Rough Day at Sea

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We ate breakfast in the Dining Room. I ordered an 3-egg omelet “My Way” and Sharon had scrambled eggs with bacon. The captain had promised rough seas for the night before; but, this mornings announcement seems to have delayed the storm by a day. There were no Daily Puzzle sheets to be had in the Exploration Lounge this morning; but, I did get another bottle of San Pellegrino. We went back to the room to wait for Bingo. I popped down the hall to the Excursion Desk to see if I could get back on the tour that I’d cancelled for the port of Kiel, Germany, tomorrow; but, that tour was already filled up with a wait list. My toe is feeling much better

Today’s Bingo was a $20,000 jackpot bingo. It was my turn to buy so I decided to buy us both six-packs since the crowd seemed above normal in size. We might need the extra chances. Becka calls a rapid game, announcing clearly; but, calling a new number every ten seconds. The only Bingo-jargon that she seems to annotate any of her calling with is for B-1, “The Baby Ball of Bingo”. Her pace is about perfect for a three-pack game; but, a six-pack gets a bit difficult to keep up, especially if you need to poke and fold more than two numbers with each call. Get one number on all six cards and you’re sure to be falling behind. Someone was quick to win with the 4-corners game. Sharon and I didn’t have a single square with more than one corner! And Sharon was quick to stand in the straight line (regular Bingo) game, being the first person to reach the threshold of needing just one number. Five calls later G-46 made Sharon shout Bingo for $220. And it was all hers, nobody tying her which has been the norm for Bingo on this cruise. Game 3 was the Big-X and the blackout game was worth nearly $500; so, the prizes were quite good.

We had our “full” team available, which included the original six, and a number in the “rooting section” that have joined us; but, the appearance is that we’re a team of eight or ten or more and there are those who feel that we may be pushing the boundaries of the “6-person rule”. I can’t say that I disagree with these feelings, despite the fact that the answers do come from “the six”. During the Music Trivia this evidently came to a head, and the rooting section was forced to separate into their own team, and Steve and Tina formed the basis of the winning team. My suggestion for “Spanish Juice Root and Sweet Root are examples of what?” was “anise”. Other ideas were “carrot”, “rhubarb” but we went with “onion”. The answer Christina wanted was “Licorice” (which is sort of like anise). We didn’t know what Charles Dickens’ novel was unfinished when he died. That would have been “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”. “In 2016 which airport from Heathrow, Amsterdam, Dubai or Inchon had the largest sales in its Duty Free Stores?” We thought Dubai, which was once correct, but it is now Inchon. The bonus question was to list the four countries that have won the America’s Cup. We guessed the USA, UK, Australia and the Netherlands. Our first and third answers were keepers; but, the other two should have been New Zealand and Switzerland. When the dust had settled, we were tied for first. Christina then went back to the Duty Free question in Inchon question. “Cosmetics and Perfumes were the top sellers for Inchon’s Duty Free stores. Guess what percentage these comprised.” We went with 45%. The other team went with 40%. The answer was 38.5%, so we were on the wrong side of that one.

I tried a new dish (for me) on Holland America. It was the crab and scallop au gratin, and it was served in the escargot dishes with that browned butter topping to make it look just like their escargot dish. Instead there were the tiniest scallops and crab chunks in a buttery bath, tasty; but, the escargot with the addition of garlic is far tastier. I had to resort to the everyday soup and got the French Onion soup, which is good, but nothing like what was once served in the Pinnacle Grille. I went again with the vegetarian entrée, ordering the curry tofu dish with veggies. Sharon had the everyday chicken with a baked potato. We both got the perfunctory chocolate dessert.

After coming close in afternoon trivia, we were ready for battle. And there is one group that is carefully counting who and how many are at our table. Tina has decided to join with some of her music trivia friends. We were already missing Tina, who is from Netherlands as well as being a music whiz, when they asked “How many states does Australia have?” I knew that this was six from a previous trivia session; but, there was some debate about 5 or 6. Then Joan recalled a question about the Australian flag earlier on the cruise about the number of stars in the Australian flag. Tina was on our team for that game, but a team with some of her Aussie friends on it had incorrectly answered five. “Ah, you forgot about Tasmania,” she chided them. So I guess like the US, the number of stars is also the number of states. We were pretty sure they’d get it right this time. Becka then asked, “What is the largest Spanish speaking country?” Our team came to a consensus, and we wrote down “Argentina”. Becka’s answer was “Mexico”, and I realized that Becka had meant to ask “What country has the largest Spanish-speaking population.” Argentina is about 50% larger in size than Mexico; but, it doesn’t matter because in Team Trivia, the Trivia-master’s answer is always right, even when it’s not! The Bonus Question was extra valuable (although, I don’t know why she did this). “Who were the three Musketeers?” Two points for each name. I wrote down Aremis, Porthos and Arthos (sp.: s/b Athos), and that was a quick 6 points since spelling evidently doesn’t count in Team Trivia, plus we graded our own paper. We edged out the other team (who had answered “Mexico” for that ill-advised Spanish question) by one point. Evidently, somebody had complained to Becka about awarding half-points (e.g. 2-point bonus looking for 4 names at one-half point each). Anyway, when the dust had settled we were holding a bunch of the cheap plastic “Northern Europe” pins that Joan was trying to find homes for among the other Trivia players.

Sharon and I just got to the magic show before it started. Martin Block was very adept at performing close up magic and illusions. His show was entertaining; but, also a bit tedious in places. While he may have been doing many things which we didn’t know how he was able to do them, much was what we’ve seen before. His little “aluminum-foil robots” that would hop up and down his arm, and also the arm of the audience person helping him was intriguing. What was really great however, was the World Stage that gave great close-up coverage of his performance that made us at times think we were watching the actual people rather than the larger surround screen where the trick was being projected.

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