Sea Day Sailing to the Baltic Sea

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Sharon was up early, showered and dressed, when I noted in the “Where and When” that mass wasn’t happening until 4:30PM. Sharon thought I was kidding. “That can’t be right, This is a SEA DAY!” But her face fell when she snatched the daily epistle from me. I’m thinking, I’m going to have grumpy girl ALL DAY! We had to wait until 8AM for the dining room to open for breakfast. I got the vegetarian mushroom and spinach eggs Benedict; but, I added two sausage patties and two hashed browns to the mix. Sharon had her All American Breakfast with scrambled eggs and bacon.

We assembled in the Queen’s Lounge for Bingo, and Sharon emphasized that it was my turn to buy the Bingo Cards despite my paying for the last two Bingo Sessions. Okay, maybe Sharon was at mass and wasn’t playing; but, I gladly shared everything that I didn’t win! I got to stand and stand early on the 4-Corner game. Becka is following Juip’s lead of waiting until the second game to play the normal Bingo game; which I think is a good idea since that game pays a bit higher prize. This 4-Corner Game has just 4 numbers that are needed and only B’s and O’s are called; while all numbers get called for the other and you need 4 or 5 numbers to win. After that first glimmer of hope, there wasn’t much for us to get excited about. Just like Juip, Becka calls a fast paced game. Neither of them spice it up with Bingo jargon; but, she does bring a good deal of excitement to the game. And she’s a no nonsense caller. She didn’t hesitate sending one elderly Bingo Caller back to her seat for not having the last number called on her winning card (she was late calling Bingo). Last week Juip had awarded Bingo to one elderly Dutch woman despite her calling Bingo two calls late. No such concessions for Americans on Holland America. We’re starting to feel a bit overdue. Sharon hasn’t won since Alaska this year, and my last win goes back to the Caribbean and Panama Canal Cruise the year before.

We ate lunch up on the Observation Deck near NY Pizza. I got my white sauce with smoked ham, red onion, mushrooms, arugula and basil. When my beeper went off and I got my pizza, I realized after my first bite that they’d left off the greens (added after the pizza is cooked). I took it back and asked for them to add the arugula. The steward checked the cook order, then took it over to the chef and he fixed the pizza. Sharon had brought up her burger by the spiral staircase down to the Dive In. Her Coke Freestyle had been filled up earlier and I had brought it up to our table before ordering my pizza.

There were many new faces in the Billboard Onboard for Team Trivia with Christina. The first question was a “Gimme” being the name of the statue that we all would be seeing in Copenhagen Harbor tomorrow. Created by Edvard Erickson that statue is of course “The little Mermaid”. An interesting math question: “What is the middle day of a non-Leap-Year year?” So we’re looking for the 183rd day of the year! Sharon came up with July 2, which I confirmed. Our teammates wrote down 5 for the number of Marines that raised the flag at Iwo Jima. I was thinking it was six; but, they were sure about 5. Now I know why. It was indeed 5 Marines and 1 Navy sailor. What was the first novel published by Stephen King? Joan wrote down “Carrie” which sounded good to me. Then she out thought herself, thinking herself, saying that it was written but not published. Too bad that we changed her first thought to “Cujo”. The bonus question was for three points. “There are 4 different acoustic groups in musical instruction. One is the keyboard. What are the other three?” Sharon wrote down “Percussion”, “Woodwinds” and “Brass”. I asked “What happened to ‘Strings’?” Our scribe got rid of “Brass” and then put a line through “Wood” leaving “winds”. We got full credit for this team effort; but our 13 points did not stand up to the winners 16.

After Trivia, we were in the right place for the “Beatles Concert” being performed by the two piano players onboard. The did a lively entertaining show. It lasted just thirty minutes and everyone would have been happy if it had gone longer. There was standing room only in the lounge. Sharon had tried to go to the one a week earlier but couldn’t get near the place so the timing with Trivia this week was great. They performed a variety of Beatles’ music, including “Let it Be”, “Hey, Jude” and “Norwegian Wood”.

Sharon had time to go to mass, which she noted is being held by a “Repeat Priest” from one of her previous cruises 2 years ago in the Mediterranean . This one was from Malta and didn’t even give a sermon but always has them sing Immaculate Mary to start mass. When Sharon returned to the cabin we went off to dinner. Not only was mass not held at 8:00AM in the morning; but, this first Sea Day was not a Gala Night either! We arrived with our “Smart Casual” look; which for us basically means anything except blue jeans, although there are some who seem to consider that smart casual too. I had the goat cheese with vegetables. Sharon ordered me the spicy spring roll. I decided to try the mussel and shrimp chowder which was surprisingly good. I was afraid that it would be too fishy for my taste, but it is a soup that I’d definitely order again. I was resigned to getting the prime rib; but, at the last minute I changed my mind and got the vegetarian dish “Spicy Asian Noodles”. It was a good decision, as I remembered the prime rib was a bit tough and not the best meat. Even Sharon said that some of what she had was a bit chewy. She did find a center piece that was more manageable. I tried a desert that I’d never had before, something like “Hazy Cake”, although it was a single non-English word with “HAZ” in it. I was hoping it signified Hazelnut and not Hazardous. It turned out to be something akin to an opera cake Napoleon and was pretty good. Sharon enjoyed her watermelon sorbet.

We had to rush a bit to get to the Showroom; but we were able to find a seat in the wings were ample seats were available. Tonight a vocalist native to Amsterdam was performing. Her singing was strong and powerful and she could really belt out a tune. We didn’t recognize many of the songs from the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s which she said were her favorites despite her fairly young age (Sharon says she recognized them) and then some very current songs that we didn’t know either. She said that she began her career by graduating with a degree in music in the Netherlands, and then travelling to Australia by trying to make a living as a street performer. She was able to win the Netherlands version of “America’s Got Talent” and her career has been taking off from there.

With a large turnout for evening Trivia our team of six included Tricia this evening, Sandy was elsewhere. Joan found Tricia at Music Trivia the day before and she is a possibility; although, she has a tendancy to jump ship and play on other teams. Becca ran out of answer sheets and for a bit it looked like we might need to improvise. Sharon came up with an extra sheet somewhere for me to record the questions. Christina asked “How many steps are there in the Eifel Tower: (a) 1792, or (b) 1946, or (c) 2178. I thought it was (a) but Joan had suggested 1946 and Steve concurred and his mother had already recorded (b). My intuition that it was seventeen hundred and something was unfortunately correct. What country is South America’s Easternmost country. I was amazed at those suggesting Peru or Argentina and then Joan realized she was thinking westernmost. Even then though, they thought it was a trick question, and weren’t happy with my “Brazil”. Christina then came up with a series of repeat questions from previous cruises; but, it was the “What is the hardest bone in the human body?” that I think no other team got right: The Jaw Bone. It took Sharon convincing them that we knew this from a previous cruise to not go with femur. “Who is the Robin Hood of Scotland?” We were stumped. It was Rob Roy. Christina likes her “Disney Questions” and Sharon has been touting me as the “Disney Expert” because I grew up in Anaheim and went to Walt Disney Elementary School. I haven’t been doing well with these questions. “What was Walt Disney’s first feature length live action (no animation) film?” We thought “Swiss Family Robinson”. It was “Treasure Island.” Now we know. “What whale dives deeper and can stay down longer than any other whale?” We went with the biggest whale, the Blue Whale; alas, it is the Sperm Whale. It came down to the Bonus Question: “What was the nationality of Chopin?” We went with Czech; but, we should have gone with Polish. We finished out of the money and two other teams finished with two points more than us. Their bonus question was one that we knew (On average, how many times per minute does a person blink?) but that didn’t matter. (It’s 15 times per minute.)

I stopped by the casino and played some blackjack, returning to the cabin after another bad run of cards.

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