St Petersburg on Steroids

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Not getting to bed until early this morning, my toe hurting the way it was, and Sharon tired, we decided not to set the alarm clock. We were pretty sure that we’d both need to skip our tour in St. Petersburg (where our ship stayed overnight). We slept well past 7AM, so we would have been “No-Shows” anyway. Sharon turned our tickets into the Excursion Team so they wouldn’t waste time waiting for us. Sharon wanted the Lido for breakfast; but, I wanted to get some Eggs Benedict in the Dining Room, and in the end we wound up in the Dining Room. As I’m hobbling down the hall after Sharon, she would look back every once in a while, and then mimic my gimp-walk with a shuffling of baby-steps. I got my Eggs Benedict and Sharon got her French Toast. We were supposed to visit the Hermitage today, and a palace; but, neither of us seemed to think that either of us were up for what promised to be an exhausting walking tour. Sharon suggested that I visit the Medical Center, so I checked it out on A-Deck coming back from breakfast. It was Sunday, and their hours started at 4PM, so I’d need to come back in the afternoon.

Trivia was at 10AM and we thought that we may have a lock on the game; but, three other teams managed to materialize. Our teammates were off seeing the wonders of St. Petersburg. Christina started innocently enough asking “What painter honored his mistress Dora Marr by painting her and calling the work “Ugly Woman”? I wrote down “Picasso” because we had no teammates with us today to help. “Do you know that?” Sharon inquired. “No,” I sheepishly admitted; but, really, who else could it be. At least we got that one right. I told Sharon, “All we need to do is get half of them right.” Then Christina continued with her “write-it-down-round”. “What is the name of the traditional Irish Wedding Ring?” This time I wrote down “Shamrock” and Sharon didn’t bother asking me if I knew this. One of the teams managed to draw a picture of the ring with many crosses; but, Christina pointed out that this wasn’t a game of Pictionary. She was looking for a “Claddagh Ring” (well at least that sounds very Irish, at least the way Christine pronounced it). Things got worse from there. I recall a brewery question that a Canadian teammate might have helped with. But when she wanted to know what food item it took to explode the morbidly obese in a Monty Python movie, we were clueless. That had been the “first-date” movie of one of the couples, and they were paying enough attention to the movie to know that the answer was a “mint”. In the middle of trivia we managed to get three answers in a row correct, two of them we’d had in previous trivia’s, and we got the opportunity (finally) to get one of them correct (“What was the name of Captain Hook’s ship?”) Christina wanted to know what animal the slang term “Jumbuck” refers to; but, we hadn’t a clue. I think we went with “kangaroo”. It was “sheep”. And we didn’t know what a pluviometer measures. Christina noted during the “shout-it-out” round that they got a lot of use out of these during Hurricane Harvey. It was rainfall. The bonus was a Disney Question that we’d also had before: “Name the two Disney characters that sported umbrellas.” These were Jiminy Cricket and Mary Poppins. We only got 7 points and tied with one other two person team and a 4 person Australian team. The winners matched our combined scores, a family of six covering three generations. One who knew something about a new wave group that wore red hats And in case you were wondering, that ship was the “Jolly Roger”.

I felt like a Cannonball and a Dog Paddle at the Dive-In. Sharon found some roast turkey, so she was pretty keen on that. Things weren’t too crowded, and most were out on tours. We took the day off to get the blog caught up, and Sharon got all of the pictures uploaded as well.

I showed up at the Medical Center at 4PM, and already there were two couples seated in the waiting area filling out some forms. I told the receptionist that I wanted to see the doctor, and she let me know that it might be quite a while before I’d be able to see the doctor, as they were currently dealing with three emergencies. She asked if I still wanted to see the doctor, and when I said yes, not at all hopeful that this was going to be easy, she handed me a simple form to fill out. I returned it to her and was wondering whether I was supposed to wait here, or go back to my cabin for a call later. No sooner had I thought this, when another nursed called my name and took me into a room for a preliminary examination. She looked at my right big toe, and asked if I’d had a history of gout. I’m thinking, oh great. I was wondering if all that wine that Sharon made me drink at the Culinary Arts Center had triggered a bout of gout. The nurse didn’t think that wine usually causes a problem, saying that it’s more often triggered by organ meats or fatty meats. She then had me sit in another hallway to wait for the doctor. I was soon joined by the two other couples that I’d seen earlier. And I did get to see the doctor fairly quickly. He also didn’t believe that I had gout which usually affects the joints, and is usually much more painful than what I had, being only sensitive when directly touched. He gave me some pills for infection which is what he suspected was the problem, and he did give me some pills that are helpful for gout and inflammation similar to what I have, and he also gave me one “cortisone-like” pill to help with the inflammation. The whole office visit took just one hour, and I was back in the cabin before Sharon returned from mass.

Sharon had taken the rest of my tour tickets to be returned; as well as her last day tour ticket which was listed as a heavy walking tour. She got a partial refund for Helsinki; but did get the others returned in time to cancel with a refund. At mass, she was joined by another couple (Linda and John) that we’d previously had dinner with, and she arranged for us to have dinner with them tonight as well. She came and got me to join them for dinner. I had the mozzarella and tomato appetizer; and, made the mistake of ordering the chicken and orzo soup. When I hear chicken and orzo soup I envision a very tasty Greek Soup (Lemon Chicken Orzo soup). This soup was basically chicken broth with three micro-tiny chunks of chicken and somewhere between eight and twelve orzo grains. I should have gotten the French Onion Soup. I got the Yorkshire Tenderloin; and although I seldom get the beef dishes in the Dining Room, this really was delicious. Sharon got the everyday chicken. We both got the crème Brule.

Most of our Trivia Team made it up to the Crow’s Nest but we were stuck near the center with no tables and few chairs. Joan Jackie were there, and Tina was joining our team this evening. Steve didn’t make it up in time. The second question was “Who was the lead guitar player and co-founder of the band ‘Queen’?” This was right up Tina’s alley, so we weren’t worried when she was saying “Oh, oh, oh, it will come to me, don’t worry.” Sharon managed to come up with “What Central American country hosts one million pilgrims annual on Easter and Christmas?” She suggested “Guatemala”. It was then that Tina blurted out, but not so that others could hear, “Brian May”. We missed, “What was the first horror movie that Johnny Depp appeared in?” We thought that it was “Edward Scissorhands”. But evidently he was also in “Nightmare on Elm Street”. Most of the rest were pretty straightforward questions, and we even got the bonus question “What university did Bill Clinton and Tony Blair both attend?” It was of course Oxford University. When the dust settled, we were the only team scoring 15 out of 17 points, so we’re back in the win column. But there were no “good-pins” to make the victory matter.

Sharon and I went down and saved seats in the Billboard Onboard Lounge for this evening’s game of Majority Rules. Our extended Trivia Team showed up and we started out pretty well (at first anyway). This time however, the question “What do you do in your bedroom when you turn the lights out?” We’d had this question on our Panama Cruise with my mother, and we’d gone with the PG mother friendly answer “sleep”. Afterwards, she admitted that she’d been thinking what turned out to be the “Majority Answer”. Well, this time we went with what my mom was thinking; only, this time the majority said “sleep”. You just can’t win! At least this time we didn’t get the award for being “Original Free-Thinkers” which is another way to say “Booby-Prize”.

I went back to the cabin and hoped to give my toe some rest. Sharon went to the Show to see the new HAL performers do the performance of “One World”. We’d seen the previous cast on the Norway leg of our cruise do this show. Sharon thought that these performers were as good or even better.

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