Friday, November 4, 2016
At Sea
The forecast for today is cloudy with a high of 69 degrees.
Sunrise was at 6:40 am and Sunset is for 5:29 pm
Tonight is a Formal or Gala Attire night
We had breakfast in the dining room as we enjoy doing on sea days and when we do not have an early morning tour. Breakfast in the Vista Dining Room is from 8 am to 9:30 am.
We now have three guest lecturers on board for sea days during the crossing. We also have a Bridge instructor who will be teaching classes in the mornings and conducting American Contract Bridge League sanctioned games in the afternoons.
After breakfast, we went to a Cruise Critic Meet and Greet in the Crow’s Nest that Sylvia organized. It was a good way to welcome people who had joined the cruise yesterday in Civitavecchia. People were also interested in talking about the next four ports of call before the Oosterdam crosses the Atlantic Ocean for Tampa, Florida.
We were invited to attend an Indonesian Rijsttafel Lunch at 11:30, but wanted to go to the Mainstage Theatre for Linda’s presentation on our next three ports of call: Palma de Mallorca (November 5th), Cartagena, Spain (November 6th), and Malaga (November 7th).
Linda is enthusiastic and has a great sense of humor. When we are doing our own thing in Catagena, we hope to find and taste pan con tomate, a Spanish toast with tomato and olive oil, as one of our tapas. We might or might not have fruit salad in a glass to go along with our tapas.
We had lunch in the dining room and then spent the afternoon reading and sitting out on our balcony as the sun was peeking through the clouds for long intervals.
The Captain’s Welcome Aboard Toast was in the Mainstage Theatre at 7:30 pm. With this welcome from Captain Robert Jan Kan and our toast, we are now officially on the final segment of our two back-to-back cruises – the 15-day Transatlantic from Rome to Tampa.
Afterwards, for our Gala Dinner, we has a choice of three appetizers: honey pineapple and strawberries with toasted coconut, shrimp cocktail, or escargots. We chose escargots. The salad was made with arugula, William pear, mandarin segments, pistachios, cherry tomatoes, and organic mixed seeds. We both chose the surf and turf with cracked pepper tenderloin and grilled shrimp. For dessert Henry had the Black Forest Cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. Granby had the fruit appetizer for dessert.
Tonight on the Mainstage were featured The Flyboys, a unique vocal act straight from the United Kingdom with music from the Golden Age of Big Bands and the Jazz groups of the 30s and 40s..
Here is the towel animal that Ferdinand and Cocorico found tonight in our stateroom.
Clue for tomorrow’s port: Austria’s Archduke Luis Salvador (1847-1915) built a mansion known as Son Marroig, that overlooks Sa Foradada, a rocky point of limestone on this island’s North Coast.
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