Friday, August 15, 2008

Day 3: Tuesday - Let me take you on a Sea Cruise



Tuesday was a “Day at Sea” which I had expected to be extremely boring, so I pre-booked a lime-salt scrub in the spa. It was really relaxing, even after I got the hard sell to buy a brush to invigorate my skin that turned out to cost 60 bucks. That definitely got my circulation flowing. But it does feel kind of good. Maybe that’s the allure for those pony people. Afterwards, I went in the Jacuzzi. The seas were so rough that the water in the pool was sloshing all over. It kind of looked like fun, but they shut the pool down before I could slam my head into the cement in the name of adventure.



I was kind of peckish, so I checked out their “Bar and Grill”. The knockwurst had a good snap, even if it was pretty much flavorless. I abandoned it (I would be SO fined - or spanked - for wasting food like that at The Elbow Room!).





I went and stared at the buffet out of boredom. kind of the way some people go to museums. It was a sushi-themed day.







Maybe it is a delicacy I am unfamiliar with, but at first I thought these were Steamed Carrots DANDRUFF



Then the ship entered a wormhole and traveled back in time to the 1950s. I believe this is ham and pineapple on white bread with melted cheese.



I only ate one thing at the buffet. I scooped the coconut filling out of the center of one of these tarts. Their bakery was pretty damn good.



Later that evening was a “formal night”. As you can see from my formal photograph, I handled the evening with my usual grace and panache.

The formal dining room had these crazy blinking lights everywhere.



I started with duck “delicioso”. No one knew what that meant, nobody. But what the hell. It turned out to be cold-smoked duck. Not bad.



For dinner we had the ever-popular and hard-to-screw-up tournadoes of beef. They did forget the bacon and béarnaise, the standard accompaniments of tournadoes, but Im sure my arteries will thank me for that later.

"The tournado is not a filet mignon, although the two cuts are both taken from the tenderloin of beef. The whole tenderloin can be divided into three basic sections: the head, the center and the tail. Filets are cut from the center of the tenderloin; the tournado, much smaller, is one of the first two or three cuts taken from the trimmed tail." Kim Vernon



For dessert, I tried the champagne sorbet which tasted very much like simple syrup sorbet. The dinner service is somewhat chaotic, and the language barrier only added to the confusion.



It was Ralph and Mary Anne’s 30th wedding anniversary, so it was nice to celebrate with them, pop a bottle of champagne and have a bite of cake. Afterwards, I hung out in the library and was serenaded by Allegro non Troppo as played by Ray Coussins in the piano bar.



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