Sightseeing the Scenic Surroundings of Sydney

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I went up to the gym for my morning workout around 7:00 AM to discover quite an early crowd already burning calories. I finished on the treadmill with only fog to be seen outside. I had to juggle the order of my workout to follow to allow some of the machines I wanted to use to free up. Afterwards, we went up to the Lido for breakfast. I picked up a bowl of Swiss Style Muesli and a bowl of fresh fruit, and then went outside by the pool where pancakes and crepes were being served to the tunes of the fiddle tunes being performed by the couple that had graced the Showroom Stage the night before. Sharon had some pancakes, whipped cream, powdered sugar and chocolate shavings with her potato cakes and bacon. I decided to try some crepes with whipped cream, chocolate shavings, powdered sugar and chocolate syrup. It was pretty good.

We took the daily Sudoku Puzzle back to the room. I finished both the Easy and Hard puzzles before Sharon who settled with a “DNF” on the second one.

Today we met on shore at 10:15 AM for our tour to go out and see Fort Louisburg. The fort had been demolished by the British who didn’t want the French to re-occupy this fortification after they had assaulted the sea-side fort. In the mid-1960’s the fort was partly reconstructed from the ruins, and twenty years later it was ready for tourists. People dressed in period costumes walk around the town in both civilian and military garb. If you engage them in conversation, there is much you can learn from them. Ladies, you might want to make sure that your guy isn’t talking to any women wearing red socks. At noon, a military attachment put on a demonstration and fired the canon. We heard the cannon again at 1:30 PM as we were boarding our bus; so, they may put on this show every 90 minutes. Today, it is very foggy and chilly and Sharon and I are walking around in short sleeves. At least I wasn’t wearing shorts like one man was; but, at least he had a jacket as did everyone else on our bus. I stumbled into gift shop along the main street, and was drawn to the corner offering jackets and heavy cotton pullovers. I picked up a bright turquoise pullover with “LOUISBURG” emblazoned across the front. Sharon came over and tried to convince me to choose a different color. Stupid me, I didn’t realize that ‘she’ wanted the turquoise one for herself. She chose a magenta/pink pullover instead and bought them both with her credit card. They were just what we needed, and four hours later as I’m typing this, I’m still wearing my pullover (after Team Trivia). We stopped in another establishment and we both got a hot chocolate and cookie. It was neat seeing our cocoa treat being made the way they were back in the day. We took our paper cup over to the dispenser, pushed the button that said “Hot Chocolate” and watched the water and syrup mixture trickle into our cups. Other choices included “Coffee”, “Expresso”, “Mocha”, “Tea”… a total of eight different hot beverages. Then we went around the corner into a tavern, sat at a shared picnic style tables covered with muslin linens and set with cloth napkins and a large pewter spoon. I ordered a large bowl of pea soup. All that Sharon wanted was some bread, the menu showed Bread and Cheese for $5. Our waitress said she’d just add some extra bread to my soup order that comes with bread. I also got a large apple juice. I was tempted to try the rum punch. The soup was very good; but, not thick the way split pea soup typically is. It was seasoned with enough pepper to suit me and served in a dinner plate sized pewter bowl. Four slices of Irish soda bread were also brought for us. Most important, the soup was served hot. We then meandered back to the bus pickup/drop-off spot, taking time to explore some of the buildings and to take some pictures. Our drive to alternate routes from those that had been used the previous week when the tour required a police escort to get passengers back to the ship in time to get onboard. Traffic on the island had been left deadlocked for an hour as the police gave these HAL guests top priority after the guide called them because they were stopped for a long time in the construction zone where they’re putting in a rotary.

At the port-side shops we bought some more maple fudge since we didn’t buy enough last week. We checked out the artisans inside for earrings that Sharon was keeping her eyes peeled for. She found some very lovely one-of-kind hand painted enamel on glass earrings. The earrings are painted designs in white, blue and black enamel that has been fired in a kiln. I offered to buy them for Sharon, which she accepted.

We re-boarded the Maasdam and dropped of our acquisitions in the cabin. We then went up the The Dive-In so Sharon could get a burger, fries and Coke. I grabbed a slice of pepperoni and a slice of 3-cheese pizza, joining Sharon by the pool. Afterwards we met our team from yesterday up in the Crow’s Nest for Team Trivia. The Crow’s Nest was being decked out for the World Cup Soccer match between Brazil and Germany.

Today’s Team Trivia started promptly, and there were many more people participating. Some were probably there early for the soccer match. The questions seemed easier than the ones earlier this week. We did not know, “What is the cause of the most automobile breakdowns in the U.S.A?” We guessed flat tire; but, the real answer is a dead battery. And we also didn’t know, “What building was torn down to make room for the Empire State Building?” Next time maybe we will remember the Waldorf Astoria. We got the rest of the first fifteen questions correct, including “Who is the patron Saint of children?” I looked at Sharon with my “Here is your token Catholic Question look.” She stammers out St. Nicolas, which I right down, but she admits she could have been convinced that St. Jude was right, which appeared on the paper of the team whose answers we graded. As usually happens, it came down to the Bonus Question for three points: “When asked to define ‘cool’, what two-word answer did James Brown reply?” I wrote down “I’m cool”. Our teammate Edie asked what I’d written and I showed her my initial answer that I wrote on the back of our answer sheet. But I my answer was above what I’d written just before that, which was his name “James Brown”. She agreed that that was the answer; except, it wasn’t my answer she saw but the name as a memory jogger for me. By now you’ve figured out what the real answer was! Two teams tied for first, with one more point than us; but, because of the crowd amassing for the Brazil-Germany soccer match Jeremy dispensed with the tie-breaker and awarded pins to all of them as co-champions. This is really depleting the value of our “Holland America Line Genuine Copper-Plated Canada & New England” red, white, pink and black enameled Team Trivia Champion pins with a light-house right on the front.

This is the time that Sharon would normally be rushing off to mass; but, she hadn’t noticed in the daily “On Location in Sydney” briefing delivered the evening before arriving in Sydney that mass would be held in the morning, I suppose due to the late morning arrival in Sydney. She has nobody to blame but herself because both priests had told everyone to be sure to check the daily notice, because sometimes they change things up from the rule-of-thumb “sea-day morning mass/port-day afternoon mass”. And they certainly did in Sydney. Sharon shrugged her shoulders and said, well at least it wasn’t for the Vigil or Sunday Mass.

We decided to stop by the Future Cruise Desk to book a cruise for next year to celebrate our fifth anniversary. We plan to repeat the cruise that we took for our honey-moon from Venice to Barcelona. And we plan to do both the cruise prior (Venice to Venice visiting Turkey and Greece) and the repositioning cruise following from Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale. Two of those legs may be combined for a single Collector’s Cruise (and slightly better pricing). The cruise consultant worked it out both ways to combine the legs (as one longer and one short cruise) and saved us about $150 per person. HAL is running a promotion on this cruise that offers 50% more ship board credits for the $300 deposit on the longer cruise and $100 deposit on the shorter cruise. The normal shipboard credit would be $150 for our deposit for an interior cabin and considering the length of each cruise. Instead, the per-person shipboard credit for us will be $225.

We dressed up a bit for dinner, and I found something other than jeans to wear. I didn’t plan to have a repeat of last night where a twelve year-old looks like he belongs in the Rotterdam Dining Room and that I don’t! I ordered the Colossal Shrimp Cocktail in the mustard cocktail sauce; which, came and was quite tasty but it was the quantity of the bay shrimp that was “colossal” which weren’t to be confused with the “jumbo” shrimp HAL serves with their regular horseradish cocktail sauce. Sharon ordered the Italian wedding soup, a broth soup of chicken stock with a tiny amount of orzo and sliced carrots. I ordered the same for my second course which came with three tiny meatballs. Again, I ordered the Caesar salad from the daily menu. The name of “Angry Striped Bass” intrigued me for one of the entrees, and the suggestion of something spicy with peppers and chili is always good. And I did enjoy this dish. Sharon had white meat only turkey with no gravy. The steward noticed that Sharon’s dish had come with gravy, so he told her that her dish would be just a little bit late. She enjoyed her meal once it did arrive. We both had the Chocolate Avalanche Cake dessert. Sharon had a scoop of watermelon sherbet with her cake, while I had a scoop of vanilla ice cream added to mine.

Due to the time we had spent waiting to talk to the Future Cruise Desk, there was only one agent there when we arrived and one being served and one person ahead of us, we hadn’t made it to the dining room until shortly before 7:00pm. For some reason, the service tonight seemed slow, similar to what we experienced at the start of our cruise some ten days earlier; but, it might be due instead to our late start. We normally arrive near the time that they open for “Open Seating” at 5:00; or, at about 5:30pm after mass. After dinner Sharon decided to play the poker machines, as we’d already missed the 8:00pm start of Roadhouse, a HAL show that we’d seen on a previous show. A couple at dinner with us did decide to skip dessert and rushed off to catch that performance. I of course went to play blackjack, and was surprised to see the table vacant. I got to play a bit by myself, and again the dealer and I were having some fun, and play was pretty quick that people would watch, but weren’t quite ready to sit down. When the dealer came to the end of the shoe, one brave person did sit down and push some money forward for change, and several others followed suit. It was fun while it lasted. They were running some sort of raffle tonight, and the pit boss came by to give everyone at the table a raffle ticket. I had declined several evening earlier when offered a free bingo card (it would have been impractical to try and play bingo and blackjack at the same time). But I might be able to handle a single raffle ticket. Then Sharon stopped by to say that she had won $50 on the slot and was going to the Piano Bar so she handed me her raffle ticket. We didn’t win during the first drawing. Sharon came back after a few songs at the piano bar but decided to go back to the cabin since there were no seats there. When the guy sitting in the center of the table puzzled over what to do with a pair of fives against the dealer’s nine, and his girlfriend sitting next to me suggested splitting them, I offered an alternative of doubling down and she nodded that that “might be okay too”. And then he split them, and I knew that I was destined for another evening of just playing for fun and not making much money unless I happened to hit a good winning streak. His hand just disintegrated from there, and the dealer that would have busted if he’d played the hand right didn’t, and I continued in what was my only significant losing streak of the night that ended up at about ten or eleven hands in a row. I did have two seven hand winning streaks; but, I needed to win just two or three more hands to really help me out with the parlay that I do play. I was so engrossed in play at the table that I didn’t notice when they did the second raffle call. When they did the third, Sharon’s ticket missed winning by just the last digit of a six digit number. But nobody claimed the prize and you must be present to win. Sharon was close on the second number called, and again, nobody was there to claim the prize. And to my amazement, the third number called did match Sharon’s ticket, so I shouted out and won the prize. I’m sure Sharon will be thrilled with our bottle of champagne! We also won a Club-21 T-Shirt (XL) and a Club-21 Baseball Hat. We also won a genuine with COA print of some artwork signed by the artist of fancy bar glasses and bottles and such as might go well in a bar. And there is a $5 coupon for one play a $5 chip at the tables (which is actually worth something to me) and a 2-for-1 offer to play in a blackjack tournament (which is not worth anything to me). And I think there is a coupon for $1 of slot play; but, we’re not too sure how that one might work. When I was about $50 ahead after a fairly good run of cards, I lost a couple hands in a row and decided to call it a night with my $40 profit. The casino smoke was getting to my eyes, the first time that I’d really been bothered by it despite nobody smoking at the table. That, and my being tired, I thought I’d go back to the cabin and see if Sharon wanted to drink her bubbly. She was thrilled, but said, she didn’t want to deprive me of that pleasure.

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