and another great sermon from Father Roaman who used to have to handle the sheep at the Monastery in the Ukraine. He was a bit nervous of them at first as they used their wool to make their cassocks. Eventually they grew quite used to him and followed him around all the time.

I met her afterwards and we scurried off to dinner. We arrived one-half hour after the opening throngs trying to get in to be fed, and we shared a table for four. There weren’t a lot of things popping out at me and I finally decided to try HAL’s rendition of Provençale frog legs. I’d had frog legs one other time in Ohio; and, that time as an entrée in a French bistro-like restaurant. It wasn’t one of my favorite culinary experiences. My recollection with that experience was “What’s with all these tiny bones.” I was right, in that served as a HAL appetizer I wouldn’t be overwhelmed by a thousand tiny bones; but, you had to kind of chuckle at their presentation. Two frog legs connected to the body, and the legs spread as in a prone position. My soup choice was their five-onion soup, a nice creamy mixture poured hot at the table into a bowl over a mound of chopped scallions. My entrée was the curry vegetarian cutlet served over chickpeas. I’d had it before, more than once, and my recollection was that I liked the taste and flavors a lot; but, that the cutlet was a bit heavy. Tonight, I thought that it was much lighter and quite delicious. There could have been more curry; but, I suspect it’s been balanced to the milder side of the heat scale for American palates. It was quite good. Sharon had ordered the fried chicken and requested white meat. She got three pieces; which, she enjoyed although she let me eat her white-meat drumstick. I again had the cheese fruit plate with fruit, and it also came with blue cheese again, with three other cheeses and grapes and nuts. Sharon had watermelon sorbet since there wasn’t anything to her chocolate liking on the menu.

Service was again slow. The man eating with us noted that HAL has reduced the number of servers, and we’d already notice fewer helping to seat guests when they arrive. Even with just the four of us, it took two hours to finish; again, allowing us to arrive too late to get a good seat in the theatre. This time, we didn’t get any seat at all for the 8:00PM show. I went to the casino to play some blackjack. Sharon went to play the slots and then to the Piano Bar only to discover that this was Barry From Boston’s night off. I had fun playing entirely by myself, and again starting with a 3:2 payout; but, this one for blackjack. Against the first dealer I wasn’t even able to win two hands in a row; so, I wasn’t upset to see him replaced. I did much better with the new dealer; but, still about the best I could do was win three hands in a row. Unfortunately, more often I was losing three hands in a row. The only thing that really kept me close to being above water was “Surrender” with several against a Dealer’s blackjack. This allowed me to salvage half of my bet on those occasions. As 9PM approached Sharon stopped by, and I agreed to join her in the Crow’s Nest for Majority Rules. We’d forgotten to tell our Trivia Teammates about this; so, we hoped they might show up anyway. I soon got the winning streak I was hoping for; but, it too came to an end after 5-in-a-row. I came close to recouping any losses, cashed in and tossed the dealer a toke for his time. I still had 5 minutes to spare to get up to the Crow’s Nest.

Sharon was there alone. Jim and his wife showed up, and I motioned them over to our team. The Assistant Cruise Director (ACD) Nino started out running the game by himself. He’d passed out group answer sheets to teams; comprising about 15 sheets of paper with team numbers on them. He had everyone keep their own score on one of the sheets; since, they weren’t staffed to collect and tabulate the sheets for everybody’s team. The first question was “What is a good anniversary gift for a man?” The leading answer was nookie. The CD (Linda) did show up to help for the second question or so. They gave a lot of grief to Team #2 for “What is a good anniversary present for your wife?” The winning (majority) answer was “A night out” but Team #2, a man and wife playing by themselves, was “An Apron”. For the question “What is the first thing a man looks for in a woman?” the popular answer was “Boobs”. Team #2 was “How good she can cook”; but, she was to have the last word because when the final question was “What is the first thing a woman notices for in a man?” the leading answer was “His Eyes”. Team #2’s answer was “How fat is his wallet.” We scored just 3 points with the winners getting 11 points. These questions have definitely changed from when we’d played this in the past. And as for Team #2… they got 1 point. Our teammates had managed to get seats for the 8PM show and they said that the performance was just magical… something really special. They said that it was the first time that they’d gotten into the early show.

We had no trouble at all finding a seat at the 10PM show titled “Emperors of Soul”. There provided an energetic rendition of various Soul and Motown music featuring many memorable tunes. Their presentation was engaging; but, I suspect the energy they got from the burgeoning crowd of the first show probably electrified the place, with all of the clapping and sing-along that they encouraged. The Late Show was perhaps half full and I’m sure that the Emperors of Soul noticed some deflation from the decreased audience feedback. We thought that they were very good, and I’m sure that it would have been a better experience to see them in a packed house.

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