Another day of
mild sea. White horses are rare today and the ship is steady. Not that I’m
complaining. I’m a really bad sailor, and as soon as we start to pitch or yaw, I take to bed for a few hours
until we stop the uncomfortable swaying about.
We have maintained
a Westerly course according to the Navigator. We seem to have been passing
close to land on both sides today, and they have been islands I didn’t know
existed. I guess they are part of Indonesia, and we headed into the Java Sea
and turned to the North West.
Tonight we put
our clocks back another hour, which I find much more comfortable than when we
head East and lose an hour’s sleep every second night. It is about 9pm here,
and already 11pm in Sydney. Bruce’s body-clock is keeping Sydney time so he is
in bed asleep. He was reading till his eyes got just too heavy, so he gave in
and went to bed. In the morning he will wake up early (not even Lucy to take
out) and get up, go and have breakfast, and come back here telling me loudly
‘It’s 8 o’clock. Time to rise and shine.” I open one eye and drift to the
surface slowly.
By the time I
get up, shower and dress it is probably 9 o’clock before we head upstairs to
the Horizon buffet on Level 14. I have breakfast and Bruce is ready for morning
tea, and thinking about going to a morning ‘Scholarship at Sea’ Lecture. He has
been going to a series by an Economy lecturer – a professor – on things like
poverty in The Third World. He has been enjoying them.
I thought I
would talk a bit about the dining rooms.
There are two large dining restaurants on Level Five and Level Six, called ‘Rigoletto’ and ‘Traviata’. Each has seating
for 480 people, and there are two sittings in each every night. It is amazing
that the kitchens can cater for so many people with meals that arrive at the
table hot and pretty fancy. Our Evening meal is early. At 5.30 each
night. In another setting it might be late afternoon tea time. The Late
sitting is 7.45, when they do it all over again. I am impressed that they can present nearly
2000 hot and appetizing meals on time if needed.
These sittings
are never full as there are several other places you can eat. There’s always
the Horizon Buffet up on Level 14 which is much less formal than the dining
room. Dress code not so strictly ‘Smart Casual’. There is also a smaller Steak
House and a Pizzeria. If you want you can have catered breakfast and lunch in
the Dining Room. You can even order breakfast and have it delivered to your
cabin. We’ve never gone to breakfast but occasionally have lunch in the dining
room as it’s very civilized – that is, not so crowded, or noisy, and the lunch
menu is very pleasantly served by the waiters without your having to queue and
hassle for table space.
The dinner menu
is varied and –as I said – can be ‘fancy’.
There’s a choice of three ‘Appetisers’, then ‘Soup and Salad’. Three
soups and a special salad. Main Course has a choice of several pastas, two fish
dishes, chicken. Sometimes lamb. And
lastly beef or pork. Tonight Bruce had
‘Turf and Surf’ (“rare’ please) and I had Australian Spring Lamb. We are spoilt
for choice – though I find servings too big.
The desert menu
follows: tonight there was ‘Chocolate Obsession’ and I had the much less exotic
Apple Crumble with Crème Anglaise!
And to think I
don’t have to think up what to cook tonight for another 90 or so days.
Alas – it will
come around again, but in the meantime not having to do so is very pleasant.
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