Bright Star Sea Day

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Day 15 – Bright Star Sea Day

Nobody wants to hear a “Bright Star Room Number” announcement come over the in-Room PA system; but, that is exactly what we heard this morning as we were getting ready for our impromptu sea day. “I thought they had stopped doing that,” Sharon said, as everything seems to be done over walkie-talkies. I know I haven’t heard this for several years now. We were supposed to be visiting Estonia today; but, our delayed departure from Warnemunde made it necessary to skip this port. When we left to go to breakfast about forty minutes later, the response team was still in our hallway and the emergency was several doors down. We had to walk away from the stern and then back down the starboard side. Sharon eschewed the Dining Room and we went to the Lido. I planned to get an omelet and I did but there was quite a wait. It was good, but the Lido should have been called “The Zoo”.

Becka was calling Bingo at a Brisk pace. She’d just called six numbers in the 4-Corners Game when someone at the back called “Bingo”. It was Tina who sometimes joins our Trivia Team and is a bonafide expert when it comes to Music Trivia Questions.

Lunch was up on Deck 10 again, me with my pizza and Sharon with her burger and fries. We headed up to try and redeem ourselves at trivia.

It was an easy Trivia Session with a couple of good guesses. Sharon admonished me for not knowing what feather can be used in a badminton shuttlecock; but Jackie our scribe wrote down “Goose” which I felt was a good answer… It was either that or “Duck”. As it turns out, either was right. “We moved to Las Vegas because HE wanted to play badminton, and he hasn’t played yet.” Becka was filling in for Christina who was busy elsewhere on this unplanned sea day. “What continent is responsible of one-third of the world’s languages.” I pushed for “Africa” and was happy to hear Becka confirm this choice. “What TV sitcom has won the most Emmies?” I wrote down possibilities “M*A*S*H”, “All in the Family”, “Friends” or “Seinfeld”. But Sharon was keeping the winning answer to herself: “Cheers”. And I wrote down two possibilities for “Who was the first mail US Tennis Player to win Wimbledon three consecutive years?” Some on our Team were pushing for Jimmy Connors, Andre Agassi or especially Arthur Ashe. I said, it wasn’t them. “It is either John McEnroe or Pete Sampras.” I knew that Sampras had won it 3 times in a row, and thought that McEnroe had only done it twice; but, Jackie went with McEnroe. Of course it was Sampras. We wound up tied with 15 points with one other team. The tie-breaker was “How many plays did Shakespeare write?” I wrote down 33. “Do you think it was that many?” I said “Yes, at least that many.” Then they consulted Steve who guessed that it was 25. Jackie compromised on “30” for our Final Answer. The actual answer was “37”. And of course the other team had written “32”. Sharon may wind up with “Grumpy Boy” for the rest of the day. We have our Culinary Arts Center Dinner this evening at 7:00PM so we won’t be able to make evening Trivia.

Sharon went to mass, and we met outside on Deck 10 to watch an outdoor movie. Where we were seated there was too much noise from the pool below to be able to concentrate on the movie. We stayed for a bit, but eventually left. We had an evening at the Culinary Arts Center, where you either get the “Lavender Dinner” or the “Basil Dinner”. Tonight, as it turned out, we were to get the “Basil Dinner”. We were greeted with a complimentary vodka based cocktail; although, they had a virgin one for Sharon. Mine was quite good, and Sharon said that hers was “okay” but she drank most of it. They also gave us some appetizers, and the pork belly and scallops appetizers were quite good. An option with the dinner is the “unlimited wine” package for a $19 surcharge. I made the mistake of thinking that this was for wine pairings to the dishes which I had enjoyed at de Libergie. They set a half carafe of chardonnay and a half carafe of cabernet sauvignon in front of me. And as I drank they kept topping off my glass and the carafe. The amuse bouche was a strawberry/orange juice concoction with almond foam. It was tasty; but it wasn’t something Sharon was going to like though she ate the watermelon and the foam on the juice. Our first dish was a very good carrot soup, and Sharon did try some of hers. For my second course I had a salad with baked brie, and I enjoyed that. Sharon wasn’t having anything to do with cheese. They offered to make her something else; but, Sharon insisted that she would be fine. Sharon then enjoyed her tenderloin; while, I had the mushroom stuffed pasta. We were both enjoying the bread, and needed to get another basket and more butter. I tried the tea for the fourth course. And we shared the peti fore pops. Sharon ate the lemon meringue and brownie ones while I had the passion fruit and chocolate nut ones. For dessert I enjoyed the cheese plate while Sharon thought that the berry dish was okay. Sharon thinks that I had too much to drink, because I kept making fun of how slow dinner was going, and demonstrating how they were meticulously placing the berries just so on each plate. The dishes get prepared in front of you, and you can watch “the action” on the monitors; although, everyone is seated around the Culinary Arts Center at individual “eat stations”.

Timing of our dinner, which started at 7PM meant that our teammates were on their own tonight for trivia. We decided to turn in and had our “long day in Moscow” tomorrow where I am very much looking forward to standing in Red Square. Now that’s something that I never thought that I’d get a chance to do in my lifetime.

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