Thursday

Still at sea. Yesterday was sunny and cool. Today was rainy, windy, and cold. But the seas are smooth and we are trucking right along. We waved at Massachusetts today. We couldn’t see it as we’re too far out to sea. By the way, yesterday’s post was the 600th post of this travel blog (not counting our older original travel blog located here which had another 150 or so posts ending in 2013.) Who knew it (or we) would be around this long!

Quiet day. We had a nice lunch in the World Cafe at the grill station – very good cheeseburgers (mine with bacon) and French fries. French rosé wine to drink. We read a bit. And we attended a lecture on North American Predators focusing on wolves, coyotes, and black bears. Some pics including a bad selfie.

Dinner tonight was in Manfredi’s, the Italian specialty restaurant on board. I had pasta e fagioli again (best soup ever!) and seafood stew (with mussels, clams, fish, and a big langoustine). Elaine had mushroom risotto as her main. Wine was a French Cotes du Rhone. Gelato for dessert for me. Elaine’s dessert was better looking, whatever it was – I forget.

Pictures in our cabin including the tv showing the bridge cam.

A picture of our ship during its Antarctica cruise:

Tomorrow we land in Halifax. Back then.

Wednesday

We’re back at sea en route to Halifax, Nova Scotia where we will arrive on Friday morning. It’s interesting that Viking picked Charleston and Norfolk as the two ports in the USA to visit, bypassing New York, Boston, Portland, Bangor, et. al. Good for us though as we got our first visits ever to Charleston and Norfolk, and we very much enjoyed both. After Elaine moved to Boston back in 1983, Nova Scotia was the first vacation destination for us a couple. We drove to Portland and took the overnight ferry from there to Halifax and spent a 10 days driving around the island. We’ve been back to Halifax at least twice (maybe three times) on trans-Atlantic cruises on Oceania and Princess. But anyway, we’ll be at sea today and tomorrow.

We attended two presentations today. The first was about bird watching and reporting your finds to an app called eBird. Birders we are not, but it was interesting nonetheless. The second was a film called “Secrets of the Civil War” from the National Geographic Society. Remember learning about the Monitor and the Merrimac.in school? The Monitor was featured in this presentation. The basis of the films, one of a series, is about technology that lets one drain the oceans to see the state of the wrecks and provide theories about exactly what happened. The land battles of the American Civil War are well known, but it’s the war on the seas that shaped the outcome of the war. Maritime archaeologists and historians go in search of Civil War secrets, hidden deep underwater. Scientific data combines with computer graphics to drain the oceans to investigate the lost wrecks of the war. You can see the same series on Disney+, Hulu, and, I think, uTube. It’s very interesting. (On uTube here.)

Lunch was in the World Cafe. I had Chinese pepper steaks while Elaine had delicious calamari fritters. We both had beer.

Dinner tonight was in the Restaurant.

Random Pictures:

I found the picture of the Pig served in the World Cafe buffet. It was on my phone.

Better pictures of the sunset the other night. They were also on my phone.

Random shots of artwork around the ship: The first two are in our cabin.

Random shots from dinner last night:

Back tomorrow for another sea day. Cheers!

Tuesday

We are the girls from Norfolk
We Don’t Drink
Nor Smoke
Nor . . . .
OK, use your imagination. Our old friend Ed Wrenn (RIP) used to live here and often sang those words.

Cloudy morning, but quickly cleared to a beautiful sunny day. Temperature was 81 yesterday here, 62 today. Great day for walking about. So we did. We were booked for an afternoon “Panoramic Norfolk” bus tour, but we skipped it. We headed out on foot at about 8:15 am after breakfast and didn’t get back to the ship until after 3:00.

Views from the World Cafe while eating breakfast:

Our ship is docked right in downtown Norfolk. And it is right next to the USS Wisconsin, a Navy battleship that is now part of the Nauticus Museum Complex.

The museum and battleship didn’t open until 10:00 am, so we walked a bit and stopped in a Starbucks for a hot chocolate for me and a chai latte for Elaine. Then we walked to the MacArthur Monument and Museum. Yes, Douglas MacArthur is big news here and is buried at the Monument with his wife (second one). The museum and monument are very interesting and we spent a couple of hours poking about. Lots of pictures. Fascinating place!

Then we headed back to the Battleship Wisconsin. We stopped twice. First to walk through a somewhat boring market area (Selden Market) that is undergoing a rebirth. In that market there was a delightful exhibit of children’s artwork that was quite remarkably good as seen in the following pictures. (Hey Dee, the first picture is of a hat designed by kids that would be perfect for you for the Derby!)

Then we stopped at the Stockpot for lunch in the Selden Market. Great spot! I had spicy Vindaloo soup and a turkey on pita with chipotle. Elaine had the “best falafel I ever had”. Suitably nourished, we made it to the Nauticus Museum, a maritime museum with lots of interactive exhibits, and to the attached Battleship Wisconsin. Great view of Viking Polaris from the deck of the Wisconsin.

Some random views of Norfolk. Norfolk is home to the world’s largest naval base (no pictures). It is also the city of mermaids. The building in the last picture below is the Public Library.

Cocktail hour drinks tonight were in the Aquavit Lounge, aft on the ship near the small indoor/outdoor pool – warm water indoor (Tepidarium) and cold water outdoor (Frigidarium). As we drank, we set sail for two sea days before landing again in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Great sunset. Dinner was in the World Cafe Grill where I had swordfish and Elaine had shrimp skewers. After dinner drinks back in the Explorer’s Lounge. I went to bed when the discussion turned political. Pictures include some views of the Naval Base as we sailed by.

Be back tomorrow with a much more boring but highly enjoyable sea day (first of two).

Monday

First off, I added a couple of pictures and some commentary to the end of yesterday’s post. You can scroll down and read (if you want).

Monday is a day at sea en route to Norfolk, Virginia, our next stop. There won’t be anything exciting to report other than drinks, food, and maybe some ship pictures.

I didn’t like the book I was reading – Fake History – so i reshelved it and am now reading: Slow Trains Around Spain. I love reading travel books. By the way, the first of the ten great lies from Fake History was how Churchill, in addition to being a wartime hero, was also a bigoted jerk. The story was good, but I hated the author’s style.

Lunch in the World Cafe. Here’s a look at some of the stations in the Cafe. There is (unpictured) also a sushi station and a Grill station for steaks and lobster. I had carvings of dark meat off a big turkey. And (amazingly) just Coke Zero to drink. Yesterday we watched them putting a huge whole pig in the oven at breakfast. By lunch the pig’s head was staring out at as where the turkey was today.

We read for awhile in one of the lounges. Some people just slept. This is NOT us.

Cocktails in the Living Room. Dinner in Manfredi’s

That’s not the exact menu we had, but it’s close. Pasta e Fagioli for me followed by that Bistecca Florentina on the menu and gelato for dessert. Elaine had the calamari and a delicious pork chop. The wine from Burgandy was wonderful.

Then it was to the Explorer’s Lounge for after dinner drinks, music, and camaraderie. And, finally, bed. We’re glad it was a sea day because it rained, heavily at times, all day. There were tornado warnings in SC and NC, but we saw no sign of any as we passed by. The forecast for Norfolk tomorrow looks good. It was 81º there today but only 63º predicted tomorrow under sunny skies.