Friday, March 3, 2023

February 2, 2023 – At Sea – Mostly Cloudy with Showers – 80F

The ship bounced around all night long – I kept hearing this noise that sounded like something was loose on the side of the ship.  The noise was actually waves hitting our porthole on a regular basis.  Eventually, I was able to tune out the noise and get a little sleep. The porthole cam captured the chaotic seas.

Onward's current position.

I hustled through breakfast in the Window's Cafe this morning because my talk today, “Forensics and History: The Lost Dauphin of France”, is the earliest one of the cruise and scheduled for 10 AM.  I got there at 9:30 AM and there were some early birds in the lounge.

Considering the early start, there was a good crowd (approximately 70 percent full).  I was thinking of adding the “OJ Moment” to this talk and when I went to do that, I found that I had already incorporated it.  (Just ahead of the game I guess).  The OJ stuff turned out to be a successful addition.  I was happy with the turnout, and I did talk to people afterwards. The talk ran about 53 minutes.  A passenger told me that he talks were not being taped for stateroom viewing.  (NOTE – I found out that sometime later in the cruise, the shows started being recorded – the feed was tied to the slides – no cameras following speakers around).

The early talk changed our schedule for the morning – We had extra time before lunch which we spent out on the Sunset Veranda – the weather improved as the day went on.  

For lunch today, I thought I would try the Beyond Burger prepared in the Patio Grill.  It was OK for the most part but a little too done.  A salad completed the meal along with an iced tea – no beer today. NOTE: The Beyond Burgers I make a home taste a little different than those on the ship – must be the type of mustard they use, and I also like a mix of ketchup and mayo on the burger.  I’m sure I can get it done that way.

We found a nice seat with a window in the Discoveries Bar and spent a good deal of the afternoon reading “Plan B”.  I can tell that Lee Child did not write this book.  Also, the book has two parallel story lines going on – I usually don’t like this but I’m sure that they will converge. I had a strawberry daiquiri, and I had the bartender make Ellen a “dirty banana” – a banana daiquiri with chocolate syrup.  Both drinks were excellent. 

The theme at dinner tonight was “A Taste of Germany”.  We tried the buffet first and I had the chef prepare me some Spätzle with tomato sauce.  I have no idea how the dish was supposed to be prepared and I did not like it at all.  Plan B involved going next door to the Patio, where we both had the salmon (mashed potatoes for me) along with a salad from the salad bar.  The salmon was absolutely perfectly prepared as were the mashed potatoes.  We tried some of the German themed desserts from the buffet (the cherry pie in the patio was hyper-gelatinous).

Showtime tonight was the second full Production Show “Groove Tonight”.  

It was supposed to be about Disco but the songs were from a couple of decades later.  The dancers and singers worked hard but the choreography was a little choppy.  The orchestra outran one of the singers who was going as fast as she could with “I Will Survive”.  A lot of the songs were longer than they needed to be.  The Signature Singers and Dancers are very talented, and the Onward Orchestra is very good as well.  This is a relatively new troupe so it will take a little while to get up to speed.   I've picked up the names of some of the performers - Jonathan, Henry, Kelty, and Sabrina. Pictures from the show.

Back to the room because we have an early day tomorrow.

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