more sea days.... Istanbul to Malta

After the mammoth long post re Istanbul...This is a filler post covering sea days. some people really enjoy doing nothing but looking at the sea but I find them a bit tedious... although this time...

...the sea days were a welcome relief... we would have liked a lie in but Dr Fred had to up and organised as he had a morning lectur and the was hosting a lunch. I was expected at the lunch as well so straight after Dr Fred excellent lecture on Saturn - I had to drag him away from questioners and we went to the main dining room - where we sat like lemons until we asked the waitress to chase up and check the booking. 5 mins later the head waiter came over very apologetic as apparently the lunch had been cancelled.
This is incredibley frustrating and yet another example of the total lack of organisation by the entertainments team. They were obviously aware and didn't bother to send us a message.... There appears to be very little regard for star gazing activity and its very disheartening. Dr Fred has had some lovely comments and feedback from a lot of guests. So there is really quite a lot of appreciation on board.

I spent a very entertaining afternoon observing the drama group - I had been invited to do face painting as it was halloween but in fact there wasn't enough time but I really enjoyed watching the dramas unfold...

The ship is awash with skeletons, spooky ghosts, carved pumkins and artificial cobwebs. Many of the guest have made considerable effort to dress up so thete are a large number of esoteric witches drinking dodgey looking cocktails. Even the staff are dressed up there is definetly a party vibe going on.

We pooled face paints and painting abilities and did some impropmtu face paper for speakers and guests in the art room late afternoon befote meeting looking like a motley collection of gruesome misfits for 7.00 o clock club. Even Dr Fred wore his halloween t shirt.

The long day in Istanbul had taken itsctoll and we were abed early - looking forward if I'm honest to another lazy sea day.

And thats exactly what happened. The clocks keep changing overnight- some mornings we are at total odds with what time it is - mostly it doesnt matter unless there is a plan for the day.

My plan for day 2 at sea was to use the measured mile walking around the deck to see how accurate my step counter is🤣🤣... yes very exciting...

Using my normal stride I walked the mile counting the steps... interestingly at each lap I checked and the results were consistant. Ok... I was bored by this point so no more exciting step measuring....

We had a very nice lunch in the avon restaurant and I spent the afternoon stitching my coat - which is coming along nicely but is going to be quite a big project...

There was a stargazing session in the evening - we spent most of the day expecting to do plan b as it was quite cloudy. As it happened the sky cleared and everyone was delighted to see quite a lot of stars.

incidentally the answer to a previous query... yes we always knew about main dining room but never bothered expecting the food to be as bad... thats why I am so shocked at how they get away with serving such poor food in self service..... also we usually skip lunch which is only time we can eat in mdr. 🤣 now we skip dinner🤣

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales. Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them... We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...

Almost last chapter... In which our Go Stargazing team watch Astonishing Aurora Borealis seen from the deck of the Astonishing Borealis!!!

The weather brightened considerably and the snowy peaks lining our sail down the fjiords looked glorious and sparkly in the sunshine against a (mainly) blue sky back drop. More awesome scenary.... the Go Stargazing team wrapt up their lectures ... only searching for the illusive Northern Lights remained. The tension from the night before dissolved in the sunshine the forecast for Aurora borealis was looking fairly positive - it was the captains farewell cocktsil party so everyone had their gladrags on.. We ate dinner and sky remained clear so we headed back to our room and donned as many layers as we could move in and proceeded to deck 10 in anticipation of stars and northern lights..... it did not dissappiont - just we got there as the bridge announced that the lights could be seen on the starboard side of the ship. It was stunning. Slowly the intensity built. The auroral green became brighter and bigger areas appe...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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