1-15 At Sea

1-15 Day 10 At sea

Sea days are becoming pretty predictable and busy. Start off with port lecture (this time about upcoming Valparaiso, Chile, and Ilsa Robinson Caruso.) We've been to Valparaiso before, and not sure why the ship is really going to the other LITTLE island (only 36 sq. miles) and no city, no taxis, very few cars, etc. It is a world biosphere and protected park area. The most we can do is walk around, hope we see some wildlife, and maybe get a snack. Oh well . . it's all part of the travel experience.

The guest Chef Matt gave his last hands-on class. He gets off the ship tomorrow. Today we made pork cutlets with a dijon sauce (won't bother you with the fancy name) and herb spaetzli (German dumplings) The side was a pate au choux torte with fennel, onions and goat cheese. Dessert was Nougatine Glace (light dessert with the consistency of melting ice cream). Matt realized that the ship didn't have what we needed to make the dessert, so he spent the morning making it himself improvising a way to make it work (and believe me, it worked!) It was the best part of the meal – hope I can duplicate it at home. Once again it was a fun experience and a great lunch.

Meanwhile, Doug went to a talk about how to read the ship's state of the art TRANSAS navigation monitor. He said it was short, but interesting.

I went straight from lunch to my creative writing class, but made the mistake of having two glasses of wine with lunch, so I was a bit sleepy in the class. It was still fun. When I got back to the room, all I wanted was to lie down for about an hour (which I did – for about 2!) Doug and I decided it was too much effort to get dressed, etc. for dinner with our table of 8, so we had room service for the first time. What a treat and nice convenience. All we wanted was a light meal (soup, salad) so it worked out well. Read for a bit and fell sound asleep!