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SilverSea at Sea - Part 3
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
I’m not entirely sure on how this day should be labeled. I mean, a day is usually defined by either the clock striking midnight or sunrise. I on the other hand, woke up at 4 a.m. from the jetlag and the naps and all. The sun was out and it was bright. The sun only settles down below the horizon for maybe a few hours, and then doesn’t even really set, but simply taunts you with dusk.
Your body is left wondering where the day has gone and why you are wasting it when it is only 4 am.
Don’t succumb to the Norwegian pressure of the sun.
I did.
I woke up and went to the gym. The sign said that the gym opened at 7am but I was now fully awake and already walked around all of the decks. I needed to do something with this extra energy. The crew was already repolishing the brass handrails. I entered the gym and did about 30 minutes on the treadmill and then went to the internet/computer room to check my email and get some work done. Running this magazine takes a lot of work, and I didn’t tell some of the staff members I was even away. Fortunately (or unfortunately), with 24-hour Internet access I felt like I was still in the office (except it was a Norwegian office now).
I came back to the room at 6 a.m. and watched one of the movies on television, waiting for Margherita to wakeup.
She woke up, wondered why I was so lazy lying on the floor and then we hit breakfast.
We headed down to the Terrace Café for the buffet breakfast. Actually, every morning on the boat (if we didn’t order in) we went to the Terrace Café for breakfast. Maybe it was the American side of me, and that "all you can eat" concept. Maybe it was the fact that the wait staff insisted on taking back your plate to the table from the buffet. They wouldn’t even let you carry your own plate back.
We headed to the main reception area where they had a sign-up sheet out for the trivia game. Margherita really wanted to earn some points, so she put my knowledge to the test. I got the first question wrong about the 2nd most popular language in the world, but how was I supposed to know that they counted Urdu and Hindi as the same language. That just wasn’t right. Margherita was rather disappointed in losing the points.
At 10 a.m. we went to this lecture on board, called an "Enrichment Seminar", about the Vikings. They had a Princeton professor on board, who gave a detailed overview of the Vikings as not just warriors but traders and colonizers.
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We were still a bit jetlagged, so we slept in the room and ordered in lunch and slept for a few more hours. I mean we were exhausted.
Then it was time for dinner. The meal was lovely, but we were eating with the Hotel Director. A wonderful congenial man, and two other passengers seated to the left and right. Margherita asked if the man to our left was a millionaire.
I said, "I read about him in the Wall Street Journal. He’s a billionaire"
"Oh." Was her silent response.
But then, as I was just starting to overcome my normal shyness during such things, they tricked me. They put out an interesting looking appetizer, but the waiter said the name so quickly, I had no idea what he said.
I tasted it. It tasted buttery in a way, but also mushy. It however looked orangey in color.
Margherita poked hers with a fork and ate a bite after my prodding. After all, the hotel Director was in front of us, and a billionaire to the left.
It turns out it was Foie Gras. Foie Gras... duck liver. I mean, you can’t just sneak Foie Gras up on a man. You have to work it in gently... slowly. Don’t scare him with it. I smushed it around a bit to look like I ate more of it, and smiled to the Billionaire on my left.
I would say that was the end of the story as we went to bed afterwards, but I woke up from jetlag at 1:30 in the morning. The sun was still out and simply confused me even more. Does the sun ever set here?
SilverSea Cruises - Part 1
Copenhagen - Part 2
SilverSea at Sea - Part 3
Alesund - Part 4
Geiranger - Part 5
Trondheim - Part 6
Traveling the Fjords - Part 7
The North Cape - Part 8
Hammerfest - Part 9
Cruising the Fjords - Part 10
Cruising the Fjords - Part 11
Bergen - Part 12
Gudvagen and Flaam - Part 13
Cruising - Part 14
Copenhagen and Departure - Part 15
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