A Culinary Walk Down Memory Lane

We've been using our time together at Mom's this winter to cook up some memorable meals. Old family recipes, traditional holiday favorites and some from our Big O birthday trip to Switzerland and Austria. Clay has been living out his dreams in Mom's kitchen. We've been enjoying his labors.

He found a piece of meat that he could cook as schweinshaxe and did. He first had it in Vienna in 2003 but again in 2018 in Innsbruck pictured to the left.

His recent effort is pictured below. Pretty close!

Last night we all worked together to make a dish called nockerl, inspired by Pikante Nockerl that Mom & Carol both had our last night in Vienna at Strasser Brau. I finally found an English language ingredients list of that dish today and we weren't too close!

Spicy dumplings
with bacon, bell pepper, onions,
Cheese, pepperoni and chilli,
with lettuce

Here's a photo of our dish. Our recipe's ingredients list was not too similar but we enjoyed it just the same and liked that you could switch ingredients with such ease. This would always be a good impromptu meal prepared from what you happened to have in the kitchen. Here is a link to the recipe we based ours upon.

Jamaica - Country #94!

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Well, we made it. AA direct flight from Miami took about as much time as the drive from Port Everglades in rush hour traffic. In a small bit of good news, there was one upgrade available to a business class seat at our AA Platinum Pro status and Clay let me have it. I am really thankful because we couldn't get seats together anyway and both had window seats. I would have hated to feel trapped beyond 2 strangers if I needed to stand suddenly. We both have business class seats together for the flight home tomorrow. We had a bit of a panic when Clay tried to check us in on his phone and found I had a different record locator number. I guess when you take the complimentary upgrade at boarding, you get a new locator number. A head's up would've been nice.

We are at the Doctor's Cave Beach Hotel. It is across the street from beach front property. It is only about a 5 minute drive from the Montego Bay airport. We focused on this Hip-Strip near Margaritaville because it is where we would have come on our RCI excursion. We booked this hotel because it was the first one in walking distance (10 minutes or so) from Margaritaville that we could book directly online through their website. It is about $160 USD for the 1 night. I cannot recommend it. It has AC so that is good. It includes sketchy WIFI and a continental breakfast. The breakfast was table service beside the pool It included coffee or tea, grapefruit or orange juice, banana, orange and watermelon, toast and pound cake slices. Clay walked to a market to buy me a yogurt for $174 Jamaican. You can get the ice bucket filled at the bar. The room is noisy and needed blackout drapes. The 2 double beds are hard and the floor is gritty.  I hope we'll be fine for one night. Oh, no elevators!

We had booked and prepaid QuickTransfer for a private car/driver from the airport to the hotel. They didn't show up. Viator is where we found and booked it. They say they've issued a refund. A couple of tourist information people tried to help us but no one knew the outfit we were looking for. The guy finally put us in a tour van for $25. It was half what we'd paid already to be met. Best laid plans and all. We asked the hotel's front desk to book us a taxi back at noon tomorrow. We'll see how that goes.

Jamaica immigration/customs people did not like that we'd been in Haiti on Monday. We scored an extra stop at a nurse for a health check. She only talked to us about how we might have avoided cholera and malaria in Haiti. We explained we had beach walked on dry land from 9:30 to 11 am without eating or drinking or getting bit by mosquitoes. At that point, I was actually fine if they refused us entry and put us on the next flight back to Miami. I'd set foot on Jamaica and that counted in my book. I'm a little surprised since RCI planned the same itinerary by ship with thousands of people.

We had dinner early at Pelican Grille about 15 minutes walk from the hotel. It is where we'd planned to have lunch here from the aborted RCI cruise stop. We had traditional Jamaican dishes and they were good. I had a massive chocolate malt and oxtail stew with rice and peas. Clay had a Red Stripe beer and curried goat. It was all quite good in a nice quiet and air conditioned restaurant with a view of the bay. Clay paid about $5000 for the meal and about $800 in taxes and a $1000 tip for a total of about $7K Jamaican or $55 USD.

Given the state of our Internet connection, Clay may not post photos until we get back to Mom's house tomorrow or the next day. Check back.

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Sailing Back to Port Everglades, FL

Today was always supposed to be a sea day. Yesterday was an unpleasant bonus. Seas continue at 15 feet or so and the wind is only slightly down but blowing in our favor now. It is not as rough as it was leaving Jamaica! We are sailing along the coast of Cuba again but it is on the port side now. We just have open sea as our starboard view. We don't have the wind today so the balcony in the shade was quite pleasant. We saw flying fish and white-bellied seabirds trying to catch them.

We got checked in online for tomorrow's flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica and printed our boarding passes in the library. Breakfast and lunch we ate in the Windjammer buffet deck 11 aft. We received our departure information on the bed after breakfast. We are assigned group 23 at 9:05 am, but we'll leave earlier at 8:15 to 8:45 am in the group B self assistance departure group from deck 4 Royal Theater.

We looked at tonight's dinner menu on the Royal app and were not impressed. Cruise Compass says that Windjammer will feature a chocolate buffet, so we cancelled our MyTime Dining reservation and we'll eat upstairs at the buffet again.

This should be it for me on this cruise. It was no where near as bad as I'd expected based on prior research of mainstream cruising. It is too loud and crowded for me to enjoy. The entertainment is wasted on me. I don't like almost every encounter being a sales pitch. That said, our cabin steward knows us on sight as did our assigned waiter in the dining room. That was a nice surprise. I love the stability of the enormous ship in rough conditions! Fingers crossed that our upcoming month on the much smaller Oceania Riviera has much calmer winds and seas! $1859 for 5 days for the 2 of us compared to O at $6700 for 10 days = $3350 for 5 days which is almost double. You can see why the premium, niche and luxury cruises we frequent are a harder sell. Of course, when RCI charges $16 a day for a soda package to start upselling negotiations I expect many onboard here are spending nearly as much by trip's end.

I am pretty sure there are no photos today. Next stop Jamaica via Miami. Speaking of budgetary topics! Country #94 will be bought at a premium.

Thwarted

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Due to high winds and surf overwashing the dock at Falmouth, Jamaica, the port stop was scrubbed. Today became an extra sea day instead. So much for my plans for country #94. On to plan B. While I took  a late morning shower to get rid of a good coat of sunscreen I wouldn't be needing, Clay made flight reservations for Thursday when we get back to Florida. We'll fly out of Miami for a one night stay in Montego Bay. They say if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. We'll see if he keeps laughing at us.

We've been in high winds almost continuously since we left Port Everglades. It sounds like the Captain expects it to continue. At noon, he said we're in 15 foot seas. You could really feel it at the top deck's aft buffet restaurant. Our cabin steward said IoS stops in Falmouth all the time and he'd never known it to be cancelled before like this. I would imagine it was rare. Just bad luck. Hopefully, we'll make it on Thursday and back on Friday.

They announced that they'd automatically credit today's missed excursions to our shipboard accounts. Ours was $8 of our money and $75 of complimentary shipboard credit. So no real loss either way. We later found they'd automatically refunded port charges, fees and taxes.

It took a couple of slow Internet hours to get a hotel room and airport transfer booked. We needed to vacate the cabin for service since it seems on port days the stewards don't arrive until after the passengers would be ashore. It forced us to locate the library. Deck 5 forward outside the theater entrance.

We cancelled our dinner at 6:30 pm tonight at our reserved time & table. The movie Judy is scheduled to air at 6 pm tonight on TV. We'll go for pizza early so we can watch it. (Thumbs down for RCI for no on demand TV!) Last night we set a cruise meal speed record. We had ordered and finished our main course in 15 minutes! In and out in well under 30 minutes which meant we needed to spend another 1/2 hour loitering elsewhere to give the cabin steward an hour's allowance to service the cabin. Peppermint tea for me in Cafe Promenade since no one ever offered tea or coffee at the dining table after bringing dessert.

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Labadee, Haiti

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My 93rd country. I'm counting it even though RCI docks at Labadee, their private peninsula, and we didn't clear Jamaican passport control. We still set foot on the island of Haiti. There is a long narrow pier here with room for 2 ships. As the larger, we arrived first and took the sea side and Empress of the Seas arrived a bit later and took the shore side. There was plenty of space for everyone ashore. We went out about 9 am and returned about 11:30 am. We covered the entire peninsula except for the hilltop. We walked some and took trams some. I laid in a beachside hammock in the shade until I almost dozed off. We stayed out long enough to get sweaty. Clay got a t-shirt. The aggressive vendors ran us out of Artisan's Village keeping us from walking through. We couldn't seem to catch the single tram to the other side of the peninsula so walked out of our way to get there avoiding the Artisan's Village. After we walked to Columbus Cove from Nellie's Beach, we caught the single tram back to the beginning. We opted for the lunch buffet aboard ship rather than one of the 3 ashore. We think it was all the same food anyway. It was a good choice for us.

Day 3 and we finally located this ship's soft-serve ice cream machine. It is on the pool deck center aft near the splash zone. We had a direct pool deck view of Empress of the Seas from our balcony and could see theirs. It was forward on their pool deck. We'd seen people with cones on our ship but couldn't find our machine. After watching theirs in action, we walked our pool deck forward to aft until finding it. We'd been right there on boarding day and it must have been closed then. Anyway, now we know. We plan to have dinner at our reserved time on deck 3 dining room tonight.

All aboard is 4 pm. Shortly after all aboard a helicopter ambulance landed on the narrow pier. They brought a stretcher onboard and evacuated what looked like a 20-30 something man with a broken leg. Terrible and it will be expensive too. Tomorrow is this cruise's final port of Falmouth, Jamaica. Country #94. We're going to get a ship's transfer to and from Montego Bay.

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First mainstream cruise, 2 new countries

Photos Saturday

Photos Sunday

Yesterday we drove across the southern end of Florida to Port Everglades by the Fort Lauderdale Airport. It was an easy drive on a toll road that cost $3.25 one way. Exact change not required. We boarded our first mainstream cruise with thousands of others and their children on the hottest day we've had down here. It was still not as painful as we'd imagined. If we'd arrived an hour later, it probably would have been painless. Live and learn. Not having done this before, we built in a cushion for delays. RCI has online check in and that was probably what made all the difference. Our keycards were waiting for us on the mail hook outside our cabin door.

We are on the 5-night Western Caribbean cruise aboard Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas. It is at least 4 times the size of the ships we normally sail. The largest ship we'd been on previously was Disney Wonder and it was half this size with only about 1/4 the kids aboard! I'm with Clay when he looked around bewildered yesterday and pondered why aren't these kids in school!

So once we boarded on deck 4 we were all trapped between the locked doors of the dining room and casino. That was a cluster cuss. There were inadequate elevators and we had our carryon luggage in hand and really didn't want the stairs as hot as sweaty as we were. People just kept pouring into the small area and the stairs it was. Clay carried both bags one flight up to the Royal Promenade. It is like the ship's Main Street or center of commerce. There are 2 places there where you can get fare included food and drinks; Sorrento's Pizza and Cafe Promenade. We were actually looking for another elevator banks but when we saw pizza with almost no line we grabbed a table. It was probably the least busy time we'll ever see on the Promenade! Lucky! The pizza was thin crust and quite good. You can get complimentary glasses of iced water from dispensers but no ice cubes!

After our pizza, we went to the elevators nearby and directly to deck 8 and our central cabin #8304. It has a veranda but is otherwise a standard cabin. Well. I say that but it is an adjoining with an interior door that is presently locked between us and the next cabin aft. It is larger than it appears in Clay's photo as he skipped the entire center seating/desk area. There is a club chair/coffee table plus desk & chair with storage and a cooling box missing from the photos. He was standing in that area shooting in either area. The cabin is in fairly good shape and efficiently laid out with more than adequate storage for a short cruise. Our cabin steward came and introduced himself and was eager to please. He brought our requested bucket of ice quickly. (In bad news, while he said he'd refill it every day for us today he took it empty and did not return it before noon! We'll see when or if it comes back or what we have to do. He called and immediately delivered it at 12:20 pm. I think he was waiting for us to go to lunch.) He saw us returning from the 3:45 pm mandatory boat drill hours later and went to our door and opened it for us. That was impressive as we barely remembered which was ours! The downsides of the cabin are the dirty glass balcony barrier and the rail at seated eye level and the paucity of electrical outlets. There are only 2 at the desk and one above the sink in the bathroom. The one in the bathroom only works when the lights are turned on, so no nightlight. The space under the bed is inaccessible due to being stuffed almost sold with big plastic comforter bags filled with spare linens. That is usually good storage space for suitcases. The cabin appeared clean until we found a used band-aid, a lisinopril tablet, a plastic tag holder and a long red strand of hair among other stuff on the floor. I know they have a quick turnaround, but really.

When we booked this cruise we were automatically give fixed late dining. Early dining wasn't available as it was filled. However, we could make a MyTime dining reservation early every night and we did. We booked all 5 nights online at 6:30 pm, the earliest available. However, onboard the 3rd floor MyTime dining area opens at 5:30pm. We didn't try to change to earlier as we'd had pizza around 2pm. The dining room is 3 stories tall and very noisy. Dinner service was surprisingly efficient and the food tasty. It was a sales opportunity from start to finish. Dress was casual as they said luggage delivery would take until 8 pm. BTW, all aboard was 3 pm, sailaway was announced at 4:30 pm but then at least 3 ships departed before ours and it was probably after 5 pm before we sailed.

You could see rough waves at sea from port. We sailed out into high winds and they continue. IoS is making about 18 knots in a 40 mph headwind today so that is fast. IoS is wobbling some but I expect it would be nausea-inducing conditions for me on our normal sized ships. We can see the coast of Cuba from our starboard balcony.

Today is Sunday so we had a sit down dining room breakfast just after 8 am. I had Eggs Benedict. It said it was classically prepared but they put basil leaves between the egg and the ham. The included coffee was perfectly drinkable to me. I've had much worse on more expensive lines. The dining room had 2 entry lines, one for a la carte which we chose and one for a buffet which surprised us. Again food and service were good. There was a long line to enter when we left!

We attended the shore excursions destination talk this morning at Clay's insistence. It was nearly an hourlong sales spiel for ship tours. I don't know what he expected. We left before the Falmouth port shopping talk began! We got caught in a malfunctioning elevator on our way there with a family of 3. That was a bit scary. We're using a lot of elevators!

Tonight is Formal night. We did not pack formal wear, so we've cancelled our dining reservation for this evening. In good news, the Cruise Compass says that the deck 11 casual buffet will be serving a Mongolian Theme tonight at 6 pm. We'll try that over pizza again unless it is too crowded. We'll see.

I'll post this now. If needed, I'll update it. Clay will probably update the photos. He bought a one device Internet package which means he is having a slow go uploading photos from his phone. Tomorrow is Haiti! A new country for me, #93. The 2nd oldest western hemisphere country after the US.

Photos Saturday

Photos Sunday

61st Birthday Road Trips, Part 2

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Yesterday morning we drove up to Richmond, VA. I guess it took less time than expected and we arrived around noon. We found a Denny's a block from our motel so that is where we killed an hour or so having lunch. It had been years since we'd been in a Denny's. They have a mostly breakfast menu. There is a small 55+ menu on the back and we both ordered from it. Small portions that served us well. We shared a lava cake with chocolate ice cream because they were out of vanilla. Too bad! We couldn't get our room at Courtyard by Marriott until 1:15pm, so we had a walk through the Burlington Factory store across the street until it was time. The motel was huge and spread out. It was nice enough and quiet. The room was spacious and had a fridge and coffee maker. It was not particularly conveniently located but Clay selected it based on price. It was free with membership points on Marriott. So no complaints. We watched a movie after settling in before leaving for dinner. We drove to Stella's for dinner. We got there between 5 and 5:30 pm without a reservation and barely managed to get a table for 1.5 hours. Service was a little slow as they were filled and we had to skip dessert. The food was good, better than we'd had at the Raleigh Greek Festival.

We were up at 6 am this morning when my pill timer went off. Sometimes Clay lets me go back to sleep for an hour or so but not today. We checked out of the Courtyard around 8 am. We drove a couple of miles to a Bob Evans where I had fried mush for breakfast! Happy birthday to me. We got to the Virginia Fine Art Museum before it opened. We visited both Richmond and this museum previously but today we were here for a special exhibition of Edward Hopper and the American Hotel. Clay had seen this article last week and that was the reason for the last minute trip. It was a well presented exhibit and we were glad we made the effort to see it. It took a tank of gas and dinner was our big splurge. Otherwise, Clay still thinks this might be our cheapest per diem trip ever!

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