June 29, 2017 – A day at sea

Today is a lazy day and we don’t even have room service deliver our breakfast until 8 AM! Nonetheless I wake up at 5 AM to get ready for the day. Our big plans are to look out the windows, sort our dirty clothes and give them to Von to have laundered, eat lunch, lie around, go to a wine tasting, have snacks, and eat dinner. It’s a tough life.

The cruise activity director is all abristle with myriad things we can do today. One thing is to put on a bathing suit, jump into a cold pool, kiss a fish, and get your nose painted blue. This is a ritual one does when crossing the Arctic Circle. We decline since the activity involves wearing a bathing suit, being with people, kissing a fish, and having our noses painted blue. Otherwise we would be all in!

We also have other exciting things to look forward to. There are some lumpy mountains called the Seven Sister Mountains (like the Seven Sister Waterfalls only mountains) and a mountain with a hole in it.

Here are some pictures of our “at sea” day.

First up is the famous mountain with a hole in it called Torghatten. We are looking out the window at this and there are a bunch of people sitting next to us who are asking all these questions about it to each other. I very helpfully Google it up and explain all about how it  was formed during the ice age and that there is a path up to it and you can walk through. I even throw in the folk lore fable about it. These people are totally unappreciative of my effort.

Here’s the fable – According to legend, the hole was made by the troll Hestmannen while he was chasing the beautiful girl Lekamøya. As the troll realized he would not get the girl, he released an arrow to kill her, but the troll-king of Sømna threw his hat into the arrow’s path to save her. The hat turned into the mountain with a hole in the middle. (Wikipedia)

Famous Norwegian mountain with a hole in it

Other exciting mountains include –

Seven Sisters Mountains
Sleeping soldier mountain (imagine that the left lump is a head in profile)

Then I took some pictures of interesting-looking mountains.

I call this one pug-nose mountain
Here is shark fin mountain

Vikesh and his crew have talked us into going to the wine tasting that is being held in the Chef’s Table restaurant at 4 PM. All the nuances of wine tasting are explained. We have heard all this several times before but the head sommelier, Jude, does introduce a few new ideas. Mostly it is too much talk, not enough drink.

Wine glasses waiting to be filled

We have our pre-dinner snack and discover that they have Downtown Abbey on the TV. We haven’t seen that in a few years so we start from episode 1.  Poor Lady Mary doesn’t realize her life is going to be pretty disastrous at the beginning, but we do.

Then we go down to have our second spice road dinner. Mmmm, even better than the first because my beef tenderloin no longer has weird spices on it. After dinner Vikesh shows us pictures of his cousin’s restaurant in Bangalore. The food and decor look pretty impressive. It is nice to spend a few moments where it is not just about us.

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