Adriatic Adventure

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Sharon went off to mass while I worked some on the blog, and played some on Word-Crack. The priest on this cruise is from Malta and speaks softly with an accent but seems very pleasant. When she came back we went to the kiosk on Deck 2 to order and print our tour tickets for some of the upcoming ports of call. This is the first ship we’ve been on that has the kiosk and it was very easy and fast to use. We went to the formal dining room for breakfast, and it looked like everyone else had exactly the same idea on this first sea day of the second leg of our cruise. We sat at a table for eight with two other couples: one from Wales and the other, Ian and Liz, from Scotland. The accents were heavy and Sharon and I had to strain to comprehend what was being said. I ordered a custom omelet with ham, sausage, onion, mushrooms, Swiss and goat cheese with salsa on the side. Sharon ordered her eggs scrambled with crispy bacon, and she emphasized crispy so the waiter knew to make a special note of that. We hadn’t ordered any breakfast precursor. I suppose I should have gotten the Swiss muesli. Neither did the Scots; but, the Welsh couple both had a fruit plate and a yogurt parfait and he had some Swiss muesli in addition to that! And the two of them were chatting up a storm. So much so that after ten minutes neither of them had started to eat yet. He did start nibbling on his fruit plate and she on her parfait. A half hour past and at least they were eating now. I was worried my omelet was going to be long past cold. After the server cleared the table from the first course, he brought out the dishes for Sharon, the Scottish couple and the Welsh lady. He then asked the Welsh man if he had anything else coming, and no, that was all for him. Then he noticed that I had nothing to eat and he asked, “Aren’t you having anything?” I told him, “I thought I was having an omelet.” He rushed off to check his order form, came back and apologized, and promised that the omelet would be right out. It did come soon, and it was freshly made and hot.



We headed for the Crow’s Nest squatted on a good roomy place to play and did our Sudoku challenge. I eked Sharon out in the first game. In the second, Sharon eventually conceded that the form was just too small to do it justice, and I wasn’t able to finish it either before people started arriving for Trivia. We hadn’t had time to get to the cabin to don our first-day Sudoku shirts, so we were left watching the people come in. We spotted a couple of pairs of people, but they turned out to be much too American. Then Liz spotted us and asked if we were looking for partners, and we were happy to have a couple of Scottish people on our team. We’d done quite well in Alaska with a Scottish grandmother and her granddaughter. Then an Aussie couple, Peter and Margaret, (they had been on the first leg as we had) also joined us, and we figured that should be just about the perfect demographic. Between us it was a good joint effort to correctly answer the regular fifteen questions. Margaret knew what the largest organ in the human body is: It’s not brain, or heart or stomach! Peter knew what the secret name for Don Diego de la Vega was. And Sharon knew the Queen of Disco. Knowing the real name of Mark Twain might have stumped our British partners. I think they may have thought that Mark Twain was his real name. Ian knew that gin is made from juniper berries, one of the repeat questions that we’d had more than once before. After visiting the Capulet Villa in Verona just a couple days earlier, Sharon and I had better know Juliet’s last name and Romeo’s last name. Some people mixed them up, incorrectly choosing Montegue for Juliet. I remember it because her first name rhymes with her last name, something I’m sure wasn’t lost on Shakespeare. In case you were wondering, the other answers were skin, Zorro and Donna Summer. We blew it on the bonus round (one more right answer and we would have won). We did not know the top grossing movie of all time (even with the hint of it not being “Gone with the Wind”). We did get, how many pairs of chromosomes does the human body have (23). What month will be showing on your calendar when the earth is closest to the sun? We had mixed answers (I went with Sharon’s “June”, but should have listened to Peter. He suggested “January”. We didn’t know the name of the boat in “The Perfect Storm”. We wrote down “Maria” and the people we graded also wrote down “Maria” so it gave us a momentary sense of false hope. All I could think of for a name of a boat was “Andrea Doria” from our shuttle boat in Venice to Murano and Burano. I would have pressed Dave for half-credit if I’d gone with that answer. It was Andrea Gale! Did you get that movie, not “Titanic” as we wrote (which turns out to be number two on the list). It was surpassed by “Avatar”, both James Cameron films.



I thought Sharon was skipping lunch; which was fine with me. She went to the The Dive In for her burger and fries and brought them back to the cabin with some cookies. I went to the main desk to try and get the $250 credit we were promised as owners of 100 shares of Carnival Stock. Our 24-day Voyager’s Cruise qualifies for this credit (being 14 days or longer). Cruises of 7 days up to 13 days qualify for a $100 credit. I had a copy of the email promising that this credit would be applied; but, it hadn’t been yet. The computer at the front desk was having network issues, so they will need to check into this for me. I went back to the cabin, and Sharon soon returned. I didn’t feel like another pizza or a burger, but I was starting to feel a bit hungry. Sharon offered me some of her fries (but not any of her cookies). I thought she was finished with her burger, she was busy on the computer and not eating anymore, so I took her up on her offer for the fries. When she later asked where her fries were, well, they were gone weren’t they. They’d have been cold anyway! Oops!



Tonight was the formal gala dress night, and I went with the suit and tie this time. We sat with a British couple and an Aussie couple. I had the escargot, artichoke carrot soup and the stuffed shells (the same as I’d had on this leg of the Adriatic some 12 days earlier; except, this time I had Sharon order me the jumbo shrimp cocktail with some lame mango sauce. Sharon had the peppered tenderloin with grilled shrimp (I was more than happy to help Sharon with the shrimp). And we both ordered the chocolate soufflé; only, I ordered a scoop of vanilla ice cream with mine (but the server brought me two)! I couldn’t believe that the Aussie lady ate her yellow fin sole so fast that she was done before I was. It might have been because I did need to wait a bit before they brought around some shaved parmesan cheese for me; although, by then I’d already eaten one of my stuffed shells because I’d grown tired of waiting and I was after famished from no lunch! (French fries do not count as lunch.) But probably it was because of the greens that the stuffed shells were served on (I hope they were edible). I put some in my mouth, and chewed, and chewed, and chewed. It must have been five minutes, and Sharon said she had never seen me chew my food so thoroughly. It’s just that these very stringy greens just did not want to be masticated into something one could swallow. I never saw the Aussie lady start eating, and I didn’t see her stop… I just noticed she was sitting there done, while I was still chewing away.





The show was a repeat from the earlier cruise, and I decided to relax in the cabin and get caught up on the blog, which, now it seems I’ve done. Sharon went up and found her friends from her Antarctica Cruise that just boarded for this cruise. She chatted with them until they left for their late sitting dinner then she watched the cast show “On Tour”. She also checked out the new piano player and said he is a very good singer and pianist but on first attempt doesn’t seem to have the energy or personality as Jeremy did on the previous cruise. We’ll give him another chance in the next night or two.

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