You might think, that I’d hate a day at sea. Since I am all
about seeing new things and running myself- and the family- into the ground on
our “trips”, you’d think I’d truly object to a day at sea, which is more like
“vacation”. But, I don’t. The ship offers lots of things to do and, shockingly,
I can choose to not do anything. It can feel weird to choose to sit and read or
do needlework, when I am away, but, somehow, on a ship it feels okay to do
that.
My husband K, unnervingly, chose to start the day early by
going up to the fitness center. At home on a Monday, I’m up at 7:50 to walk to
water aerobics that start at 8:30. Today, I slept until 8:30. I didn’t feel
guilty at all. I did my usual stretches to make my back work, but no running
off to exercise. So nice!
Oh, and according to the television, it was 54 degrees.
My daughter J arrived and we went off to breakfast at 9:30.
So many choices! There was very little that one could do as self-service and it
stayed that way throughout the trip. I guess, they are worried about illness.
They could have used more servers at each station, especially on sea days.
I ate a lot more than at home ,I must admit. I had orange
juice and cranberry juice. I found a very moist chocolate muffin that made me
debate what makes something a muffin and not a cupcake. My daughter said it was
icing, but we decided texture had a lot to do with it, too. I decided to sample
the Holland America Signature Bread Pudding and it did not disappoint. One
thing I could pick up was an avocado, egg white, spinach and cheese sandwich.
It was good, but the avocado and cheese made it way too slippery to eat neatly.
To be good, I also had fresh fruit and an oatmeal pudding shot. It was a very good breakfast.
Unfortunately, I soon realized that I was getting
seasick. I’ve never felt seasick on a
ship like this before, but the sea was certainly rougher than any I’d ever
experienced on a ship before, too. I
went back to the cabin to put on my Sea Bands. As I rested a bit, my daughter
read the morning crossword clues to me and I answered.
Before we all headed out before 11, we saw that the
temperature was now 66.7 degrees, which is still not warm. K and J went to the
America’s Test Kitchen demo, while I went off to Evolution of Art on the same
deck. I knew it would be done by the art auctioneers on board, but I thought I
might learn a thing or two. I did. Leonardo da Vinci did only 12 art works. It
was interesting, but I did start to feel drowsy. When it ended at 11:45,
everyone was given a free art print and I really rather liked mine.
K believes in lunch being at noon. In our almost 35 years of
marriage, this belief has never changed. So, off we went to the Lido deck
again. It was the same situation as breakfast, when it came to self-service and
number of servers at the stations. I found a pretzel roll to go with my salad
and fruit. J got a sandwich and between the two of us, we picked up an array of
desserts to share- salted chocolate cupcake, chocolate pudding, fruit tartlet,
and a pecan maple cream puff for K. I’ll admit it might have been a bit too
much. However, the sea bands were working and I felt less seasick.
J and I went to the 1 pm American’s Test Kitchen for
pan-seared steak, blender béarnaise and best-baked potato. When the chef was
doing something less than exciting, they showed an appropriate video from the
actual ATK and then we went back to her, when it was done. I took notes all
over the recipes that were at the door when we arrived. It only took a little
over ½ hour.
I mentioned the exercises for my back. I have had arthritis
there for quite a while. My knees, as you’ll no doubt read in this blog, are
shot and will need replacement.
I have no arches and wear orthotics. Why this litany of
ills? To explain why I went to the 3 pm Back Pain Seminar. As I suspected, it
was to sell something. The guy, who was Croatian, I think, took footprints, by
having people walk normally across a piece of paper over an inkpad. Then, you
could see where the stress points were, where you weren’t hitting the floor,
etc. He was offering the same help a woman out by the pool was offering – shoe
inserts. He was particularly anxious for me to try them, due to the orthotics
and the fact that I had a pair of custom sandals. I did and they didn’t seem to
be a problem. In fact, I realized that they could solve my dress shoe problem.
I own a pair of horribly expensive simple dress shoes, because they have arch
support built in. Unfortunately, they are lousy for my bunion. These inserts
could work in cheap shoes. Just that flexibility alone, convinced me to buy
them at about ½ the cost of my orthotics.
I collected my daughter from out near the pool, where she
had been doing needlework, so that we could walk the Promenade deck. Three
loops equaled a mile and we were finished in 30 minutes. We were also warmer
than when we started.
At 4:30, we were back at the cabins to get ready for the
gala night dinner and I noticed that the sea was a little calmer. So, I took
off the sea bands.
When we got to the dining room at 5:10, the doors were
closed and a crowd had gathered. Actually, can you say “crowd”, when they are
all such well-dressed people? Some folks really take fancy clothes with them. I
went for a slit skirt and a nice top. I cannot imagine packing some of the
dresses we saw.
The doors opened at 5:15 and we headed for our table, where
we were handed fancy menu cards, that Gandhi said I could keep. I ordered
orange jumbo shrimp cocktail, J chose prosciutto ham, and K got creamed
artichoke and carrot soup for our starters. All were good and not filling. For
my main course, I picked cracked pepper tenderloin with grilled shrimp. The
meat was tender and I would not have minded more shrimp. Both K and J got
tangerine glazed duck roast. I believe “succulent” would not be an inappropriate
word for that.
Dessert was not a hard choice for me- chocolate soufflé. I
would split that with J, who ordered lemon meringue cheesecake. It was very
hard to pass that soufflé to her. Such a great chocolate flavor. K shocked us
by ordering a fruit plate. So many delicious choices and he chooses fruit? So
wrong. Besides, the plating made it look like you were trying to make someone on a diet feel better.
We were finished in time to go to the 7 pm show 1000 Steps.
We really enjoyed the singing and dancing. It was over in 35 minutes, which
meant we could be at the Lincoln Center Stage at 7:45 for Masterworks of
Beethoven. Even though my husband is a professional musician, we all really
enjoyed the program. Wait, that doesn't sound right. We go to many classical concerts because of him and we know good playing when we hear it. This was really great playing. These kids are professionals. There are two violins, a viola, a cello and a piano. The only guy, by the way, was the violist, whereas on the Greek cruise, it was the cellist.
At 8:25, we went to the room to plan our trip in Copenhagen
the next day. The curtains were drawn, chocolate on the pillows and our towel
dude was there. We opened the curtains to see it was still light and 63
degrees.
At 9, J and I rushed off to the Crow’s Nest on Deck 12
Forward for Music Trivia. There was a young man roaming around looking
uncomfortable, so I invited him to join our team. Unfortunately, the topic was
50’s and 60’s and J and the guy were little help to me. We did not have the
worst score, fortunately.
The sun was still out at 9:45, when we finished and we could
still see oil tankers pointed south above the tip of Denmark. These provided a
good photo op, when we were back in our cabins just before 10. We could never figure out what the brown haze was, even though we indulged in the family habit of major speculation.
Hopefully, the day charged our batteries to tackle
Copenhagen on our own tomorrow.
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