Thursday, May 14, 2015
It was a little rough last night. Clay said we must have run
over about 14 whales. We have been having a night light issue in the cabin that
we still haven’t worked out. There is a nice flat nightlight the ship provides
in the bathroom’s razor outlet by the way. It won’t move to the other 110
outlets by the desk. The 2 by the lamp and mirror are too narrow with the
mirror’s light switch. In order to put our own travel night light there would
mean unplugging the power strip at night and Clay’s devices wouldn’t be able to
charge overnight. The 110 outlet at the other end of the desk is higher on the
wall under the TV. It is where the TV is plugged in with a blank space and then
another 100 outlet, but it is just about eye level on me and when we plug our
nightlight in there it shines too brightly at the foot of the bed into our
eyes. We tried the mirror’s light since they seemed dim in daylight, but they
are too much at night. Historically we have used a clock app on Clay’s tablet
as a clock at night and a nightlight but he got a new tablet before this trip
and it doesn’t work on the new tablet. So, last night I cracked the curtains
about 6 inches because there is light on deck six where the gangplank hangs
below our cabin. Perfect. Until 4:15am this morning, when sunshine like high
noon woke us both! I thought I must have overslept and it was after 7am, but
Clay was in bed looking hard at me. I asked what was going on and he said it’s
4:30am and you left the curtains opened! I did it on purpose, oops! I don’t
know what to try tonight I want to move the power strip into the outlet under
the TV but Clay hasn’t seen that it would work or approved the change yet. We’ll
see…
So, we went back to sleep since today is basically a sea
day. We are cruising the St. Lawrence River all day today. Finally, a sea day!
That is what this cruise needs more of for our long term cruising comfort
level.
We went to breakfast between 7:30 and 8 am. This morning
there were no carts out in the hallway so I guess they were getting a late
start assuming everyone would sleep in today. We went to Terrace and Clay had the
huevos rancheros today. I think he like them okay, though he objected to the soft
tortilla base in favor of his preference for the crisp corn tortilla base. I
had a repeat of yesterday but with plain Dannon yogurt. We sat together in the
Horizons Lounge and watched snow patched mountains come and go on the port side
as we sailed upriver. Clay went to Dr. Paula Smith’s lecture “The Story of the Magnificent
St. Lawrence River and an overview of the Beautiful City of Quebec” while I
went to Needlepoint in Horizons. Both were at 9:30am, so I couldn’t do both.
Needlepoint and scarf tying are provided by Lisa, our social hostess. She
taught me how to do needlepoint and I wanted her to critique my technique to
see if I was doing it right. She thought I was doing fine and I got a coin
purse to work on next.
At 11am, we both went to the cooking demonstration in the theater
by the Culinary Director Franck Garanger and Senior Executive Chef Alexi
Quaretti. They were both French and fortunately spent most of the hour making
jokes at the expense of being French. They also managed to cook 4 dishes.
Before they began, I went to return one of the 2 recipe handouts we had
received and saw a whole stack of chefs sitting behind us in tall white toques.
The ship was rocking them back and forth in unison and I almost laughed out
loud it was so funny and unexpected. I turned back and tapped Clay and told him
to turn around. He told me he took their picture. He took pictures of both the
demo chefs as they posed displaying their dishes. It was fun. They did not
charge for this though they do have extra charge cooking classes onboard. The bar
wait staff though was passing through offering trays of drinks (bloody mary,
mimosa and white wine) that they were charging for. Always Be Closing. Oh, I
should say that I guess technically there is no theater aboard Marina, they
named it the Marina Lounge. It has a raked floor and a stage and a control room
in the back for all the lights, cameras, special effects, sound etc. but it is
not called a theater. Just to be correct. I, though, will continue to refer to
it to the theater because that is its function whereas there are several
lounges onboard whose sole function is as a bar while Marina Lounge’s is not.
We have a lunch date today in the GDR with a couple from 2
segments of Cruise Critic roll call. He is the organizer of the puffin viewing
catamaran tour we are taking at St. John’s. I’m not sure we had realized the
overlap of the 2 cruises with him until Clay saw an email he sent to let
everyone know that they were changing cabins between this segment and next.
Clay replied to him that we were also onboard now and voila, lunch date. According
to the Currents, today is seafood buffet up in Terrace and we haven’t yet had
lunch in GDR so we’ll see how that works. Pizza has been saving me in Terrace
so far, but I don’t know how it will work in GDR. So, it turns out lunch in
Terrace and GDR are unrelated unlike dinner which carries from GDR to Terrace.
Today’s lunch in GDR was Italian themed. I had fried cheese stuffed with
broccoli and prosciutto followed by Tuscan bean soup. The other 3 had chilled
Tangerine soup and sandwiches. Everyone had dessert. It was very busy and loud
in GDR today. Our dinner companions who are on their 18th Oceania
cruise and usually dine in GDR said it was unusual for it to be that busy or
noisy at lunch. We all assumed the cold weather and sailing day were to blame.
It has been sunny and
windy all day with temperatures in the 40Fs rather than yesterdays’ 30Fs. When
we woke up twice this AM, the seas were smooth, practically glassy. Ever since
we made the turn into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and up the river the waves have
increased in size. I guess the current combined with a stiff wind out of the
west are buffeting both the water and the ship. This inland sailing has been
rougher than expected.
After lunch, we watch our first TV movie onboard. They were
playing The Grand Budapest Hotel on channel 26 at 2:30pm and we had somehow
missed it at the theater. Clay mostly slept but I laughed out loud and it had
been years since I had seen F. Murray Abraham in years. It was a tough choice
for Clay because today was also the first time we had an afternoon popcorn
movie in the theater. The movie was The Imitation Game which Clay acknowledged
he had slept through at the theater. I am sure he’d have slept through it again
today, but it was decided for him by our lunch meeting at 1pm.
We went downstairs around 6pm to check the menus at GDR and
Terrace. I voted once again for Terrace. We didn’t have to change clothes and we
went up at 6:30pm. Clay had the 72 hour short rib from the carving station
though they were very stingy even though he requested a double serving. I
offered to go and get some more meat for him since I couldn’t get any broccoli
and he had a lot and gave it to me, but he declined. I got an arancini de riso,
which neither of us would eat after I cut it open to find very little rice and
we each took a taste and didn’t taste rice. Weird. I went back to the wok
station where my new friend from Indonesia took care of my special requests and
cooking instructions with good cheer. Clay had his best dessert of, I think,
Russian pistachio cake. It was a crispy top and bottom with billows of green crème
in the center. I had a raspberry topped tapioca and then we both had some
salted caramel gelato.
We might watch another movie after sunset which looks like
it will be on our side and our first chance at a good one.
