World Cruise Day 39 - Sea Day - Whoa..., Cronuts, and Chinese New Year

Cruise day: 39/152
Ports days: 12
Sea days: 27
Countries: 4
Continents: 1
Ports: 8

Whoa.  Yesterday, I mentioned that Arlona was feeling a little stomach distress, most likely from the constant motion of the ship.  Nothing bad - just a little acidy feeling.  Well, dear readers, Viking is reading as well as we got a call from the ship's nurse last night checking in. She said an officer read my blog and asked her to check in on Arlona. "It is stomach issues or upper GI?  Does she have diarrhea?"  Viking is overly cautious on this cruise because the ongoing success of this cruise is directly related to ensuring that nothing spreads through the ship.  Think COVID, norovirus, or other crazy-contagious diseases.  I assured the nurse that it was just stomach distress related to being at sea for five days straight with essentially continuous movement.  Once we hit land for a day, all will be well.  She was satisfied and ended the call.  The takeaway here is twofold.  1) Viking is listening, and; 2) Viking is responsive to concerns.  Pretty amazing, if you ask me.

On that note, we have been COVID-free for many days now.  Let's face it - those of us on this ship are in the safest place on this entire planet right now, at least in terms of COVID.  That's a pretty amazing thing.  I have a friend on the Viking Octantis right now as it makes its inaugural sailing to Antarctica.  They were so excited about their excursion today, they forgot to leave their COVID salvia sample before they left the ship.  When they returned, they were immediately confined to their room until they completed the test.  Viking is serious!

This is the person responsible for all this, Dr. Raquel C. Bono.

Dr. Bono is a retired Vice Admiral of the United States Navy Medical Corps and Viking’s Chief Health Officer.  Under her direction, Viking installed full-scale PCR testing labs on all Viking Ocean ships and partnered with local labs in ports for their riverboat sailings.  Viking is serious about passenger safety and being able to return to sailing and we see evidence of that daily here on the Viking Star.

We did manage to stay up last night as I had the start time for the second football game wrong.  We enjoyed seeing Matthew Stafford and the Rams punching their ticket to the Superbowl.  It's amazing how well so many players do once they get away from the Detroit Lions.

 We did the usual sea day stuff - bridge and trivia.  In bridge, the instructor, Agnes, congratulated everyone as we should no longer consider ourselves as newbie beginners.  I'm not sure what we are, but I'd say, regular beginners.  There is so much to learn about the game of bridge.  I now understand how some people study bridge their entire lives.

Trivia was hard today.  The winners only got 10/15 correct.  We rang in with a lowly 7/15 - should have been 8.  John Lennon's middle name?  Winston. Which three states have statutes that prohibit walking backward while eating specific foods.  Ohio (donuts), New York (peanuts), and Oklahoma (hamburger). What is Johnny Depp afraid of?  Clowns. What country has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan?  Brazil.  What do camels store in their humps?  Fat. (knew that but got talked out of it)

Cronuts.  

Ever hear of them?  In 2013, cronuts became a thing and people went nuts.  There were news stories of people waiting an hour or more in line to shell out $5 each for a cronut.  So what are they?  Basically, a cronut is a donut.  It is round and has a hole in the center.  But rather than being made out of typical dough, they are made with croissant dough.  It is essentially a croissant in the shape of a donut.  That shape lends itself well to having fillings injected or toppings added.  So what?  Who cares?  Viking cares!  They treated us to a wonderful selection of cronuts this morning.

This was our first cronut experience and I have to say that we were impressed.  Arlona isn't really a donut person and she enjoyed it.  Flaky, tasty, and I'm sure, 100% calorie-free. OK - not sure about that last part...

Lunch had a wide selection, including tacos, king salmon, shrimp, scallops, and more.  

We were both in a calm mood.  I wound up with two slices of a tasty Hawaiian pizza and Arlona had half a tuna sandwich and tomato soup.  The weather today is much like the last couple of days - overcast and temps in the mid-60s.  With the protection of the overhang, we enjoyed lunch on deck #7's Aquavit terrace out back and got to spend a little outdoor time.

The art instructor will be disembarking tomorrow in Chile.  She sponsored a showing for all her students today in the atrium.  Each student chose their two favorite pieces and had them displayed all over the atrium on deck #1.

Arlona's two pieces are in the photo below in the center of the piano.

Quite a few guests took the time to come by and admire the other guest's artwork.

Viking had their classical string duo playing at the top of the grand staircase to add a little ambiance to the event.

The atrium is an interesting place.  The General Manager's office is just off the atrium.  There is a rug outside his office that has a representation of the original Viking longships.

Carpets in the atrium all have a similar theme.

All the windows have rope coverings that are meant to mimic a ship's rigging.

The cladding and bar top at the Viking Bar is designed to evoke a ship's hull.

Even the Living Room bar menu has a longship design on its metal face.

If you stand at the bottom of the staircase and look up, you can see that the ceiling has been finished to resemble the ribs on the inside of the hull of a longship.

There are more hidden things all around the ship.  If you take the glass elevators off the atrium, as you ascend, you will see a mural of trees.  If you look closely from both of the elevators, you will see trolls hiding in the trees, looking back at you.

These trolls represent the owners of Viking Cruises.  There are lots of hidden design features on Viking ships.  It's fun to explore and learn about them all.

Yesterday, I mentioned reading.  I am not what you'd call a reader.  Since graduating college, I think I could count the number of novels I've read on one hand.  I read Presumed Innocent because I had a hand in laying out a computer screen that was used in the movie.  I read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy four-book trilogy (yes, you read that correctly).  That's about all I can come up with.  After we retired, a neighbor got Arlona reading novels.  Based on that, our daughter got Arlona a Kindle, specifically thinking about this cruise.  You don't want to carry a suitcase full of books on a 152-day cruise.  She liked it so much, I decided to get one as well.  Well, I started reading.  Not all the time, but mainly on cruises.  I've read more books this year than in the 38 years since I've been out of college.  On this cruise, I completed the last three of a four-book series by Douglas Phillips, Quantum Space, Quantum Void, Quantum Time, Quantum Incident.  Then, after I had zero clue on a couple trivia questions about To Kill a Mockingbird, I downloaded and read that as well.  Never in a million years would I have believed it if you told me that I would be reading, and even more unlikely, writing!

This isn't my only writing endeavor.  After retiring from a career in I.T., I started writing for a gadget review blog called The Gadgeteer (www.the-gadgeteer.com).  I get samples of cool consumer gadgets, get to play with them for a month, and then write my honest, real-life opinion about the product. After that, I get to keep the item.  I love it.  I've written over 200 articles and reviewed over 100 items since retiring.  Did I mention that I love it? I have at least ten review items with me on this cruise that I use all the time. I actually miss it, so writing this blog is giving me an outlet. 

Dinner tonight had a distinctive Chinese flavor as tomorrow marks the Chinese New Year and the beginning of the year of the tiger. Featured items included potstickers, stir fry, Asian lobster, plus many more items to choose from.

After dinner with our bridge partners, Steve & Kathy, we heard music coming from the pool deck.  The entire entertainment team was practicing for tonight's Chinese New Year celebration from 10:30-midnight.  They were rehearsing a very traditional Chinese song - Proud Mary.  Who knew? :-)

Given that it sounds like it won't be a typical Chinese New Year celebration, we decided to retire for the night and rest up for our first time on terra firma in almost a week. We watched the port talk on Santiago and got the multitude of documents needed for disembarkation into Chile.  I suspect that the Chilean government has stock in a paper company and is hedging its investment. We each have no fewer than five separate documents that we have to carry to be allowed to get off the ship. Amazing.  Again, kudos to the Viking team for coordinating what has been a mess of a situation, ensuring that every single passenger has the requisite documents and can enjoy their time in Chile.

We will be docking in Valparaiso, Chile tomorrow morning around 8AM.   We have a couple of days in Santiago/Valparaiso and then four more sea days and a stop in Punta Arenas, Chile. Five more sea days will get us to Uraguay and two port days.  Then nine sea days over to Africa.  Finally, our sea-day heavy portion of the itinerary will end and we'll be pounding ports and hoping for a sea day.