Last 3 Days at Sea Before our Land Down Under Adventure Begins! Sydney, Australia (February 9, 2016 to February 11, 2016)

Reading Length: Afternoon Cuppa Tea

Kristin Reporting!

(February 9, 2016)

I was pretty much back to my normal self this morning, no nausea, no trouble eating, and had a normal level of energy. However, the energy did wear off around 5:30pm, which was too early considering I got up at 11:00am. I've been dealing with my face peeling the last few days due to the sunburn I received in Tonga. I'm sure my back is peeling as well. This is just a minor nuisance, but when stacked upon my other issues, makes me feel as if my body is just falling apart. Happily, there is no problem with my appetite! 

Yesterday, D was better off than me, but now that I’ve bounced back I’d say that D is worse off than me because his appetite is still affected, he doesn't have much of one at all. It seemed hard for him to finish the chicken and french fries for dinner. Then I had chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce for dessert, but he didn't have any dessert at all, saying his stomach couldn't handle it. But, he says he doesn't have nausea and both of us have stopped needing to burp all the time, which was part of our nausea symptoms.

When I look at the food options, I find that the bland and "safe" foods still appeal to me more than any other options. For example, mashed potatoes and gravy, or, tonight I had fried chicken and french fries. I think this is partly to recently having had nausea issues, but its also possible that I'm simply sick of every food this ship has to offer. I took a bite of pasta today and could not bear to eat another bite. I said, "Yuck." D said, "Not good?" I said, "No, it tastes like... like..." and was at a loss for words. "Like Chef-Boy-R-D?" D asked. "Yes! That's it exactly. Thank you. See, I don't even KNOW the words to describe this food, it is so far down the ladder of quality!" I exclaimed. It is complete irony that, the day we came aboard, we thought the food on this ship was better than any ship before it, and now we think it is the worst of any ship we've ever been on. We can only think we were VERY hungry that first day because we had not eaten anything that whole day! 

I am reading the memoirs of Captain James Cook. (I highly recommend his memoirs. He is a good and amusing writer-- the amusement aspect is mostly due to his experiences, but also somewhat due to his personal outlook on life. For example, he convinced his men to eat sour kraut by showing them that the officers ate it voluntarily. This convinced the men that it had value and they went from refusing to eat it, to eating so much that he had to put a ration on the stuff!) 

I copied photos and videos off of our various devices, and sorted them and deleted the bad or duplicate photos. (D should be thankful that I'm very good about this. It takes a lot more time that one imagines to do it, but it is much better to stay on top of it, than to let it build up on you. I still have never sorted through the 3,000 pictures I took in Japan in 2008!) 

D and I spent a good amount of time just talking. We walked about outside on several occasions. There are many sea birds flying out here with us in the middle of the Tasman sea. There must be islands nearby, but beyond the horizon. This evening we found a large black beetle on the ship, and when we left Auckland the captain asked passengers to look out for a pine beetle that is invasive to Australia and can destroy pine plantations. Some crew were working out nearby, so I brought it to their attention, as I knew nothing about beetles, and said perhaps they knew if it was a bad one. They seemed to think it was, and said, "Good Find, guys!" and some crew watched the beetle, while others went to get a specimen collector. I hope it was a bad one, as I'd hate to cause the death of a beetle for no good reason. Since it appears that it may have been a bad one, then I guess we did our part to help protect the pine plantations of Australia.

I'm going to have some fun and play more of the game "The Wolf Among Us". 

(February 10, 2016)

·       Kristin did emails, twice!

·       Kristin paid bills

·       Davin and Kristin went to the sit down lunch: “It ended at 1:30PM so we cut it close, arriving around 1:20ish. We are trying to avoid the buffet because we are entirely sick of it. I really can't WAIT to get off this ship. We are going to eat some good take out in Sydney! (I hope!) The sit down lunch was okay. Still not good enough...”

·       Kristin updated the travel door with New Zealand postcards, completing it for this cruise

·       Davin and Kristin shopped at the Boutique store for Pacific Princess clothing. Kristin bought a ‘World Cruise’ sweatshirt.

·       Davin and Kristin double teamed the laundry! ($3.00 to wash/$3.00 to dry!)

·       Kristin ironed Davin’s suit for the formal dinner: “We actually dressed up in order to avoid the buffet or bistro in this case.”

·       Kristin did weight training at the gym. Davin did cardio: “D did cardio today as he suspects we won't get much intense exercise in the 9 days in Sydney and he needs to keep his conditioning up as much as possible due to his health condition.”

·       Davin and Kristin enjoyed a nice long soak in the Jacuzzi! <3

·       Davin and Kristin wrapped up the day with some original Doom coop

(February 11, 2016)

·       Davin and Kristin had a lunch of bratwurst from the grill.

·       Kristin did some real estate work.

·       We made chocolate pudding in their room! It turned out perfectly well!

·       We did a taste testing of all the green teas Kristin bought in New Zealand.

·        The sit down dinner took forever and they had the parade of chefs come through: “It was boring and took too long as they actually introduced people by name and we had to clap for them all. D didn't clap for the chefs though as he didn't like their food and rather than "no longer fitting in his clothes" he thinks he may have lost weight! I said, "Then you should have been clapping to thank them for making such bad food that it helped you lose weight!" To which he laughed and agreed.”

·       We packed: “I swear this took hours. Well, we got out of dinner at 7:30pm, and then we missed working out because the gym closed at 9pm, and it was too irresponsible to put off the packing as the bags were supposed to be out of the room by 10pm. I don't know that we over packed but we have too much stuff! The snorkel equipment doesn't help any. I took the postcards off the door of course, and packed them away. We got the big bag fully loaded of things we don't need and put it outside. It vanished a short time later. It looks like everything else will fit in the remaining bags. If not, I have an overflow bag, like the ones we use for grocery shopping. But I think we will be okay.”

 ·      
          We ate chips and (not so good) salsa that Kristin bought in New Zealand: “At the same time, we did some recordings of the ship, measuring the hallway and stairway to compare to the original Queen Mary and the next two ships. And a short dialogue about our thoughts of this leg of the cruise.” 

Next Stop: Sydney, Australia