THE FALAFEL WAS AWFUL

January 9, 2019

Actually the falafel – a deep-fried doughnut-shaped patty, made from ground chickpeas, and originating in Egypt – was rather tasty.  I can’t remember the names of the other fancy Lido luncheon offerings, and that sounded like a catchy title for tonight’s blog.

I walked by the buffet on our way to find a table and the pans were full of a variety of interesting sounding and interesting looking offerings.  When I got back to the line, the cupboard was bare.  The vultures had descended.  As our Russian friend, Lena, once said, “There are a lot of thick people in here.” 

But soon the trays were full again and I tried a slice of leg of lamb with mint jelly.  The mint jelly was delicious.  The lamb was dry and slightly tough.  I also got a small piece of some kind of beef, cut the end off, and when I tried to slice another bite, I sawed and sawed like I was trying to carve concrete.  So pushing all of that aside, I had two pieces of pepperoni pizza.

After lunch we played three games of Yahtzee (a tournament is 6) and quit for naptime.

I had only one talk today, the one under the general category of astronomy, which when I started doing Journeys Cruises three years ago was called celestial navigation.  It is a fun talk, and the Butterfly Lounge was about 2/3 full.

I was followed by a Crew Meet and Greet, so I cut my talk short to allow plenty of time for the set up of what is one of my favorite days at sea activity.  Crew persons from the various departments of the ship introduce themselves and talk about their responsibilities on board and share insights into their lives at sea and back home.  It is always a good time.  Later on in the cruise, the captain and some of his officers will do the same.  And the audience gets to ask questions.

For reasons unknown to me – ours is not to reason why – I will not do the second presentation of astronomy until we sail away from San Juan.  Strange, but it’s their ship.

We got a private table for two at dinner tonight and enjoyed linguini with a great sauce accompanied by Italian sausage.  My dessert was “Bitter N Blanc,” kind of a bread pudding with a cinnamon sauce and chocolate pudding on the bottom.  It won’t replace Melting Chocolate Cake but it was good.

The show in the Taj Mahal was a cast show called “Get Away Island.”  We saw it the last time we were on the Pride, but strangely it is not produced on any other Carnival ships we’ve been on.  That may be because of the 3-D feature in the middle of it.  A good show with lots of island music – Kokomo, Margarettaville, Beach Boys selections, and more.

Well, that’s all for me tonight.  Oh, we are going on an excursion tomorrow on St. Thomas which features “Amazing Mountain Views and Villa Botanica.”  We will report later.

TTFN

Hey you guys!!

Well, after breakfast I went for my walk. The weather was great outside and there was a great wind blowing. No jacket needed. I felt great. So great in fact I walked for an hour and over 3 miles. Lots of others walking on deck 10 with me, even tough the crew had parts of it blocked off and we had to do some detours. They were mostly finished by the time I stopped. There was one person who was jogging on Deck 10 instead of up on 11 on the jogging track where he should have been.

After walking I came back to the room and picked up my crocheting stuff, went to the Captain’s Club, which was closed for a private function again, for creativity at sea. We were out in the bar area again and the craft was Hawaiian leis. I picked up 2 and headed to the Butterfly lounge for Dads talk. It was after 9:30 and the talk was at 10 today. There was almost a full house this morning. He had shortened it but it was still a good talk.

After the Crew show we went to lunch. I had pizza and salad and we both had an ice cream cone for dessert. The dice have been going his way and he won 2 of the 3 games today.
We went back to the room for a nap and on our way into the room we met the dance couple who are in the room next to ours. Nice people. They are not happy with the new Carnival rules either and they don’t like the lady at Sixth Star either. Hhhmm!

He napped first and after he got up I was finally able to sleep for a few minutes. Supper was good. We basically both had the same thing tonight. Except I had the Smores parfait for dessert.

The show was good and we are now back in the room enjoying a cold drink and getting ready for bed. Our tour tomorrow isn’t until 10:30 so we have lots of time in the morning for breakfast and maybe we will get to see the docking. I always like to watch docking and sail away when I can. Probably won’t get to see sail away as it is at about 5:30 which is supper time. Tomorrow nights show is a juggler and comedian.

Good night for now. Love you all.

Mom, Granny and Bonnie