Kristin Reporting!
Alright, let's see if I can keep this post short and sweet! After all, days at sea are NOT that interesting, so I can't have too much to say, right? Ha! We'll see... Here we go!
Every day since we've left I have written and sent an email summary of the day to my handsome prince Scotticus Tenhunen. And every day I think, "Not much happened, I really have nothing to say!" and one hour later an essay is before my eyes! But is everything I write worth telling to YOU? Of course not! I just wanted to tell you all this so that my mother-in-law, the wonderful Claudia, will know that I spend AT LEAST one hour every day thinking about, and writing to, her son!
The past five days of activity can be summarized as follows: eating (Davin and Kristin), a very minor amount of Real Estate working (Kristin), some working on the company taxes (Davin), reading online articles (Davin), watching the ocean pass by (Davin and Erich), going to at least one cruise event activity (..... yea... we don't do that), skipping the first formal night because we were too lazy to get dressed (Davin, Kristin & Erich), being jealous that Scott ate Bangers and Mash Monday night on January 25, 2016 in Palm Desert (Davin, Kristin & Erich), being guilty of shouting "NO FAIR!!!" at Scott via email because the intense jealousy of "Bangers deprivation" overcame her (Kristin), almost playing Doom 3 Coop in its entirety with only one or two levels left to go (Davin and Kristin), going in the jacuzzi (.....no one.....shocking isn't it? Clue: the shower is hotter...), wasting water sitting in the shower for over an hour with 40C water (Davin and Kristin... mostly Davin...), working on a map for his fantasy novel (Davin), making a spreadsheet of Gods for her story (Kristin), starting to sort through the last 4 duplicate copies of her My Files (Kristin), starting to read the memoirs of Captain James Cook who made 3 voyages to the Pacific Ocean in the mid 1700s (Kristin), starting to read 'Around the World in 80 Day' by Jules Verne (Kristin), going to the gym, without fail, every single day for at least 30 minutes of intense exercise (Davin and Kristin), listening to the audio book 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' while exercising (Kristin), remembering how much that author bastardized the book and how she could have written it better so that people who love both zombies and Jane Austen novels (a rare combo to be sure, but they exist as she is one herself) could be happy with it (Kristin), watching two movies she has watched before and loves dearly, 'Alice' and 'Pride and Prejudice', the 6 hour mini-series starring super hot Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy (Kristin), heckling Kristin because she is wasting her time re-watching stupid movies instead of watching one of the 100 new ones ripped on her drive (Davin), suffering through 'For a Few Dollars More' a Clint Eastwood western recommended by Davin-- it took 3 different sittings-- oh how the sound effects hurt the ears! (Kristin), feeling nauseous on multiple occasions due to the rocking and the rolling of this little ship and being forced to break down and take Dramamine (Davin and Kristin), watching
'Edge of Tomorrow' from her stash of 100s of movies and finding it excellent fun and well worth watching (Kristin), and lastly, doing one crossword puzzle (Kristin).
Please enjoy the attached pictures which show a few of the above activities in progress. The picture of the photos/postcards on the door is the beginning of our visual journey. So far you see San Diego with the two dearest people we left behind, and next to that is the Queen Mary where we stayed in Long Beach. Tomorrow we will get a Honolulu, Hawaii postcard and the train of stops will just continue on from there!
Interesting Notes and Factoids:
Kristin currently owes the pig $110.00 -- She came aboard at $86.00 debt. She subsequently stuck her fingers in her mouth many times... and today she forgot to brush her teeth! (That's $10 bucks, poof!)
The Pacific Princess is 3 times smaller than the Queen Elizabeth-- Davin and Kristin will be on board the Queen Elizabeth for almost 3 months.
In a freak accident, Kristin somehow managed to drop her Canon camera out of her sweatshirt pocket and it fell behind her (HOW?!?!?) into the toilet AFTER she had done some business in there-- the kind of business that no lady would discuss publicly-- And now the flash is no longer working... /sigh
The Ukelele lessons on board this ship are serious-- passengers have been sighted leaving their rooms with Ukeleles and music books in hand and headed to practice, and a LOT of people were seen sitting in the lounge, all in possession of their own Ukelele, taking lessons. How many Ukeleles can there be aboard this ship?
It takes 2 minutes to walk from the aft-most part of the ship to the fore-most part of the ship (via the passenger accessible areas)-- meaning this ship is tiny! and it is going around the world on a World Cruise! We are all grateful that we are "jumping ship" in Australia and upgrading to the Queen Elizabeth's World Cruise voyage instead!
As usual, there are mostly only geezers aboard. It is rare to see anyone under 50. Ages 50 - 70 are also rather in the minority. We have seen maybe 10 different pairs of younger people (ages 20 to 40). Maybe.
Experiencing sea days on a cruise ship is probably the closest a person can actually get to being in the movie 'Groundhog Day'. That being said, Kristin absolutely LOVES THEM! She's actually so content that she might rather stay on board on her computer than go swim with sharks tomorrow! But she supposes she'll deign to leave her monitor for one day to go and have a most awesome adventure.
Nelson, the head waiter of our section of the restaurant, has, in four days, memorized the names of all passengers in his section, for both the first and second seatings! He told us tonight that there are 109 people in his first seating and he will count and tell us how many people are in his section for the second seating tomorrow when we see him. There are all kinds of minds aren't there? Amazing.
Kristin has memorized the names of Nelson, the head waiter, Alvin, the steward, and Lyndon, our table's waiter, in 6 nights. She has still to learn the name of the nice young man who refills the water glasses at dinner every night. She just got down Alvin and Lyndon's name today (Day 6), and tomorrow Lyndon goes home for his 3 month vacation. Meaning, tomorrow there will be a new name to learn! How trying...
Davin drinks copious amounts of tea and we have learned how to use the Handicap access doors to transport 4 cups of tea at a time to our room. Our skill at this continues to increase with each passing day. In contrast, Kristin only drinks one cup of tea at a time because she thinks it upsets her stomach when taken in combination with the rocking movements of the ship.
For the record, if it were a competition, Kristin has better withstood the tumultuous rocking of this ship and has therefore taken Dramamine fewer times than Davin over the past 5.5 days. But, it's not a competition. Dammit. It's always a shame when clear superiority over an older sibling is discovered and then determined to be useless.
There is copious amounts of Parmesan to be had on this ship when they are serving pasta. It is like a glorious Leprechaun's cauldron of gold, but filled with Parmesan, and we may take from it as greedily as we wish. This will seem like a very random thing to be telling you, but Scott will understand why I have stated this here. There's Parmesan here Scott, lots and lots of Parmesan, it is glorious to behold! But... no pasta station... and the pre-made pasta dishes are mediocre at best! Fer crying out loud... the injustice of it all...
Davin has continued his tradition of maintaining a stash of tea bags and cookies in the room. This stash protects him from the whims of the Ship Food Exchange Economy. It has served him well as oatmeal raisin cookies have not been seen in several days. Even his store of these particular cookies is growing exceedingly small. We have a small supply of Darjeeling tea bags which is good as that type of tea was not sighted as publicly available today. One Oolong tea bag was seen, acquired, and used by Davin on the first day, but none have been seen since. (Yes, should the situation grow entirely dire, we could ask to see if these items are available for scrounging behind the scenes.)
Kristin has started a spreadsheet comparing all of the ships that Davin and Kristin have been on before, and all of their various attributes. It might take a month or more to finish, but it will eventually be put on the blog for anyone interested in the real nitty gritty details of cruise ships, the different cruise line experiences, and the odd things that matter to Davin and Kristin but most likely don't matter to anyone else!
To conclude, I'd have to say that this post is pretty damn long. But, my positive spin on that is... IT IS ONLY AS LONG AS USUAL!! Wooo! That is cause for celebration considering that this post covers 5 entire days of (light) activity! What that means folks is that this post is 4 times shorter than it should be based on my past history and my considerable talent for blathering!
I call THAT a success!
Kristin Tenhunen, World Adventurer, signing off! Until next time!
P.S. The food picture has been included for you Mrs. Whitney Brandenburg. True, it's nothing compared to Bangers and Mash, but... look upon it in all of ITS DELICIOUS GLORY AND KNOW THAT....... THERE WILL BE MORE!!! MUAHAHAHAHA! <3 I actually rather enjoyed that salmon. MmmMmmMmm :)
It clearly shows that you guys prepared for that trip based on prior experience 😀 Thanks for letting us take part in your adventure by posting this!
ReplyDeleteThanks for following our progress!
DeleteLooks like I will have to set aside much time to keep up!! We are doing what we can to keep Scott busy on Friday nights with FDN (usually minus at least 2 - someone else and you.)
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