Day 10 ~ Beautiful Briny Sea

"It's lovely, bobbing along, bobbing along on the bottom of the beautiful briny sea!"
Bedknobs & Broomsticks

Well, we're not exactly on the bottom of the sea, but the Pacific has been so placid and welcoming, that little ditty from a movie I used to watch with my kids has been stuck in my head today. My previous experiences in this ocean have not been so smooth, but I've decided Balboa wasn't lying when he named this largest of all the earth's feature. It truly is "pacific." 

The Viking Star, like the Pacific Princess, is not a large enough ship for me to walk 5K steps without some intentional extra schlepping about. So today, we visited the small gym and were able get onto treadmills immediately. There are 540 passengers on a ship designed for 930, so there is never a sense of being crowded or having to wait in line. In fact, the crew complement is 550, so we are always well-tended by Viking staff who are eager to please. 

We attended another art class, focusing on painting the Sierra Madres. I continue to be a little frustrated because our instructor doesn't have an easel, so she whips out a few things on her watercolor paper and then shows us her semi-finished project without us being able to see the intermediate steps. Also, I have no idea about brush technique or how to mix pigment, so my paintings are by-guess-and-by-golly. But it's still a fun play time.

In the afternoon, we joined Wing Commander (Ret.) William Simpson (one of the ship's resident historians) for a tour of the fore and aft stair wells where much larger than life murals of the Bayeux Tapestry adorn the walls. The details in the battle scenes are quite graphic when you consider they were designed and executed by a cloister of nuns. In the 19th century a group of English ladies undertook to recreate the tapestry, but influenced by Victorian modesty, they covered up the over 100 depictions of genitalia (mostly equine, but a few human as well.)

We met Kristy and Dave for supper at Manfredi's and I discovered a new addictive substance--Dark Chocolate Amorosso Cremoso. It is without doubt the most mind-altering dessert on the planet, by which I mean its taste almost made my eyes roll back in my head! And so rich, I could only eat half of it! Next time we visit Manfredi's, I'll take a picture of it, but it's actually quite unassuming looking, just a rectangular slab of chocolate garnished with strawberries. How cleverly bliss is sometimes disguised!

The evening show was The Beatle's Songbook, presented by the Viking Singers and Band. Lots of fun, and very high energy.  I was 8 years old when the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. At the time, I didn't understand why all those stupid girls were screaming. Still don't. You miss the music that way. The Fab Four certainly changed the face of popular music forever.                                                        

More soon...