All at sea

AT SEA DAY - 7/4
First of all the clocks went back an hour at midnight – Pete had decided to have a look at the nightlife which he said was pretty quiet (80+ people go to bed) and he said it was funny because we were obviously at sea between Gibraltar/southern Spain and Morocco and suddenly his phone beeped and it was Spark telling him ‘You’re in Morocco and roaming rates don’t apply’, then it went back to Spanish time. I’ve since found out that Franco changed the time in Spain to an hour ahead but Portugal, despite neither country moving anywhere, is still the same as UK time. Tricky.

Here are a few things I’ve thought about over the last day or two:

We’ve seen the famous Caixa bank symbol around different towns, well known because it was designed by famous artist Joan Miro – I think it looks like a starfish but it’s actually a person dropping coins into the bank.

I downloaded an app that translates text from a photo, so far it’s a bit hit and miss but I’m getting to grips with it once you can get past the embedded advertising. Quite useful though for plaques on historic places such as the cannons we saw yesterday which were all about beating the English (I think).
I’ve put in a photo of one of the lovely Norwegian national costumes – on the third floor there’s a little museum and a set of models in costume, all very pretty too.

I treated myself to a pedicure on Thursday, asked the young woman about on board conditions – they share ‘inside’ cabins, two to a room so not totally crowded. Meals are similar to the passengers’ but not so much choice.

I hadn’t said that in all cabins we have an interactive TV which (when in range) has BBC, CNN, Discovery and a few other channels. Otherwise there’s a good range of movies, TV box sets, documentaries, music, videos of Viking destinations. It’s also loaded with our own personal information such as what excursions we’re booked on, any other things we might have booked such as spa treatments (pedicure tomorrow!) and our account of any expenses we’ve incurred aboard. There’s a weather forecast, a ship tracker, bridge cam which is good when going in and out of port if you can’t see from your cabin.

Breakfast Tuesday morning was interesting. I decided to have an omelette which was prepared on the spot. It took forever and when finished it looked like the egg had been cracked, given a slight swirl, cooked for a while then served – pretty much looked like a flat fried egg. Must have been a learner chef, should have put Pete behind the counter, he makes great omelettes. On the other hand they serve individual eggs benedict on a piping hot little saucer to keep it hot in the cabinet, soft fluffy half-bun, crispy bacon and a perfect poached egg on top. Add your own hollandaise. Delicious.

And breakfast Friday – someone had been taking lessons, a good effort on the omelette today. Definitely a first world problem, we’re lucky to be here.

Viking calls itself something like ‘the thinking person’s cruise’ with no kids, no hard sell art, lots of ‘culture’ with a resident historian, astronomer and a couple of other resident somethings. We went to a talk Thursday late PM about Isabella and Ferdinand, and this morning there was a talk about azulejos which are beautiful tiles, traditional Portuguese, mainly dating back to the 16th century but with input from different cultures around Europe and the Middle East. It was just over half an hour, great photos of extremely colourful tiles all over the outside and inside of buildings, maybe a bit over the top for my taste though. We’ll look forward to seeing them in Porto tomorrow. And this afternoon the talk was about wine making, beautiful photos and very interesting especially since Pete has been ‘sampling’ red wine in a few tapas bars.

Here are a few random photos, some with a tile theme since that was the history talk of the day.Read more